Le futur en français : Une étude sur l'emploi du futur simple et futur périphrastique à l'oral

Sammanfattning: The general view by some linguists seems to be that the French simple future is often replacedby the periphrastic future in spoken language; a natural development characterized by anincrease of analytical forms at the expense of synthetic forms. However others claim that theusage of both simple and periphrastic future are still present in ordinary French, both havingdifferent implications. In this particular study, we examine the usage of simple future andperiphrastic future in the corpus ESLO2, which consist of transcripts of interviews andconversations from Orléans, France. We also examine some of the linguistic factors thatmight affect the usage of the two forms. Our hypothesis, based on previous literature andarticles treating the subject, being that the periphrastic future is used more frequently than thesimple future and that the traditional distinction between the two forms is not adequate inexplaining their usage in spoken French. The results of the study show that the periphrasticfuture is used more frequently than the simple form, and that there are linguistic factors thatcould explain their usage, however it is difficult to find unison explanations and furtherstudies are needed to conclude the factors behind the two forms.