“Be future” — Old and Modern Views on FUTURE: Typological, Diachronic, and Psycholinguistic Aspects

List of tables 9
List of figures 11
Abbreviations 15
Preface 19
CHAPTER 1. Introduction 23
1.1 Setting the scene 23
1.2 Introducing the puzzles 24
1.3 Posing research questions 29
1.4 Developing a research plan – Or how this work is structured 31
CHAPTER 2. TENSE (and FUTURE): An interdisciplinary and crosslinguistic perspective 33
2.1 A short introduction to basic terms 33
2.2 Is temporality and/or mental time travel unique to humans? 35
2.3 Can there exist truly tenseless languages? 39
2.3.1 Alternative means of expressing temporality 40
2.3.1.1 Temporally unmarked verbs and their interpretation 40
2.3.1.2 Different types of predicates and their default temporal interpretation 43
2.3.1.2.1 Lexical aspect versus viewpoint aspect 43
2.3.1.2.2 Pragmatic principles for default temporal interpretation 45
2.3.1.2.3 Default temporal interpretation – Some examples 47
2.3.1.3 The role of viewpoint (grammatical) aspect 50
2.3.2 Tense in tenseless languages? 55
2.3.2.1 Evidence for covert tense – Not genuinely tenseless? 56
2.3.2.1.1 A covert nonfuture tense in St’át’imcets 56
2.3.2.1.2 A covert instantaneous present tense in Blackfoot 60
2.3.2.2 Arguments against covert tense – Genuinely tenseless languages? 65
2.3.3 TP in tenseless languages? 69
2.4 Tense as a licenser of case? 75
2.4.1 Arguments in favor 75
2.4.2 Arguments against 78
2.5 Is Tense an exclusively verbal category? 81
2.5.1 Crosslinguistic facts 81
2.5.2 Possible analyses 85
2.6 What counts as tense and how many different tenses are there? 90
2.6.1 Tense as an inflectional category? 90
2.6.2 Different tense distinctions – Graded tenses 94
2.7 Is future a tense? 103
2.7.1 The marked status of future tense 104
2.7.2 The nature of future tense 112
2.8 Chapter conclusions 130
CHAPTER 3. FUTURE: A diachronic perspective 133
3.1 Introduction 133
3.2 Diachronic sources of future markers 135
3.2.1 Primary futures – Diachronic paths of development 136
3.2.2 Aspectual futures 139
3.2.2.1 Imperfective futures 139
3.2.2.2 Perfective futures 140
3.3 Perfective presents as futures from a diachronic perspective 146
3.4 Slavic compound future constructions from a diachronic perspective 157
3.4.1 General overview 157
3.4.2 Compound futures in the oldest Slavic texts 158
3.4.3 The origin and development of compound WANT-futures in Slavic 166
3.4.3.1 WANT-futures in non-Slavic Balkan languages 166
3.4.3.2 WANT-futures in Slavic Balkan languages 170
3.4.3.3 WANT-futures: Concluding remarks 174
3.4.4 Compound BE-futures in Slavic languages 179
3.4.4.1 General overview 179
3.4.4.2 The origin and development of BE-futures in Slavic 182
3.4.4.2.1 The etymology of BE 182
3.4.4.2.2 The structural source of the Slavic BE-futures 183
3.4.4.2.3 Early textual evidence 184
3.4.4.2.4 Obligation/predestination as a possible pathway to future 188
3.4.4.2.5 Change of state as a possible pathway to future 194
3.4.4.2.6 Futurum exactum or future perfect as a possible pathway to future 196
3.4.4.2.7 The problem of the participial imperfective future 199
3.4.4.3 BE-futures: Concluding remarks 214
3.5 Chapter conclusions 219
CHAPTER 4. FUTURE: A theoretical (semantic and syntactic) perspective 227
4.1 Introduction 227
4.2 Syntactic differences between Bulgarian, Slovenian, and Polish futures 228
4.2.1 Bulgarian future 228
4.2.2 Slovenian and Polish compound futures 235
4.3 Derivation of future time reference in Bulgarian, Slovenian, and Polish future constructions 245
4.3.1 Futures in Bulgarian 246
4.3.1.1 Some observations – First thoughts 246
4.3.1.2 Towards an account 249
4.3.1.3 A more promising account 253
4.3.1.3.1 Some background 253
4.3.1.3.2 A stepwise development of an analysis 255
4.3.1.4 Concluding remarks: A possible revision/modification of the proposed account 268
4.3.2 Futures in Slovenian and Polish 273
4.3.2.1 Modal uses – Covert modality 273
4.3.2.2 Deriving future time reference in the Slovenian future constructions 277
4.3.2.2.1 Rivero and Milojević Sheppard’s (2016) suggestion 277
4.3.2.2.2 Błaszczak and Klimek-Jankowska’s (2012; 2013a) proposal 280
4.3.2.3 Deriving future time reference in the Polish future constructions 284
4.3.2.3.1 Błaszczak et al.’s (2012; 2014) proposal 286
4.3.2.3.2 Ruda’s (2014) proposal 296
4.3.2.4 Interim summary 300
4.4 Futures and futurates and the role of a plan 302
4.4.1 Contexts in which perfective futures are more suitable 303
4.4.2 Contexts in which imperfective futures are more suitable 308
4.4.3 Futurates and the role of a plan 311
4.4.3.1 The notion of a plan 316
4.4.3.2 Deriving future time reference in futurates 318
4.4.4 Putting all observations together – Providing an account of preferences in the use of futurates and ([pfv] and [ipfv]) futures 319
4.5 Chapter conclusions: A general picture of the future 321
CHAPTER 5. FUTURE: A neuro- and psycholinguistic perspective 335
5.1 Introduction 335
5.2 Two types of compound future in Polish – One or two different syntactic structures? 340
5.2.1 The current proposal: A uniform treatment of future constructions in Polish 340
5.2.2 An alternative proposal: A nonuniform treatment of future constructions 341
5.2.3 Periphrastic futures: A mono- or biclausal analysis? 342
5.2.3.1 Negation-based diagnostics for biclausality – Predictions 344
5.2.3.2 Checking the predictions 347
5.2.3.3 Conclusion 350
5.3 Psycholinguistic methods – Event-related brain potentials 351
5.3.1 Event-related brain potential (ERP) method 351
5.3.2 Language-related ERP components 354
5.4 ERP studies relevant for the current research questions 361
5.4.1 ERP studies related to the processing of tense/aspect morphology 362
5.4.2 Effects of morphological complexity on electrophysiological markers of grammatical processing 366
5.4.3 Grammatical illusions – Some relevant observations 368
5.4.4 Electrophysiological processing of ungrammatical sentences with two anomalies – Some relevant observations 373
5.5 Predictions for the current ERP study 375
5.6 The description of the current ERP study 383
5.6.1 The experimental design 384
5.6.2 Language material 386
5.6.3 Participants 389
5.6.4 Procedure 390
5.6.5 EEG recordings 392
5.6.6 Data processing 393
5.6.7 Data analysis 394
5.7 Results of the current ERP study and discussion 395
5.7.1 Results 395
5.7.1.1 Behavioral data 395
5.7.1.2 ERP data 399
5.7.2 Discussion 401
5.8 General discussion and conclusion 424
CHAPTER 6. Conclusions 437
References 449
Appendix 477
Appendix A. ERP study on the processing of compound futures in Polish: Experimental material 477
Appendix B. ERP study on the processing of compound futures in Polish: Grand average ERP patterns 479
Appendix C. ERP study on the processing of compound futures in Polish: Post-hoc analyses 487
Index of subjects 497