Вестник Московского государственного областного университета (Jan 2023)
THE FUTURE IN THE PRESENT: ON FUTURE TIME REFERENCE IN RUSSIAN AND ENGLISH
Abstract
Aim. To focus on such a feature of future time reference as talking about the future through the forms of the present tense in the comparison of the Russian and English languages. Methodology. The key research methods were hypothetical-deductive method, the analysis and synthesis of scientific materials on the research topic and the introspection method. The analysis of the linguistic discussion on the opposition of the present/past/future trichotomy and the past/non-past dichotomy is given. Special attention is paid to the question if the tendency to focus primarily on the present is equally represented in the two languages under consideration at the level of the verb forms usage.Results. It is emphasized that from the linguistic-philosophical point of view the ability to express the present and the future by means of one form reflects the peculiarities of human perception of time. This feature can be recognized as universal for different languages and it manifests itself in Russian and English. An open-to-discussion hypothesis is put forward that the reference to the future through the present is more widely expressed in everyday speech in English than in Russian.Research implications. The article updates the problems of comparative study of the features of future time reference in language and speech.
