The future meanings in modern English

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Department of English Lexicology and Stylistics

Azerbaijan University of Languages

The future meanings in modern English

Nigar Baghirova,

Doctoral Student

The modern paradigm of language study and its inner characteristics demands for comprehensive approach that takes into consideration not only structural planes of a language unit but its semantic and communicative aspects. In the view of the anthropocentric paradigm cognitive mechanisms of mentality explicated in mind through lingual functional models are of great interest. Therefore the importance lies in understanding cognitive and functional basis of the category of future in modern English.

The aim of the given article is to study cognitive and functional, as well as semantic-cognitive and communicative qualities of the category of future in modern English basing on scientific literature, fiction, belles-lettres andpress materials. Theoretical value of the research is in presentation of comprehensive analysis of language means to express future tense in the framework of cognitive and functional directions. Practical value of the research is the possibility to use its results and principles to comply a lecture course of Cognitive and Functional Linguistics, to prepare manuals and textbooks in the correspondent area. The following research methods are used within the work: method of contextological analysis, descriptive method, method of component analysis, method of field analysis, transformative method, and method of element counting. To get the factual material the method of total selection was chosen. The object ofresearch is semantic-cognitive and functional specificities of future time in the language system.

The area of research is structural and semantic qualities of FSF of Futurality and its constituents. The settled aim requires that the following objectives be fulfilled:

a) description of basic cognitive grounds for categorical development of time notion;

b) analysis of development of deictic means to express future time;

c) finding out grammatical means used in Modern English to explicitly and implicitly express future time;

d) working out the model of FSF of Futurality taking into account semantic and functional specificities of its constituents;

e) analysis of future situations in press texts and of pragmatic-communicative peculiarities of language mean to express futurality.

Key words: verb, future time, expression means, paradigm, cognitive and functional specificities.

Нігар Багірова, докторант кафедри англійської лексикології та стилістики Азербайджанського університету мов (Баку, Азербайджан)

Майбутні значення в сучасній англійській мові

Сучасна парадигма вивчення мови та її внутрішні характеристики вимагають усебічного підходу, який ураховує не лише структурні площини мовної одиниці, але і її смислові та комунікативні аспекти. Зважаючи на антропоцентричну парадигму, когнітивні механізми менталітету, що експлікуються у свідомості через мовні функціональні моделі, становлять великий інтерес. Тому важливість полягає в розумінні когнітивної та функціональної основи категорії майбутнього в сучасній англійській мові.

Метою статті є вивчення когнітивних та функціональних, а також семантико-пізнавальних та комунікативних якостей категорії майбутнього в сучасній англійській мові на основі наукової літератури, художньої літератури, художнього письма та друкованих матеріалів. Теоретична цінність дослідження полягає в поданні всебічного аналізу мовних засобів для вираження майбутнього часу в рамках пізнавального та функціонального напрямів. Практична цінність дослідження полягає в можливості використання його результатів та принципів для дотримання лекційного курсу когнітивної та функціональної лінгвістики, підготовки посібників та підручників у відповідній області. У роботі використовуються такі методи дослідження: метод контекстного аналізу, описовий метод, метод компонентного аналізу, метод польового аналізу, трансформативний метод та метод підрахунку елементів. Для отримання фактичного матеріалу було обрано метод повного відбору. Об'єктом дослідження є семантико-пізнавальна та функціональна специфіка майбутнього часу в мовній системі.

Область дослідження - структурно-семантичні якості FSF Futurality та його складових частин. Поставлена мета передбачає виконання таких завдань, як:

а) опис основних когнітивних підстав для категоричного розвитку поняття часу;

б) аналіз розвитку дектичних засобів для вираження майбутнього часу;

в) з'ясування граматичних засобів, які використовуються в сучасній англійській мові для явного та неявного вираження майбутнього часу;

г) розробка моделі FSF Futurality з урахуванням семантичних та функціональних особливостей її складових частин;

ґ) аналіз майбутніх ситуацій у текстах преси та прагматико-комунікативних особливостей мови, що означають вираження футуральності.

Ключові слова: дієслово, майбутній час, засоби вираження, парадигма, когнітивна та функціональна специфіка.

future tense english

Introduction

The factual material of the research include articles of modern press in English, including People, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, National Geographic, Times, Seventeen and others. As a result, 1893 units for analysis have been detected. One unit for analysis is equal to a future situation defined as a certain semantic category reflected in the process of communication by language means.

Learning the history of investigation of time's problem in Linguistics we knew that according to the opinion of the scientists the objective, philosophic, linguistic category of time is one of the complex informative categories that are seminal notion of man's culture. It is saturated all multidimensional cogitative universum of a man, reflecting differently in the various languages. The evolution of the temporal notions of a man is the brightest reflex of the evolution of his intellect, and culture (Fraser, 1982: 180-182). That is why the investigation of the linguistic time, as in synchrony, so in diachrony, is obviously the required aspect of the investigation of a man's civilization in general. It is undoubtedly that when we investigate the future meanings in Modern English we had to learn the verb and its grammatical categories.

The given theme is very actual and in a certain extent - difficult for the learners of the English language as foreign one. In the grammatical structure ofthe English language the verb has completely exceptional place - as a result of wide dichotomy of the whole system and that great role which had played the forms in the building ofthe sentence. A verb - is a part of speech, which names the action or presents the condition, the manifestation of the indication, the change of the sign and so on as action. In the modern English language the verb in comparison with any other part of speech has a more developed system of the means of word-changing and form-building. The grammatical criteria of the verb which are showed in the forms of word-changing and form-building are the categories of person, number, aspect, time, mood and voice.

The analysis of the resemblant and different verbal grammatical categories in the non-kindred languages (on the material of English and Azerbaijani) show that the grammatical and lexical peculiarities ofthe English and Azerbaijani verbs are the subject of the numerous scientific theoretical, practical, historical works touch upon the grammatical structure of the English language. However, in modern science the existed divergence ofthe opinions due to this problem, and also an assemblage of the new facts, new approaches and new methods of analysis predetermine a constant necessity and possibility of the further investigations, and that defines the actuality of our scientific research. A study of the structural-semantic features of the verbs, a formulization of the peculiarities of its using depending from its semantic meaning, an emphasizing of transformation, which are done during the translation of the analyzed verbs are necessary aspects of our investigation.

Discussion

Studying the category of time in Modern English it is necessary to mention that during the written history the verbal system of the English language was broadened not only thanks to the forming of new grammatical categories. Inside of the existed categories of time new categorial parts are appeared and they fixed the most universal grammatically formalized denotation of the future time and also potential and unreal actions. The existence of the category of future time in English is very arguable matter. And its conceptualization is impossible without the knowing about the development of the given analytical form in the process of the language's evolution. In the given article the process of conformation of the category of future time is considered diachronically and its origins: the combinations of old English verbs “willan” and “sculan” (“will” and “shall”) with the infinitive. The specificity of its development consists of the changes of inner relations between components which hadn't some noticeable outer shews (manifestations): an outer shape of the constructions is almost such as it was. Its semantic development was peculiar: it lies not only in getting the new meanings, but also in partial losing the old meanings, and we can easily deduce it during the different periods of the English language evolution from the old times till to the present.

We also had mention that in Modern English there is a problem of perfect. The modern English language has a great deal of the structures, which in certain lexical contexts and syntactical positions are interchangeable. Such kind of parallelism and variety of the expressive means constitutes the peculiarity of the grammatical structure of English that is widely represented in the system of the verbs and permissive to give the various time denotation of the action. In the time's system of the verb of modern English the problem of perfect is too difficult. According to this question the points of view and opinions of the linguists are different. The Perfect must be investigated as in an extended, so in a restricted aspects.

One of the very complicated issues is the semantic differentiation of time as the cornerstone of the Linguistics and at the same time the mover of the scientific progress was and is still remained the problem of the relation between the form and the language designation's content. Discontentment of the unilateral access to the studying of the language units' structure and their functions (with the form's headship on the content or that a language - is not simply materialization of the signs, which is built for encoding of objective world's realities, but something that during exertion some unimpeachable, from the point of view of formal logic, operations of the analysis, is decomposed on the variety of material elements, which peculiarities altogether are not equal to the whole object) demand the new kinds of approaches to the interpretation of the language's phenomenon.

The philosophic-objective, logic and grammatical notions of time, objectivity of the time, the main five factors of the time, and also a short-winded historical excursion of the category of time's learning (Veliyeva, 2011a: 7-10).

So, we came to future time's problem in Modern English. The Future time - is the youngest representative of temporal trine: Past - Present - Future - and today is terra incognita in many aspects. To the first sight it seems paradoxical, if we take in consideration the whole corpus of the linguistic research works in the sphere of tempus. However, if we consider the research works which are dedicated to the future time, it occurred that its quota is sorely small. Futurum is especially deficiently investigated; the category of future time is more widely learned diachronically, in the different styles of literature (Veliyeva, 2011: 352). In the history of mankind together with it the same category of the future time turned out in the Centrum of global processes' crossing, that are connected with the evolution of mind and culture, the process with rub off on individual becoming and an appearance of new civilized paradigms.

The investigation of future time's problem we had to carry through the analysis of the category of time from the point of view of formal, semantic and functional aspects.

The tendency entirely to conceive the substance of the language in its diversity of relations with ambient world and man's unseen come to the emergence and rise of various systematic conceptions, for instance, W Humboldt and his followers Q. P. Pavskiy, I. I. Sreznevskiy,A.A. Potebnya, I.A. Boduen de Kurtene, A. A. Shakhmatov, R. O. Yakobson, N. S. Trubetskoy, S. I. Kartsevskiy, where in the centre of attention “is not a language without man, but only a man as an informant of language's thought or intellection” (I. A. Boduen de Kurtene), and where the Historical Linguistics has a special role - “to show in reality the share of the word in the process of the building of consistent row ofthe systems, which are cross-sectional in the man's concernment to a nature” (A. A. Potebnya). It was a breakthrough in the dialectical strategy of the scientific cognition, that sticked up the history of language in the avant-garde of the humanitarian scientific research works, where the main object of the investigation became Man (Thomson, 1987: 121).

The category of futurum is considered in this research work as semantic, sense-makings are realized by means of the different language's means on the level of the text (Seidl, 1992: 14). The relevancy of this investigation comprises the historical syntax, historical futurology that are involved in the system of the functional-semantic investigations of the anthropocentric polarity.

The given article is devoted to consideration of formal, semantic, cognitive and functional characteristics of future in modern English basing on the press material. The analysis of future tense development in the English language system, especially the ways future is explicated by language means, as well as of the model of FSF of Futurality, its structure and semantics is carried out within the framework of the given research.

Thus, on the basis of the English language's material the analysis of the communicative aspect of the future situations and the structure's models of the futurum's Functional-Semantic Field (FSF) (Saidova, 2016: 161-163) and also the mutual connections between the categories of the futurality, modality and aspectuality gave to us the opportunity to come to the conclusion that the grammatical means plays a great role and has the leader place in the process of formation of the future time.

In the structure of the English language and in the process of communication these means of the statement are the means of expression of the categorial semantics and they form the exterior syntagmatic structure of the sentence. In Modern English the various categories and constructions are graded to the grammatical means of futurality's expression. Represented to your attention in this article there are different patterns of the futurum's FSF (Functional-Semantic Field).

We can show it as the following models: The first futural-modal level of the FSF (functional semantic field) of futurality separated from nucleous and for its qualities, also expressed different means that it includes, consists of several periphery fields. On this level such language means are taken in consideration that the expression of the futurality's notion in the text is the main or one of the main function for them. It means that owing to these means the expression of the meaning of future tense had happened in the explicit way (Poutsma, 2008: 490-495).

Lexical and lexico-grammatical means, adverbs and adverbial constructions of the time, adverbial clauses are related to the periphery field of the abovementioned level. They, in its turn, have an additional or qualifier function.

On the second modal-futural level of the FSF (functional semantic field) of futurality as a result of its modal meaning, combinate the language's means that express the futurality, i.e. by means of these means the expression of the future tense's meaning had happened in the implicit way.

Differentiated for its modal characteristics the represented level is divided into several sections. These sections for their semantic characteristic features in a certain degree intersect the first level because the language's means of the first level have a modal character in the text. The main diversity comprises that the means of the first level realise an expression of the future tense's meaning in an implicit way or as the second meaning.

Model 1. The functional semantic field of futurality in Modern English

In Modern English the functional semantic nucleous of futurality is monocentric structure. Its centre is forming by means of grammatical structure and auxiliary verb “will”. From the functional point of view language means of futurality's expression - forms with the verb “will” are the universal forms. Notwithstanding that a construction with the verb “will” is not a category which is grammaticalized fully, it has a developed paradigmatic system.

A section that comes after nucleous is the constructions which are formed by means of “to be going to”, as “Present Continuous” and “Present Simple” tense forms.

The future action which is expressed by means of the previous mentioned forms, as a rule, has the highest possibility of realization. It is probable that it is for the main, initial function of these forms. In fact, the present tense is one of the sides of the reality. That is why the grammatical forms of the present tense are considered as oncoming action to reality. For example:

We're almost there, and I'm hungry. “Should I get the chocolate Oreo Mudslide? Oh, wait - White Chocolate Peanut Butter Truffle! What are you getting?” - I ask Sam. - “Is there anything with a longer name? I want that.” - “Fine, I'll pick for you. You're getting the pineapple one” (Girls' life magazine, 2006: 84).

“<...> The series has already tackled identity theft, blackmail and a hidden love child. Says costar January Jones: “It's fun to find out what crazy things we're going to get to do next” (People, 2008: 97).

This weekend you know you'll be working up the motivation to get off the couch - and to the gym (People, 2008: 126).

In these three examples that are represented to your attention the mentioned constructions express future will, wish, desire, intention. It is necessary to mention that time learning expressive meanings by means ofthem, expressed by different means the actions which will happen in future from the semantic point of view specified by means of main meanings of the constructions.

In the first example the intention is expressed by means of the Present Continuous form and bare the character of an immediate action. It is more close to realization that the expressed intentions in compare with the other examples.

In the other section of the first level there are language constructions which represent the futural- modal constructions. Their using in text is rare and they have the highest shades of modal meaning. Here belong the constructions with “to be about, to be sure, to be likely”, with modal verb “to be to” and modal construction “there is to do”. These means have the modal shades of vivid meaning of future action's probability and possibility. Look on such constructions in the following sentences and analyse their functonal semantics:

The sun in Pisces has lowered your boredom threshold, and your home, school, and social lives are all about to drive you insane (People, 2008: 176).

Sovereign Wealth Funds will continue to buy up big chunks of Western banks and blue-chip companies, as well as investing more broadly in a new range of countries and currencies (which is likely to make fore movements stronger and more unpredictable) (Newsweek, 2008: 28).

Even with the world's heritage disappearing at an alarming rate, there are still amazing discoveries to be made (Archaeology, 2009: 20).

As it is seen, these examples based on additional contextual elements, directly show the future action.

The first example is taken from the text of star's schedule and so, it concerns to the future action's description. The construction which is formed by means of “to be about” expresses time-urgent future tense (Abdulayev, 1988: 87).

The construction with “will” in the second example shows the conversation is about the future tense. The using of the construction which is formed by means of “to be likely” determines futural character of this construction in the sentence.

In the third sentence the speaking man expresses his assuredness in realisation of the future action and channelizes the listener to the future. The construction which is formed by means of the expressions “there is” or “there are” + infinitive helps to the speaker to do the specific inventarization of the future time.

In the third section of the first level there are language's means of expression of the future time and functioning as the attribute they coordinate the determining object with the future tense. Here belong the deictic adjectives, for instance: “upcoming, coming, expectant, expected, future, on the way” and so on. Such kind of the adjectives and the elliptic constructions are often used in the text of advertisements and other kinds of text. For example:

BABYMOUSE. The sassy mouse with attitude to spare! Get ready to rock with Babymouse: Rockstar! Coming this fall! (Girls' life magazine, 2006).

Coming soon in Archaeology (Archaeology, 2009).

The construction formed by means of the adverb “soon”+infinitive or the construction formed by means of the infinitive which comes after the determining noun must be referred to the descriptive section. Such constructions have the function of the attribute and show the future quality or the situation of the appointed subject or object. For instance, we can give some examples with the constructions formed by means of expressions “soon to be wife, the work to do”:

To be launched in 2007, it won't capture light from other Earths. Instead, from a vantage far beyond the moon, it will chase their shadows (National Geographic, 2004).

Actress Diane Lane takes us on the remarkable journey that is her life - from a most unorthodox childhood to her second shot at love to her secret for being the sexiest soon-to-be-40-year-old in Hollywood (In Style, 2014).

Model 2. Constructions with the future meanings in Modern English

Model 3. The grammatical means of futural expression in the structure of the Functional-Semantic Field in Modern English

Different from above-mentioned verbal categories and futural-modal constructions these constructions have the deictic predicative relations in the sentence, however they in a certain extent add a definite temporal dynamics to the information (message) (Veliyeva, 2011b: 10).

During the analysis of the futurality's means of expression on the basis of the factual material of Modern English the following aspectual characteristic features are drawn up (Aarts, 2006: 280).

The aspectual meanings in the futural situations:

During the investigation we come to the conclusion that the meanings of non-discret future tense make out 74%. Among them continuous and one-off future actions are used more often than the meanings of discret future tense. They make up 26% (A comparative, 1997: 120). This fact testify that whole future action is represented as continuous action.

Thus, during the time futuralization of the consciousness has continued with the development of the manufacture and urbanization. As it is known, the future tense is more subjective among the other time forms; its impression is directly connected with the reception of the action's subject. A special attention attracts the research of pragmatic-linguistic peculiarities of the future situations in the text. The texts of English press represent a rich material for the investigation of the situations of future time by various language's means.

The research of the future tense forms in Modern English shows that an existence of different means of futurum's expression in one language is explained by communicative necessity. The synonymic grammatical means may be if only every mean has its own contextual niche, i.e. if they are used in certain intended for them situational contexts.

In the result of our investigation of future time's forms in Modern English we must note that the cognitive peculiarities of future time's comprehension, and especially a hypotheticity and incertitude, and also persuasion and presupposition, intuitive factors in the language, and at last, in a speech, influenced in a appropriate form on a functional-semantic formation of the given category.

Conclusions

Basic principles of the research:

1. Formation of the category of future in English is connected with changes in the cognitive model of time caused by certain historic events.

2. The model of FSF of Futurality in Modern English represents a complex double-layer structure stipulated by semantic complexness of the category of future.

3. Grammatical means to express future time include all language means deictically relating events to the moment after the moment of speech, for instance: futural-modal constructions: to be likely, to be about, to be surely, to be to, deictic adjectives: coming, upcoming, expected, such constructions as: a bride-to-be, soon-to-come, modal verbs, verbs expressing wish, intention, planning, promise, threat, expectation and other.

4. Infinitive and infinitive constructions are one of the basic auxiliary means to express futural meaning in Modern English.

5. In a text all grammatical meanings of future realize modal meanings as follows: orders, requests, decisions, recommendations, promises, threats, warnings, prognoses, foretelling, premonitions, suggestions, possibilities, expectations, hopes, aspiration, wishes, intentions, plans, tasks, objectives, aims, inevitability, assuredness.

6. Voluntative, estimated, imposed future are the basic types of a subject's attitude to a described future event in English press.

Bibliography

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References

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2. Aarts Bas. Verbs in Contemporary English: Theory and Description. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, 325 p.

3. Abdullayev A. Text, Meaning and Understanding: A Communicative Cognitive Approach. Alpha Print, Inc. Minneapolis, mN, USA, 1988, 189 s. (in Azerbaijani).

4. Archaeology magazine, January - February 2009.

5. Fraser J. T. The genesis and evolution of time. Brighton, 1982, 271 p.

6. Girls' life magazine, November 2006, Vol. 13, Issue 2, p. 84.

7. In Style magazine, January, 2014.

8. National Geographic magazine, December, 2004.

9. Newsweek magazine, June 9, 2008, p. 28.

10. Poutsma H. A Grammar of Late Modern English, Part II, The Parts of Speech, P.Nordhoff - Groningen, 2008, 539 p.

11. People magazine, March 17, 2007.

12. Seidl E.Grammar, Oxford University, 1992, 317 p.

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15. Veliyeva N. Ch. Actual problems of language typology. Science and Education, Baku, 2011, 512 p. (in Azerbaijani).

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