The expression of future in Turkish [Le futur du turc et ses traductions en français]

Abstract

The status of affix -(y)AcAK, the future morpheme in Turkish, is an object of controversy. Certain linguists suggest that the affix -(y)AcAK is neither a marker of time nor aspect, but rather that of modality. Some others claim that, according to the co-text or the context of the statement, -(y)AcAK can have a modal value with a main meaning of future temporal reference. In this work, we investigated how -(y)AcAK is used and translated into French based on a database of Nazim Hikmet's original poems in Turkish and their translations into French. The great majority of our examples show that the future forms in the two languages, -(y)AcAK and "future simple" in French, mark future time reference. On the other hand, like "future simple" of French, -(y)AcAK also presents modal nuances which allow a future reading.