Future of Probability

Good morning, while studying Spanish I realized an interesting thing. The thing is I have learned Future of Probability does not exist in English, but found some useful information e.g. in this WR thread here. Since Future of Probability exits in both Czech and Hungarian, I wonder what other languages have that phenomenon. So, let's start with a specific short phrase.

Spanish:
- De dónde es Carlos?
- No lo sé. Será argentino. (lit.: he will be Argentinian)

English:
- Where is Carlos from?
- I don't know. He will be from Argenta. (???) I don't think it works.

Hungarian:
- Honnan van Carlos?
- Nem tudom. Argentin lesz. (simple Future, it works)

Czech:
- Odkud je Carlos?
- Nevím. Bude z Argentíny. (simple Future, it works)

I think it's common in Slavic and Romance language, but how about other language gorups?
Thanks.

In Russian, it is not the case - I can only use the modal verb form: "должно быть, он ..." (lit. "(it) must be, he ...") and the like. The simple "will be" only works with a logical outcome: "2 x 2 будет 4", "это будет катастрофа" (it will be a disaster), etc.

However, a similar pattern appears in the second person form as "where are you from": откуда сам будешь? (lit. "(and) you-yourself, from-where will be?", but it's a colloquialism and rather a dated thing, especially in the form of "whose daughter/son/servant are you" which appears in fairy tales and movies.

In Greek the structure is a bit different as the impersonal «πρέπει» [ˈpre̞pi] --> it has to, needs to, ought to < Ancient Greek v. «πρέπω» /ˈpre.pɔː/ (which hasn't survived in the modern lanɡuaɡe besides the fossilised «πρέπει») is used:

-Από πού είναι ο Κάρλος; [aˈpo̞ˈpuˈi.ne̞ ↗︎o̞ˈkaɾ.lo̞s̠] = where is Carlos from?
-Δεν ξέρω. Θα πρέπει να είναι από την Αργεντινή [ˌðe̞ŋˈk͡s̠e̞.ɾo̞.θaˈpɾe̞piˌnaˈi.ne̞.aˈpo̞ˌt̠inaɾʝeŋdiˈni] = I don't know. It will ought to be from Argentina.

In Catalan, that use of the future exists but is regarded as inappropriate in formal usage, in which an adverb of probability or the modal verbs deure and poder are used instead.

D'on és el Carlos?
No ho sé. Deu ser argentí.

or

D'on és el Carlos?
No ho sé. Potser és argentí.

Encolpius said:

Spanish:
- De dónde es Carlos?
- No lo sé. Será argentino. (lit.: he will be Argentinian)

Click to expand...

It works in Italian as well: :)
- Di dov'è Carlos?
- Non (lo) so. Sarà argentino.

In Italian this is called "futuro epistemico" (epistemic) or "suppositivo" (suppositive). The meaning of epistemic in linguistics is "of or relating to how cognition or knowledge is expressed in language", while suppositive means "characterized by, involving, or implying supposition".

I would add, as an interesting fact, that in my variety of the Calabrian dialect (Northern Calabrian, or Cosentian) this is almost the only use of the future tense we know, since we prefer to express future actions using the present tense.

The epistemic future is commonly used in spoken Italian. However, we recognize two other peculiar uses of the future other than this:

1) Futuro dubitativo (dubitative)
- Sarà davvero argentino, Carlos? (Ne dubito).
- Is Carlos really Argentinian? (I doubt he is).

2) Futuro concessivo (concessive)
- Carlos sarà pure argentino, ma parla più inglese che spagnolo.
- Carlos may be Argentinian, but he speaks more English than Spanish.

(Sorry if my translation to English is not accurate! :oops:)

Does this work in Spanish or other languages too? ;)

nizzebro said:

In Russian, it is not the case - I can only use the modal verb form: "должно быть, он ..." (lit. "(it) must be, he ...") and the like. The simple "will be" only works with a logical outcome: "2 x 2 будет 4", "это будет катастрофа" (it will be a disaster), etc.

Click to expand...

Interesting. Too bad we cannot find out how it works in other Slavic languages.

If I understand well, then the answer to your question for Dutch is that we can use a future but combined with wel, which adds an idea of guessing.

- Vanwaar komt Carlos?/ Waar komt Carlos vandaan?
- Ik weet het niet. Hij zal wel uit Argentinië komen.

Educated guess, it might be called: I suppose he will be from A. English uses a paraphrase, I think.

Encolpius said:

English:
- Where is Carlos from?
- I don't know. He will be from Argenta. (???) I don't think it works.

Click to expand...

That particular example doesn't work, as far as I know, but there are some contexts where the future tense can be used to express a stronger degree of likelihood/certainty.

For example, the following seems OK to me (if we imagine that "Carlos" is the name of a co-worker):

- Where is Carlos from?
- He'll be from Argentina. Practically everybody in our accounting department has been sourced from there.

Here, I'd understand the highlighted phrase to mean "I'm pretty certain he's from Argentina."

I'm not enough of an expert on this construction to say exactly where it works and where it doesn't. To my ear, it sounds rather colloquial – I wouldn't recommend using it in formal writing.

It does work in French, but it's rather literary.

I would not say : Il sera argentin instead of Il doit être argentin (He must be Argentinian. Debe de ser argentino).

I could say (or rather write) : Il parlait espagnol avec un accent étrange: il sera brésilien (He spoke Spanish with a strange accent, he must be Brazilian / Hablaba español con un acento extraño: será brasileño). It is used to express a explanation, a rather hypothetical explanation.

Encolpius said:

Future of Probability does not exist in English

Click to expand...

I think this is putting it too strongly. In English, futurity and probability are mostly two sides of the same coin: will (and various other modals and quasi-modals) can be used to mark futurity or (various aspects of) probability or both at the same time.

It works in German, too, but we often add wohl:

– Wo kommt (eigentlich) Carlos her?
– Das weiß ich nicht. Er wird (wohl) aus Argentinien kommen.

(er wird kommen = future tense)