Abstract :
This article describes and analyses five different ways of expressing futurity in English
(shall/will, be going to, be to, the simple present and the present progressive) in a
Construction Grammar framework. It suggests that the different expressions can be
captured as an onomasiologically motivated family of constructions in which the single
constructions are differentiated by complex co- and contextual configurations. The latter
can be elegantly captured in a Construction Grammar framework since constructions by
definition can include pragmatic features. Also, this article claims that constructions may
be equipped with an additional ‘context slot’, in which co- and contextual information
can be stored. In a final section, this article turns to the issue of tense as a grammatical
phenomenon and its genesis in grammaticalisation processes. It is suggested that a
Construction Grammar account can make the age-old debate about a future tense in
English redundant. Instead, it complements studies in grammaticalisation and opens up
some interesting perspectives on parallel developments in the onto- and phylogenesis of
constructions.
