Cover not available
Article published In:
The Role of Pragmatics in Cyclic Language Change
Edited by Maj-Britt Mosegaard Hansen
[Journal of Historical Pragmatics 21:2] 2020
► pp. 289–314

Future markers in Western Romance

Cyclic change, synchronic variation and diachronic competition

 | Ludwig-Maximilians-University of Munich
In this article, which examines the cyclic evolution of future markers in Western Romance (mainly French and Spanish), I make use of the “satellite model” in the version proposed by Koch and Oesterreicher (1996) to capture the complex interplay between functional change, synchronic variation and sociolinguistic evolution. This model conceives of linguistic cycles as push-chains. Thus, I will argue, young future markers originally arise from argumentative patterns that are aimed at validating announcements concerning the speaker’s projected actions. The rationale behind these mechanisms is pragmatic efficiency rather than the functioning of the language system itself. Thus, linguistic systems usually contain more items than are technically needed to keep the language system operative. In the categories of the satellite model, a certain number of younger constructions (“satellites”) exist side-by-side with a canonical construction (i.e., a functionally and sociolinguistically unmarked item), which one of the former may eventually oust from its privileged position. As I will show by sketching the evolution of the numerous future markers of peninsular Spanish from the seventeenth to the twentieth century, this perspective allows a fresh look at the evolution of cycles. More often than not, the competition between the canonical form and its satellites does not cause the former’s replacement by the latter; rather, it normally ends with the obsolescence of one the satellites involved. The eventual replacement of the canonical form by a satellite – that is, the completion of a full cycle – represents a very special (and relatively rare) case.
Keywords: argumentative pattern, assertive force, overuse, register variation, satellite model, source determination
Article outline
  • 1.Cyclic change, layering and emerging systems
  • 2.Why do new future markers arise?
  • 3.Pre-grammatical future constructions
  • 4.The satellite model (Koch and Oesterreicher 1996)
  • 5.Language change as reordering of satellites: Future constructions in the history of modern Spanish
  • 6.Instead of a conclusion: What drives cyclic change?
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 3 March 2021
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jhp.00045.det
References (64)
References
Baker, Philip and Chris Corne. 1982. Isle de France Creole: Affinities and Origins. Ann Arbor: Karoma Publishers.Google Scholar
Benveniste, Émile. 1974. Problèmes de linguistique générale [‘Problems in General Linguistics’]. (Volume II1.) Paris: Gallimard.Google Scholar
Berschin, Helmut. 1987. “Futuro analítico y futuro sintético en el español peninsular colombiano” [‘Analytic and Synthetic Future in Peninsular and Columbian Spanish’]. Lingüística Española Actual 91: 101–109.Google Scholar
Blas Arroyo, José Luis. 2008. “The variable expression of future tense in Peninsular Spanish: The present (and future) of inflectional forms in the Spanish spoken in a bilingual region”. Language Variation and Change 201: 85–126. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Bybee, Joan, Revere Perkins and William Pagliuca. 1994. The Evolution of Grammar: Tense, Aspect and Modality in the Languages of the World. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Cartagena, Nelson. 1994. “Das Tempussystem der spanischen Gegenwartssprache” [‘The Tense System of Contemporary Spanish’]. In Rolf Thieroff and Joachim Ballweg (eds), Tense Systems in European Languages, 173–190. (Volume 11). Tübingen: Niemeyer.Google Scholar
. 2017. “Grammaire, sémantique et pragmatique des temps du futur en espagnol” [‘Grammar, semantics and pragmatics of future tenses in Spanish’]. In Laura Baranzini (ed.), Le futur dans les langues romanes [‘The Future in the Romance Languages’], 105–132. Frankfurt, M.: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Company Company, Concepción. 2006. “Tiempos de formación romance II. Los futuros y condicionales” [‘Tense Markers of Romance Origin II: Futures and Conditionals’]. In Company Company, Concepción (ed.), Sintaxis histórica de la lengua española [‘Historical Syntax of the Spanish Language’], 349–418. (Volume 11.) Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.Google Scholar
Corne, Chris. 1977. Seychelles Creole Grammar: Elements for Indian Ocean Proto-Creole Reconstruction. Tübingen: Narr.Google Scholar
Coseriu, Eugenio. 1976. Das romanische Verbalsystem [‘The Verbal System of the Romance Languages’]. (Edited by Hansbert Bertsch.) Tübingen: Narr.Google Scholar
Damoiseau, Robert. 1987. “Situation de communication et fonctionnement de la langue en créole haïtien” [‘Communicative Situation and Language Functioning in Haitian Creole’]. Études Créoles 101: 90–106.Google Scholar
Detges, Ulrich and Richard Waltereit. 2016. “Grammaticalization and pragmaticalization”. In Susann Fischer and Christoph Gabriel (eds), Manual of Grammatical Interfaces in Romance, 635–657. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Detges, Ulrich. 1999. “Wie entsteht Grammatik? Kognitive und pragmatische Determinanten der Grammatikalisierung von Tempusmarkern” [‘How Does Grammar Come About? Cognitive and Pragmatic Aspects of the Grammaticalization of Tense Markers’]. In Jürgen Lang and Ingrid Neumann-Holzschuh (eds), Reanalyse und Grammatikalisierung in denromanischen Sprachen [‘Reanalysis and Grammaticalization in the Romance Languages’], 31–52. Tübingen: Niemeyer.Google Scholar
. 2004. “How Cognitive is Grammaticalization? The History of the Catalan perfet perifràstic ”. In Olga Fischer, Muriel Norde and Harry Perridon (eds), Up and Down the Cline – The Nature of Grammaticalization, 211–227. Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Díaz Peralta, Marina. 1997. “Variación sintáctica y estilo discursivo: La expresión de la futuridad en el español de las Palmas de Gran Canaria” [‘Syntactic Variation and Discourse Style: The Expression of Futurity in the Spanish of Las Palmas/Gran Canaria’]. Lingüística Española Actual 191: 185–197.Google Scholar
Fleischman, Suzanne. 1982. The Future in Thought and Language: Diachronic Evidence from Romance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
. 1983. “From Pragmatics to Grammar: Diachronic Reflections on Complex Pasts and Futures in Romance”. Lingua 601: 183–214. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Givón, Talmy. 1976. “Topic, Pronoun and Grammatical Agreement”. In Charles N. Li (ed.), Subject and Topic, 149–185. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
. 1979. On Understanding Grammar. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Gougenheim, Georges. 1971 [1929]. Étude sur les périphrases verbales de la langue française [‘Studies on the Verbal Periphrases of the French Language’]. Paris: Nizet.Google Scholar
Heath, Jeffrey. 1998. “Hermit Crabs: Formal Renewal of Morphology by Phonologically Mediated Affix Substitution”. Language 741: 728–759. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heine, Bernd. 1993. Auxiliaries: Cognitive Forces and Grammaticalization. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
. 1997. Possession. Cognitive Sources, Forces and Grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Helland, Hans Petter. 1995. “Futur simple et futur périphrastique: du sens aux emplois” [‘Simple Future and Periphrastic Future: From Meaning to Usage’]. Revue Romane 301: 3–26.Google Scholar
Hernández, César. 1971. Sintaxis española [‘Spanish Syntax’]. Valladolid: Colegio de España.Google Scholar
Hopper, Paul J. 1991. “On Some Principles of Grammaticization”. In Elizabeth C. Traugott and Bernd Heine (eds), Approaches to Grammaticalization, 17–35. (Volume 11: Focus on Theoretical and Methodological Issues.) Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Koch, Peter and Wulf Oesterreicher. 1996. “Sprachwandel und expressive Mündlichkeit” [‘Linguistic Change and Oral Expressivity’]. Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik 26 (102): 64–96. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Koch, Peter. 1995. Zukunft und Mündlichkeit. Zu Genese und Verlust von Futurbildungen in romanischen Varietäten [‘Future and Orality: On the Rise and Loss of Future Contructions within Certain Romance Varieties’]. Paper presented in Bamberg 11/28/1995.
. 1997. “Diglossie in Frankreich?” [‘Diglossia in France?’]. In Winfried Engler (ed.), Frankreich an der Freien Universität [‘France at the Free University of Berlin’], 219–249. Stuttgart: Steiner.Google Scholar
Kuteva, Tania A. 1995. “The Auxiliation Constraint and Reference”. In Richard Geiger (ed.), Reference in Multidisciplinary Perspective: Philosophical Object, Cognitive Subject, Intersubjective Process, 374–386. Hildesheim: Olms.Google Scholar
2001. Auxiliation: An Enquiry into the Nature of Grammaticalization. Oxford, Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Laurendeau, Paul. 2000. “L’alternance futur simple/futur périphrastique: Une hypothèse modale” [‘The Alternation between Simple Future and Periphrastic Future: A Modal Hypothesis’]. Verbum 221: 277–292.Google Scholar
Lehmann, Christian. 2002. Thoughts on Grammaticalization. Erfurt: Seminar für Sprachwissenschaft.Google Scholar
Lindschouw, Jan. 2017. “Tense, Aspect, Mood”. In Andreas Dufter and Elisabeth Stark (eds), Manual of Romance Morphosyntax and Syntax, 397–448. Berlin and Boston: De Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lope Blanch, Juan Miguel. 1983. “La reducción del paradigma verbal en el español de México” [‘The Reduction of the Verbal Paradigm in the Spanish of Mexico’]. In Juan M. Lope Blanch (ed.), Estudios sobre el español de México [‘Studies on the Spanish of Mexico’], 145–159. Mexico: Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México.Google Scholar
Lorenz, Bettina. 1989. Konkurrenz zwischen dem futur simple und dem futur périphrastique im gesprochenen Französisch der Gegenwart [‘Competition between the Simple Future and the Periphrastic Future in Contemporary French’]. Münster: Kleinheinrich.Google Scholar
Lorenz, Sabine. 1988. Die Konkurrenz zwischen dem futur simple und dem futur périphrastique im geschriebenen Französisch der Gegenwart. Münster: Kleinheinrich.Google Scholar
Ludwig, Ralph. 1988. Modalität und Modus im gesprochenen Französisch [‘Modality and Mood in Spoken French’]. Tübingen: Gunter Narr.Google Scholar
Maingueneau, Dominique. 1999. Précis de Grammaire pour les Concours [‘Grammar Handbook for State Exams’]. Paris: Dunod.Google Scholar
Massot, Benjamin. 2003. Éléments linguistiques pour une vision diglossique du français contemporain [‘Linguistic Elements for a Diglossia Account of Contemporary French’]. Mém. de D.E.A., Université Paris 8 Vincennes. Available online at: [URL]
Meier, Harri, Leopoldo Sáez Godoy, Klaus Hunnius, Raúl Avila and Larry Grimes. 1968. “Futur und Zukunft im Spanischen” [‘Future and Futurity in Spanish’]. Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen 119 (204): 332–353.Google Scholar
Patard, Adeline, Walter de Mulder and Natalia Grabar. 2017. “Le futur synthétique français a-t-il eu un sens intentionnel?” [‘Does the Synthetic Future of French Have an Intentional Meaning?’]. In Laura Baranzini (ed.), Le futur dans les langues romanes [‘The Future in the Romance Languages’], 15–47. Frankfurt, M.: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Pitloun, Petr. 2005. “La perífrasis ir a + infinitivo y la expresión de la posterioridad en el habla culta de Costa Rica” [‘The Periphrasis ir a + Infinitive and the Expression of Posteriority in Costa Rican Educated Speech’]. Filología y Lingüística 311: 233–250.Google Scholar
Poplack, Shana and Nathalie Dion. 2009. “Prescription vs. Praxis. The Evolution of Future Temporal Reference in French”. Language 851: 557–587. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Reed, Cory A. 1991. “Cervantes and the Novelization of Drama: Tradition and Innovation in the Entremeses ”. Bulletin of the Cervantes Society of America 11 (1): 61–86.Google Scholar
Reinöhl, Uta and Nikolaus P. Himmelmann. 2017. “Renewal: A Figure of Speech or a Process Sui Generis?”, Language 931: 381–413. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rohlfs, Gerhard. 1949. Historische Grammatik der italienischen Sprache und ihrer Mundarten [‘Historical Grammar of the Italian Language and its Vernaculars’]. (Volume II1: Formenlehre und Syntax.) Bern: Francke.Google Scholar
Schlupp, Daniel. 1997. Modalités prédicatives, modalités aspectuelles et auxiliaires en créole à base lexicale française de la Guyane française. XVIIIe – XXe siècles [‘Predicative Modalities, Aspectual Modalities and Auxiliaries in the French-Based Creole of French Guyana. 18th-20th Century’]. Tübingen: Niemeyer. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Schrott, Angela. 1997. Futurität im Französischen der Gegenwart. Semantik und Pragmatik der Tempora der Zukunft [‘Futurity in Contemporary French. Semantics and Pragmatics of the Future Tenses’]. Tübingen: Narr.Google Scholar
Searle, John R. 1975. “A Taxonomy of Illocutionary Acts”. In John Gunderson (ed.), Language, Mind and Knowledge, 344–379. Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press.Google Scholar
Sedano, Mercedes. 1994. “El futuro morfológico y la expresión ir a + infinitivo en el español hablado de Venezuela” [‘The Morphological Future and the Expression ir a + Infinitive in Venezuelan Spoken Spanish’]. Verba 211: 225–240.Google Scholar
Silva Corvalán, Carmen and Tracy Terrell. 1989. “Notas sobre la expresión de futuridad en el español del Caribe” [‘Notes on the Expression of Futurity in Caribbean Spanish’]. Hispanic Linguistics 21: 191–208.Google Scholar
Söll, Ludwig. 1968. “Synthetisches und analytisches Futur im modernen Spanischen” [‘Synthetic and Analytic Future in Modern Spanish’]. Romanische Forschungen 801: 239–248.Google Scholar
Togeby, Knud. 1982. Grammaire française [‘French Grammar’]. (Volume 21: Les formes personnelles du verbe [‘The Personal Forms of the Verb’].) Copenhagen: Akad. Forl.Google Scholar
Valesio, Paolo. 1968. “The Romance Synthetic Future Pattern and its First Attestations (i)”. Lingua 201: 113–161. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Von der Gabelentz, Georg. 1901 [1891]. Die Sprachwissenschaft: ihre Aufgaben, Methoden und bisherigen Ergebnisse [‘Linguistics: Its Tasks, Methods and Present Results’]. Leipzig: Weigel.Google Scholar
Von Wartburg, Walther. 1970 [1943]. Einführung in Problematik und Methodik der Sprachwissenschaft [‘Introduction into Issues and Methodologies in Linguistics’]. Tübingen: Niemeyer.Google Scholar
Werner, Edeltraud. 1980. Die Verbalperiphrase im Mittelfranzösischen. Eine semantisch- syntaktische Analyse [‘The Verbal Periphrases in Middle French: A Semantic and Syntactic Account’]. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Westmoreland, Maurice. 1997. “The dialectalization of Spanish future tense usage”. Word 481: 375–395. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Wilmet, Marc. 1970. Le système de l’indicatif en Moyen Français [‘The System of the Indicative in Middle French’]. Genève: Droz.Google Scholar
Yllera, Alicia. 1980. Sintaxis histórica del verbo español: las perífrasis medievales [‘Historical Syntax of the Spanish Verb: The Medieval Periphrases’]. Zaragoza: Departamento de Filología Francesa.Google Scholar
Zeman, Sonja. 2015. “The Elementary Particles of Distance in Space, Time, Grammar, and Discourse”. In Barbara Sonnenhauser and Anastasia Meermann (eds), Distance in Language: Grounding a Metaphor, 7–36. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.Google Scholar
. 2019. “The Emergence of Viewpoints in Multiple Perspective Constructions”. In Caroline Gentens, An van Linden, Maria Sol Sansiñena Pascual and Stef Spronck (eds), Perspective Shifts, special issue of Pragmatics 29 (2): 226–249.Google Scholar
Cited by (1)

Cited by one other publication

Mosegaard Hansen, Maj-Britt
2020. Introduction. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 21:2 ► pp. 165 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 4 july 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.