new insights into future constructions in Polish

What is it about?

In Polish there are two types of constructions expressing the future time reference: i) a “simple future” (SF), which is a present tense form of a perfective verb, and ii) a “periphrastic future” (PF), which consists of the auxiliary 'będzie' and an imperfective lexical verb in form of either an l-participle or an infinitive. These two seemingly simple constructions provoke four complex, puzzling questions concerning their syntax, semantics and diachrony.

Featured Image

Why is it important?

In this paper, we ask and provide answers to the following questions: 1) What is the syntactic structure of future constructions in Polish?, 2) Why does Polish have two variants of a periphrastic future (i.e., one variant with an l-participle as a complement of the future auxiliary 'będzie' and another variant with an infinitive as a complement of 'będzie')? More specifically, can the fact that at some point in the history of Polish the two variants of the periphrastic future were developed be attributed to the semantics of these forms or should it be treated as a diachronic incident?, 3) How is the future reference obtained in the Polish future constructions?, and 4) Assuming that there is the same mechanism for obtaining a future time reference both in simple future and periphrastic future, what is the difference between simple future and periphrastic future after all?