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However, some languages combine such an auxiliary with the main verb to produce a simple (one-word, morphological) future tense. This is the origin of the future tense in Western Romance languages such as French and Italian (see below). A given language may have more than one way to express futurity.
However, the term "future tense" is sometimes applied to periphrastic constructions involving modals such as will, shall, and to be going to. For specific uses of future constructions formed with will/shall, see the sections below on simple future, future progressive, future perfect, and future perfect progressive. Don't go near that bomb!
(Another, generally archaic, use of shall is in certain dependent clauses with future reference, as in "The prize is to be given to whoever shall have done the best." More normal here in modern English is the simple present tense: "whoever does the best"; see Uses of English verb forms § Dependent clauses.)
The going-to future is one of several constructions used in English to refer to future events (see Future tense § English). The basic form of the going-to construction is in fact in the present tense ; it is often used when the speaker wishes to draw a connection between present events, situations, or intentions and expected future events or ...
The "future tense" of perfective verbs is formed in the same way as the present tense of imperfective verbs. However, in South Slavic languages, there may be a greater variety of forms – Bulgarian, for example, has present, past (both "imperfect" and "aorist") and "future tenses", for both perfective and imperfective verbs, as well as perfect ...
The present tense used in the condition clause may take the form of the simple present as in the above examples, or the present progressive, present perfect or present perfect progressive as appropriate (according to general principles for uses of English verb forms): If he is sleeping when we arrive, we shan't wake him. (present progressive)
The future perfect is used to say that something will happen in the future but before the time of the main sentence. It is called futuro anteriore and is formed by using the appropriate auxiliary verb "to be" (essere) or "to have" (avere) in the future simple tense followed by the past participle: Io avrò mangiato ("I will have eaten")
The past tense (preterite) form is used in what is called the simple past, in sentences such as We lit the fire and He liked to dance. One of the uses of this tense is to refer not to a past situation, but to a hypothetical (present or future) situation in a dependent clause: If I knew that, I wouldn't have to ask.