The Semantics of the Simple Future in Romance: Core Meaning and Parametric Variation

Abstract

In this paper two sets of questions are addressed: i) Is it there a common meaning for the simple future in Romance? How can it be described?; and ii) What is the source of cross-linguistic variation? Are there limits to possible variation?

Assuming that verbal tenses are procedural, I suggest that the meaning of the simple future has two layers: a core meaning encoding the instruction to represent a situation not accessible from the discourse situation; and a set of parameters.

The shared semantic core explains why the future tense is a natural semantic class, whereas parameters account for both cross-linguistic diversity and language change. The existence of a restricted set of parameters constrains the range of possible systems.