Future tense and narrativity
Abstract
This paper investigates the use of future tense in Latvian and Lithuanian in narratives that are located in the past. The data come from corpora of the contemporary languages as well as from folktales documented at the end of the th century. While the future is rarely used to tell a story, it does appear in certain
functions in clauses that meet all or a part of the criteria for narrative clauses. We distinguish three groups of uses, with increasing degrees of narrativity: (a) imagined and evoked scenarios, including evoking habitual actions in the past; (b) a cluster of meanings around intention, imminence, and inception; (c) functions of text organization and grounding. Purely textual functions are only found in the folktales. Furthermore, switches to future tense in Baltic folktales show similar characteristics as switches from past to present tense in Romance languages.
Keywords
future tense, narrative, narrative clause, Baltic, Latvian, Lithuanian, Latgalian
References
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Cotticelli-Kurras, Paola. 2000. Der Tempuswechsel in den litauischen Märchen. In: Jochen D. Range, ed., Aspekte baltistischer Forschung. Essen: Die Blaue Eule, 69–88.
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Daugavet, Anna & Peter Arkadiev. 2021. The perfects in Latvian and Lithuanian: A comparative study based on questionnaire and corpus data. Baltic Linguistics 12 = Studies in the TAME Domain in Baltic and Its Neighbours (thematic issue), 73–165.
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Fleischman, Suzanne. 1982. The Future in Thought and Language: Diachronic Evidence from Romance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Goffman, Erving. 1981. Forms of Talk. Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Hengeveld, Kees. 2011. The grammaticalization of tense and aspect. In: Bernd Heine & Heiko Narrog, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Grammaticalization. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 580–594.
Hill, Eugen. 2014. Using stem suppletion for semantic reconstruction: The case of Indo-European modals and East Baltic future tense formations. Indo-European Linguistics 2, 42–72.
Hinds, John. 1979. Organizational patterns in discourse. In: Talmy Givón, ed., Discourse and Syntax. New York: Academic Press, 135–157.
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Longacre, Robert E. 1979. The paragraph as a grammatical unit. In: Talmy Givón, ed., Discourse and Syntax. New York: Academic Press, 115–134.
LVG2013 = Latviešu valodas gramatika [Latvian Grammar]. Rīga: LU Latviešu valodas institūts.
MLLVG I, 1959 = Mūsdienu latviešu literārās valodas grammatika. I. Fonētika un morfoloģija [Grammar of Modern Literary Latvian I. Phonetics and morphology], ed. E. Sokols. Rīga: LPSR Zinātņu akadēmijas izdevniecība.
Rosenberger, Otto Benjamin Gottfried. 1852. Der lettischen Grammatik zweiter Theil, Syntax. Mitau.
Senn, Alfred. 1949. Verbal aspect in Germanic, Slavic, and Baltic. Language 25.4, 402–409.
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Sitchinava, Dmitri. 2013. Tipologija pljuskvamperfekta. Slavjanskij pljuskvamperfekt. [The typology of the pluperfect. The pluperfect in Slavic languages]. Moskva: Ass-Press Kniga.
Stojnova, Natal’ja. 2016. Nefutural’nye upotreblenija buduščego vremeni. Materialy dla projekta korpusnogo opisanija russkoj grammatiki. [Non-future uses of the future tense. Materials for a project of corpus description of Russian grammar]. Manuscript. http://rusgram.ru/Нефутуральные_употребления_форм_будущего_времени
Ultan, Russell. 1978. The nature of future tenses. In: Joseph H. Greenberg, ed., Universals of Human Language, Vol. III. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 83–123.
Valeckienė, Adelė. 1998. Funkcinė lietuvių kalbos gramatika [A Functional Grammar of Lithuanian]. Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidybos institutas.
Vincent, Diane & Laurent Perrin. 2009. Raconter sa journée : Des histoires de conversations dans la conversation. Revue Québécoise de Linguistique 29.1, 179–201.
Wehr, Barbara. 1984. Diskurs-Strategien im Romanischen. Ein Beitrag zur romanischen Syntax. Tübingen: Gunter Narr.
Weinrich, Harald. 1985. Tempus. Besprochene und erzählte Welt. 4. Auflage. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer [First edition 1964].
Wiemer, Björn. 1997. Diskursreferenz im Polnischen und Deutschen, aufgezeigt an der narrativen Rede ein- und zweisprachiger Schüler. München: Verlag Otto Sagner.
Wiemer, Björn. 2021. Zum Verhältnis zwischen Präsens und Futur im Litauischen: Präliminaria im Bereich sprechzeitenthobener Propositionen. In: Peter Arkadiev, Jurgis Pakerys, Inesa Šeškauskienė & Vaiva Žeimantienė, eds. Studies in Baltic and Other Languages. A Festschrift for Axel Holvoet. Vilnius: Vilniaus Universiteto Leidykla, 387–415.
Arkadiev, Peter M. 2019. The Lithuanian ‘buvo + be-present active participle’ construction revisited: A corpus-based study. Baltic Linguistics 10: Minor Grams in Baltic, Slavonic and Fennic (thematic issue), 65–108.
Benveniste, Émile. [159] 1966. Les relations de temps dans le verbe français. In: Émile Benveniste, Problèmes de linguistique générale. Paris: Éditions Gallimard, 237–250. [First published in Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique 54 (1959).]
Brugmann, Karl. 1916. Vergleichende Laut-, Stammbildungs- und Flexionslehre nebst Lehre vom Gebrauch der Wortformen der indogermanischen Sprachen = Grundriss der vergleichenden Grammatik der indogermanischen Sprachen, Band 4, Zweite Bearbeitung. Zweiter Band, Dritter Teil. Strassburg: Karl J. Trübner.
Bybee, Joan L., William Pagliuca & Revere D. Perkins. 1991. Back to the future. In: Elizabeth Closs Traugott & Bernd Heine, eds., Approaches to Grammaticalization, Vol. II. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 17–58.
Carruthers, Janice. 2005. Oral Narration in Modern French: A Linguistic Analysis of Temporal Patterns. London: Legenda. [e-book version Routledge 2017]
Comrie, Bernard. 1976. Aspect. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cotticelli-Kurras, Paola. 2000. Der Tempuswechsel in den litauischen Märchen. In: Jochen D. Range, ed., Aspekte baltistischer Forschung. Essen: Die Blaue Eule, 69–88.
Dahl, Östen. 1985. Tense and Aspect Systems. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Dahl, Östen & Viveka Velupillai. 2013. The future tense. In: Matthew S. Dryer & Martin Haspelmath, eds., The World Atlas of Language Structures Online. Leipzig: Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. (Available online at https://wals.info/chapter/67, Accessed on 2020-10-22.)
Daugavet, Anna & Peter Arkadiev. 2021. The perfects in Latvian and Lithuanian: A comparative study based on questionnaire and corpus data. Baltic Linguistics 12 = Studies in the TAME Domain in Baltic and Its Neighbours (thematic issue), 73–165.
Delbrück, Berthold. 1897. Vergleichende Syntax der indogermanischen Sprachen. Theil II. Strassburg: Karl J. Trübner 1897 = Grundriss der vergleichenden Grammatik der indogermanischen Sprachen, Band 4.
Endzelin, J[ānis]. 1923. Lettische Grammatik. Heidelberg: Winter.
Fleischman, Suzanne. 1982. The Future in Thought and Language: Diachronic Evidence from Romance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fleischman, Suzanne. 1990. Tense and Narrativity. From Medieval Performance to Modern Fiction. London: Routledge.
Fludernik, Monika. 2009. An Introduction to Narratology. Abingdon & New York: Routledge. [First published in German as Einführung in die Erzähltheorie, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2006.]
Fludernik, Monika. 2012. Narratology and literary linguistics. In: Robert I. Binnick, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Tense and Aspect. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 75–101.
Givón, Talmy. 1987. Beyond foreground and background. In: Russell Tomlin, ed., Coherence and Grounding in Discourse. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 175–188.
Goffman, Erving. 1981. Forms of Talk. Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Hengeveld, Kees. 2011. The grammaticalization of tense and aspect. In: Bernd Heine & Heiko Narrog, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Grammaticalization. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 580–594.
Hill, Eugen. 2014. Using stem suppletion for semantic reconstruction: The case of Indo-European modals and East Baltic future tense formations. Indo-European Linguistics 2, 42–72.
Hinds, John. 1979. Organizational patterns in discourse. In: Talmy Givón, ed., Discourse and Syntax. New York: Academic Press, 135–157.
Huddleston, Ronald, Geoffrey K. Pullum et al. 2002. The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hopper, Paul J. 1979. Aspect and foregrounding in discourse. In: Talmy Givón, ed., Discourse and Syntax. New York: Academic Press, 213–241.
Jablonskis, Jonas. [1922] 1997. Lietuvių kalbos gramatika [Lithuanian Grammar]. 3rd photographed edition. Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidykla.
Kalnača, Andra & Ilze Lokmane. 2021. Latvian Grammar. Riga: University of Latvia Press.
Labov, William & Joshua Waletzky. [1967] 1997. Narrative analysis: Oral versions of personal experience. Journal of Narrative and Life History 7, 3–38. [First published in Essays on the Verbal and Visual Arts: Proceedings of the 1966 Annual Spring Meeting of the American Ethnological Society. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 12–44]
LKG = Lietuvių kalbos gramatika [Grammar of the Lithuanian Language]. Vol. 2. Vilnius: Mintis, 1971
Longacre, Robert E. 1979. The paragraph as a grammatical unit. In: Talmy Givón, ed., Discourse and Syntax. New York: Academic Press, 115–134.
LVG2013 = Latviešu valodas gramatika [Latvian Grammar]. Rīga: LU Latviešu valodas institūts.
MLLVG I, 1959 = Mūsdienu latviešu literārās valodas grammatika. I. Fonētika un morfoloģija [Grammar of Modern Literary Latvian I. Phonetics and morphology], ed. E. Sokols. Rīga: LPSR Zinātņu akadēmijas izdevniecība.
Rosenberger, Otto Benjamin Gottfried. 1852. Der lettischen Grammatik zweiter Theil, Syntax. Mitau.
Senn, Alfred. 1949. Verbal aspect in Germanic, Slavic, and Baltic. Language 25.4, 402–409.
Senn, Alfred. 1966. Handbuch der litauischen Sprache. Bd. 1. Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universitätsverlag.
Sitchinava, Dmitri. 2013. Tipologija pljuskvamperfekta. Slavjanskij pljuskvamperfekt. [The typology of the pluperfect. The pluperfect in Slavic languages]. Moskva: Ass-Press Kniga.
Stojnova, Natal’ja. 2016. Nefutural’nye upotreblenija buduščego vremeni. Materialy dla projekta korpusnogo opisanija russkoj grammatiki. [Non-future uses of the future tense. Materials for a project of corpus description of Russian grammar]. Manuscript. http://rusgram.ru/Нефутуральные_употребления_форм_будущего_времени
Ultan, Russell. 1978. The nature of future tenses. In: Joseph H. Greenberg, ed., Universals of Human Language, Vol. III. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 83–123.
Valeckienė, Adelė. 1998. Funkcinė lietuvių kalbos gramatika [A Functional Grammar of Lithuanian]. Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidybos institutas.
Vincent, Diane & Laurent Perrin. 2009. Raconter sa journée : Des histoires de conversations dans la conversation. Revue Québécoise de Linguistique 29.1, 179–201.
Wehr, Barbara. 1984. Diskurs-Strategien im Romanischen. Ein Beitrag zur romanischen Syntax. Tübingen: Gunter Narr.
Weinrich, Harald. 1985. Tempus. Besprochene und erzählte Welt. 4. Auflage. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer [First edition 1964].
Wiemer, Björn. 1997. Diskursreferenz im Polnischen und Deutschen, aufgezeigt an der narrativen Rede ein- und zweisprachiger Schüler. München: Verlag Otto Sagner.
Wiemer, Björn. 2021. Zum Verhältnis zwischen Präsens und Futur im Litauischen: Präliminaria im Bereich sprechzeitenthobener Propositionen. In: Peter Arkadiev, Jurgis Pakerys, Inesa Šeškauskienė & Vaiva Žeimantienė, eds. Studies in Baltic and Other Languages. A Festschrift for Axel Holvoet. Vilnius: Vilniaus Universiteto Leidykla, 387–415.
