The future in the past is a
grammatical tense
In grammar, tense is a category that expresses time reference. Tenses are usually manifested by the use of specific forms of verbs, particularly in their conjugation patterns.
The main tenses found in many languages include the past, presen ...
where the time reference is in the future
with respect to
Dependent and independent variables are variables in mathematical modeling, statistical modeling and experimental sciences. Dependent variables receive this name because, in an experiment, their values are studied under the supposition or demand ...
a vantage point that is itself in the past. In
English
English usually refers to:
* English language
* English people
English may also refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England
** English national ...
, future in the past is not always considered separate tense, but rather as either a subcategory of future or past
tense and is typically used in narrations of past events:
*''John left for the front; he would not return until five years later.''
The reference point in the past is established by ''John left for the front'', and it is relative to that point that ''he would not return'' is in the future.
The future in the past may also be commonly used for
indirect speech
In linguistics, indirect speech (also reported speech or indirect discourse) is a grammatical mechanism for reporting the content of another utterance without directly quoting it. For example, the English sentence ''Jill said she was coming' ...
(''She said she would return''), and it often has a
modal aspect to its meaning.
Besides English, the future in the past is also found
in Bulgarian and a number of other languages.
Future perfect in the past
A related, and more complex, tense is the future perfect in the past, which is also known as the ''conditional perfect''. Here, an event is situated before a reference point, which in turn is in the future relative to another point in the past:
*''John left for the front; by the time he should return, the fields would have been burnt to stubble.''
See also
*
Prospective aspect
In linguistics, the prospective aspect ( abbreviated or ) is a grammatical aspect describing an event that occurs subsequent to a given reference time.Matthews, P. H. (1997) The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford University P ...
References
Bibliography
*
{{Grammatical tenses
Grammatical tenses