The Asymmetry in Language Tenses: Past vs Future

Introduction

When examining the tenses in various languages, one intriguing observation is the asymmetry in how languages deal with time. This article aims to explore why languages tend to have richer systems to express the past rather than the future. Unlike past versus non-past, the distinction is actually between future versus nonfuture. Only a slight majority of languages have a dedicated inflectional future tense.

Future vs. Nonfuture: A Linguistic Observation

The linguistic reality is that, out of the world's languages, slightly less than half have a dedicated inflectional future tense. This distribution raises an important question: why are the past tenses more well-developed than the future tenses in many languages?

Grammaticalization of Tenses

While all human languages have ways to talk about past and future time, not every language grammaticalizes these concepts directly. Languages like English have overt past tense markings, such as the -ed suffix, but lack a consistent way to mark future time. It's common to see variations such as 'The train leaves at 3:15' versus 'The train will leave at 3:15' or 'The train is going to leave at 3:15,' all without a uniform future tense.

Examples of Language Tenses

Judicative languages, such as Ancient Greek, have an overt -s future suffix. For example, 'γρφω [grapo:] ' (I write) transitions to 'γρψω [grapso:] ' (I will write).' Similarly, in Georgian, 'vts’er' means 'I am writing it,' while 'davts’er' means 'I will write it.' Approximately 50 languages in the world have an analogous form.

Past Tenses: A More Abundant Category

Past tenses, on the other hand, are grammaticalized much more frequently. Around 60 of the world's languages have an overt past tense, and around 18 have remoteness distinctions of one kind or another. Some languages like Kiksht, a Chinookan language, have seven past tenses based on varying degrees of remoteness in time:

1 gal-...u-: remote past 2 gal-...t-: from one to ten years ago 3 nig-...-u-: from a week to one year ago 4 nig-...-t-: last week 5 nal-..: yesterday or preceding couple of days 6 ig-...-u-: earlier on today but not just now 7 ig-...-t-: happened just now

Not all of these languages have extensive future tense marking, indicating a different approach to temporal categories.

Why Past Tenses Prevail over Future Tenses

One possible explanation for this asymmetry lies in the fact that making statements about the future is inherently more uncertain. From an epistemological perspective, the future is distinct from the present and the past. We can perceive or remember past and present events, but we cannot perceive the future directly, nor can we determine the truth value of future statements with certainty.

Simon Dgel, a typological linguist, succinctly addresses this issue: 'From the epistemological point of view, the future has a rather different status from both the present and the past. We cannot perceive or remember future states of affairs, and it has been disputed whether statements about the future can be said to have a determinate truth value.'

Future statements often reflect intentions, obligations, or predictions rather than facts. For instance, in English, 'will' or 'shall' can denote future actions, but these evolved from verbs expressing wishes, want, or obligation. They are also used in ambiguous contexts where intention and time are entangled.

In Old Georgian, the optative was used for statements that might have a future reading: 'uk’uetu ixil os sit’k’boebay mrtisay' translates to 'if a man will see [lit. would see] the sweetness of God.'

Such linguistic observations illustrate that the boundary between modal and temporal categories is often blurred, especially in the evolution of language. Modal forms can carry temporal implications, further reinforcing the distinct treatment of past and future tenses in many languages.

By exploring the asymmetry in language tenses, we gain a deeper understanding of the complex and ever-evolving nature of human communication and the tools we use to express time.