Going-to future
Encyclopedia
Going-to future is a term used to describe an English
sentence structure referring to the future
, making use of the verb phrase
to be going to. The verb "go" can also be used to indicate the future in some other languages.
The colloquial form gonna is a relaxed pronunciation
of going to. For example, "This is gonna be awesome!". Other variants in different forms of English are gon and a, thus, a phrase like "You're going to like it" could also be said as "You're gonna like it", "You gonna like it", "You 'gon like it" or even "You 'a like it".
This now forms a clear separation of the locative and temporal senses of the expression: while "I am gonna swim" is syntactically similar, a sentence like "I am gonna the beach" is not.
The going to is frequently contracted to gonna, something which the verb go cannot do. In the first person
, I'm gonna may further contract to ˈaɪmənə or I'mma ˈaɪmə.
s.
(The future going-to construction is questionable; I will be going to eat would normally be read as indicating motion (lexical 'go') rather than intention, and would often be replaced by the adverbial construction of imminence I will be about to eat.)
In some contexts the going to form can express unconditionality while the will form expresses conditionality ("Don't sit on that rock—it's going to fall" means it's going to fall regardless of what you do, while "Don't sit on that rock—it will fall" means that it will fall conditional on your sitting on it). But in some contexts the reverse can be true ("After 1962 ended, I would be a star" unconditionally describes what subsequently did happen, while "After 1962 ended, I was gonna be a star" describes intent for a situation whose reality was conditional on the intent being carried out).
model a future tense/irrealis mood marker on "go" from the superstrate. Examples include Jamaican English Creole /de go hapm/ "is going to happen", /mi a go ɹon/ "I am going to run", Belizean Creole English /gwein/ or /gouɲ/, Gullah
Uh gwine he'p dem "I'm going to help them", Hawaiian Creole English /Ai gon bai wan pickup/ "I gonna buy one pickup", /Da gai sed hi gon fiks mi ap wit wan blain deit/ "The guy said he gonna fix me up with one blind date", and Haitian Creole /Mwen va fini/ "I go finish".
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
sentence structure referring to the future
Future tense
In grammar, a future tense is a verb form that marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet, but expected to happen in the future , or to happen subsequent to some other event, whether that is past, present, or future .-Expressions of future tense:The concept of the future,...
, making use of the verb phrase
Verb phrase
In linguistics, a verb phrase or VP is a syntactic unit composed of at least one verb and the dependents of that verb. One can distinguish between two types of VPs, finite VPs and non-finite VPs . While phrase structure grammars acknowledge both, dependency grammars reject the existence of a...
to be going to. The verb "go" can also be used to indicate the future in some other languages.
Origin
The going to future originated by the extension of the spatial sense of the verb 'go' to a temporal sense (a common change - the same phenomenon can be seen in the preposition before). The original construction involved physical movement with an intention, such as I am going [outside] to harvest the crop. The location later became unnecessary, and the expression was reinterpreted to represent a near future.The colloquial form gonna is a relaxed pronunciation
Relaxed pronunciation
Relaxed pronunciation is a phenomenon that happens when the syllables of common words are slurred together...
of going to. For example, "This is gonna be awesome!". Other variants in different forms of English are gon and a, thus, a phrase like "You're going to like it" could also be said as "You're gonna like it", "You gonna like it", "You 'gon like it" or even "You 'a like it".
This now forms a clear separation of the locative and temporal senses of the expression: while "I am gonna swim" is syntactically similar, a sentence like "I am gonna the beach" is not.
Formation
The going to future is formed as subject + be (in the proper form for the subject) + going to + verb + any other information. That this construction is distinct from the verb to go can be seen in the fact that the two can be used together: I'm going to go to the store now.The going to is frequently contracted to gonna, something which the verb go cannot do. In the first person
First person
First person may refer to:* First-person narrative, a literary device* First-person interpretation, a museum technique* First Person , an interview-based television series created by Errol Morris...
, I'm gonna may further contract to ˈaɪmənə or I'mma ˈaɪmə.
Usage
The going to future is used when the speaker wishes to draw a connection between present events, situations, or intentions and expected future events or situations: "If you do not stop, you are going to be caught by the police and hauled back to jail." "Our houses are going to be swept away by the impending storm." This form sometimes indicates imminence but sometimes does not ("It's going to rain"; but "I'm going to visit Paris someday"); these same examples show that it sometimes indicates intention but sometimes does not. The "will" and "going to" constructions are often interchangeable. Both can be used in the past tense to denote former future intention (e.g. "I was going to eat dinner, but decided not to"; "I knew I would do it the next day") or former prediction ("It was going to rain"; "I thought it would rain the next day"). Since it usually expresses the present relevance of the future event or situationprospective and retrospective aspectAspect
Aspect may be:*Aspect , a feature that is linked to many parts of a program, but which is not necessarily the primary function of the program...
s.
| Going to | Perfect | |
|---|---|---|
| Past | I was going to eat | I had eaten |
| Present | I am going to eat | I have eaten |
| Future | ? I will be going to eat | I will have eaten |
| Conditional | I would be going to eat | I would have eaten |
(The future going-to construction is questionable; I will be going to eat would normally be read as indicating motion (lexical 'go') rather than intention, and would often be replaced by the adverbial construction of imminence I will be about to eat.)
In some contexts the going to form can express unconditionality while the will form expresses conditionality ("Don't sit on that rock—it's going to fall" means it's going to fall regardless of what you do, while "Don't sit on that rock—it will fall" means that it will fall conditional on your sitting on it). But in some contexts the reverse can be true ("After 1962 ended, I would be a star" unconditionally describes what subsequently did happen, while "After 1962 ended, I was gonna be a star" describes intent for a situation whose reality was conditional on the intent being carried out).
French
Similarly to English, the French verb aller (to go) can be used as an auxiliary verb to create a near-future tense (le futur proche). Whereas English uses the continuous aspect (to be going), French uses the simple present tense; for example, the English sentence "I am going to do it tomorrow" would in French be « Je vais le faire demain » (literally, "I go it to do tomorrow"). As in English, this form can generally be replaced by the present or future tense: "I am doing it tomorrow", "I shall do it tomorrow", « Je le fais demain », « Je le ferai demain ».Spanish
Likewise, the Spanish verb ir "to go" can be used to express the future: Mi padre va a llegar mañana "My father is going to arrive tomorrow".Creoles
Some CreolesCreole language
A creole language, or simply a creole, is a stable natural language developed from the mixing of parent languages; creoles differ from pidgins in that they have been nativized by children as their primary language, making them have features of natural languages that are normally missing from...
model a future tense/irrealis mood marker on "go" from the superstrate. Examples include Jamaican English Creole /de go hapm/ "is going to happen", /mi a go ɹon/ "I am going to run", Belizean Creole English /gwein/ or /gouɲ/, Gullah
Gullah
The Gullah are African Americans who live in the Lowcountry region of South Carolina and Georgia, which includes both the coastal plain and the Sea Islands....
Uh gwine he'p dem "I'm going to help them", Hawaiian Creole English /Ai gon bai wan pickup/ "I gonna buy one pickup", /Da gai sed hi gon fiks mi ap wit wan blain deit/ "The guy said he gonna fix me up with one blind date", and Haitian Creole /Mwen va fini/ "I go finish".