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EXPONENTS OF FUTURITY IN GOTHIC 1
Author(s) -
Coleman Robert
Publication year - 1996
Publication title -
transactions of the philological society
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.333
H-Index - 26
eISSN - 1467-968X
pISSN - 0079-1636
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-968x.1996.tb01175.x
Subject(s) - exponent , range (aeronautics) , critical exponent , point (geometry) , distribution (mathematics) , literature , astrophysics , physics , linguistics , theoretical physics , mathematics , art , philosophy , mathematical analysis , geometry , materials science , scaling , composite material
A bstract The Greek future is generally rendered by the Gothic present indicative or, much less often, subjunctive; which shows that Gothic had not yet developed a distinctive future tense. A starting point for such a development is in the rare but varied analytic exponents of futurity, examined here in detail. The role of aspect in the distribution of these exponents, as of presents with or without ga ‐ to signal futurity, has been greatly exaggerated. The analytic exponents themselves postdate Wulfila's original version, and the revisers who introduced them‐mostly in a small number of passages‐were drawing on the spoken language, where there was bilingual interaction with Vulgar Latin, which shows a similar range of exponents. Though probably modelled on Latin habere +inf., Gothic haban +inf. was the exponent best equipped to provide a new future tense.