Re: Will

At 00:53 04/17/2000 -0400, you wrote:
> >From:    Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...>
> >Subject: Re: V2 (plus =?iso-8859-1?Q?G=E9arthnuns?= serendipity)
> >
> >DOUGLAS KOLLER wrote:
> >> But isn't "will" intimately tied to the notion of "want"
> >
> >Historically, yes.  But not today. If you say "I will" you mean "I will
> >do that", not "I want".  In Modern English it means only "future tense".
>
>Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance?
>
>I think most of these 'denatured verbs' like 'will' still have the original
>meaning in their concept, although they see different usages;  it's part of
>how we can have constructions like 'I got finished' replace or live with 'I
>have finished'.
>
>What's the difference between 'will' and 'shall'?
>
>      *Muke!
I just finished reading this fascinating book on this subject. It's called
The Evolution of Grammar: Tense, Aspect, and Modality in the Languages of
the World
by Joan Bybee, Revere Perkins, and William Pagliuca
copyright 1994 U of Chicago Press 0-226-08665-8

In it, the authors discuss such things as the evolution of future tense
from modals of obligation and desire. And yes, they do retain a shred of
their former meaning in some contexts. Shall is an old obligation modal
that turned into a future. Will is a not quite as old desire modal that has
turned into a future. Both obligation and desire are often used to signal
intention, and intention in turn is used to predict the future. At least,
that is their theory, and they do quite a bit of cross-linguistic analysis
to back it up. Fascinating stuff!

Sylvia




--
Sylvia Sotomayor                                  sylvia1@ix.netcom.com
Kélen can be found at http://users.lmi.net/sylvia/Kelen/kelen.html

"In the beginning was the word. But by the time the second word was added
to it, there was trouble. For with it came syntax..."
John Simon, Paradigms Lost