# French: future tense conjugation



## tuncaysu

Hi,

I am a currently A2 level learner of French and I have the following question. When forming the future tense conjugations in French, we take the future tense stem and add a suffix which is identical to the conjugation of avoir for the pronoun (except av- for nous and vous). 

Is there some linguistic evolutionary basis for this fact, or is it just some kind of coincidence, or neither? It looks really curious to me. I speak no Latin or any other Romance language for that matter. Any insight would be appreciated.

Thanks.


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## J.F. de TROYES

tuncaysu said:


> Hi,
> Is there some linguistic evolutionary basis for this fact, or is it just some kind of coincidence, or neither? It looks really curious to me. I speak no Latin or any other Romance language for that matter. Any insight would be appreciated.
> 
> Thanks.



First I'd like to say to you : welcome on this forum.

 That's right ; the future markers come from Latin : _Lexical verb in the infinitive + habeo / habes / habet /habemus/ habetis/ habent ( j'ai, tu as, il/elle a, nous avons, vous avez, ils/elles ont )_ , i.e the verb _hab*e*re _used as an auxiliary . _Je chanterai_ can be traced back to : _cant*a*re + h*a*beo_ . Here are some stages of the phonetic shifts : _hab*e*o cant*a*re/cant*a*re habeo  (Late spoken Latin, 3rd A.D ) > *a*yyo chant*e*re / chantar*a*yyo (7th A.D) > chanterai _( Old French ) ( Bold letters were stressed ). What is surprising is that classical Latin didn't know such compound future, but a simple future :  _cantabo, -bis, -it, -bimus, -bitis, -bunt_. The simple form was gradually replaced by a compound form  first in spoken, then in written Latin. So the future marker  in French  originates from the the Latin infinitive endings -*a*re, -*e*re, -ere , -*i*re ( Depends on the verbs ) and expressing the future  from Latin to Romance languages ( It's the same for Italian, Spanish, Portuguese ) starts from using a synthetic form (cantabo ) to come to another new synthetic form (  chanterai ) through an disappeared analytic form ( cantar(e)(h)abeo ).

Hope it helps.


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## CapnPrep

You are correct: as J.F. just explained, the simple future forms in French originally derive from the present tense of _avoir_ added to the infinitive of the verb. The forms of the _conditionnel_ have a similar origin. The same is true for many other Romance languages. See the following threads for more discussion:
Date of formation of "infinitive + avoir" future in French (and the Romance languages)?
All Romance languages - Creation of the Conditional Tense


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## tuncaysu

J.F. de TROYES said:


> First I'd like to say to you : welcome on this forum.
> 
> That's right ; the future markers come from Latin : _Lexical verb in the infinitive + habeo / habes / habet /habemus/ habetis/ habent ( j'ai, tu as, il/elle a, nous avons, vous avez, ils/elles ont )_ , i.e the verb _hab*e*re _used as an auxiliary . _Je chanterai_ can be traced back to : _cant*a*re + h*a*beo_ . Here are some stages of the phonetic shifts : _hab*e*o cant*a*re/cant*a*re habeo  (Late spoken Latin, 3rd A.D ) > *a*yyo chant*e*re / chantar*a*yyo (7th A.D) > chanterai _( Old French ) ( Bold letters were stressed ). What is surprising is that classical Latin didn't know such compound future, but a simple future :  _cantabo, -bis, -it, -bimus, -bitis, -bunt_. The simple form was gradually replaced by a compound form  first in spoken, then in written Latin. So the future marker  in French  originates from the the Latin infinitive endings -*a*re, -*e*re, -ere , -*i*re ( Depends on the verbs ) and expressing the future  from Latin to Romance languages ( It's the same for Italian, Spanish, Portuguese ) starts from using a synthetic form (cantabo ) to come to another new synthetic form (  chanterai ) through an disappeared analytic form ( cantar(e)(h)abeo ).
> 
> Hope it helps.



Thanks a lot for the warm welcome - I had been reading random topics here due to google searches - but this was indeed my first post. 

This will probably be just speculation, but do you have any insight into why speakers of Latin (or descendant languages) would associate "to have" with the future - when they have already associated it with the past (with different conjugations)? It is fairly logical to me that for example speakers of German have associated "to become (werden)" with the future, and speakers of English have associated "to want (wyllan)" with the future.

Thanks again.


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## entangledbank

Look at English: 'I have to sing'. The same construction with the same meaning occurs in Spanish: 'he de cantar'. The infinitive presumably represents a task I have. The use of 'have' with the perfect comes about - in English at least, and probably for the same reasons in Late Latin - from the fact that the past participle is adjectival. 'I have written a letter' comes from an earlier construction meaning 'I have a written letter'.


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## J.F. de TROYES

First note that the past is marked by a past participle while  the infinitive is neutral regarding the tense. Originally the Latin syntactic pattern _habeo + infinitive_ seems to have the meaning of _to be able to _, close to the core meaning of _habere_, _to hold, to possess_ : _habeo polliceri / polliceri habeo = I can promise_. _To be able to do something _implies the prospect of  doing it. In other words _habeo_ was used in this structure as a modal auxiliary ending up in expressing the future tense ( _Shall_ and _will _are also modals ). By the way old Greek used the same pattern _to have + inf._ : _oudén ékhô légein _( nothing-I have-(to) say  with the meaning of _I have nothing to say_.


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## Giorgio Spizzi

I feel I should add that:

1. The "new" way of expressing futurity in late Latin was due in part to the intrinsic weakness of the traditional future-tense suffix _-bo_, which tended to be confused with the Imperfect suffix _- bam_.

2. Our late-Latin speaking ancestors began to think that what was in the future was being felt as an obligation, a burden, a _pondus_. Hence the rise of a form  capable of expressing that the notion of obligation was already "installed" (_have_) in the speaker. In this, the "new future" was a tense of the Present (time), in that it describes the state of things regarding the Subject of the sentence as the "possessor of a duty". (Curiously, English has developed a way of speaking of the past by means of a tense of the Present (time): the Present Perfect, which represent the "possession of the past" accomplisment).

3. It is true that modern Romance languages are similar in the way they express the *Future* tense _and_ the *Conditional* tense, but we should also remember that in some of them — like Italian — the endings attached to the root of the verb are the forms of the "Past" ("Passato Remoto): (parlare + ebbi, parlare + avesti, parlare + ebbe, parlare + avemmo, parlare +aveste, parlare + ebbero ——>parlerei, parleresti, parlerebbe, parleremmo, parlereste, parlerebbero.)
In others, the choice of the tense of the auxiliary "habere" was less drastic and in French, for example, we have the forms of the "Imperfect". 

GS


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## CapnPrep

tuncaysu said:


> It is fairly logical to me that for example speakers of German have associated "to become (werden)" with the future, and speakers of English have associated "to want (wyllan)" with the future.


The link between "becoming" and future tense may be fairly logical, but the actual syntactic structure (_Ich werde singen_, lit. "I become sing") is still pretty opaque. So at some point we just have to accept that grammaticalization can do strange things to a language…

The notion of "wanting" may have played a role in Romance, too. It has been proposed (e.g. Gratwick 1972) that _habeo_ absorbed the senses of _aveo_ (which was already defective, and became homophonous with _habeo_ in spoken Latin). This would mean that _habeo_ could express potentiality ("can", as explained by J.F. de Troyes), obligation ("must", as explained by entangledbank and Giorgio Spizzi), and volition ("want to"), all three of which have a prospective sense that could develop into a pure future.

Gratwick, A. S. (1972) "Habeo and Aveo: The Romance Future". _CQ_ 22(2):388–98.


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## Giorgio Spizzi

Upon re-reading my post I realize it was not clear that when I wrote "_the endings attached to the root of the verb are the forms of the Past..._" I was referring to the (Present) *Conditional* mode. I apologize for that.

GS


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## AquisM

Giorgio Spizzi said:


> I feel I should add that:
> 
> 1. The "new" way of expressing futurity in late Latin was due in part to the intrinsic weakness of the traditional future-tense suffix _-bo_, which tended to be confused with the Imperfect suffix _- bam_.
> 
> 2. Our late-Latin speaking ancestors began to think that what was in the future was being felt as an obligation, a burden, a _pondus_. Hence the rise of a form  capable of expressing that the notion of obligation was already "installed" (_have_) in the speaker. In this, the "new future" was a tense of the Present (time), in that it describes the state of things regarding the Subject of the sentence as the "possessor of a duty". (Curiously, English has developed a way of speaking of the past by means of a tense of the Present (time): the Present Perfect, which represent the "possession of the past" accomplisment).
> 
> 3. It is true that modern Romance languages are similar in the way they express the *Future* tense _and_ the *Conditional* tense, but we should also remember that in some of them — like Italian — the endings attached to the root of the verb are the forms of the "Past" ("Passato Remoto): (parlare + ebbi, parlare + avesti, parlare + ebbe, parlare + avemmo, parlare +aveste, parlare + ebbero ——>parlerei, parleresti, parlerebbe, parleremmo, parlereste, parlerebbero.)
> In others, the choice of the tense of the auxiliary "habere" was less drastic and in French, for example, we have the forms of the "Imperfect".
> 
> GS



Actually, does anyone know of a Romance language like Italian that doesn't use the imperfect to form the conditional? I know that Spanish, Portuguese, French and Catalan do use the imperfect.

Also, on a related note, how did the periphrastic 'go to' future come to be? It's used in Portuguese, Spanish and French (amongst others), yet in Catalan, its equivalent is used for the preterite.


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## Epilio

Catalan also uses that periphrasis to express a future action upon adding the preposition. It is not the same _Jo vaig menjar_ (I ate) than _Jo vaig a menjar_ (I am going to eat).


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## AquisM

Epilio said:


> Catalan also uses that periphrasis to express a future action upon adding the preposition. It is not the same _Jo vaig menjar_ (I ate) than _Jo vaig a menjar_ (I am going to eat).



True, but the lack of _a_ is found in Portuguese and French too. How did these two very similar structures evolve to be so different in meaning? And did they evolve from the same roots, or is it pure coincidence?


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## J.F. de TROYES

Giorgio Spizzi said:


> I feel I should add that:
> 
> 3. It is true that modern Romance languages are similar in the way they express the *Future* tense _and_ the *Conditional* tense, but we should also remember that in some of them — like Italian — the endings attached to the root of the verb are the forms of the "Past" ("Passato Remoto): (parlare + ebbi, parlare + avesti, parlare + ebbe, parlare + avemmo, parlare +aveste, parlare + ebbero ——>parlerei, parleresti, parlerebbe, parleremmo, parlereste, parlerebbero.)
> In others, the choice of the tense of the auxiliary "habere" was less drastic and in French, for example, we have the forms of the "Imperfect".
> 
> GS



I'll just make it clear that what you are saying refers to the conditional ( parlerei ; je parlerais, I'd speak) ,  the future endings coming from the infinitive + the present tense of _habeo_ ( _ho, hai, ha_ ) in Italian as well : _parlerò , parlerai, parlerà... _


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## jmx

Thread about the periphrastic past in Catalan:

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2514161


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## CapnPrep

AquisM said:


> Actually, does anyone know of a Romance language like Italian that doesn't use the imperfect to form the conditional? I know that Spanish, Portuguese, French and Catalan do use the imperfect.


Here is a thread specifically about the formation of Romance conditional forms:
All Romance languages - Creation of the Conditional Tense


AquisM said:


> Also, on a related note, how did the periphrastic 'go to' future come to be? It's used in Portuguese, Spanish and French (amongst others), yet in Catalan, its equivalent is used for the preterite.


Here is an All Languages thread about "go"-futures:
"go" as a future auxiliary
 This structure is found widely outside of Romance, and conversely, as you have noted, not all Romance languages have it (or it means something completely different), so it is unlikely to go back continuously to VL/proto-Romance.


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## Giorgio Spizzi

Hullo, *J.F. de TROYES*

That's what I tried to make clear, with apologies, in my post #9.

GS


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## francisgranada

Giorgio Spizzi said:


> ... In others, the choice of the tense of the auxiliary "habere" was less drastic and in French, for example, we have the forms of the "Imperfect".
> GS



Also in Spanish, Portuguese, Sardinian and Neapolitan (_vurria_, _restarria _...). 

It's interesting that in Sardinian this construction remains analytical, e.g. "you would/should speak":
1. _tue dias faeddare,_ literally (Sp) "tú debías hablar“,  (It) “tu dovevi parlare” 
2._ tue aias de faeddare_, literally  (Sp) "tú habías de hablar“, (It) "tu avevi di parlare“


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