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French future: Exploring the future ratification hypothesis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2015

ALDA MARI
ALDA MARI*
Affiliation:
Institut Jean Nicod (CNRS/ENS/EHESS)
*
Address for correspondence: Alda Mari Institut Jean Nicod, ENS, 29 rue d’Ulm, 75005 Paris – France email: alda.mari@ens.fr
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Abstract

The paper proposes a unified account of the systematic polysemy of French future (FUT) that does not uniquely rely on Aktionsart. It explains the predominant preference for the temporal interpretation of FUT, appealing to the ‘future ratification hypothesis’. This is a felicity condition that can be satisfied to different degrees and among competing interpretations the one that satisfies it to the highest degree is preferred. The paper also shows that FUT does not convey uncertainty at utterance time (tu ), and can be used when the attitude holder knows at tu that the embedded proposition is true.

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Journal of French Language Studies , Volume 26 , Issue 3 , November 2016 , pp. 353 - 378
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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