# future perfect used as a simple present



## friedric

Dear friends, 

  this is from the BBC:"Tony Pulis will have said to his team to go out onto the pitch with the clean sheet and come back with a clean sheet." 
 This is future perfect all right, but what confuses me is the fact it is a pundit comment made after the match! It was made by native and I assume future perfect here is used only to make "Tony Pulis before every match says to his team to go out onto the pitch with the clean sheet and come back with a clean sheet",    look more "literate"? 

Thank you


----------



## dreamlike

Hello Friedric,

I don't know if whoever said that wanted to sound more literate, might be. What I do know is that the tense in question is sometimes used to make statements sound more firm - when we believe something to happen without fail. I'd lean towards "wanting to sound emphatic" as a potential reason for using the future perfect, rather than "wanting to sound more literate".


----------



## friedric

I understand. Thank you


----------



## entangledbank

Not actually future. This is the "very likely" sense of 'will', a confident prediction: On the evidence, Tony Pulis very probably said to his team . . . If you were predicting what he's saying right now, you'd say, 'He will be saying . . .'


----------



## dreamlike

What would you call the tense used in the OP's sentence then, EGB?


----------



## Giorgio Spizzi

I'd say "Epistemic use of "will".

GS


----------



## wandle

The tense is still the future perfect, even when it expresses a prediction.
The future tense is also used for a prediction, or a judgement.

Salesman: _'Can I interest you in the new all-in-one carpet beater, poop scoop and snow shovel?'_
Householder: _'Who invited you here? Get off my doorstep, get off my property! If I ever see you again, I'll set the dogs on you.'_
Salesman:_ 'Ah. That will be a 'No', then.'_


----------



## e2efour

wandle said:


> The tense is still the future perfect, even when it expresses a prediction.
> The future tense is also used for a prediction, or a judgement.



I find this a strange way of looking at things.
There is no future or future perfect tense in the following. The model verb _will_ is in the present tense (if one wants to use _tense_).

1) A. _How much is it? B. That'll be five dollars._ (information)
2) Speaker: _I don't know anyone in the audience, but many of you_ _will have heard of me._ (_will_ = without doubt)
3) Someone rings the doorbell: _That'll be my visitor_. (prediction)

You could take the view that in the above phrases we have the form of the future or future perfect tense. But that doesn't seem satisfactory to me either since, from one point of view, there are no future tenses in English.

I don't know whether Giorgio's _epistemic _is used in this way, but something like it would explain the _will_ in the original sentence.


----------



## Chasint

This not just true of future perfect. It is true of simple future.

Example

Suppose we know that John is travelling to London by train and that his train should have arrived by now.

We can say, "By now John will be in London."


----------



## Giorgio Spizzi

Hullo.

I belong to the party of those who believe English does not have a Future Tense in the sense that other languages — Romance, in particular — have one.
Obviously, English is far better endowed than its competitors in the ways to express Futurity.
As far as the use of Modals is concerned, I'm inclined to believe they can be used in essentially three ways, although there are areas of overlapping:

_Epistemic_ (*logic:* deduction; based on the speaker's "knowledge of the world"): That'll be the postman; You must be tired; They might be at the beach; "She should be home by now"; "When will we see again?"; etc.

_Deontic_ (*moral*: duties, permissions, etc.): "Shall I help you?"; "When shall we see again?"; "You must/should be more considerate of others"; Yes, you may if you want; 

_Dynamic_ (*natural*: Subject is _naturally_ inclined to realise Predicate): "Iron will rust"; "He'll sit for hours staring at a blank wall"; "You can win the next match: I saw you all play and I was struck by your technical preparation".

GS


----------



## Einstein

So to return to the first sentence, "will have said" is a deduction, similar to "must have said", but not so strong. It's highly likely that he said this. 
We can deduce this, either because we know he always says it ("Tony Pulis before every match says to his team to go out onto the pitch with the clean sheet and come back with a clean sheet") or because we have seen how they played on this occasion.


----------



## Thomas Tompion

I wouldn't call this a prediction, because predictions concern the future, don't they?

This is saying what the speaker thinks must have happened in the past.  It's an informed guess about what happened in the past, so I don't think one should be surprised at its being said after the event.

I agree with those who are saying that _will have_ here means _very probably did_ - ie. Pulis almost certainly told his team etc.

ps. cross-posted with Einstein.


----------



## Einstein

I think we can give a future sense to this, because it means, "if we investigate, we will discover that he said ...".


----------



## e2efour

Einstein said:


> I think we can give a future sense to this, because it means, "if we investigate, we will discover that he said ...".



It means what Thomas said in post #12.
You can give anything a future senseby saying _If we investigate. _
Are you suggesting that _That'll be the milkman_ (who rings the doorbell) means _If I open the door, I will see the milkman?_


----------



## Chasint

Thomas Tompion said:


> I wouldn't call this a prediction, because predictions concern the future, don't they?
> 
> This is saying what the speaker thinks must have happened in the past. It's an informed guess about what happened in the past, so I don't think one should be surprised at its being said after the event.
> 
> I agree with those who are saying that _will have_ here means _very probably did_ - ie. Pulis almost certainly told his team etc.
> 
> ps. cross-posted with Einstein.





Einstein said:


> I think we can give a future sense to this, because it means, "if we investigate, we will discover that he said ...".





e2efour said:


> It means what Thomas said in post #12.
> You can give anything a future senseby saying _If we investigate. _
> Are you suggesting that _That'll be the milkman_ (who rings the doorbell) means _If I open the door, I will see the milkman?_


1. To be accurate, Thomas was talking about future perfect. Einstein's version is in simple future.

2. "You can give anything a future sense by saying _If we investigate" _I agree. This was an argument I entertained and discarded for that very reason.

3. "Are you suggesting that _That'll be the milkman_ (who rings the doorbell) means _If I open the door, I will see the milkman?"  _ This is a good question. I shall be interested in Einstein's answer. In the meantime my answer is that it means "[From past experience] I infer that the milkman is there."


----------



## Einstein

Biffo said:


> 1. To be accurate, Thomas was talking about future perfect. Einstein's version is in simple future.


The future perfect comes from the fact that we will find that he said "...".



Biffo said:


> 2. "You can give anything a future sense by saying _If we investigate" _I agree. This was an argument I entertained and discarded for that very reason.


Anything? Sounds far-fetched to me.



Biffo said:


> 3. "Are you suggesting that _That'll be the milkman_ (who rings the doorbell) means _If I open the door, I will see the milkman?"  _ This is a good question. I shall be interested in Einstein's answer. In the meantime my answer is that it means "[From past experience] I infer that the milkman is there."


This is a good example. If the doorbell rings and I think it's the milkman it's pretty likely that I _will _open the door and find him there!
Obviously I'm not suggesting that people go through a complete mental process of this kind every time they use "will" in this way, but I think that's the origin. Take these two examples:
1) "Why are you making so much noise?" "Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you were out". My thought: "He's out and I can make as much noise as I like".
2) "Why didn't you ring my doorbell when you were near my house?" "Oh, I thought you would be out". My thought: "If I ring his doorbell I will find that he's out".

Another example: "I didn't open the door because I thought it was the police". Here we're not talking about a future discovery; we had no intention of opening the door and were happy to stay in the house while they waited on the doorstep.

This explanation could probably be tidied up a bit more.


----------



## STINGGUY

friedric said:


> Dear friends,
> 
> this is from the BBC:"Tony Pulis will have said to his team to go out onto the pitch with the clean sheet and come back with a clean sheet."
> This is future perfect all right, but what confuses me is the fact it is a pundit comment made after the match! It was made by native and I assume future perfect here is used only to make "Tony Pulis before every match says to his team to go out onto the pitch with the clean sheet and come back with a clean sheet",    look more "literate"?
> 
> Thank you



Hi friedric,
By definition, "future perfect tense is used to talk about something that will happen before a particular time in the future". So I agree with you so far. However, my alternative sentence differs from yours: "By the time his team enters the field of play, "Tony Pulis will have said to his team to go out onto the pitch with the clean sheet and come back with a clean sheet"


----------



## kalamazoo

English doesn't have a future tense?  That aside, this usage seems quite similar to what you see in Italian or Spanish, when the future tense is used to express that something 'must have' or 'is likely to have' already happened. English uses the future perfect, rather than the simple future, to express the same idea.


----------



## dreamlike

I don't quite see why anyone should object to calling it the future perfect, given that it obviously has the form of that tense. Isn't "deduction/judgment/prediction" thing simply one of the usages of the future perfect?  Here's what Wikipedia has to say about it:



> The future perfect construction with will (like other constructions with that auxiliary) is sometimes used to refer to a confidently assumed present situation rather than a future situation, as in "He will have woken up by now."
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_perfect



Sadly, I have no time to do more reasearch and back this up with more respectable sources.


----------



## Chasint

dreamlike said:


> I don't quite see why anyone should object to calling it the future perfect, given that it obviously has the form of that tense. Isn't "deduction/judgmnent/prediction" thing simply one of the usages of the future perfect?  Here's what Wikipedia has to say about it:
> 
> The future perfect construction with will (like other constructions with that auxiliary) is sometimes used to refer to a confidently assumed present situation rather than a future situation, as in "He will have woken up by now."
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_perfect
> 
> Sadly, I have no time to do more reasearch and back this up with more respectable sources.


Thank you for finding that. Your reply sums up the whole question very neatly.


----------



## Andygc

kalamazoo said:


> English doesn't have a future tense?


Correct. There is no inflected form of any English verb which provides a future form. We use auxilary verbs to provide a future form. The simple future form uses the present tense of a modal auxiliary and a bare infinitive: I will go. That doesn't prevent this discussion from making sense, since the term "future perfect" provides a label for a particular way of describing futurity.


----------



## Chasint

Andygc said:


> Correct. There is no inflected form of any English verb which provides a future form. We use auxilary verbs to provide a future form. The simple future form uses the present tense of a modal auxiliary and a bare infinitive: I will go. That doesn't prevent this discussion from making sense, since the term "future perfect" provides a label for a particular way of describing futurity.


In fact, English has never in its known history had an inflected future. Originally the future was indicated by the present tense together with context. The verb "will" originally meant "to wish" and was co-opted  as an auxiliary verb to indicate the future.


----------



## Thomas Tompion

dreamlike said:


> I don't quite see why anyone should object to calling it the future perfect, given that it obviously has the form of that tense. Isn't "deduction/judgmnent/prediction" thing simply one of the usages of the future perfect?  Here's what Wikipedia has to say about it:
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The future perfect construction with will (like other constructions  with that auxiliary) is sometimes used to refer to a confidently assumed  present situation rather than a future situation, as in "He will have  woken up by now."
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Future_perfect
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Sadly, I have no time to do more reasearch and back this up with more respectable sources.
Click to expand...

I'd hoped we had established that the 'will have' construction in the OP is not a future perfect construction, just as 'that'll be the milkman', in the context previously mentioned, is not a future construction.

This modal use of 'will' to indicate probability is a familiar enough construction to most natives, and has been often the subject of threads, of which here is an example: future of probability ["will" indicating probability]

To suggest that this form needs justification by the agency of an imagined if-clause is fanciful and misleading, in my view.  The fact that no future meaning is implied is usually quite clear from the context.

Here, *Tony Pulis will have said to his team etc.* just means *It's almost certain that Pulis said to his team*.  

The future perfect is talking about something which will be in the past at some moment in the future: we are not considering that here at all.


----------



## Chasint

Thomas Tompion said:


> I'd hoped we had established that the 'will have' construction in the OP is not a future perfect construction...


I think this is simply an argument about terminology. The form is that of future perfect. The meaning is different from the usual version.

I agree that adding an "if" clause is completely redundant.


----------



## wandle

It seems to me erroneous to say that English has no future tense. We have a recognised future tense formed with the auxiliary 'will' or 'shall'. We use it all the time.
On the other hand, it is certainly true, and it is an interesting fact, that English has no morphological future tense, formed by altering the verb-form.

If we compare English past tenses, we have one morphological past tense (the preterite or just 'the past tense'), formed by altering the verb-form (e.g. 'did' from 'do') and two periphrastic past tenses involving the use of auxiliaries ('have done' and 'had done'). 
What we see in 'I shall do' is a periphrastic future tense and in 'I shall have done' a periphrastic future perfect.

With the past tenses, we do not deny that the present perfect or the past perfect exist, just because they are periphrastic forms. I believe we ought to be consistent with that in speaking of the future tenses.

When we use the future or future perfect to express a prediction or judgement, it seems to me there is a real future element involved in each case. We speak of 'confident prediction', but the fact is that when we say 'That will be the postman' we are not committing ourselves in the same way as when we say 'That is the postman'. Both speaker and listener understand this. 'That is the postman' implies definite knowledge (e.g. the speaker has seen a red jacket pass the window) whereas 'That will be the postman' expresses a prediction based on expectation (e.g. the postman always calls at that time).

However in either case the postman, or whoever it is, is at the door now. The sentence refers to a present situation. Where is the future element? That is contained in an implied conditional, such as 'if the facts are investigated'. The meaning is that if the case is tested, the result will prove to be as predicted. The speaker who says 'That will be the postman' is being cautious by comparison with the speaker who says 'That is the postman'. The present tense is definitive: the future tense predictive. 

Let me illustrate with *e2efour's* examples:


> 1) A. How much is it? B. That'll be five dollars.


Meaning: _'If you decide to buy, the price will be five dollars'_. With 'will be', it is expressed as an offer.
On the other hand, _'That is five dollars'_ is expressed as information.


> 2) Speaker: I don't know anyone in the audience, but many of you will have heard of me.


Meaning: _'If a survey is taken, it will be found that many of you have heard of me'_.
In this case, the speaker is using the non-committal form 'will have heard' instead of 'have heard', in order to sound less arrogant.


> 3) Someone rings the doorbell: That'll be my visitor.


See postman example above.


----------



## Chasint

wandle said:


> It seems to me erroneous to say that English has no future tense. We have a recognised future tense formed with the auxiliary 'will' or 'shall'. We use it all the time.
> On the other hand, it is certainly true, and it is an interesting fact, that English has no morphological future tense, formed by altering the verb-form...


Isn't this again simply a question of terminology? We must surely check to see if 'future tense' is generally accepted to mean what you call 'morphological future tense'.  Here is the Wordrefence definition. 
*tense* /tɛns/n

a category of the verb or verbal inflections, such as present, past, and future, that expresses the temporal relations between what is reported in a sentence and the time of its utterance
How do we interpret "category of the verb? I'm not sure.




wandle said:


> ...With the past tenses, we do not deny that the present perfect or the past perfect exist, just because they are periphrastic forms. I believe we ought to be consistent with that in speaking of the future tenses...


I think you will find that some people will deny that Present Perfect refers to the past. I can't find the thread that discussed this. Maybe also those people say that only simple past is a true tense. Let us see.




wandle said:


> ...When we use the future or future perfect to express a prediction or judgement, it seems to me there is a real future element involved in each case. We speak of 'confident prediction', but the fact is that when we say 'That will be the postman' we are not committing ourselves in the same way as when we say 'That is the postman'. Both speaker and listener understand this. 'That is the postman' implies definite knowledge (e.g. the speaker has seen a red jacket pass the window) whereas 'That will be the postman' expresses a prediction based on expectation (e.g. the postman always calls at that time).
> 
> However in either case the postman, or whoever it is, is at the door now. The sentence refers to a present situation. Where is the future element? That is contained in an implied conditional, such as 'if the facts are investigated'. The meaning is that if the case is tested, the result will prove to be as predicted. The speaker who says 'That will be the postman' is being cautious by comparison with the speaker who says 'That is the postman'. The present tense is definitive: the future tense predictive.
> ...


So you say that "That will be the postman" is equivalent to "That will prove to be the postman" ?  I disagree. I think it is equivalent to "That will prove to have been the postman." which seems to me to be past in the future (although I'm not certain of the correct terms).  If that is so then I disagree because past in the future in this case equates to 'now'.

EDITING - adding a final comment (now superseded by e2efour's post.


----------



## e2efour

1) _A. How much is it? B. That'll be five dollars._
This is not an offer. The person has already agreed to buy it and is just checking the price. Where is the future in this?
2) _Speaker: I don't know anyone in the audience, but many of you will have heard of me._
Who said anything about a survey? I find that a very strange concept, which would certainly not occur to a speaker.
3) _Someone rings the doorbell: That'll be my visitor._
This means _That is almost certainly my visitor_. No future there!

I find this reference to future actions where there is clearly no future absurd.

Take, for example, the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BC. We might say about this _On the day of his murder, Caesar will not have been expecting to die in this way.
_How on earth can _will_ refer to the future in this sentence?


----------



## Chasint

e2efour said:


> 1) _A. How much is it? B. That'll be five dollars._
> This is not an offer. The person has already agreed to buy it and is just checking the price. Where is the future in this?
> 2) _Speaker: I don't know anyone in the audience, but many of you will have heard of me._
> Who said anything about a survey? I find that a very strange concept, which would certainly not occur to a speaker.
> 3) _Someone rings the doorbell: That'll be my visitor._
> This means _That is almost certainly my visitor_. No future there!
> 
> I find this reference to future actions where there is clearly no future absurd.
> ...


My final point was to have been this one.


----------



## Chasint

e2efour said:


> ...Take, for example, the assassination of Julius Caesar in 44 BC. We might say about this _On the day of his murder, Caesar will not have been expecting to die in this way.
> _How on earth can _will_ refer to the future in this sentence?


I disagree. This should read,  _On the day of his murder, Caesar *would* not have been expecting to die in this way._


----------



## e2efour

You may disagree, but there's nothing wrong with it. 
It's just a way of commenting on the past, writing in the historical present, e.g. _When Caesar wakes up on the Ides of March, he will not have been expecting ...

_Take, for example, the following (written by a Professor of Greek Culture -- Cartledge: Thermopylae, 2011):
"David himself had strong homoerotic proclivities, and he will surely not have been unaware of this key dimension of ancient Spartan social life..." (http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...v=onepage&q="HE WILL NOT HAVE BEEN *"&f=false).


----------



## thegreathoo

It is very confusing to read term "will" used in past tense like that.   I can understand the use of "will have + past tense" for immediate past, like: She will have called by now, something is wrong.


----------



## Chasint

e2efour said:


> You may disagree, but there's nothing wrong with it.
> It's just a way of commenting on the past, writing in the historical present, e.g. _When Caesar wakes up on the Ides of March, he will not have been expecting ...
> 
> _Take, for example, the following (written by a Professor of Greek Culture -- Cartledge: Thermopylae, 2011):
> "David himself had strong homoerotic proclivities, and he will surely not have been unaware of this key dimension of ancient Spartan social life..." (http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...v=onepage&q="HE WILL NOT HAVE BEEN *"&f=false).


"Had" is simple past, not historical present. The professor has mixed his tenses. I'm shocked.

__________________________________________________________________
Notes

1. Being a professor does not bring immunity from error. I was taught by a maths professor who pronounced 'contiguous' as 'contigious'. I always meant to correct him but, to my erternal shame I never did.
2. I'm not so much shocked as disappointed. What professors say is transmitted to generations of students. Errors can propagate that way. Incidentally that's why I'm ashamed that I did not correct the professor of my acquaintance.
3. The professor mentioned by e2efour could use historical present "has...will" or simple past "had...would".  I find that his sentence jars when I read it.


----------



## dreamlike

Thomas Tompion said:


> I'd hoped we had established that the 'will have' construction in the OP is not a future perfect construction, just as 'that'll be the milkman', in the context previously mentioned, is not a future construction.


I think one needs to come to terms with the fact that it is, in fact, a future perfect construction, at least as far as its form is concerned. The rest is disputable. Personally, I have no strong opinion about whether or not this can be said to be one of the usages of future perfect, as the Wiki article I've linked to on the previous page claims. I would be most interested to know what grammarians make of that.


----------



## Thomas Tompion

dreamlike said:


> I think one needs to come to terms with the fact that it is, in fact, a future perfect construction, at least as far as its form is concerned. The rest is disputable. Personally, I have no strong opinion about whether or not this can be said to be one of the usages of future perfect, as the Wiki article I've linked to on the previous page claims. I would be most interested to know what grammarians make of that.


Future perfects have a future element, Dreamlike.

I'm not going to accept as a future perfect a verb form without a future element.  I'd regard it as wrong to do so.


----------



## dreamlike

Thomas Tompion said:


> Future perfects have a future element, Dreamlike.
> 
> I'm not going to accept as a future perfect a verb form without a future element.  I'd regard it as wrong to do so.


But are we in agreeement that the form is identical to that of future perfect? Yes, future perfect without a future element would be one of the biggest oddities I've ever seen in English, that's why I said I'd be interested to find out what grammarians make of that.


----------



## e2efour

_A. Is she still in Paris? B. She will have left Paris yesterday. _(an inference)
Is there a future element in this "future perfect"?


----------



## wandle

What is the difference between speaker B who says _'She will have left Paris yesterday'_ and speaker C who says _'She left Paris yesterday'_?
Speaker C is claiming to know for a fact that the lady had departed the metropolis the day before.

Speaker B, on the other hand, is not claiming factual knowledge. The meaning is:
_ 'When the facts come to be known, it will prove to be the case that she left Paris yesterday'. _

The speaker is drawing a cheque on the bank of future knowledge: if his account is in credit (that is, if his prediction is true), the cheque will be honoured (that is, the facts will confirm it); otherwise, not. At present, however, the factual resolution is still in the future.


----------



## e2efour

_She will have left Paris yesterday_ would be analysed by one grammarian (Palmer) as a "reasonable conclusion". In other words, it means _We can reasonably conclude that that she left Paris yesterday. _Where is the future there? This use of the "future perfect" (known as the_ epistemic will_) locates the event prior to when it is said, i.e. *in the past*.

I am mystified as to why you insist on talking about the future when 

a) there is no future tense in English, except in traditional grammar;

b) the _will _is an example of modality here, not a marker of time; and

c) "The future perfect is a verb form or construction used to describe an event that is expected or  planned to happen before a time of 
    reference *in the future*, such as _will have finished_ in 'will have finished by tomorrow.' It is a grammatical combination of the *future*
    tense, or other marking of *future time*, and the perfect, a grammatical aspect that views an event as prior and completed." 
(Wikipedia, bold added)​ 
The sentence in question is clearly not an example of the future perfect, as defined in c).


----------



## wandle

e2efour said:


> _She will have left Paris yesterday_ would be analysed by one grammarian (Palmer) as a "reasonable conclusion".


I would call that a semantic interpretation rather than a grammatical analysis. I do not agree that the statement '_She will have left Paris yesterday_' is a conclusion, except in a provisional sense. It is recognised by both hearer and listener as being subject to confirmation once the facts become known. The prediction here is of what will prove to be the case when the facts are known. That is the future element. The time of the presumed leaving of Paris is prior to the resolution of the issue, as well as to the statement itself. Thus both the future and past elements are present.


> a) there is no future tense in English, except in traditional grammar;


Personally, I do not feel ready to discard the future tense, as I use it all the time.


> b) the will is an example of modality here, not a marker of time;


The prediction and its resolution provide the future element here, but I doubt whether the time and modal elements of 'will' and 'shall' can be totally separated, even in such a clear example of the future tense as _'In ten minutes' time it will be three o'clock'_.


> c) "The future perfect is ... a grammatical combination of the future tense ... and the perfect, a grammatical aspect that views an event as prior and completed."


That is right: the future element 'will' expresses the prediction which will later be confirmed or falsified and the perfect element 'have left' means that the purported event, if it happened, was completed prior to the statement being made.


----------



## e2efour

Compare Huddleston & Pullum (Student's Introduction to English Grammar): 
"There are some languages that have a three-term tense system contrasting past, present and future. Contrary to what is traditionally assumed, English is not one of these; it has no future tense." The most basic way of referring to the future is through the use of _will_. "Nonetheless, _will_ belongs grammatically and semantically with the auxiliaries that mark mood rather than with the various markers of tense." 

The authors describe the sentence _She will have left Paris yesterday _as an inference.
In it "_will_ is used...with the situation located in the past, and the difference between [the sentence] and [_She left Paris yesterday_]is clearly one of modality, not time_._" 

You talk about "what will prove to be the case when the facts are known". Where does this spring from? You appear to be playing with words for the sole purpose of introducing the use of _will_ as a marker of the future.

What is you don't understand about the Wikipedia definition of the future perfect ("used to describe an event that is expected or  planned to happen before a time of reference in the future, such as _will have finished_ in _will have finished by tomorrow_.")?

You appear to reject this definition by interpreting the _will_ in the Paris sentence as a marker of the future, which indisputably it is not.


----------



## wandle

e2efour said:


> Compare Huddleston & Pullum (Student's Introduction to English Grammar):  "There are some languages that have a three-term tense system contrasting past, present and future. Contrary to what is traditionally assumed, English is not one of these; it has no future tense."


If this refers to morphology, I agree:


wandle said:


> it is certainly true, and it is an interesting fact, that English has no morphological future tense, formed by altering the verb-form.





e2efour said:


> The most basic way of referring to the future is through the use of will.


Here again, I sense harmony:


wandle said:


> We have a recognised future tense formed with the auxiliary 'will' or 'shall'.





e2efour said:


> "Nonetheless, will belongs grammatically and semantically with the auxiliaries that mark mood rather than with the various markers of tense."


Does that mean that 'will be' in the sentence _'It will be Monday tomorrow'_ is not expressing a future time?
If so, I must disagree. On the other hand, if we accept that 'will be' is a verbal phrase which expresses a future time, then that means that 'will be' is a future tense.


e2efour said:


> The authors describe the sentence _She will have left Paris yesterday_ as an inference.


That is a semantic point rather than a grammatical analysis. We can tell that it is an inference from observing people's behaviour, but this leaves the grammatical point untouched.


e2efour said:


> In it "will is used...with the situation located in the past, and the difference between [the sentence] and [She left Paris yesterday]is clearly one of modality, not time."


I do not agree that an element of modality excludes an element of time, or vice versa. On the contrary, it seems to me that the two elements overlap in the future tense, since every use of the future tense is a prediction and there is always some uncertainty in human prediction. We cannot be so definite about the future as about the past.
H & P seem to show some recognition of this when they say


> "will belongs grammatically and semantically with the auxiliaries that mark mood rather than with the various markers of tense."


What I disagree with is the suggestion that expression of mood and expression of time cannot be performed by the same word or phrase. 'Will' or 'shall' can and do express both.


e2efour said:


> What is you don't understand about the Wikipedia definition of the future perfect ...? ... You appear to reject this definition ...


On the contrary, I accept that Wikipedia definition of the future perfect:


> "The future perfect is ... a grammatical combination of the future tense ... and the perfect, a grammatical aspect that views an event as prior and completed."


It is H & P who appear not to accept it, because they deny the existence of a future tense.

I cannot doubt that 'will' in the Paris sentence refers to future time.
_'She will have left Paris yesterday'_ means _'It will [when the facts come out] prove to be the case that she left Paris yesterday'_. This is a prediction.
Similarly, _'She may have left Paris yesterday'_ means _'It is possible [if the facts allow it] that she left Paris yesterday'_. This is an hypothesis.

In each case, the auxiliary verb is expressing an idea which is logically separable from the basic semantic concept (departure), though in English we habitually lump the two elements together for brevity of expression.

To sum up: mood and time, or modality and tense, are not mutually exclusive: the English periphrastic future tense with 'shall' or 'will' expresses both.


----------



## e2efour

Do you think that _I think he is in New York_ (or _He will be in New York__, _using _epistemic will_) is an example of the future tense?
After all we can't say definitely that he is here until we have made enquiries or have gone there and seen him in person, which is a process in the future? 
According to your reasoning, this should make _he is_ an example of the "future tense" or locate his presence there in the future.


----------



## wandle

Those are two different sentences, one using the future tense, the other not. The one with the future predicts what will be found to be true if or when the facts become known. The other simply expresses an opinion. Neither commits the speaker to a factual assertion that the person is in New York but I would say that, of the two, predicting what the future will show conveys a higher degree of confidence.


----------



## e2efour

1) He will be in New York (e.g. next week). [future]
2) He will be in New York (response to Where is he?) [epistemic _will_, definitely *not* future].

So do you make no distinction between these sentences and would call both examples of the future tense? 
If so, you leave me at a loss for words.


----------



## wandle

Both employ the future tense, but with different meanings.
Both are predictions. Telling the difference between them depends on context. 
The former predicts the person's future location: the latter predicts where the future will show his present location to be.


----------



## Chasint

wandle said:


> ...
> The former predicts the person's future location: the latter predicts where the future will show his present location to be.


Although the idea of prediction in the second case appealed to me at first, I can no longer accept it. There are too many stumbling blocks.

Example

Some amateurs are firing a model rocket in the desert. The rocket has no communication system and no way of recording its movements.

John: _The rocket is out of view. Where will it be right now?_

Jim:_ Right now I imagine it will be at an altitude of 30,000 feet._

Even if they find the rocket when it lands, at what point can John's 'prediction' be verified?


----------



## friedric

Thank you for joining the conversation STINGGUY, but you are missing the point. I am not looking to rephrase what a football pundit has said after the match. The pundit happen to be a former footballer and since footballers are not thought the most literate of men, I am still waiting for the verdict - is his usage in this case correct or not.


----------



## Schimmelreiter

Biffo said:


> Even if they find the rocket when it lands, at what point can John's 'prediction' be verified?


wandle explained a linguistic concept. Unlike in natural science, it is not disproved if it is not applicable to every practical case. But even in your case, satellite imagery might help out.


If I understand wandle correctly,


friedric said:


> Tony Pulis will have said to his team to go out onto the pitch with the clean sheet and come back with a clean sheet.


is a prediction that will, in hindsight, be potentially verifiable. This does not require it necessarily to be practically verifiable.


----------



## Thomas Tompion

friedric said:


> Thank you for joining the conversation STINGGUY, but you are missing the point. I am not looking to rephrase what a football pundit has said after the match. The pundit happen to be a former footballer and since footballers are not thought the most literate of men, I am still waiting for the verdict - is his usage in this case correct or not.


You've been told very clearly by some of us that his usage is entirely correct.

If you are waiting for a consensus, Friedric, you will wait in vain.


----------



## Chasint

Schimmelreiter said:


> wandle explained a linguistic concept. Unlike in natural science, it is not disproved if it is not applicable to every practical case. But even in your case, satellite imagery might help out...


My point is precisely that he did not explain a linguistic concept. He clearly said 





> the latter predicts where the future *will show his present location to be*.


He was the one appealing to science not I.  (I realise that your reference to satellites is humorous so I won't answer that unless you want me to )


----------



## Loob

Oh, frevvens sake!

Two sensible options:
(1) There is no future tense in English. "Will" (and "shall") have several uses: one of them is to indicate futurity.
(2) There is a future tense in English, formed by "will"/"shall".  However, both "will" and "shall" have other uses.

 One nonsensical option:

~ all uses of _will/shall_ indicate futurity.

I'm sorry, wandle - I disagree with you 100%!


----------



## wandle

Loob said:


> ~ all uses of _will/shall_ indicate futurity.


Who said that? (First appearance: post 51).


----------



## wandle

Biffo said:


> My point is precisely that he did not explain a linguistic concept. He clearly said
> 
> 
> wandle said:
> 
> 
> 
> the latter predicts where the future will show his present location to be.
> 
> 
> 
> He was the one appealing to science not I.
Click to expand...

*Schimmelreiter* is correct. The issue is whether the sentence is a prediction, not whether it can be verified. A prediction is just a sentence expressing an idea. Whether that sentence is a prediction or not is a linguistic point, which depends upon the words used. If the form of words makes it a prediction, then it is a prediction, even if it is impossible to verify.


----------



## friedric

Thomas Tompion said:


> You've been told very clearly by some of us that his usage is entirely correct.
> 
> If you are waiting for a consensus, Friedric, you will wait in vain.



Now when you mentioned it, I understand that I did expect a consensus. I have read your first answer and found it very useful, although nobody dare to challenge it nor second it . 
 Thank you all


----------



## Chasint

wandle said:


> *Schimmelreiter* is correct. The issue is whether the sentence is a prediction, not whether it can be verified. A prediction is just a sentence expressing an idea. Whether that sentence is a prediction or not is a linguistic point, which depends upon the words used. If the form of words makes it a prediction, then it is a prediction, even if it is impossible to verify.


Thanks for that clarification. 

The statement you have just made is different from what you said before. I respectfully submit that it was you who raised the idea of verification when you said "where the future will show" #45 

Addressing your linguistic point, you say, "If the form of words makes it a prediction, then it is a prediction."   I detect a hint of tautology there but also a flaw. You assume that the form of words can make it a prediction. However that is what is being argued about. You cannot assume the very thing you want to prove. I say that the form of words does not make it a pre-diction - it just makes it a diction.*

_______________________________________________________________
*
*diction* /ˈdɪkʃən/n

the choice and use of words in writing or speech http://www.wordreference.com/definition/diction


----------



## wandle

Biffo said:


> The statement you have just made is different from what you said before.


My position has not changed. 


> I respectfully submit that it was you who raised the idea of verification when you said "where the future will show" #45


That is just a matter of logic. The very idea of a prediction implies the possibility of verification: but the words of a prediction cannot make the verification come about.

Whether a sentence is a prediction does indeed depend upon the form of words used, just as it does whether it is a question.

A sentence in the form of a prediction implies logically the possibility of verification. In the same way, a sentence in the form of a question implies logically the possibility of an answer. This consequence is simply the logical outcome of the sentence form.

However, it is an entirely separate issue whether there is in fact any verification of a prediction, or any answer to a question. This is a matter of fact, not logic. Just as there can be questions to which no answer is possible, there can be predictions of which no verification is possible. 

The proposition that a sentence is a prediction depends on the form of words used, not on whether it is verified, or verifiable.


----------



## Thomas Tompion

Predictions have to be about the future.


----------



## wandle

Thomas Tompion said:


> Predictions have to be about the future.


That does not prevent them also referring to the present or the past, as in the usage we are considering.

That is to say that a prediction such as 'That will be the postman' contains both a future element and also a reference to the present state of affairs.


----------



## Thomas Tompion

My point was, of course, that 'That will be the postman' is not a prediction, because it contains no future element.

It means 'That is almost certainly the postman'.


----------



## wandle

My point is that there is a future element, the sense being: 'That will [turn out to] be the postman'.


wandle said:


> when we say 'That will be the postman' we are not committing ourselves in the same way as when we say 'That is the postman'. Both speaker and listener understand this. 'That is the postman' implies definite knowledge (e.g. the speaker has seen a red jacket pass the window) whereas 'That will be the postman' expresses a prediction based on expectation (e.g. the postman always calls at that time).
> 
> However in either case the postman, or whoever it is, is at the door now. The sentence refers to a present situation. Where is the future element? That is contained in an implied conditional, such as 'if the facts are investigated'. The meaning is that if the case is tested, the result will prove to be as predicted. The speaker who says 'That will be the postman' is being cautious by comparison with the speaker who says 'That is the postman'. The present tense is definitive: the future tense predictive.


----------



## Loob

wandle said:


> My point is that there is a future element, the sense being: 'That will [turn out to] be the postman'.


I agree with TT.

There is no future element in "That'll be the postman."

There is, equally, no future element in friedric's (post 1) "Tony Pulis will have said to his team...".

Both are deductions - or, if you prefer, inferences - based on available information.  Neither is a prediction.


----------



## wandle

We seem to be in danger of arriving at the point of assertion and counter-assertion.
However, I believe I have offered something more: the explanation in post 25 of how the concept of a prediction applies here. 

On the other hand, nobody has offered an explanation of how 'will' can refer to present or past in the usage we are considering.
It is said to be a modal use: but that is just a phrase, a couple of words; it is not an explanation. 

The future tense is regularly used for prediction. As far as I know, there is no way for 'will' to refer to the past except as a prediction of what the past will turn out on investigation to have been.


----------



## Loob

"Will" can certainly refer to times other than the future.  I thought you accepted that in your post 52....


----------



## wandle

I avoided referring to the past there and elsewhere. 'I will this heirloom to my grandson' is a present usage of 'will'.
I do not know of any past usage.


----------



## Loob

wandle said:


> ...I do not know of any past usage.


Well, friedric's (post 1) "Tony Pulis will have said to his team..." refers to a deduction in the present about an activity in the past. 

But I'll stop there, wandle, and let you have the last word.


----------



## wandle

Loob said:


> Well, friedric's (post 1) "Tony Pulis will have said to his team..." refers to a deduction in the present about an activity in the past.


That is the instance under discussion, where I have explained the usage as a prediction of what the past will turn out to have been.

However, (a) no one has explained how 'will' can refer to the past other than as a prediction of that kind and (b) no one has offered an example of any other way in which 'will' can refer to the past. I do not believe it can.


> But I'll stop there, wandle, and let you have the last word.


I am not looking for that (why would it matter?); in fact, I am inviting others to offer words of explanation or illustration as mentioned, namely (a) and (b).


----------



## Chasint

wandle said:


> ... no one has offered an example of any other way in which 'will' can refer to the past...


Allow me.

First we have to agree that "will" is the present tense of a defective verb.
In order for it to refer to the past we must put the verb into the past, just as we do with any verb.
The past tense of "will" is "would."

Example

Who was that who came to the door half an hour ago?
That would have been the postman.


----------



## wandle

Biffo said:


> That would have been the postman.


That is an example of 'would'. 

The claim has been made that 'will' - in the form 'will' - refers to the past.
However, (a) no one has explained how it could do so, except as a prediction of what the past will turn out to have been; and (b) no one has offered any example of any other way in which 'will' can refer to the past.


----------



## Chasint

wandle said:


> That is an example of 'would'.
> 
> The claim has been made that 'will' - in the form 'will' - refers to the past.
> However, (a) no one has explained how it could do so, except as a prediction of what the past will turn out to have been; and (b) no one has offered any example of any other way in which 'will' can refer to the past.


Are you seriously saying that "would" is not an aspect of the verb "will"?

*will* /wɪl/vb (* past would*)
takes an infinitive without *to or an implied infinitive*:
http://www.wordreference.com/definition/would

You ask for a verb to apply to the past and you don't allow us to use its past tense?

In that case I offer you a challenge: Pick any verb and use it to refer to the past without using the past tense.


----------



## e2efour

I would not choose _would_, but rather _That will have been the postman. _(meaning_ was very likely the postman_)

Since Wandle will no doubt claim (and I see that he has!) that this means_ That will turn out to have been the postman_, perhaps a better example of location in the past is what the judge said at the Old Bailey:_

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, you will have heard Mr. Rumpole's objection. _(Rumpole being a fictional defence attorney/counsel)

The meaning is_ You will no doubt have heard his objection.
_


----------



## e2efour

On what evidence do you base this remark? You must (or ought to) be aware that the use of _will_ is common in such sentences.

The use of _would_ is a conditional, which is not quite the same meaning.


----------



## Chasint

e2efour said:


> On what evidence do you base this remark? You must (or ought to) be aware that the use of _will_ is common in such sentences.
> 
> The use of _would_ is a conditional, which is not quite the same meaning.


I'm reconsidering because you are right. The expression is used that way. I shall retire for the night and return tomorrow with a fresh mind.

____________________________________________________ 
Note: My deletion crossed with your answer.


----------



## e2efour

You might also like to read a Language Log article at http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=5112.


----------



## Thomas Tompion

wandle said:


> [...]On the other hand, nobody has offered an explanation of how 'will' can refer to present or past in the usage we are considering.
> It is said to be a modal use: but that is just a phrase, a couple of words; it is not an explanation.


A couple of words can point at an explanation, of course.

Here are a few more words (quoted from E2E4's Language Log link) to explain my point: "the _will_ here indicates epistemic modality rather than future time",


----------



## wandle

e2efour said:


> You might also like to read a Language Log article at http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=5112.


The most revealing observation on that page comes in the comments (timed at 9.32 am and 4.49 pm respectively) which point out that the future tense is used in the same way in Italian and Spanish. 

Since those are languages which do not use auxiliary verbs to express mood, but rely on separate morphological forms of the verb for that purpose, there is no doubt that it is the future tense which is being used. The second comment cites a grammar which describes the usage as the 'suppositional future'.

Given this parallelism between English and other languages belonging to the Indo-European family, since it can hardly be explained as the result of the English auxiliary construction influencing Italian or Spanish morphology, the existence of this usage in English strikes me as a good piece of evidence that English has a future tense.


----------



## wandle

Thomas Tompion said:


> A couple of words can point at an explanation, of course.
> 
> Here are a few more words (quoted from E2E4's Language Log link) to explain my point: "the _will_ here indicates epistemic modality rather than future time",


The unanswered question is how it can do so.


----------



## Thomas Tompion

wandle said:


> The unanswered question is how it can do so.


But you've been denying that it did so.


----------



## friedric

Loob said:


> I agree with TT.
> 
> There is no future element in "That'll be the postman."
> 
> There is, equally, no future element in friedric's (post 1) "Tony Pulis will have said to his team...".
> 
> Both are deductions - or, if you prefer, inferences - based on available information.  Neither is a prediction.



If I am allowed. If I understood it correctly - the pundit, talking  about the match that just finished, gives a verdict about the one of  manager`s tactic, saying (in my opinion) "here is the manager who before  every match tells his players to park a bus in front of their  goalmouth". So, what the pundit says refers to future more than to the game that just ended. 
 In  my opinion, using future perfect when refering to a past event is not  correct, and can be used that way only if english speakers agree that. I  know it is irrelevant, but I will be leaning with those who think  "would" should be used when talking about past events.


----------



## Thomas Tompion

friedric said:


> If I am allowed. If I understood it correctly - the pundit, talking  about the match that just finished, gives a verdict about the one of  manager`s tactic, saying (in my opinion) "here is the manager who before  every match tells his players to park a bus in front of their  goalmouth". So, what the pundit says refers to future more than to the game that just ended.
> In  my opinion, using future perfect when refering to a past event is not  correct, and can be used that way only if english speakers agree that. I  know it is irrelevant, but I will be leaning with those who think  "would" should be used when talking about past events.


This is not, of course, what most of us have been telling you, Friedric.


----------



## Loob

friedric said:


> ...
> In  my opinion, using future perfect when refering to a past event is not  correct, and can be used that way only if english speakers agree that. I  know it is irrelevant, but I will be leaning with those who think  "would" should be used when talking about past events.


The football pundit is telling us what, in his view, the manager probably did before the match that has just ended.  His "Tony Pulis will have said to his team..." is quite correct - though my impression, from previous threads, is that this use of "will" for deductions/inferences is less common in American English than it is in British English.


----------



## friedric

Thomas Tompion said:


> This is not, of course, what most of us have been telling you, Friedric.



 What you have said in your first comment completely makes sense. Every language has it own curiosities. The thing is I don`t like this one and since there are people who feel same, I assert my idea that football pundits should be more literate.


----------



## wandle

Thomas Tompion said:


> But you've been denying that it did so.


I have never denied the presence or the operation of a modal element:


wandle said:


> The prediction and its resolution provide the future element here, but I doubt whether the time and modal elements of 'will' and 'shall' can be totally separated, even in such a clear example of the future tense as _'In ten minutes' time it will be three o'clock'_.


I have pointed out that that this usage of the future or the future perfect is non-committal compared with a present or past tense.

 Thus (a) 'Tony Pulis will have said *x*' is non-committal: it is presented as subject to confirmation (it means: 'I predict that, when the facts are known, it will be found that Tony Pulis said *x*'); the writer thus admits that he does not have definite knowledge. He has consciously left himself an escape clause in case it transpires later that Pulis did not say *x*.

On the other hand, (b) 'Tony Pulis said *x*' is directly committal: it implies that the writer knows for a fact that he said it; coming from a sports reporter, it implies that he has heard it from a reliable witness, or perhaps a recording. The reporter has consciously left himself no escape clause. 

My position is: (1) that modal and temporal meanings often, perhaps always, come together in the future tense; (2) that the presence of one meaning is no ground for saying the other is absent; (3) that the future element here consists of a prediction of what the past or present state of affairs will prove to be in the light of full knowledge or complete analysis; (4) that the past or present element consists of the state of affairs to which the prediction applies; (5) that it is only because we can read the future or future perfect tense as a prediction (perhaps better in this case: 'a virtual prediction') that we are able to link the use of 'will' to the past or present element of the meaning; (6) that the existence of the 'suppositional future' in other languages of the Indo-European family goes to confirm that the parallel English usage employs the future tense.

When I say that the question of how the modal element can work is unanswered, I mean it is unanswered by those who deny the predictive meaning of 'will', since no one has explained how 'will' can refer to a past or present state of affairs in instances such as the topic sentence, or given an example of 'will' referring to the past in other contexts. Saying it is a case of 'epistemic modality' is just sticking a patch of jargon on the problem without explaining it.


----------



## Loob

friedric said:


> ... Every language has it own curiosities. The thing is I don`t like this one and since there are people who feel same, I assert my idea that football pundits should be more literate.


 I don't think anyone has suggested that the commentator's "Tony Pulis will have said to his team..." is illiterate, friedric.  The usage is both natural and grammatical.  

The disagreement in this thread has been about how to describe it, not whether it's acceptable.


----------



## JamesM

wandle said:


> When I say that the question of how the modal element can work is unanswered, I mean it is unanswered by those who deny the predictive meaning of 'will', since no one has explained how 'will' can refer to a past or present state of affairs in instances such as the topic sentence, or given an example of 'will' referring to the past in other contexts. Saying it is a case of 'epistemic modality' is just sticking a patch of jargon on the problem without explaining it.



This is an interesting thread.  I'll take a whack at it. 

If the doorbell rings and I say: "Ah!  That will be the postman.  He always comes at this time.", do I mean that it isn't the postman in the present but it will be the postman in the future?  My answer would be no.  I am stating a supposition that I believe has a strong likelihood of being true.  

Someone standing by the window might be able to see that it is Aunt Maude and not the postman.  That doesn't mean I still have a chance of being correct in my supposition down the road.  In other words, it's a statement about the present, not the future.  The response from the person by the window would be "No, it *is* Aunt Maude."


----------



## Thomas Tompion

And when the shop assistant says to you 'That will be twenty pounds, please', she doesn't expect to be paid next year.


----------



## Thomas1

wandle said:


> [...]
> When we use the future or future perfect to express a prediction or judgement, it seems to me there is a real future element involved in each case. We speak of 'confident prediction', but the fact is that when we say 'That will be the postman' we are not committing ourselves in the same way as when we say 'That is the postman'. Both speaker and listener understand this. 'That is the postman' implies definite knowledge (e.g. the speaker has seen a red jacket pass the window) whereas 'That will be the postman' expresses a prediction based on expectation (e.g. the postman always calls at that time).
> 
> However in either case the postman, or whoever it is, is at the door now. The sentence refers to a present situation. Where is the future element? That is contained in an implied conditional, such as 'if the facts are investigated'. The meaning is that if the case is tested, the result will prove to be as predicted. The speaker who says 'That will be the postman' is being cautious by comparison with the speaker who says 'That is the postman'. The present tense is definitive: the future tense predictive.
> [...]





wandle said:


> [...]
> My position is: [...] (6) that the existence of the 'suppositional future' in other languages of the Indo-European family goes to confirm that the parallel English usage employs the future tense.
> [...]



Your explanation sounds logical to me. I'd only like to add that Polish can also express the sentence about the postman (I quoted only the parts about it from your contributions) using its future tense; not the one in the OP, though (we don't have a formal equivalent of the English future perfect in Polish).


----------



## JamesM

I think the key point is that is a statement about an event _in the present._  We are not saying "the postman will arrive in 10 minutes" which then will either come to pass or will not.  Someone has already arrived. It's not a prediction, it's a _presumption._  They are two different things.  It is very similar to "I presume that the person at the front door is the postman."


----------



## Chasint

JamesM said:


> I think the key point is that is a statement about an event _in the present._  We are not saying "the postman will arrive in 10 minutes" which then will either come to pass or will not.  Someone has already arrived. It's not a prediction, it's a _presumption._  They are two different things.  It is very similar to "I presume that the person at the front door is the postman."


Yes, that makes absolute sense to me. To consolidate my support for this I came up with the following:

Prediction: 
_Who will be at the door next?_
_*It will be the postman.*_

Presumption:
_Who is at the door right now?_
*It will be the postman.
*
Note that the response uses precisely the same words in both cases. The context provided by the question is what changes the meaning from prediction to presumption.

__________________________________________________
Note
I think the similarity of the two examples given above, provides a clue as to how the 'presumptive' meaning may have evolved from the 'predictive'.


----------



## JamesM

To give another example:

A: "Call Mr. Smith back to the office.  We need to finish this paperwork tonight!"
B: "He left an hour ago!  He will be halfway home by now.  Can't someone else help us?"

It makes no sense to me that a prediction could be followed by "by now".  Speaker B is presuming his current location, not his future location.


----------



## Chasint

JamesM said:


> To give another example:
> 
> A: "Call Mr. Smith back to the office.  We need to finish this paperwork tonight!"
> B: "He left an hour ago!  He will be halfway home by now.  Can't someone else help us?"
> 
> It makes no sense to me that a prediction could be followed by "by now".  Speaker B is presuming his current location, not his future location.


Although I agreed before, I don't agree this time. I concur that the use of "will" in this example is not a prediction but I don't think your reasoning proves it. 

Consider this example.

_He will prove to have been halfway home by now._

The above is clearly a prediction but still uses "by now".  There is no contradiction. 

To repeat: I agree with your conclusion but not with how you reached it on this particular occasion.


----------



## wandle

Thomas1 said:


> Your explanation sounds logical to me. I'd only like to add that Polish also can express the sentence about the postman (I quoted only the parts about it from your contributions) using its future tense. Not the one in the OP, though (we don't have a formal equivalent of the English future perfect in Polish).


That is interesting: another European language using the future in this way, helping to confirm that what we are dealing with is a genuine usage of the future tenses in English. This is also indicated by the fact that in English we can equally well say, _'That is going to be the postman'_.

There is no reason why a prediction should not apply to a situation which exists in present time, but is still undetermined.

In the three-card trick, for example, the observer is not merely guessing where the Queen of Hearts has ended up. He has followed, or thinks he has followed, the movement of the cards and from this he predicts where the Queen will be. It is perfectly reasonable to describe this situation by saying 'he predicts where the Queen will be', even though the Queen is already in its position (up the trickster's sleeve, say).

Compare: 
*Why Every Coin Flip May Be a Schrödinger’s Cat*

_Ergo, flipping a coin is the probabilistic equivalent to Schrödinger’s cat: The coin’s final state cannot be predicted until it has actually been flipped._

The writer is saying that this prediction can only be about a past event. Is he committing an error in use of English?
I do not think so.


----------



## Chasint

On Schrödinger’s Cat
In that article, the author cites Sheldon, who is after all a fictional character and not a real physicist. Sheldon merely perpetuates a popular  misunderstanding of what Schrödinger actually said. He misses the vital part of the story which is that the vial of poison is broken as the result of a quantum event - the radioactive decay of a single atom.  Schrödinger was not talking about mere probability at a macro level (flipping coins). He was making a much deeper point, the implications of which lead to the idea of ever-diverging realities (multiverse theory).  It would be more interesting to see what Professor Albrecht himself said rather than a popular and inaccurate summary by a journalist.

Having said that, I am not sure how that article is relevant to this thread.

Prediction
I believe that wandle has fixed on the idea of prediction without considering what JamesM said about presumption. Would wandle care to address my supporting examples in #88 which illustrate the distinction explicitly? Same syntax - different semantics.


----------



## wandle

Post 91 does indeed give my response to *Biffo*, *JamesM* and others who say that we are not dealing with a prediction. This is an issue of the use of language. If the word 'presumption' is applicable, that does not rule out the word 'prediction'. There is no contradiction between the terms. Each needs to be considered on its own.

The quotation I gave from Why Every Coin Flip May Be a Schrödinger’s Cat was by science writer Jennifer Ouellette, from her commentary on the statement by professor Andreas Albrecht of the University of California, Davis: _'Every Brownian motion is a Schrödinger’s Cat'_.

It does not matter for our purpose whether either the commentator or the professor was right or wrong on quantum theory, or what they were saying about it.

What matters is that, in reference to the toss of a coin, it is a legitimate use of the verb 'predict' to say: _'The coin’s final state cannot be predicted until it has actually been flipped'_. In other words, we can properly speak of prediction in reference to a past event which is undetermined in the sense that a key question (_Is it heads or tails? Is it the postman or Aunt Jane? Did Tony Pulis say those things or not?_) is still undecided in the eyes of the person concerned.

The coin example, and the example of my own about the three-card trick, show that we can legitimately use the verb 'predict' and related terms, along with appropriate use of future tenses, to refer to present or past situations where the resolution of a key question is still unknown to the person concerned at the time concerned. It is valid English usage to employ the various future tenses and to speak of prediction in such cases.

Thus, for the sports writer in the topic sentence, it is an unresolved question whether Tony Pulis did in fact say what the writer attributes to him. He correctly uses the future perfect tense _'Tony Pulis will have said'_ to express the unresolved point. By doing this, as mentioned earlier, he gives himself an escape clause in case his prediction turns out later to be false.

To return to the person who happens across a three-card trick in progress in the street: when he first arrives on the scene and sees the three cards laid out face down on the box, if he is asked which is the Queen, he can only guess.

However, once he has been shown the Queen and then seen the cards switched round, he now has (or thinks he has) enough information to predict its position. We can correctly call this a prediction, even though the cards are no longer being moved, because the issue of where the Queen is remains unresolved.


----------



## e2efour

Here are some more sentences that express the modal (not future) use of _will_.

Supposition (the term used by Ward):
_They will be very poor here._ (Comment about those living in one part of town)
_After all that digging in the garden you will be very tired. Come and sit down! _
_I don't think we should telephone them as late as this. They will be asleep._
This is not a prediction to be confirmed, i.e. it does not mean that if you ask them tomorrow, they will say that they were asleep. Rather it means that their being asleep is predictable (=a reasonable conclusion, inference, supposition or presumption).

Supposition about the past is expressed by will + perfect infinitive – not by would:
_I'm not surprised he didn't come to our party last night. After all that digging he did in his garden in the afternoon he will have been too tired to go anywhere._

Leech and Svartvik use the term predictability for the following.
_Accidents will happen. _

_A lion will only attack a human being when it is hungry. _[at least grammatically correct! This sentence is an authoritative statement, i.e. it is predictable or it may be reasonably assumed that lions will only attack when hungry. Another possibility is to regard it as a hypothesis to be proven, and that would indeed have a future reference. It is also easy to turn it into a prediction by writing _This lion .... _but that would not be the modal (or epistemic) use of will, of course_._]


----------



## Chasint

wandle said:


> ...To return to the person who happens across a three-card trick in progress in the street: when he first arrives on the scene and sees the three cards laid out face down on the box, if he is asked which is the Queen, he can only guess.
> 
> However, once he has been shown the Queen and then seen the cards switched round, he now has (or thinks he has) enough information to predict its position. We can correctly call this a prediction, even though the cards are no longer being moved, because the issue of where the Queen is remains unresolved.


Looking just at the three card trick, I can see where prediction might come in but not if we use the expression "will be".

Question: _"Where's the Queen?"_

Possible answers: (punter touches a card with a finger)
_"My guess is it's there."_
_"I'm certain it's there."_
_"I think it's there."_
_"I predict it will be there."_

Now, which of the above is nearest in meaning to the perfectly valid answer _"It will be there"?
_
I say that it is not the guess, it is not the "think so", it is not the prediction*,  it is a confident statement of fact (incorrect though it may be). It's says "I am confident that the Queen is where I am pointing."  It is a presumption. Of course it may turn out to be wrong but that is a result of the trickery, not a measure of the punters confidence.

_______________________________________________________
* I'm not saying that a prediction is not possible, I'm saying that of all the answers, the "will be" statement corresponds to "I am confident that..."


----------



## wandle

The examples in post 94 do strike me as predictions. We often predict from a generalisation to a particular instance.
The prediction may falsified, even if the generalisation remains generally true.


----------



## Thomas Tompion

I think there is at least one person here confusing prediction with inference.


----------



## Schimmelreiter

The prediction theory and the epistemicity/modality theory are both valid. wandle is the only one to provide an overarching theory, explaining how the epistemic/modal use developed out of the predictive use.


----------



## Chasint

Schimmelreiter said:


> The prediction theory and the epistemicity/modality theory are both valid. wandle is the only one to provide an overarching theory, explaining how the epistemic/modal use has developed out of the predictive use.


I think it is quite easy to see how that evolution would occur. I'm convinced one form leads easily to the other. However, for me, there was a parting of the ways when declarations about the future became declarations about the present.

*I don't think we have to invoke prediction at all. Except when describing events outside of our control.
*
Let's look a the evolution of the verb "will".  (I'll give evidence if required.)  Originally "to will" had the sense of "to wish" then it came to mean "intend" finally it became co-opted as a future tense.

*John:* _*I wish to be here tomorrow. *_ Statement of fact. No prediction.

*John:* _*I intend to be here tomorrow. *_ Statement of fact. No prediction.   The future can be inferred but not guaranteed.

*John:* _*I will be here tomorrow.*  Old usage.  _Early meaning gradually evolved from "I wish" to "I intend". No prediction. Statement of intent.  Note: I edited this to use the word evolved instead of changed.

*John:* _*I will be here tomorrow.*_ Modern usage. Statement of intent. Not a prediction. 

*John:* _*The bad weather will be here tomorrow.*_ Now we are using the future tense. At last we are making a prediction. Prediction of the future weather.

*Emperor:* _*You will be here tomorrow.*_ Command. Not a prediction, an expectation.

As Thomas Tompion says, we must not confuse prediction with inference. I add that we must not confuse it with all of the above.


----------



## JamesM

wandle said:


> What matters is that, in reference to the toss of a coin, it is a legitimate use of the verb 'predict' to say: _'The coin’s final state cannot be predicted until it has actually been flipped'_. In other words, we can properly speak of prediction in reference to a past event which is undetermined in the sense that a key question (_Is it heads or tails? Is it the postman or Aunt Jane? Did Tony Pulis say those things or not?_) is still undecided in the eyes of the person concerned.



I disagree.  If you ask me to "call" a toin coss before you flip the coin, you are asking me to _predict_ (literally to speak _ahead of time, in advance)_ whether it will land heads-up or tails-up.  I don't have to wait for you to toss the coin to make that prediction. I think it's a poor choice of words, frankly, to say that an event or location cannot be predicted until after it has happened.  It actually sounds like an oxymoron.  It might be a wonderful excuse for weather forecasters to use.


----------



## Chasint

Can someone tell me how coin tosses have any relevance to "It will be X" or "It will have been X"?

Before the coin toss we cannot legitimately use the expression because we have no evidence one way or the other.

After the coin toss no prediction is possible because we already know the result.

Why are we even discussing games of chance? They are off-topic.


----------



## JamesM

As I understood Wandle's post, he was saying that it was a valid use of "prediction" to say you cannot predict an event before it happens, giving a particular case where the word was used in that way.  This speaks to the essence of the understanding of "prediction".

I can definitely predict that when you toss a coin that it *will* come up heads.  It is an example of "it will be X".  I can predict that with roughly 50% accuracy and my prediction may be proven wrong.   

This is a _completely different_ use of "will" from the one we're discussing but it has become entangled in the discussion and some people in the discussion believe they are one and the same.

If I say "That will be the postman" I am talking about a present event.  As I've said before, prediction does not apply to present events, in my opinion.  It goes against the definition of the word.


----------



## Chasint

Yes, I agree with all of that.


----------



## Thomas Tompion

Yes, so do I.

It puts very well what a lot of us have been saying for most of the week.

In the case of 'will have' (which is what we were asked about), the 'will' is the weak epistemic 'will' (for those unclear what sort of modal we are talking about) - *not* a future perfect, which is to do with what will (in the future) be found to have happened (in the future too - the happening will occur between the moment of speaking and the moment at which we discover it).

The epistemic 'will' in 'will have' means that we can infer from normal practice, or from behaviour, what may very probably already have happened.

'Tony Pulis will have said to his team etc..' is saying that we can confidently say that Mr Pulis has said to his team etc... It is talking about the past.  It's perfectly correct English, an entirely normal use of idiom.

It has nothing to do with predictions, which are concerned with foretelling the *future*.


----------



## Chasint

I go further.


Verifiability does not imply prediction. Verifiability does not even imply inference.


Here is a statement: _All politicians are women. _Now this can be verified or disproved. Does that make it a prediction? No. It is an assertion about the state of affairs right now. Is it an inference? No. It is simply a statement. It may be true or false - that is all.


Similarly _"That will be the postman" _is a confident assertion, roughly equivalent to _"In my opinion that is the postman." _It is a statement of fact. It is verifiable/falsifiable. It is not a prediction. It is not an inference.


----------



## Thomas1

Biffo said:


> I go further.
> 
> 
> Verifiability does not imply prediction. Verifiability does not even imply inference.
> 
> 
> Here is a statement: _All politicians are women. _Now this can be verified or disproved. Does that make it a prediction? No. It is an assertion about the state of affairs right now. Is it an inference? No. It is simply a statement. It may be true or false - that is all.
> 
> 
> Similarly _"That will be the postman" _is a confident assertion, roughly equivalent to _"In my opinion that is the postman." _It is a statement of fact. It is verifiable/falsifiable. It is not a prediction. It is not an inference.


Is it equivalent to "That is the postman."?


----------



## Thomas Tompion

Thomas1 said:


> Is it equivalent to "That is the postman."?


The epistemic 'will' is weaker, of course.

It (_"That will be the postman") _means _That very probably *is* the postman_.  It has *nothing* to do with any sort of future event or state or finding.


----------



## JamesM

Thomas1 said:


> Is it equivalent to "That is the postman."?



No, it's equivalent to "I presume that is the postman."


----------



## wandle

We can draw a parallel between the cases under discussion. 

After the coin has been tossed, but before it has been revealed, the result has been determined in one sense (because it has come down one way up, not the other) but remains undetermined in another sense (because we do not yet know the result).

After the doorbell has rung, but before we have opened the door, the case is determined in one sense (because it is a definite individual who is there) but remains undetermined in another sense (because we do not know whether it is the postman, Aunt Jane, or someone totally unexpected).

In each case we are looking forward to a subsequent event: the revealing of the as yet hidden result. That is where prediction comes in. Before the initial event (before the toss of the coin, before the ring on the bell) there was nothing to predict because the situation had not arisen. 

After the subsequent event (after the coin is uncovered, after the door is opened) there is nothing to predict because we know which way up the coin is, or who is at the door. The window for prediction exists in the interval between the initial event and the subsequent event. Thus at the time when the statement is made, the initial event is in the past, while the subsequent event is still in the future.

It is therefore reasonable to use the future tense in saying 'That'll be the postman' and also reasonable to describe that statement as a prediction. It will be confirmed or falsified when the door is opened. Likewise we may reasonably describe the naming of heads or tails as a prediction, which will be confirmed or falsified when the coin is uncovered.


----------



## JamesM

But "that'll be X" can be used in situations where there is no subsequent event.  In fact it can refer to a past event.  

A: "I spoke to a tall, red-haired young man at Reception and he sent me to you."
B: "That'll be Tom." (or even "That'll have been Tom.")


There is no intent to then walk back to Reception to determine whether A indeed spoke to Tom or not.  B does not say this as a prediction.  It is an assumption based on the fact that (let's say) the only tall, red-haired young man who mans Reception is Tom.


----------



## Chasint

wandle said:


> We can draw a parallel between the cases under discussion.
> 
> After the coin has been tossed, but before it has been revealed, the result has been determined in one sense (because it has come down one way up, not the other) but remains undetermined in another sense (because we do not yet know the result).
> 
> After the doorbell has rung, but before we have opened the door, the case is determined in one sense (because it is a definite individual who is there) but remains undetermined in another sense (because we do not know whether it is the postman, Aunt Jane, or someone totally unexpected).
> 
> In each case we are looking forward to a subsequent event: the revealing of the as yet hidden result. That is where prediction comes in. Before the initial event (before the toss of the coin, before the ring on the bell) there was nothing to predict because the situation had not arisen.
> 
> After the subsequent event (after the coin is uncovered, after the door is opened) there is nothing to predict because we know which way up the coin is, or who is at the door. The window for prediction exists in the interval between the initial event and the subsequent event. Thus at the time when the statement is made, the initial event is in the past, while the subsequent event is still in the future.
> 
> It is therefore reasonable to use the future tense in saying 'That'll be the postman' and also reasonable to describe that statement as a prediction. It will be confirmed or falsified when the door is opened. Likewise we may reasonably describe the naming of heads or tails as a prediction, which will be confirmed or falsified when the coin is uncovered.


I am sorry but that logic is entirely flawed.

Everything you say would be just as true if the statement were _*"That is the postman."*_

Scenario

The doorbell rings.
You say "That is the postman"
There is a definite individual there. It might be Aunt Jane, the postman or Father Christmas.
We don't know which. We look forward to finding out.
When we get to the door we know whether the statement was correct.

Are you seriously saying that "That is the postman" is a prediction?  Because, according to your reasoning it is.


----------



## Thomas1

Thomas Tompion said:


> The epistemic 'will' is weaker, of course.
> 
> It (_"That will be the postman") _means _That very probably *is* the postman_.  It has *nothing* to do with any sort of future event or state or finding.





JamesM said:


> No, it's equivalent to "I presume that is the postman."


So how come _"That will be the postman."_ is a statement of fact?


----------



## wandle

JamesM said:


> But "that'll be X" can be used in situations where there is no subsequent event.  In fact it can refer to a past event.


The subsequent event does not need to take place, nor does there need to be any intent to verify the statement. The syntax remains in accord with the basic pattern.

If the information describing the individual is definite enough, then we naturally say 'That was Tom' rather than 'That will have been Tom'. (Likewise, if we have seen a red-jacketed figure pass the window, we naturally say 'That is the postman' rather than 'That will be the postman'.)

We say 'will be' or 'will have been' when we have grounds for expectation, but not enough information for certainty. Our statement in that case is subject to confirmation. In fact, the use of the future or future perfect tense is a signal saying 'this proposition is subject to confirmation'. The subsequent event is what confirms or falsifies the prediction, but the use of the future tenses remains valid even if the subsequent event never materialises. The grammar is correct for the situation in which it is used. (Similarly, the statement made by a boy who said 'I'm going to be a fireman when I grow up' would remain grammatically correct even if he died before reaching his teens.)


----------



## Forero

JamesM said:


> No, it's equivalent to "I presume that is the postman."


Note the _pre-_ in _presume_.

To me, "That'll be the postman" is future in the sense that it is about something as yet unknown, whether or not we will ever really know, and whether or not anyone else already knows.

"That may be the postman" is also future in the same sense, but it indicates a mere possibility for the "as yet unknown", whereas "That'll be the postman" indicates a presumption, and "That must be the postman" a (nearly) inescapable conclusion.

In contrast "That is the postman" is entirely in the present, not at all speculative.

"Boys will be boys" may be a sort of prediction too, but it is more likely a statement about tendency or mindset rather than something (as yet) unknown.

"That'll be twenty pounds" would not be said after the item is paid for, so there is futurity suggested there too.


----------



## wandle

Biffo said:


> Are you seriously saying that "That is the postman" is a prediction?  Because, according to your reasoning it is.


We naturally say 'That is the postman' when we have enough information for certainty.
We naturally say 'That will be the postman' when we have grounds for expectation, but not enough information for certainty.

Sometimes people may use these expressions inappropriately. However, if someone says 'That is the postman', then regardless of how much information he or she has, that statement is not a valid comparator for the topic sentence, which uses a future tense.


----------



## Chasint

wandle said:


> We naturally say 'That is the postman' when we have enough information for certainty.
> We naturally say 'That will be the postman' when we have grounds for expectation, but not enough information for certainty.
> 
> Sometimes people may use these expressions inappropriately. However, if someone says 'That is the postman', then regardless of how much information he or she has, that statement is not a valid comparator for the topic sentence, which uses a future tense.


I disagree.

It is little Johnny's birthday.
The bell rings.
Johnny says, "Yippee! That's the postman with Granny's present!"
We happened to look out of the window. We saw that it was not the postman.
We say, "Sorry Johnny that's not the postman."

Johnny wasn't using language inappropriately, he was telling us something. He was informing us that the postman was at the door. He believed 100% that it was true. He happened to be wrong.

There is nothing remotely wrong with the above conversation. No-one used language inappropriately.


----------



## wandle

wandle said:


> if someone says 'That is the postman', then regardless of how much information he or she has, that statement is not a valid comparator for the topic sentence, which uses a future tense.


What can I add to that?


----------



## Chasint

wandle said:


> What can I add to that?


Mere repetition does not persuade. If one's argument fails to convince the sceptical majority, then the onus is on the odd one out to bring further evidence to prove his or her case.

 I am crystal clear about my position and about the flaws in wandle's logic. 

1. Any one of the explanations that wandle has given to convince us that his point of view is correct, applies equally to any statement at all, future, present or past. 
2. Invoking future tense to say there must be a prediction is insufficient. wandle is saying that, by definition, any statement that contains the future 'tense' (i.e. "will) is predictive. However the idea of prediction is enshrined nowhere in the definition of the future or any other tense. 
3. Tenses are syntactical entities. Prediction is a semantic concept. The two can coincide but they don't have to.
4. My points are entirely on topic because I say that "That *will be* the postman" is a statement of belief just as "That *is* the postman" is a statement of belief. It is what the speaker believes right now. The speaker may be proved wrong but beliefs exist only in the present.

Opinions differ as to the comparative strengths of "That is the postman" and "That will be the postman", "That may be the postman", etc. but the main consensus seems to be that they lie on a continuum.


----------



## JamesM

Thomas1 said:


> So how come _"That will be the postman."_ is a statement of fact?



It is a statement of assumption based on history.  If I had not had a pattern of events in the past from which to draw the conclusion I would never say "That will be the postman".  What a random statement to make based on only a doorbell!

It is not quite as solid as a fact and not as tenuous as a guess.  As Biffo said, it lies along a continuum.  I fully assume that it is the postman even though I can't see him. 

It is a shading of certainty.    I can think of examples with other phrases and other contexts but that could draw this off-topic.


----------



## wandle

Biffo said:


> wandle is saying that, by definition, any statement that contains the future 'tense' (i.e. "will) is predictive.


Not correct, I am afraid. I have said that the present tense is definitive and the future tense is predictive. 
I have not said that every use of 'will' is an example of the future tense. 

As a matter of fact, so far I am the only poster in the thread who has given an example of an exclusively present use of 'will' (that is, one in whch no future sense can be detected, as it refers exclusively to present time):
'I will this heirloom to my grandson' is a present usage of 'will'. 

I have also said:


wandle said:


> The future tense is regularly used for prediction. As far as I know, there is no way for 'will' to refer to the past except as a prediction of what the past will turn out on investigation to have been.


No one has given an example of a past use of 'will'. Nor has anyone explained how the future sense of the word 'will' could be turned through 180 degrees so as to point to the past instead.


----------



## Chasint

wandle said:


> Not correct, I am afraid. I have said that the present tense is definitive and the future tense is predictive.


I apologise for my lack of precision. Yes, that is what you said. It is debatable but why do you bring it up? We are discussing "It will be X" in all its possible meanings. I have nothing to say about whether there really is a future tense in English or whether it is predictive. That is off-topic.



wandle said:


> ...I have not said that every use of 'will' is an example of the future tense.
> As a matter of fact, so far I am the only poster in the thread who has given an example of a present use of 'will':
> 'I will this heirloom to my grandson' is a present usage of 'will'.


That is also off-topic. We are not discussing homophones. The verb you are talking about is a transitive verb with a regular conjugation (he wills) that just happens to have the same spelling. No-one but you has suggested that it is relevant.

Please can we leave behind what seem to me to be red herrings and focus on the defective verb "will" that is used as an auxiliary in English.



wandle said:


> No one has given an example of a past use of 'will'. Nor has anyone explained how the future sense of the word 'will' could be turned through 180 degrees so as to point to the past instead.


Why is this relevant? Why should we want to use "will" to refer to the past?  The people who you are currently trying to persuade, all say that "will" refers to the present in the context of this thread.



With all due respect, I think that wandle is using smoke and mirrors to divert us from the fact that he has no argument.


----------



## wandle

The original example, the topic sentence, says _'Tony Pulis will have said to his players..._' 
It clearly refers to a situation in the past at the time of writing.

How can 'will' be appropriate here? The answer, as I have suggested, is that it looks forward to a possible subsequent event, such as a team member going public and saying, _'No, he never said that'_ or _'Yes that is what he said'_.

Unless it is seen as a prediction of what the past will turn out on investigation to have been, how can 'will' in a time context possibly refer to the past?


----------



## Chasint

wandle said:


> The original example, the topic sentence, says _'Tony Pulis will have said to his players..._'
> It clearly refers to a situation in the past at the time of writing.


Wandle is in error. We are talking about the verb "will". In this case, the verb "will" is in the present tense. It does not refer to the past. If we want it to refer to the past we must use its past tense "would" as I pointed out some time ago.



wandle said:


> How can 'will' be appropriate here? The answer, as I have suggested, is that it looks forward to a possible subsequent event, such as a team member going public and saying, _'No, he never said that'_ or _'Yes that is what he said'_.


Only wandle has accepted that view.  Let me explain (for a second time) why it is false. Suppose for the sake of argument that the original sentence had been "_'Tony Pulis *has said* to his players..._'. Now let us apply wandle's reasoning. We don't know whether this is true. We can claim therefore that it is a prediction. We shall find out if a team member goes public and says, _'No, he never said that'_ or _'Yes that is what he said'_. By that standard, *any statement at all that the listener doesn't personally know the truth of *is a prediction by the speaker. 



wandle said:


> Unless it is seen as a prediction of what the past will turn out on investigation to have been, how can 'will' in a time context possibly refer to the past?


That is exactly where everyone disagrees with wandle. I have given examples *#99**** answering this question. wandle has not commented on them. He has made no attempt to refute them. If he chooses to turn a blind eye to my reasoning then  I have no obligation to examine his.

NOTE: As of 12:27 I have made several edits to this post since first posting it. I corrected mis-typing and tightened up my logic.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________
** **#99*


Biffo said:


> ...
> *John:* _*I wish to be here tomorrow. *_ Statement of fact. No prediction.
> 
> *John:* _*I intend to be here tomorrow. *_ Statement of fact. No prediction.   The future can be inferred but not guaranteed.
> 
> *John:* _*I will be here tomorrow.* _Early meaning gradually evolved from "I wish" to "I intend". No prediction. Statement of intent.
> 
> *John:* _*I will be here tomorrow.*_ Modern usage. Statement of intent. Not a prediction.
> 
> *John:* _*The bad weather will be here tomorrow.*_ Now we are using the future tense. At last we are making a prediction. Prediction of the future weather.
> 
> *Emperor:* _*You will be here tomorrow.*_ Command. Not a prediction, an expectation.
> 
> As Thomas Tompion says, we must not confuse prediction with inference. I add that we must not confuse it with any of the above.


----------



## Forero

Biffo said:


> wandle said:
> 
> 
> 
> How can 'will' be appropriate here? The answer, as I have suggested, is that it looks forward to a possible subsequent event, such as a team member going public and saying, _'No, he never said that'_ or _'Yes that is what he said'_.
> 
> 
> 
> Only wandle has accepted that view.  Let me explain (for a second time) why it is false. Suppose for the sake of argument that the original sentence had been "_'Tony Pulis *has said* to his players..._'. Now let us apply wandle's reasoning. We don't know whether this is true. We can claim therefore that this is a prediction. We shall find out if a team member goes public and saying, _'No, he never said that'_ or _'Yes that is what he said'_. By that standard, *any statement at all that the listener doesn't personally know the truth of *is a prediction by the speaker.
Click to expand...

Wandle's view here is very close to mine, and others have agreed that this particular use of _will_ comes from the future meaning of _will_.

It has also been noted that other languages that have "future tense" forms often use them in this way.

It seems to me that the idea of prediction or presumption is indeed added when we change "(has) said  to "will have said", and to me Wandle's "possible subsequent event" expresses the same idea. A presumption may be called a prediction because it comes from imperfect knowledge.

I daresay the person saying "Tony Pulis will have said <whatever>" is choosing this form over "Tony Pulis (has) said <whatever>" for a reason. The reason, I think, is to express not a fact about current history but a presumption about history. It is not saying anything about the listener. The use of _will_ here is, besides anything else it might express, an acknowledgement by the speaker that Mr. Pulis's having said <whatever> is not (yet), to the speaker, fact.

_Will_ can be called modal because it expresses "mode", which is not quite the same as tense. But as the perfect expresses that something is already done (almost like a past tense), _will_ here expresses that something is possible, even probable, but not (yet) incontrovertable (very like a future tense).


----------



## Schimmelreiter

Forero said:


> _Will_ can be called modal because it expresses "mode", which is not quite the same as tense.


There is no morphological future in English. Quite a while ago, the modal verb _will_, expressing volition, began to be used to express futurity. What if, at that very point in time, two distinct "future uses" branched off from the modal verb _will_:
(1) type one _("future mood")_, predicting future reality 
(2) type two _("epistemic mood")_, predicting future knowlege 
(3) Besides those, the original _"volitional mood" _still exists.

Bottom line: It's not _future vs. modal/epistemic use_ but all three uses mentioned above are essentially modal because there's no "genuine" future in English.


----------

