1.1 Overview

Many languages have more than one grammaticized way to convey future time reference; an example is English, which has will and be going to. In these languages, the different forms typically convey different semantic and/or pragmatic information. For example, will is felicitous in an offer on an advertising billboard, while be going to is not (Copley 2009).

There is debate about how to analyze these contrasting future forms; in particular, there is controversy about whether be going to contains progressive aspect: Copley (2009) argues that it does, while Klecha et al. (2008) and Klecha (2011) argue that it does not. According to Klecha and colleagues, a core difference between the two future constructions is that only will introduces obligatory modal subordination.

In this paper we bring cross-linguistic evidence to bear on the interaction between future time reference and viewpoint aspect. We present new data from Gitksan (Tsimshianic), a language which also possesses more than one grammaticized way to refer to the future. We focus on the contrast between the plain future morpheme dim, and a complex form yukw dim, which contains the progressive marker yukw. We demonstrate that these two Gitksan futures are semantically strikingly similar to English will and be going to, respectively. We argue that the presence of the progressive marker yukw in constructions similar to English be going to provides support for Copley’s (2009) proposal that be going to contains progressive aspect. In addition, we argue that the contrast between dim and yukw dim requires the adoption of modal subordination in the former but not in the latter, following proposals by Klecha et al. (2008) and Klecha (2011). Gitksan future constructions thus require features of both Copley’s and Klecha et al.’s analyses.

In the remainder of the introduction we provide background about the Gitksan language and outline our data collection methodology. In section 2 we overview the two English futures and the debate about their analysis. In section 3, we show that Gitksan also has two grammaticized forms for future time reference: a plain dim, and a complex form yukw dim. We show, via a range of empirical tests, their semantic similarity to will and be going to, respectively. Section 4 presents our analysis, according to which dim is a non-modal prospective aspect and yukw is a modal progressive. In plain dim constructions, modal semantics is introduced by a phonologically null modal. Section 5 situates our approach within the debate about the denotations of different future forms, and argues that future constructions cross-linguistically are derived from smaller semantic building blocks that can include prospective aspect, a modal, and the progressive.¹

1.2 Language background

‘Gitksan’ (ISO code git) is the English name for a continuum of Interior Tsimshianic dialects spoken in the northwest Interior of British Columbia, Canada. Gitksan had approximately 523 fluent speakers at the time of writing of Dunlop et al. (2018). There are active community efforts towards language revitalization and retention.

Gitksan is a predicate-initial language, but the predicate may be preceded by a nominal that has undergone fronting, as in (2)b; the movement of smax ‘bear’ is signaled by the intransitive subject extraction morpheme -it.

The predicate may also be preceded by (a) one or more of over a hundred ‘preverbals’ that often convey adverbial notions (illustrated in (3)), (b) ‘dependent markers’ that induce dependent-order agreement on the clauses they embed (in (4)),² and (c) other pre-predicative operators, one of which is the prospective marker dim, as in (5).³

2.1 Copley’s account

Copley’s analysis is designed primarily to account for the offering data.⁶ She argues that the reason will allows offers, and be going to does not, is because of the composition of the two forms and the pragmatics of offering. Will conveys a necessity modal and combines either with no viewpoint aspect or with a generic aspect (we set aside generic will here). Roughly speaking, the analysis of will is paraphrased in (12).

For be going to, Copley proposes that it contains the same necessity modal as will, and additionally includes progressive aspect. One core effect of the progressive is to introduce a super-interval of time surrounding the reference time; the relevant event takes place at that larger interval in some possible worlds (see section 4.3 for more details). The relation between the reference time t and the super-interval introduced by the progressive, t’, is schematized in (13).

Copley claims that in be going to, the progressive takes a proposition q which already contains the universal bouletic modal in (12); in other words, the progressive’s prejacent q has itself the form will(p). Due to the semantics of the progressive, the following happens: instead of p being realized in all worlds maximally consistent with the director’s commitments at the reference time t, it is realized in all worlds maximally consistent with the director’s commitments throughout an interval t’ surrounding t. Crucially, t’ begins before t. This means that in a be going to assertion, the director is already committed to the future event before t.

Copley’s idea is that the semantics of will is compatible with the pragmatics of offering, but the semantics for be going to is not. She captures the restrictions on felicitous offering as in (14). This condition considers both the role of the speaker (director) and the desires of the hearer. If the hearer wants what is offered, it will happen. If she doesn’t want it, it won’t.

There is also crucially a temporal component to offering: the time at which the hearer wants what is offered must be the same time that the speaker is prepared to carry it out (Copley 2009: 78). For example, if the hearer wants what is denoted by q at the utterance time but won’t want it at the future time when q will happen, q shouldn’t happen, as in (15). Similarly, if the hearer wanted q in the past but no longer wants it at the utterance time, proposing q at the utterance time does not make a good offer, as in (16). Neither (15) nor (16) are successful offers.

Putting all this together, the reason that offers don’t work with be going to is because the speaker is committed to q at a super-interval t’ of t, where t is the time at which the hearer’s desires are checked. This means that the speaker is committed to q throughout an interval that begins before the hearer’s desire for q is confirmed. In other words, the speaker is committed throughout t’ to q happening, even though it is possible that at some point during t’, the hearer does not want q to happen. Since the time of the hearer’s desires and the speaker’s commitment do not necessarily align, be going to doesn’t make an acceptable offer. Conversely, will does not involve any super-interval t’. Thus, the speaker is committed to q at t, which is the point in time when the hearer’s desires are checked. Given that the speaker’s commitment and the hearer’s desires are checked at the same time, the speaker can act based on the hearer’s desires, making will felicitous in an offer context.

2.2 Klecha’s account

The analysis of Klecha et al. (2008) and Klecha (2011) is designed primarily to account for the warning data in (7)–(8). Unlike in Copley’s analysis, Klecha and colleagues argue that will and gonna are truth-conditionally equivalent, and gonna does not include progressive. The difference between them is that will has, and gonna lacks, a presupposition that obligatorily enforces modal subordination.

Modal subordination (Roberts 1989) is domain restriction on the set of worlds quantified over by a modal, and it involves anaphora. An example with will is given in (17).

The second sentence in (17) means that in all the worlds in which Edna forgets to fill the birdfeeder, the birds will get hungry. The if-clause in the first sentence restricts the set of worlds that will in the second sentence takes into account; the domain restriction of will is anaphoric to the if-clause. According to Klecha, will obligatorily requires a discourse antecedent that provides the domain restriction, and gonna does not need one. He thus draws a parallel between will and definites, which similarly introduce familiarity presuppositions (Heim 1982). In (18), a dog restricts the domain of assignment functions for it; it is felicitous only if there is a discourse antecedent, in this case a dog.

Given that Klecha incorporates an obligatory antecedent in his analysis of will, the prediction is that will always needs an explicit or implicit if-clause (such as If you touch the door), which provides domain restriction on the set of worlds quantified over.⁸

This account explains why will works well for conditional warnings, but is inappropriate for inevitable warnings. Will quantifies over every world in which, for example, the hearer goes near the bomb. In a context where the bomb will explode no matter what, there is no discourse antecedent necessary to provide the modal restriction for will. Conversely, be going to is not restricted to quantifying over worlds where the hearer goes near the bomb.⁹

Unlike Copley’s (2009) account, Klecha’s (2011) analysis does not involve decomposition of the different future forms into smaller parts. Instead, Klecha argues that the contrast between them is simply a matter of ‘lexical idiosyncracy’ (2011: 367). He proposes that there are in fact three separate lexical items: will, gonna, and offering-will. Klecha treats offering-will as a separate lexicalized item for two reasons: (a) in some languages, offers are not expressed using future constructions (so there is a lexically distinct form for offers), and (b) when will is used in an offer, it has a performative flavor, unlike when it is used in non-offer scenarios. This is shown in the contrast between (19) and (20).

One problem with this argument is that (19) and (20) are not fully parallel; only (19) mentions a future action by the speaker, and only (20) has a follow-up sentence that is clearly non-performative. As (21) shows, warnings involving future actions by the speaker can be performative. Conversely, offers can be rejected with ‘That’s not true’ in contexts such as (22).

We therefore do not believe that a separate lexical item is needed for offering-will. Instead, we will argue that the offer and warning data (and, indeed, the discourse-initial data) can all be captured under a unified analysis that combines features of both Copley’s and Klecha’s accounts.

2.3 The two accounts contrasted

The contrasts between Copley’s and Klecha’s analyses are summarized in (23).

Above, we introduced three core sets of data from English, involving offers, warnings, and discourse-initial contexts. We have shown that Copley’s analysis appears promising for offers, while Klecha’s analysis offers important insights about warnings with will. However, Klecha’s analysis alone cannot account for the judgments of speakers for whom be going to is infelicitous in conditional warnings.

What about the discourse-initial cases, as in (9)–(11)? Copley aims to account for these contrasts through the Subinterval Property (SIP), which bare will lacks and progressive be going to has (2009: 70ff).¹⁰ Roughly speaking, these contexts are situations in which the director is asserted to be committed to p at the moment of the utterance time.¹¹ Since bare will lacks the SIP, it cannot be applied to the single moment of the utterance time. Conversely, be going to is fine because it does have the SIP, due to the progressive: the situation of the director being committed to p holds throughout the entire larger interval. While this analysis captures the contrast, it is not quite clear to us why bare will lacks the SIP; Copley writes only that ‘Bare futures we might expect to be -SIP’ (2009: 70).

For Klecha, the distribution of will and be going to in discourse-initial contexts follows from the modal subordination account and requires no additional stipulations. In particular, will is infelicitous in discourse-initial cases because there is no antecedent to provide the domain restriction will requires. On the other hand, be going to does not require a domain restrictor and is thus felicitous in cases with no antecedent.

Given the equivocal nature of the evidence coming from English, it is worthwhile turning to cross-linguistic data to attempt to shed light on the debate. So far, cross-linguistic work has not got very far in this respect. While similar semantic contrasts to the offer data in (1) and (6) have been found in Indonesian and Turkish (Copley 2009), St’át’imcets (Salish; Glougie 2007), and Siamou (Niger-Congo; Toews 2015), the forms which are dispreferred in offer contexts do not normally overtly contain progressive morphology. Blackfoot (Algonquian; Reis Silva 2009) is, as far as we know, the only non-English language in which a correlation has been established between non-offer contexts and progressive (or more precisely for Blackfoot, imperfective) morphology.

In the remainder of this paper, we address the following questions: (a) Do any other languages show a contrast between will-like and be going to-like futures? (b) Is there cross-linguistic support for the proposal that some futures contain progressive aspect? (c) Can cross-linguistic data shed light on the debate about English?

In the next section we begin answering these questions by turning to Gitksan. We show that (a) Gitksan displays a contrast between will-like and be going to-like futures; (b) their distribution provides cross-linguistic support for modal subordination in the former type of futures, and for progressive aspect in the latter type, and (c) Gitksan contributes to the debate about the nature of futures in English. We argue that Copley is right about be going to-type futures – they do contain progressive – and that Klecha is right about will-type futures: we can cover all three core facts about will if we assume modal subordination. Gitksan future constructions can thus be captured with a blend of parts of Copley’s and Klecha’s analyses. We also argue that the Gitksan data do not support Klecha’s proposal that offering-will and gonna are lexically idiosyncratic, because Gitksan, like English, uses the same lexical item for ordinary futures as for offers, and it transparently composes non-offering (gonna-type) futures by using the progressive.

3.1 Introduction to dim and yukw

Future time reference in Gitksan is expressed by the pre-predicative marker dim (Rigsby 1986: 279). Dim is both necessary and sufficient for a future interpretation. Its obligatoriness is illustrated in (24). The temporal adverbial t'aahlakw ‘tomorrow’ conveys future time reference, but nevertheless dim is obligatory.

Dim’s sufficiency for a future interpretation is illustrated in (25), where dim is incompatible with eventualities that are ongoing at the utterance time, and (26), where dim is incompatible with past adverbials. See also Jóhannsdóttir and Matthewson (2007), Matthewson (2013), and Matthewson and Todorović (2018) for discussion.

Dim appears in a range of other contexts involving future time reference, for example with circumstantial modals (Matthewson 2013; see also section 4.2) and under certain attitude verbs (Matthewson and Todorović 2018), indicating the future temporal orientation of their complements.

Another relevant element is the progressive marker yukw. According to Rigsby (1986: 253), progressive yukw is syntactically an intransitive verb which combines with a clausal complement (with dependent-order agreement), as in (27).

Schwan (2019) provides a range of empirical diagnostics to show that yukw is a progressive aspect. For example, although yukw is compatible with ongoing events, it is unacceptable in habitual contexts; it is not a general imperfective. This is shown in (28).

Like the English progressive, yukw is rejected with individual-level states, as in (29).

Interestingly, however, yukw is compatible with stage-level (temporary) states. This is the case in English too, to a certain extent (Jóhannsdóttir 2011, among others), but Gitksan yukw is even more open to it, as in (30).

Importantly, the future dim and the progressive yukw can combine. There is thus a contrast between ‘plain dim’ and yukw dim, as in (31).

The English translations in (31) reflect the usual tendency for how speakers translate the two forms. In the following subsections, we present diagnostics to show that plain dim corresponds to the behaviour established for will, while yukw dim has a distribution and meaning which closely parallel be going to. Note that in all the contexts discussed in sections 3.2–3.4, there is always a clear preference for the form that we predict will fit the given context. However, it is not always the case that the other form is outright rejected in the context. Sometimes, it is a matter of preference for one form over the other, which is established via a forced choice task.

3.2 Offer contexts

In offer contexts, plain dim is preferred, and the progressive future yukw dim is dispreferred ((32)–(34)). In some cases, we give two slightly different versions of the sentences, to show the responses from consultants who speak different dialects.

The examples in (33) contain an overt if-clause relating to the addressee’s wishes (which further facilitates an offer scenario); plain dim is the preferred option.

Example (34) is similar to Copley’s billboard example. Dim is volunteered and accepted, as in (a) and (a’), but yukw dim is rejected, as in (b) and (b’). A third speaker commented about a yukw dim version of this sentence that “You don’t use yukw when you’re advertising.”

These data show that just like in English, the progressive future in Gitksan is dispreferred in offer contexts, while the plain future form is preferred.

3.3 Conditional vs. inevitable warnings

The Gitksan plain vs. progressive futures also pattern like English will vs. be going to in the warning cases. (35)–(36) show that dim is acceptable when a bomb’s explosion is dependent on the addressee’s actions (a conditional warning) and yukw dim is acceptable when the bomb is going to explode no matter what the addressee does (an inevitable warning).

A third consultant accepts both dim and yukw dim in this inevitable warning context, but in a forced-choice task chooses the yukw dim version; this consultant also consistently volunteers the yukw dim version in this context (as do all the consultants).

In summary, we have seen that plain dim is preferred for conditional warnings, and progressive yukw dim is preferred for inevitable warnings. This matches our judgments for English will vs. be going to. As noted above, Klecha (2011) assumes that be going to is good in both types of warning in English. His analysis works well for Gitksan plain futures with dim, but does not fully account for the facts with yukw dim; applying Klecha’s analysis of gonna to yukw dim would incorrectly predict that it should always be acceptable in conditional warnings.

3.4 Discourse-initial contexts

Recall that in English, will is infelicitous in certain discourse-initial contexts and be going to is fine. The same is true for the Gitksan plain vs. progressive futures, as shown in (37).

For some speakers, the plain dim form is not outright rejected in these contexts; nevertheless, on forced-choice tasks, yukw dim versions are consistently preferred over dim versions. In (38)–(39), the order of the forms differs, reflecting how they were presented to the consultant, to avoid an ordering bias.

The marriage-announcement cases also pattern the same in Gitksan and English. As shown in (40), only yukw dim is possible here.

3.5 Empirical summary

The data presented in this section have shown that there is a striking parallel between plain dim and will, and between progressive yukw dim and be going to. The parallels hold for all three data-sets: offers, warnings, and discourse-initial contexts.

4.1 Non-future tense

We showed in section 3.1 that dim is necessary and sufficient for future time reference in Gitksan. However, the language does not grammaticize other tense distinctions: there is no overt past or present tense morphology. For example, the sentence in (41) is compatible both with contexts in which Yoko’s running was happening before the utterance time or is happening right now.

Following Jóhannsdóttir and Matthewson (2007), we assume that Gitksan possesses a covert non-future tense, that restricts the reference time to being at or before the evaluation time t₀. In matrix contexts, t₀ is the utterance time.¹³ This is modeled in (42) using a pronominal analysis of tense; the tense denotes a time interval, which precedes or coincides with t₀. The value of the reference time interval is a contextually salient time, given by the assignment function g.

4.2 Dim

We now turn to future time reference. We analyse dim as a prospective aspect rather than as a future tense, and we adapt ideas of Bohnemeyer’s (2014) for how to model prospectives.¹⁴ As shown in (43), dim applies to a predicate of events P and outputs a predicate of times and events. For any event e and reference time t, e holds at t and e causes a P-event eʹ that happens at a time tʹ following t.¹⁵

The pre-event e can be thought of as some event (or state) that is a precursor of the later P-event. For example, in a case of predicting rain, e might be the gathering of clouds while eʹ is the raining event itself.

Dim co-occurs with the non-future tense, which provides the reference time argument t. This is parallel to a common analysis of English will/would, as containing an abstract futurity marker woll which combines with present/past tense (Abusch 1985). In English, woll + present (pronounced as will) places the event time after the utterance time, while woll + past (pronounced as would) places the event time after some past reference time. As Gitksan does not distinguish present from past, and the non-future tense is phonologically null, the combination of dim and tense is always pronounced as dim.

This analysis, involving a prospective aspect dim combining with the non-future tense, correctly predicts that dim can be used either for ordinary future time reference, or for ‘past futures’, as in (44); see Jóhannsdóttir and Matthewson (2007), Rullmann and Matthewson (2018) and Todorović (2021a) for further discussion. The progressive future yukw dim also has ‘past future’ readings, as shown in (45).

So far, we have not assigned any modal semantics to future time reference in Gitksan. Like the majority of the literature, we assume that reference to future events involves modality (see Cariani and Santorio 2018 and references therein for recent contributions to this debate¹⁶). However, rather than assigning modal semantics to dim itself, we propose that dim combines with a separate modal, which can be phonologically null.

The main motivation for proposing that dim can co-occur with a covert modal is that dim freely co-occurs with overt modals. They encode various modal flavours and strengths, as in (46)–(47).

Matthewson (2013) argues that when dim co-occurs with these modals, dim merely provides temporal ordering (i.e., prospective aspect); dim provides the temporal orientation of the modal, in the sense of Condoravdi (2002). Thus, in (46), the modal da'akhlxw conveys circumstantial possibility, and dim gives future orientation. Henry being able to cook means it is possible for him to cook at some time after the reference time (which is either the utterance time or some other salient time, depending on the context). In (47), sgi is a circumstantial necessity modal and again, dim provides future orientation. Lisa’s return home happens after the time of the obligation, either the utterance time or some salient previous time. (For the idea that circumstantial modals are future-oriented, see Abusch 2012; Thomas 2014; Klecha 2016; Chen et al. 2017, i.a.).

Finally, (48) shows that dim can co-occur with epistemic modals, providing future temporal orientation. Crucially, when dim is not there, as in (49), temporal orientation is present or past. Given that the modal flavor and strength stay the same in (45)–(46), but the temporal orientation changes, these examples provide evidence that dim is responsible for the temporal orientation of the modal and does not itself contribute modality. For the idea that futurity can stem from a prospective aspect below a modal rather than the modal itself, see Kratzer (2011), Matthewson (2012), Rullmann and Matthewson (2018), among others.

For parallelism with these cases, we propose that in plain future dim constructions, there is a covert modal, for which dim provides the temporal orientation. That is, the prospective aspect dim requires some kind of modal licensor, and if there is no overt modal, there is a null one.¹⁷ We do not go into the details of the flavour or strength of this null modal, but, for concreteness, we assume it is some kind of circumstantial necessity modal.¹⁸ We also assume that this modal has a modal subordination requirement, as proposed by Klecha (2011) for English will; in other words, it is not the prospective dim that requires modal subordination, but the null modal.¹⁹

The denotation of the null modal is given in (50).

(51) shows the syntactic structure that supports the composition of Gitksan futures. The vP provides the predicate of events P that is the first argument of dim; mod introduces modality, and a P-event is asserted to take place in all the best worlds given by the modal base and the ordering source, at a time after the time provided by the non-future tense.

The semantics of the sentence in (52), uttered in a world w₀ at time t₀, are given in (53). We assume that the contextually salient reference time is t₀, the utterance time.

According to (53), utterance of (52) in w₀ at t₀ asserts the following: there is an event e such that in all worlds wʹ that are compatible with the circumstantial modal base (which is familiar in the discourse), and that are ranked as best by the stereotypical ordering source, e takes place at t₀ and there is an event eʹ and a time tʹ such that tʹ follows t₀, e causes eʹ, and eʹ is a raining event that takes place at tʹ. Put simply, (52) is true if and only if in all circumstantially accessible stereotypical worlds, it rains within a time interval which follows the utterance time.

4.3 Progressive futures

We adopt a modal analysis of the progressive yukw. Modal analyses of the progressive have a long line of support in the literature for English (Dowty 1979; Portner 1998; among many others). As mentioned above, Schwan (2019) also argues for a modal approach in Gitksan. In addition, there is extensive evidence that reference to events is necessary for an empirically adequate account of the progressive; see, for example, Landman (1992). The analysis of Portner (1998) combines modality with reference to events, and we adapt a version of it here.

Our denotation for the progressive is given in (54). We follow Portner (1998) in assuming that the progressive relies on a circumstantial modal base; this modal base picks out the set of propositions that are relevant to whether the event is completed as an event of the right type. The progressive also relies on an ordering source, a set of propositions that ensure that the event is not interrupted. When applied to a predicate P in a world w₀, the progressive asserts that there is an event going on in w₀ at t₀ which, if it is not interrupted, will become an event of type P (see Portner 1998: 774).

The application of progressive yukw to a non-future predication is illustrated in (55)–(56). In a context where the salient reference time g(i) is the utterance time, the sentence asserts that there is an event e going on at UT and in all the best worlds in which e is not interrupted, e is part of a larger event e’ which is an event of raining.

Now we turn to the final step: progressive futures. The progressive denotation given in (54) takes as its first argument a predicate of type <l,<s,t>> (a predicate of events, provided by the vP in cases like (55)). In yukw dim constructions, we need a type-shifted version of the progressive: dim has already introduced a time argument, so the first argument of yukw needs to be of type <i,<l,<s,t>>>. The type-shifted version of yukw is given in (57).

Putting all the pieces together, we obtain the denotation in (59) for sentence (58). We are assuming that the contextually salient time g(i) for the utterance of (58) is the utterance time t₀. (As shown in (44)–(45), ‘past futures’ also exist, and the extension to them is straightforward.)

This says that (58) is true if and only if there is an event e in w₀ at t₀ such that in all the best worlds wʹ in which e is not interrupted, e is part of an event eʹ and there is a time tʹ that includes t₀, and in all the best worlds that are accessible from wʹ and tʹ, eʹ takes place at tʹ and eʹ causes a further event eʹʹ that takes place at a time tʹʹ following tʹ, and eʹʹ is a raining event in wʹʹ.

This complex denotation makes reference to three separate events: there is an event e in w₀ at t₀ which, if it is not interrupted, will become an event eʹ, and eʹ precedes (and causes) an event eʹʹ of it raining. This complexity is a result of the combination of our prospective analysis of dim (which involves preparatory events that cause the event described by the predicate), and Portner’s event-based analysis of the progressive. In fact, Portner suggests something along similar lines for futurates (constructions which convey future time reference without overt future marking); he refers to Dowty (1979) for the original idea.²⁰

• (i) Max was running the next day (but he got sick and had to stay in bed).

  These could be handled within the present system in terms of a preparatory or planning event. The idea is that Max’s event e of planning/preparing to run may be sufficient to make it the case that he runs in all worlds in Best (Circ, NI, e).²¹ In particular, we need to allow for a notion of interruption that applies to preparatory events, and say that Max’s preparations were interrupted by his getting sick. (Portner 1998: 776)

The idea is similar in our analysis of progressive futures: it is the preparatory event that is progressivized. In other words, the precursor event of something happening has already started at the reference time in the actual world, and continues/completes in all the best accessible worlds. A similar example to Portner’s (i) is felicitous with yukw dim in Gitksan (60); here, what is progressivized is the preparatory state before Hector talks:

Importantly, our analysis preserves Copley’s original intuition that one core difference between will and be going to is whether the modal backgrounds are calculated at a moment, or at a larger interval. A progressive future sentence asserts that there is an event that follows t₀ in all worlds that are compatible with the modal’s conversational backgrounds at an interval tʹ surrounding t₀; that is, an interval that began before t₀. Conversely, a plain future sentence accesses the modal background at t₀. Consequently, progressive futures, but not plain futures, convey that the future event is already determined before t₀ (insofar as future events are ever ‘determined’: they will take place in all the best worlds in the modal base).

An important point to clarify is that we are proposing that in yukw dim constructions, dim combines with the modal progressive yukw, and there is no co-occurring null modal. Since we assume that the modal subordination requirement is introduced only by the null modal (as part of its lexical entry), we predict that there will be no modal subordination requirement in yukw dim constructions. This prediction is confirmed by the data, as we will make clear in the next sub-section.

4.4 How the analysis captures the contrasts

The analysis presented above can capture the three core contrasts between plain and progressive futures in Gitksan and English.

Consider first offering contexts. In a context like (61) (repeated from (32)), plain dim is fine because the modal subordination requirement of its null modal is satisfied: I will bring fry bread if you want it. The progressive future yukw dim is ruled out because its modal backgrounds are calculated at a super-interval of the utterance time. This means that the speaker will bring fried bread in all the best worlds compatible with the facts at a time beginning before the utterance time. In other words, the speaker had already decided to bring fried bread, regardless of whether the addressee wants it. This is not a good offer and yukw dim is correctly ruled out.

Conditional warnings (i.e., warnings that are contingent on the addressee’s actions) are correctly predicted by our analysis to be fine with dim and dispreferred with yukw dim. In (62)a, repeated from (35)b, the plain future involves a modal conversational background that is assessed at the utterance time, and its modal subordination requirement is satisfied by the implicit restriction if you touch the door. In (62)b, the progressive future clause asserts that in all the best worlds compatible with the relevant facts at a time beginning before the UT, the bomb will explode. This does not fit the context, where it is not yet determined at UT that the bomb will explode (i.e., it depends on whether someone opens the door).²³

The proposed analysis also explains the facts for inevitable warning contexts, such as in (63), repeated from (36). The time-bomb is set to explode in two minutes, i.e. the explosion is determined before the utterance time, so yukw dim is felicitous. Plain dim is infelicitous in this context, since the if-clause required for modal subordination does not fit here; the bomb will explode regardless of the actions of the hearer.

Our analysis also explains why plain dim is dispreferred in discourse-initial cases as in (64), repeated from (39).

The null modal that co-occurs with dim in (64)a enforces modal subordination, yielding the interpretation ‘if X happens, it will rain’. However, since it is already pretty certain that the rain will happen, an if-clause does not make sense here and the modal subordination requirement of the null modal is not satisfied. The progressive future yukw dim is correctly predicted to be felicitous in this context, because the future raining is already determined: in all the best worlds compatible with the facts at a time beginning before the utterance time, it is going to rain.

The same reasoning can be extended to the jumping and marriage announcement cases, repeated in (65)–(66). In (65), it looks as if the person on the bridge is necessarily going to jump. This clashes with the semantics of plain dim: due to modal subordination, dim would force the interpretation to be ‘He will jump if X happens’, but no X is provided by the context. Progressive yukw dim again makes reference to a super-interval surrounding the utterance time, so the jumping is determined before the utterance time, which matches the context.

Similarly in (66), the decision about marriage has already been made. Yukw dim is felicitous for the same reason as in (65), and plain dim is infelicitous, since it requires there to be a condition ‘They will get married if X happens’.

5.1 Summary of proposals

Our first goal in this paper was to establish whether a contrast similar to that between English will and be going to can be found in languages other than English. We investigated Gitksan plain vs. progressive future constructions, and we provided evidence that these two forms of future time reference show the same meaning contrasts as English will vs. be going to. In both languages, the plain future (will or dim) is compatible with offers and conditional warnings, and incompatible with inevitable warnings and discourse-initial contexts. And in both languages, the progressive future (be going to or yukw dim) is dispreferred in offer and conditional warning contexts, and fully acceptable in inevitable warnings and discourse-initially.

We have analyzed Gitksan dim as a prospective aspect, which places the time at which a predicate holds after some precursor event that takes place at the reference time. Dim co-occurs with an overt or covert modal; this modal provides the quantification over possible worlds appropriate for assertions about the future. When dim co-occurs with a covert modal, we have plain future constructions; these involve obligatory modal subordination (lexically specified on the covert modal, following the spirit of Klecha 2011). Dim constructions also involve covert non-future tense; this gives rise to either ordinary future readings, or past-future readings, depending on whether the non-future tense picks out the utterance time or a past time.

Our second task was to determine if there is cross-linguistic support for positing progressive aspect in some futures. The answer is yes. We showed that Gitksan yukw dim transparently contains the progressive yukw. The effect of the progressive above dim is to extend the time interval of the preparatory event which precedes the prejacent’s future event. Since that longer time interval crucially begins before the relevant reference point, this gives rise to the meaning that the future event is already determined (due to happen in all the best worlds compatible with the relevant facts). Such an analysis correctly predicts that inevitable warnings, which involve events determined before the utterance time, are felicitous with the progressive future yukw dim. The same holds for discourse-initial contexts. Yukw dim asserts that the future event of, for example, jumping in (65), is already determined prior to the reference time, so it is correctly ruled in. The analysis also correctly predicts that yukw dim is incompatible with offers or conditional warnings; these do not make assertions about already decided events, but are crucially dependent on the addressee’s desires or actions.

On the other hand, plain future dim is felicitous in exactly those contexts (offers and conditional warnings). More generally, plain future dim is felicitous whenever there is sensitivity to the circumstances at the utterance time; this is due to the obligatory modal subordination on the null modal. This also explains why plain dim is infelicitous with inevitable warnings or discourse-initial contexts, because in those contexts, the utterance time circumstances do not affect the future outcome of the action.

In sum, we have advanced an analysis of Gitksan dim and yukw dim future constructions which draws on elements of both Copley’s (2009) and Klecha’s (2011) analyses. The analysis is compositional and uses only independently-required building blocks: the prospective aspect dim, the progressive yukw, and a covert modal element in plain dim constructions.

5.2 English, and the big picture: Building blocks in future constructions

The third question we asked was whether cross-linguistic data shed light on the debate about English. We believe that our approach to Gitksan can be fruitfully extended to English, with full empirical coverage. Moreover, we argue that a combination of features from both Copley’s and Klecha’s analyses is required to cover the full range of facts.

Recall that Copley derives the contingency of will in offer contexts (i.e., the fact that offers crucially depend on the addressee’s wishes) from a pragmatic requirement on offering (see (14)). As we pointed out above, this approach does not straightforwardly extend to the warning data. Conversely, Klecha’s account involving modal subordination works well for warnings – conditional warnings involve modal subordination and inevitable warnings do not – but he himself asserts that the account should not be extended to offering data.

Our analysis incorporates from Klecha’s account the idea that the plain future modal has obligatory modal subordination. Modal subordination narrows down the worlds being quantified over to those that include the hearer’s desires or actions, and we have argued that this applies in a parallel fashion both to offers and to warnings: every accessible world where you want the fried bread or where you touch the door is a world where I’ll bring the fried bread or the bomb will explode. Thus, unlike Klecha, we do not believe that offers require a separate lexical item offering-will; on the contrary, the modal subordination analysis of will extends nicely to offers.

The modal subordination idea also successfully captures the discourse-initial context data (which, again, are not fully explained by Copley’s analysis alone): these contexts are not compatible with modal subordination and hence are only good with progressive futures, in English as well as in Gitksan.

Our analysis can also help to resolve the controversy about whether English be going to contains progressive semantics. Here is where Copley’s analysis has a critical insight to contribute, and where her cross-linguistic predictions are upheld. Gitksan wears the progressivity of its progressive futures on its sleeve, in an even more transparent way than English does. Our analysis of Gitksan is compositional, and it uses only independently-motivated building blocks: the prospective aspect dim, a covert modal in plain dim constructions, and crucially the progressive yukw.

The Gitksan data, and the Gitksan-English comparison, enable us to advance a unified picture about how future constructions are composed in the two languages. The core idea is that languages combine smaller semantic building blocks to create complex temporal/aspectual meanings (cf. von Fintel and Matthewson 2008), as shown in Table 1. In both languages, futures that allow offers and conditional warnings, but disallow discourse-initial contexts, are composed of a covert modal (that has obligatory modal subordination – annotated as Ø_ModSub) plus an overt prospective aspect (woll or dim; woll is spelled out as will or would). Futures that disallow offers or conditional warnings, but allow discourse-initial contexts, are composed of progressive (-ing or yukw) plus prospective. If we tentatively assume that English uses the verb go as a prospective aspect, we have overt prospective in all cases.²⁴ In Table 1, ‘offer’ stands as shorthand for the collection of properties that plain futures have.

5.3 Future research

Much more research remains to be done. One issue that deserves further investigation is the status of English be going to in conditional warning contexts (Don’t touch the door! The bomb is going to explode!). As pointed out in footnote 9, Klecha’s analysis predicts that be going to is semantically acceptable here, but might be pragmatically dispreferred as will is a better choice because its presupposition is met. Given the disagreements about judgments in the literature, a first useful step would be to establish some firm empirical generalizations. In doing so, it would be good to avoid some complicating factors, such as the presence of a definite article in the bomb, which introduces potentially interfering presuppositions into the context.

In terms of the analysis of be going to, we showed that our inclusion of progressive semantics rules be going to out in conditional warnings, because the progressive asserts that the exploding will happen in all the best worlds compatible with the facts at a time beginning before the speaker touches the door. This works well for Gitksan, where the progressive future is degraded in conditional warnings, and for some English speakers, but the analysis would need tweaking for English speakers who allow be going to here.

Within Gitksan, there is one more building block that appears in future constructions: the pre-predicative marker hlaa, which we tentatively analyze as a marker of proximity, as does Jóhannsdóttir (2006). The effect of hlaa on plain dim futures is illustrated in (67). Futures with hlaa place the event time close to the reference time; a compositional analysis remains to be developed for these constructions.

There is also more investigation to be done on whether other aspects, including yukw, can appear below dim. According to our analysis, progressive yukw scopes over prospective dim, and dim selects for a vP (see (51)). If yukw needs to be located in an AspP, we predict that yukw cannot appear under dim.²⁵

The facts in this regard are not clear-cut. On the one hand, sentences with yukw dim yukw are dispreferred, and often judged as unacceptable. In (68) the speaker volunteered a single yukw, and when asked about the possibility of double yukw, commented that “It’s okay in English but it doesn’t sound good in Gitsenimx [Gitksan].”

Further, yukw is rejected under plain dim, as shown in (68).

On the other hand, structures as in (68) are occasionally accepted by some consultants, as for example in (70)a,b. One speaker offered a contrast between (70)b, which contains a lower yukw and means the people are already singing when you come in, and (70)c, which does not contain a lower yukw, and conveys that “People will start singing when you come in.”

One possible explanation for the acceptability of lower yukw for some speakers comes from an independently attested homophonous verb yukw, which means ‘busy’. In other words, the examples in (70) could be paraphrased as ‘people will be busy singing upon your entry’; the verbal yukw forms a resultative verbal compound with limx ‘sing’ meaning ‘busy singing’.²⁶ However, because there is no consensus on the acceptability of yukw dim yukw cases, we have to leave this question for future research.

It is also worth asking how speakers who reject (yukw) dim yukw express future progressive meanings (as opposed to the progressive future meanings we have been discussing throughout the paper). Can they simply use yukw dim? In other words, can the construction that we argued means ‘be going to V’ (progressive future) also be used to convey ‘will be V-ing’ (future progressive)?²⁷ Further research is needed here, but we do not believe so. Even though, as shown in (68), speakers can use yukw dim in a context where the event will already be in progress at some later salient time interval, yukw dim is also perfect in contexts where the event is not already in progress at a future time. This includes, for example, the discourse-initial contexts such as ‘It is going to rain’ (≠ ‘It will be raining’) and ‘He is going to jump’ (≠ ‘He will be jumping.’).²⁸

In general, much more remains to be revealed about viewpoint aspect in Gitksan. It is noteworthy that the syntax of the progressive yukw – sitting very high in the tree and taking a subordinate clause – is quite different from that of the English progressive. There is also obviously much to be done in a wider range of languages on interactions between future markers and viewpoint aspect. We do not necessarily expect that our analysis will extend to all languages that have two contrasting grammaticalized means of expressing future time reference. Nevertheless, the close parallels between English and Gitksan, two unrelated languages, suggest that it is at least worth entertaining the hypothesis that our analysis has wider cross-linguistic validity. We also believe that the unification of offers with conditional warnings, as both deriving from obligatory modal subordination, provides a step forward in our understanding of the English facts.