The diachronic evolution of future tense forms in French from the perspective of the re-grammaticalization theory

Deriving from a comprehensive postdoctoral study, this article aims at presenting the evolution of future tense forms in French from the perspective of the re-grammaticalization process, understood as re-organisation of the grammatical system of a language (v. Andersen, 2006; Lindschouw, 2011). In very general lines, this process may be described as follows: in time, canonical future forms, originally representing outcomes of previous ‘grammaticalization’ processes (i.e. transition from lexical to gramatical), eventually show a poly-functional morpho-syntactic and semantic behaviour, actualising more than one grammatical value. Such a situation will imply the selection of new constituents in the canonical future paradigm and will inevitably result in: (i) a competition between canonical forms and the newly created ones; (ii) a de-semantization and specialization of canonical forms in a certain informational segment, and (iii) the (total or partial) grammaticalization of the concurrent periphrastic forms. We shall thus see that the synthetic future form in French underwent a semantic-functional reduction in terms of actualisation of temporal [prospective], which is mostly due to the “intervention” and grammaticalization of the itive periphrasis aller + infinitive on the same conceptual area; in current spoken language, this periphrasis has become the most frequent form to express [future]. An even stronger reduction in the number of occurrences is seen in terms of purely modal uses, in spoken language, as native speakers again prefer a periphrastic structure, i.e. devoirepistemic + infinitive.