Shall and will are two of the English modal verbs . They have various uses, including the expression of propositions about the future , in what is usually referred to as the future tense of English.
99-445: In grammar , a future tense ( abbreviated FUT ) is a verb form that generally marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet, but expected to happen in the future. An example of a future tense form is the French aimera , meaning "will love", derived from the verb aimer ("to love"). The "future" expressed by the future tense usually means the future relative to
198-422: A "grammar" in the sense that most linguists use, particularly as they are prescriptive in intent rather than descriptive . Constructed languages (also called planned languages or conlangs ) are more common in the modern-day, although still extremely uncommon compared to natural languages. Many have been designed to aid human communication (for example, naturalistic Interlingua , schematic Esperanto , and
297-852: A contractual party that is the subject of the sentence, i.e., to convey the meaning "hereby has a duty to". The verb shall derives from Old English sceal . Its cognates in other Germanic languages include Old Norse skal , German soll , and Dutch zal ; these all represent * skol- , the o-grade of Indo-European * skel -. All of these verbs function as auxiliaries , representing either simple futurity, or necessity or obligation. The verb will derives from Old English willan , meaning to want or wish. Cognates include Old Norse vilja , German wollen (ich/er/sie will, meaning I/he/she want/s to), Dutch willen , Gothic wiljan . It also has relatives in non-Germanic languages, such as Latin velle ("wish for") and voluptas ("pleasure"), and Polish woleć ("prefer"). All of these forms derive from
396-517: A discipline in Hellenism from the 3rd century BC forward with authors such as Rhyanus and Aristarchus of Samothrace . The oldest known grammar handbook is the Art of Grammar ( Τέχνη Γραμματική ), a succinct guide to speaking and writing clearly and effectively, written by the ancient Greek scholar Dionysius Thrax ( c. 170 – c. 90 BC ), a student of Aristarchus of Samothrace who founded
495-435: A discrepancy between contemporary usage and that which has been accepted, over time, as being standard or "correct". Linguists tend to view prescriptive grammar as having little justification beyond their authors' aesthetic tastes, although style guides may give useful advice about standard language employment based on descriptions of usage in contemporary writings of the same language. Linguistic prescriptions also form part of
594-418: A distinct Montenegrin standard is a matter of controversy, some treat Montenegrin as a separate standard lect, and some think that it should be considered another form of Serbian. Norwegian has two standards, Bokmål and Nynorsk , the choice between which is subject to controversy : Each Norwegian municipality can either declare one as its official language or it can remain "language neutral". Nynorsk
693-412: A first person subject for the uncolored future). The division of uses of will and shall is somewhat different in questions than in statements; see the following section for details. In questions, the traditional prescriptive usage is that the auxiliary used should be the one expected in the answer. Hence in enquiring factually about the future, one could ask: "Shall you accompany me?" (to accord with
792-410: A first person subject) expressing a colored meaning as described below. In most dialects of English, the use of shall as a future marker is viewed as archaic . Will is ambiguous in first-person statements, and shall is ambiguous in second- and third-person statements. A rule of prescriptive grammar was created to remove these ambiguities , but it requires that the hearer or reader understand
891-584: A particular language variety involves a speaker internalizing these rules, many or most of which are acquired by observing other speakers, as opposed to intentional study or instruction . Much of this internalization occurs during early childhood; learning a language later in life usually involves more direct instruction. The term grammar can also describe the linguistic behaviour of groups of speakers and writers rather than individuals. Differences in scale are important to this meaning: for example, English grammar could describe those rules followed by every one of
990-410: A school (attached to a cathedral or monastery) that teaches Latin grammar to future priests and monks. It originally referred to a school that taught students how to read, scan, interpret, and declaim Greek and Latin poets (including Homer, Virgil, Euripides, and others). These should not be mistaken for the related, albeit distinct, modern British grammar schools. A standard language is a dialect that
1089-616: A school on the Greek island of Rhodes. Dionysius Thrax's grammar book remained the primary grammar textbook for Greek schoolboys until as late as the twelfth century AD. The Romans based their grammatical writings on it and its basic format remains the basis for grammar guides in many languages even today. Latin grammar developed by following Greek models from the 1st century BC, due to the work of authors such as Orbilius Pupillus , Remmius Palaemon , Marcus Valerius Probus , Verrius Flaccus , and Aemilius Asper . The grammar of Irish originated in
SECTION 10
#17328875413821188-477: 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. English, for example, often refers to future events using present tense forms or other structures such as the going-to future , besides the canonical form with will/shall . In addition,
1287-452: A standard defining nationality or ethnicity . Recently, efforts have begun to update grammar instruction in primary and secondary education. The main focus has been to prevent the use of outdated prescriptive rules in favor of setting norms based on earlier descriptive research and to change perceptions about the relative "correctness" of prescribed standard forms in comparison to non-standard dialects. A series of metastudies have found that
1386-548: A subject pronoun. Their negations , shall not and will not , also have contracted forms: shan't and won't (although shan't is rarely used in North America, and is becoming rarer elsewhere too). See English auxiliaries and contractions . The pronunciation of will is / w ɪ l / , and that of won't is / w oʊ n t / . However shall has distinct weak and strong pronunciations : / ʃ əl / when unstressed, and / ʃ æ l / when stressed. Shan't
1485-428: A verb expressing obligation, desire, or intention, to a simple marker of tense), it also lost syntactic autonomy (becoming an enclitic ) and phonological substance (e.g., Latin first singular habeo > ayyo > Old French ai , Modern French [e] ). Thus the sequence of Latin verbs amare habeo ("I have to love") gave rise to French aimerai , Spanish amaré , etc. "I will love". Phonetic changes also affected
1584-530: A window"; "He asked if they might dance." The auxiliary will can therefore be used in questions either simply to enquire about what is expected to occur in the future, or (especially with the second person subject you ) to make a request: Bryan Garner and Justice Scalia in Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts describe that some legal drafting has sloppy use of the word "shall". Nevertheless, Garner and Scalia conclude that when
1683-415: Is an offer or suggestion, while "Will I play goalkeeper?" is just a question about the expected future situation. The above meaning of shall is generally confined to direct questions with a first person subject. In the case of a reported question (even if not reported in the past tense), shall is likely to be replaced by should or another modal verb such as might : "She is asking if she should open
1782-421: Is backed by 27 percent of municipalities. The main language used in primary schools, chosen by referendum within the local school district, normally follows the official language of its municipality. Standard German emerged from the standardized chancellery use of High German in the 16th and 17th centuries. Until about 1800, it was almost exclusively a written language, but now it is so widely spoken that most of
1881-493: Is based on the local dialects of Buenos Aires and Montevideo ( Rioplatense Spanish ). Portuguese has, for now, two official standards , Brazilian Portuguese and European Portuguese . The Serbian variant of Serbo-Croatian is likewise divided; Serbia and the Republika Srpska of Bosnia and Herzegovina use their own distinct normative subvarieties, with differences in yat reflexes. The existence and codification of
1980-525: Is called descriptive grammar. This kind of linguistic description contrasts with linguistic prescription , a plan to marginalize some constructions while codifying others, either absolutely or in the framework of a standard language . The word grammar often has divergent meanings when used in contexts outside linguistics. It may be used more broadly as to include orthographic conventions of written language such as spelling and punctuation, which are not typically considered as part of grammar by linguists,
2079-402: Is close to that expressed by the future tense in other languages. However the same construction with will or shall can have other meanings that do not indicate futurity, or else indicate some modality in addition to futurity (as in "He will make rude remarks," in the sense of "He is wont to make rude remarks," meaning he has a habit of doing so; or, "You shall stop making rude remarks," which
SECTION 20
#17328875413822178-638: Is directly based on Classical Arabic , the language of the Qur'an . The Hindustani language has two standards, Hindi and Urdu . In the United States, the Society for the Promotion of Good Grammar designated 4 March as National Grammar Day in 2008. Shall and will Historically, prescriptive grammar stated that, when expressing pure futurity (without any additional meaning such as desire or command), shall
2277-621: Is evidenced in Gothic and in the earliest recorded Germanic expressions). In English, shall and will are the auxiliaries that came to be used for this purpose. (Another one used as such in Old English was mun , which is related to Scots maun , Modern English must and Dutch moet ) Both shall and will come from verbs that had the preterite-present conjugation in Old English (and generally in Germanic), meaning that they were conjugated using
2376-414: Is giving an order). For details of these meanings, see the sections on will and shall in the article on English modal verbs. The form of the will/shall future described above is frequently called the simple future (or future simple ). Other constructions provide additional auxiliaries that express particular aspects : the future progressive (or future continuous ) as in "He will be working";
2475-417: Is no simple ( morphological ) future tense as such. However, the future can also be expressed by employing an auxiliary construction that combines certain present tense auxiliary verbs with the simple infinitive (stem) of the main verb. These auxiliary forms vary between the languages. Other, generally more informal, expressions of futurity use an auxiliary with the compound infinitive of the main verb (as with
2574-480: Is not observed – the two auxiliaries are used interchangeably, with will being far more common than shall . This is discussed in more detail in the following sections. According to Merriam Webster's Dictionary of English Usage , the distinction between shall and will as future markers arose from the practice of Latin teaching in English schools in the 14th century. It was customary to use will to translate
2673-403: Is not significant and syntax is highly significant in an analytic language. For example, Chinese and Afrikaans are highly analytic, thus meaning is very context-dependent. (Both have some inflections, and both have had more in the past; thus, they are becoming even less synthetic and more "purely" analytic over time.) Latin , which is highly synthetic , uses affixes and inflections to convey
2772-420: Is now considered a strongly future-tense-marking language. Currently, there are several generally accepted ways to indicate futurity in English, and some of them—particularly those that use will or shall as the most universal and widely used—are frequently described as future tense while some may argue these verbs serve both as present modal verbs and future tense markers. The will/shall future consists of
2871-399: Is promoted above other dialects in writing, education, and, broadly speaking, in the public sphere; it contrasts with vernacular dialects , which may be the objects of study in academic, descriptive linguistics but which are rarely taught prescriptively. The standardized " first language " taught in primary education may be subject to political controversy because it may sometimes establish
2970-564: Is pronounced / ʃ ɑː n t / in England, New Zealand, South Africa etc.; in North America (if used) it is pronounced / ʃ æ n t / , and both forms are acceptable in Australia (due to the unique course of the trap–bath split ). The modal verbs shall and will have been used in the past, and continue to be used, in a variety of meanings. Although when used purely as future markers they are largely interchangeable (as will be discussed in
3069-447: Is provided by the famous speech of Winston Churchill : "We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender.'" Whether or not the above-mentioned prescriptive rule ( shall for the unmarked future in the first person) is adhered to, there are certain meanings in which either will or shall tends to be used rather than
Future tense - Misplaced Pages Continue
3168-537: Is sometimes used to mean "may" or "can". The most famous example of both of these uses of the word "shall" is the United States Constitution . Claims that "shall" is used to denote a fact, or is not used with the above different meanings, have caused discussions and have significant consequences for interpreting the text's intended meaning. Lawsuits over the word's meaning are also common. In many requirement specifications , particularly involving software,
3267-697: Is sparsely used in spoken Swedish, with the verb instead being put in present tense and accompanied by a distinct time specification: Jag åker till Spanien på fredag "I travel to Spain on Friday" Då ses vi imorgon. "Then we meet tomorrow" The future tense forms in Latin varied by conjugation. Here is a sample of the future tense for the first conjugation verb amare , "to love". See Latin conjugation for further details. Sound changes in Vulgar Latin made future forms difficult to distinguish from other verb forms (e.g., amabit "he will love" vs. amavit "he loved"), and
3366-482: Is the set of rules for how a natural language is structured, as demonstrated by its speakers or writers. Grammar rules may concern the use of clauses , phrases , and words . The term may also refer to the study of such rules, a subject that includes phonology , morphology , and syntax , together with phonetics , semantics , and pragmatics . There are, broadly speaking, two different ways to study grammar: traditional grammar and theoretical grammar . Fluency in
3465-430: Is to express willingness, desire or intention. This blends with its usage in expressing futurity, and is discussed under § Colored uses . For its use in questions about the future, see § Questions . Both shall and will can be used to mark a circumstance as occurring in future time; this construction is often referred to as the future tense of English. For example: When will or shall directly governs
3564-463: Is used to: English will and Dutch wil , although cognates, have over the centuries shifted in meaning, such that will is almost identical to shall , whereas Dutch wil means want , as in Ik wil het doen (I want to do it). Gaan + infinitive can be compared with the English "going to" . It is used: Swedish skall strongly implies intention, but with an adverb such as nog "probably" it can avoid
3663-405: Is used with if clauses and relative clauses . In a semantic analysis, this use of the perfective aspect marker would not be considered perfective, since it is more closely related to subjunctive usage. Only the superficial form is identical to that of the perfective. This perfective subjunctive cannot be used as a coupla for aspectual participles. The future indicative forms are constructed using
3762-525: Is with a first person subject ( I or we ), to make offers and suggestions, or request suggestions or instructions: This is common in the UK and other parts of the English-speaking world; it is also found in the United States, but there should is often a less marked alternative. Normally the use of will in such questions would change the meaning to a simple request for information: "Shall I play goalkeeper?"
3861-588: The First Grammatical Treatise , but became influential only in the Renaissance and Baroque periods. In 1486, Antonio de Nebrija published Las introduciones Latinas contrapuesto el romance al Latin , and the first Spanish grammar , Gramática de la lengua castellana , in 1492. During the 16th-century Italian Renaissance , the Questione della lingua was the discussion on the status and ideal form of
3960-587: The United States government 's Plain Language group advises writers not to use the word at all. Other legal drafting experts, including Plain Language advocates, argue that while shall can be ambiguous in statutes (which most of the cited litigation on the word's interpretation involves), court rules , and consumer contracts, that reasoning does not apply to the language of business contracts. These experts recommend using shall but only to impose an obligation on
4059-515: The conventions used for writing a language. It may also be used more narrowly to refer to a set of prescriptive norms only, excluding the aspects of a language's grammar which do not change or are clearly acceptable (or not) without the need for discussions. The word grammar is derived from Greek γραμματικὴ τέχνη ( grammatikḕ téchnē ), which means "art of letters", from γράμμα ( grámma ), "letter", itself from γράφειν ( gráphein ), "to draw, to write". The same Greek root also appears in
Future tense - Misplaced Pages Continue
4158-403: The future , necessarily uncertain and at varying distances ahead, means that the speaker may refer to future events with the modality either of probability (what the speaker expects to happen) or intent (what the speaker plans to make happen). Whether future expression is realis or irrealis depends not so much on an objective ontological notion of future reality, but rather on the degree of
4257-429: The future perfect as in "They will have finished"; and the future perfect progressive as in "You will have been practising." For detail on these, see the relevant sections of Uses of English verb forms . (For more on expressions of relative tense, such as the future perfect, see also the section above .) Several other English constructions commonly refer to the future: Questions and negatives are formed from all of
4356-442: 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 markers, are largely interchangeable with regard to literal meaning. Generally, however, will is far more common than shall . Use of shall is normally a marked usage, typically indicating formality or seriousness and (if not used with
4455-467: The modal verb will or shall together with the bare infinitive of the main verb, as in "He will win" or "I shall win". ( Prescriptive grammarians prefer will in the second and third persons and shall in the first person, reversing the forms to express obligation or determination, but in practice shall and will are generally used interchangeably, with will being more common. For details see shall and will .) The meaning of this construction
4554-473: The strong preterite form (i.e., the usual past tense form) as the present tense . Because of this, like the other modal verbs , they do not take the usual -s in Modern English's third-person singular present; we say she shall and he will – not * she shalls , and not * he wills (except in the sense of "to will" being a synonym of "to want" or "to write into a will "). Archaically, there were, however,
4653-616: The 12th century, compares the Hebrew language with Arabic in the Islamic grammatical tradition . Belonging to the trivium of the seven liberal arts , grammar was taught as a core discipline throughout the Middle Ages , following the influence of authors from Late Antiquity , such as Priscian . Treatment of vernaculars began gradually during the High Middle Ages , with isolated works such as
4752-429: The 16th century onward, such as Grammatica o Arte de la Lengua General de Los Indios de Los Reynos del Perú (1560), a Quechua grammar by Fray Domingo de Santo Tomás . From the latter part of the 18th century, grammar came to be understood as a subfield of the emerging discipline of modern linguistics. The Deutsche Grammatik of Jacob Grimm was first published in the 1810s. The Comparative Grammar of Franz Bopp ,
4851-596: The 7th century with Auraicept na n-Éces . Arabic grammar emerged with Abu al-Aswad al-Du'ali in the 7th century. The first treatises on Hebrew grammar appeared in the High Middle Ages , in the context of Midrash (exegesis of the Hebrew Bible ). The Karaite tradition originated in Abbasid Baghdad . The Diqduq (10th century) is one of the earliest grammatical commentaries on the Hebrew Bible. Ibn Barun in
4950-414: The English is going to ... ). English grammar provides a number of ways to indicate the future nature of an occurrence. Some argue that English, like most Germanic languages, does not have a future tense—that is, a grammatical form that always indicates futurity—nor does it have a mandatory form for the expression of futurity. However, through gradual development from its Germanic roots, English became what
5049-450: The Italian language, initiated by Dante 's de vulgari eloquentia ( Pietro Bembo , Prose della volgar lingua Venice 1525). The first grammar of Slovene was written in 1583 by Adam Bohorič , and Grammatica Germanicae Linguae , the first grammar of German, was published in 1578. Grammars of some languages began to be compiled for the purposes of evangelism and Bible translation from
SECTION 50
#17328875413825148-582: The Latin velle (meaning to wish, want or intend); this left shall (which had no other equivalent in Latin) to translate the Latin future tense . This practice kept shall alive in the role of future marker; it is used consistently as such in the Middle English Wycliffe's Bible . However, in the common language it was will that was becoming predominant in that role. Chaucer normally uses will to indicate
5247-427: The Latin simple future forms were gradually replaced by periphrastic structures involving the infinitive and an auxiliary verb , such as debere , venire , velle , or especially habere . All of the modern Romance languages have grammaticalized one of these periphrastic constructions for expressing the future tense; none of them has preserved the original Latin future, with the exception of Old French preserving
5346-492: The above constructions in the regular manner: see Questions and Negation in the English grammar article. The auxiliaries will and shall form the contracted negations won't and shan't (they can also sometimes be contracted when not negated, to 'll , such as in I'll find it ). The various ways of expressing the future carry different meanings, implying not just futurity but also aspect (the way an action or state takes place in time) and/or modality (the attitude of
5445-446: The advent of written representations , formal rules about language usage tend to appear also, although such rules tend to describe writing conventions more accurately than conventions of speech. Formal grammars are codifications of usage which are developed by repeated documentation and observation over time. As rules are established and developed, the prescriptive concept of grammatical correctness can arise. This often produces
5544-434: The best"; see Uses of English verb forms § Dependent clauses .) On the other hand, will can be used (in the first person) to emphasize the willingness, desire or intention of the speaker: Most speakers have will as the future marker in any case, but when the meaning is as above, even those who follow or are influenced by the prescriptive rule would tend to use will (rather than the shall that they would use with
5643-406: The coloring of the meaning. For some specific cases of its formal use, see the sections below on § Legal use and § Technical specifications . (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
5742-462: The e-grade or o-grade of Indo-European * wel- , meaning to wish for or desire. Within English, the modal verb will is also related to the noun will and the regular lexical verb will (as in "She willed him on"). Early Germanic did not inherit any Proto-Indo-European forms to express the future tense , and so the Germanic languages have innovated by using auxiliary verbs to express the future (this
5841-483: The expected answer "I shall", since the rule prescribes shall as the uncolored future marker in the first person). To use will instead would turn the question into a request. In practice, however, shall is almost never used in questions of this type. To mark a factual question as distinct from a request, the going-to future (or just the present tense) can be used: "Are you going to accompany me?" (or "Are you accompanying me?"). The chief use of shall in questions
5940-418: The explanation for variation in speech, particularly variation in the speech of an individual speaker (for example, why some speakers say "I didn't do nothing", some say "I didn't do anything", and some say one or the other depending on social context). The formal study of grammar is an important part of children's schooling from a young age through advanced learning , though the rules taught in schools are not
6039-475: The explicit teaching of grammatical parts of speech and syntax has little or no effect on the improvement of student writing quality in elementary school, middle school or high school; other methods of writing instruction had far greater positive effect, including strategy instruction, collaborative writing, summary writing, process instruction, sentence combining and inquiry projects. The preeminence of Parisian French has reigned largely unchallenged throughout
SECTION 60
#17328875413826138-399: The following day is called a crastinal tense .) In other languages, mostly of European origin, specific markers indicate futurity. These structures constitute a future tense . In many cases, an auxiliary verb is used, as in English, where futurity is often indicated by the modal auxiliary will (or shall ). However, some languages combine such an auxiliary with the main verb to produce
6237-501: The following sections), each of the two verbs also has certain specific uses in which it cannot be replaced by the other without change of meaning. The most common specific use of shall in everyday English is in questions that serve as offers or suggestions: "Shall I ...?" or "Shall we ...?" These are discussed under § Questions below. In statements, shall has the specific use of expressing an order or instruction, normally in elevated or formal register . This use can blend with
6336-693: The former German dialects are nearly extinct. Standard Chinese has official status as the standard spoken form of the Chinese language in the People's Republic of China (PRC), the Republic of China (ROC), and the Republic of Singapore . Pronunciation of Standard Chinese is based on the local accent of Mandarin Chinese from Luanping, Chengde in Hebei Province near Beijing, while grammar and syntax are based on modern vernacular written Chinese . Modern Standard Arabic
6435-418: The future subjunctive forms of verbs by adding the future suffix गा (- gā ) which declines for number and gender of the grammatical person. The table below shows the future subjunctive and indicative forms of the verb करना karnā (to do). -गा -gā -गा -gā -गे -gē -गे -gē -गी -गी -gī मैं ma͠i मैं ma͠i करूँ Grammar In linguistics , grammar
6534-567: The future, regardless of grammatical person . An influential proponent of the prescriptive rule that shall is to be used as the usual future marker in the first person was John Wallis . In Grammatica Linguae Anglicanae (1653) he wrote: "The rule is [...] to express a future event without emotional overtones, one should say I shall, we shall, but you/he/she/they will; conversely, for emphasis, willfulness, or insistence, one should say I/we will, but you/he/she/they shall". Henry Watson Fowler wrote in his book The King's English (1906), regarding
6633-416: The highly logical Lojban ). Each of these languages has its own grammar. Syntax refers to the linguistic structure above the word level (for example, how sentences are formed) – though without taking into account intonation , which is the domain of phonology. Morphology, by contrast, refers to the structure at and below the word level (for example, how compound words are formed), but above
6732-454: The history of modern French literature. Standard Italian is based on the speech of Florence rather than the capital because of its influence on early literature. Likewise, standard Spanish is not based on the speech of Madrid but on that of educated speakers from more northern areas such as Castile and León (see Gramática de la lengua castellana ). In Argentina and Uruguay the Spanish standard
6831-554: The implication of intentionality: Det här skall nog gå bra "This will probably go well". However, the past tense of skall , skulle , can be used without such an adverb to express predictions in the past: Pelle sa, att det skulle bli varmt på eftermiddagen "Pelle said that it would be warm in the afternoon." Pure future, regardless of intention, is usually expressed with kommer att (literally: "comes to"): Det här kommer att gå bra "This will go well", Du kommer att överleva det här "You will survive this". Generally, future tense
6930-407: The infinitive in the evolution of this form, so that in the modern languages the future stem is not always identical to the infinitive. Consider the following Spanish examples: In Hindi , verbs can be conjugated for three grammatical aspects ( habitual , perfective , and progressive ) and five grammatical moods ( indicative , presumptive , subjunctive , contrafactual , and imperative ). Out of
7029-427: The infinitive of the main verb, as in the above examples, the construction is called the simple future . Future marking can also be combined with aspectual marking to produce constructions known as future progressive ("He will be working"), future perfect ("He will have worked") and future perfect progressive ("He will have been working"). English also has other ways of referring to future circumstances, including
7128-439: The language's speakers. At smaller scales, it may refer to rules shared by smaller groups of speakers. A description, study, or analysis of such rules may also be known as a grammar, or as a grammar book . A reference work describing the grammar of a language is called a reference grammar or simply a grammar . A fully revealed grammar, which describes the grammatical constructions of a particular speech type in great detail
7227-402: The level of individual sounds, which, like intonation, are in the domain of phonology. However, no clear line can be drawn between syntax and morphology. Analytic languages use syntax to convey information that is encoded by inflection in synthetic languages . In other words, word order is not significant, and morphology is highly significant in a purely synthetic language, whereas morphology
7326-591: The mandatory requirements, meaning, "must", or "have to". The IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) defines shall and must as synonymous terms denoting absolute requirements, and should as denoting a somewhat flexible requirement, in RFC documents. On specifications and standards published by the United States Department of Defense (DoD), requirements with "shall" are the mandatory requirements. ("Must" shall not be used to express mandatory provisions. Use
7425-429: The moment of speaking, although in contexts where relative tense is used it may mean the future relative to some other point in time under consideration. English does not have an inflectional future tense, though it has a variety of grammatical and lexical means for expressing future-related meanings. These include modal auxiliaries such as will and shall as well as the futurate present tense . The nature of
7524-409: The original Latin future forms of estre "to be": jo (i)er , tu (i)ers , il (i)ert , nos (i)ermes , vos *(i)ertes , and il (i)erent , all of them were derived from erō , irregular future form of esse "to be", in addition to future forms in ser- (< sedēre "to sit") or estr- . While Classical Latin used a set of suffixes to the main verb for the future tense, later Vulgar Latin adopted
7623-450: The other. Some of these have already been mentioned (see the Specific uses section). However, there are also cases in which the meaning being expressed combines plain futurity with some additional implication; these can be referred to as "colored" uses of the future markers. Thus shall may be used (particularly in the second and third persons ) to imply a command, promise or threat made by
7722-551: The prescriptive rule is adhered to) appeared in the 19th century, and has been repeated in the 20th century and in the 21st: An example of this distinction in writing occurs in Henry James 's 1893 short story The Middle Years : A more popular illustration of the use of "shall" with the second person to express determination occurs in the oft-quoted words the fairy godmother traditionally says to Cinderella in British versions of
7821-403: The rule about using shall as the unmarked form in the first person, there is still a tendency to use shall and will to express different shades of meaning (reflecting aspects of their original Old English senses). Thus shall is used with the meaning of obligation, and will with the meaning of desire or intention. An illustration of the supposed contrast between shall and will (when
7920-456: The rule followed by the speaker or writer, which is usually not the case. According to this rule, when expressing futurity and nothing more, the auxiliary shall is to be used with first person subjects ( I and we ), and will is to be used in other instances. Using will with the first person or shall with the second or third person is asserted to indicate some additional meaning in addition to plain futurity. In practice, however, this rule
8019-542: The rules for using shall vs. will , the comment "the idiomatic use, while it comes by nature to southern Englishmen ... is so complicated that those who are not to the manner born can hardly acquire it". The Pocket Fowler's Modern English Usage , OUP , 2002, says of the rule for the use of shall and will : "it is unlikely that this rule has ever had any consistent basis of authority in actual usage, and many examples of [British] English in print disregard it". Nonetheless, even among speakers (the majority) who do not follow
8118-418: The same information that Chinese does with syntax. Because Latin words are quite (though not totally) self-contained, an intelligible Latin sentence can be made from elements that are arranged almost arbitrarily. Latin has a complex affixation and simple syntax, whereas Chinese has the opposite. Prescriptive grammar is taught in primary and secondary school. The term "grammar school" historically referred to
8217-440: The section on should and would below). Aside from this, though, shall and will (like the other modals) are defective verbs – they do not have other grammatical forms such as infinitives , imperatives or participles . (For instance, I want to will eat something or He's shalling go to sleep do not exist.) Both shall and will may be contracted to -'ll , most commonly in affirmative statements where they follow
8316-425: The speaker (i.e., that the future event denoted represents the will of the speaker rather than that of the subject ). For example: In the above sentences, shall might be replaced by will without change of intended meaning, although the form with will could also be interpreted as a plain statement about the expected future. The use of shall is often associated with formality and/or seriousness, in addition to
8415-442: The speaker toward the action or state). The precise interpretation must be based on the context. In particular there is sometimes a distinction in usage between the will/shall future and the going-to future (although in some contexts they are interchangeable). For more information see the going-to future article. Dutch can express the future in three ways: Zullen + infinitive is more similar to shall than to will . It
8514-473: The speaker's conviction that the event will in fact come about. In many languages there is no grammatical ( morphological or syntactic ) indication of future tense. Future meaning is supplied by the context, with the use of temporal adverbs such as "later", "next year", etc. Such adverbs (in particular words meaning "tomorrow" and "then") sometimes develop into grammaticalized future tense markers. (A tense used to refer specifically to occurrences taking place on
8613-649: The starting point of modern comparative linguistics , came out in 1833. Frameworks of grammar which seek to give a precise scientific theory of the syntactic rules of grammar and their function have been developed in theoretical linguistics . Other frameworks are based on an innate " universal grammar ", an idea developed by Noam Chomsky . In such models, the object is placed into the verb phrase. The most prominent biologically oriented theories are: Parse trees are commonly used by such frameworks to depict their rules. There are various alternative schemes for some grammar: Grammars evolve through usage . Historically, with
8712-469: The strength of the requirement. Some requirement specifications will define the terms at the beginning of the document. Shall and will are distinguished by NASA and Wikiversity as follows: On standards published by International Organization for Standardization (ISO), IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission), ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials), IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), requirements with "shall" are
8811-445: The term "shall".) "Will" declares intent or simple futurity, and "should" and "may" express nonmandatory provisions. Outside DoD, other parts of the U.S. government advise against using the word shall for three reasons: it lacks a single clear meaning, it causes litigation, and it is nearly absent from ordinary speech. The legal reference Words and Phrases dedicates 76 pages to summarizing hundreds of lawsuits that centered around
8910-514: The three aspects, the habitual mood of Hindi cannot be conjugated into the future tense. The indicative future is constructed from the subjunctive future forms. Imperatives in Hindi can also be put into future tense. There are two future subjunctive moods in modern Hindi , first the regular subjunctive and the second, the perfective subjunctive which superficially has the same form as the perfective aspect forms of verbs but still expresses future events, it
9009-446: The usage of shall to express futurity, and is therefore discussed in detail below under § Colored uses . Will (but not shall ) is used to express habitual action, often (but not exclusively) action that the speaker finds annoying: Similarly, will is used to express something that can be expected to happen in a general case, or something that is highly likely at the present time: The other main specific implication of will
9108-400: The use of habere ("to have") with the infinitive, as for example: petant aut non petant venire habet ("whether they ask or do not ask, it will come") From this construction, the major Western Romance languages have simple future tense forms that derive from the infinitive followed by a conjugated form of the verb "to have" (Latin habere ). As the auxiliary verb lost its modal force (from
9207-409: The variants shalt and wilt , which were used with thou . Both verbs also have their own preterite (past) forms, namely should and would , which derive from the actual preterites of the Old English verbs (made using the dental suffix that forms the preterites of weak verbs ). These forms have developed a range of meanings, frequently independent of those of shall and will (as described in
9306-508: The verb forms used for the future tense can also be used to express other types of meaning; English again provides examples of this (see English modal verbs for the various meanings that both will and shall can have besides simply expressing futurity). In Germanic languages , including English , a common expression of the future is using the present tense , with the futurity expressed using words that imply future action ( I go to Berlin tomorrow or I am going to Berlin tomorrow ). There
9405-593: The well-known fairy tale: "You shall go to the ball, Cinderella!" Another popular illustration is in the dramatic scene from The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring when Gandalf checks the Balrog 's advance with magisterial censure, "You shall not pass!" The use of shall as the usual future marker in the first person nevertheless persists in some more formal or elevated registers of English. An example
9504-526: The word "shall" can reasonably be understood as mandatory, it ought to be taken that way. In 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court said ("The word 'shall' generally indicates a command that admits of no discretion on the part of the person instructed to carry out the directive"); Black's Law Dictionary 1375 (6th ed. 1990) ("As used in statutes ... this word is generally imperative or mandatory"). Legislative acts and contracts sometimes use "shall" and "shall not" to express mandatory action and prohibition. However, it
9603-540: The words graphics , grapheme , and photograph . The first systematic grammar of Sanskrit originated in Iron Age India , with Yaska (6th century BC), Pāṇini (6th–5th century BC ) and his commentators Pingala ( c. 200 BC ), Katyayana , and Patanjali (2nd century BC). Tolkāppiyam , the earliest Tamil grammar, is mostly dated to before the 5th century AD. The Babylonians also made some early attempts at language description. Grammar appeared as
9702-403: The words shall and will have special meanings. Most requirement specifications use the word shall to denote something that is required, while reserving the will for simple statement about the future (especially since "going to" is typically seen as too informal for legal contexts). However, some documents deviate from this convention and use the words shall , will , and should to denote
9801-525: Was to be used when the subject was in the first person , and will in other cases (e.g., "On Sunday, we shall go to church, and the preacher will read the Bible.") This rule is no longer commonly adhered to by any group of English speakers, and will has essentially replaced shall in nearly all contexts. Shall is, however, still widely used in bureaucratic documents, especially documents written by lawyers. Owing to heavy misuse, its meaning can be ambiguous, and
#381618