Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The future in the past is a grammatical tense where the time reference is in the future with respect to a vantage point that is itself in the past. In English, future in the past is not always considered a separate tense, but rather as either a subcategory of future [1] or past [2] tense and is typically used in narrations of past events:
In the case of the future-in-the-past, the reference point is in the past, but the action is placed in the future relative to that point (it can be considered a posterior tense). An example is found in "John would later return to the party" (although the modal auxiliary would can also have other meanings).
The Germanic languages (which include English) have present (non-past) and past tenses formed morphologically, with future and other additional forms made using auxiliaries. In standard German , the compound past ( Perfekt ) has replaced the simple morphological past in most contexts.
The morphologically past variants of future modals can be used to create a periphrastic future-in-the-past construction. [3] [4] Here the sentence as a whole refers to some particular past time, but would win refers to a time in the future relative to that past time. See Future tense § Expressions of relative tense. She knew that she would win ...
English also has other ways of referring to future circumstances, including the going to construction, and in many cases the ordinary present tense – details of these can be found in the article on the going-to future. The verbs will and shall, when used as future
Thoughts of the Past (John Roddam Spencer Stanhope, 1859). In English grammar, actions are classified according to one of the following twelve verb tenses: past (past, uses of English verb forms, past perfect, or past perfect continuous), present (present, present continuous, present perfect, or present perfect continuous), or future (future, future continuous, future perfect, or future ...
Biblical Hebrew has a distinction between past and future tenses which is similar in form to those used in other Semitic languages such as Arabic and Aramaic. Gesenius refers to the past and future verb forms as Perfect and Imperfect, [18] respectively, separating completed action from uncompleted action. However, the usage of verbs in these ...
Since no markers exist to point out present or past time, Hopi, like many other languages, can be said to be endowed with a future-nonfuture tense system. [46] Malotki does admit that the English and Hopi systems of tense are different since the English system distinguishes past from non-past, whereas Hopi distinguishes future from non-future. [47]