séminaire général

Résumé : It is no longer controversial that future tense in language does not (merely) denote times. It is not however settled whether future is an evidential (Squartini 2004, Mari 2010, Eckardt and Beltrama 2019, Frana and Mendez-Benito 2019, Ippolito and Farkas 2019,2021) or a modal (Bertinetto, 1979, Enç 1996, Bonomi and Del Prete 2008, Mari 2009,2021, Cariani 2014, Giannakidou 2012, Giannakidou and Mari 2013b,2016,2018a,to appear, de Saussure and Morency 2015).

In this talk we focus epistemic futures (for volitional futures, see Copley 2009), retrace the debate, and argue in favor of a modal analysis  as a non-biased necessity modal. We cast the analysis within the veridicality framework of Giannakidou and Mari 2018b,2021 according to which the modal skeleton features a metaevaluative layer that accounts for its quantificational flexibility. We also briefly address the meaning of future reflective questions and, time permitting, in mica questions.