Expressions of futurity in the Vilamovicean language

Abstract

The present paper aims at presenting all major morphosyntactic means of expressing future meaning in Vilamovicean, the smallest Germanic language spoken in the town of Wilamowice in Southern Poland. As will be demonstrated – and contrary to the opinion found in the literature published so far – the concept of futurity is not limited to the wada future but, rather, can be conveyed by a number of constructions. These forms may be divided into two main groups: the first one includes formations that are employed with no restriction by all speakers (among others these are constructions like the present tense, the periphrases wada + infinitive, wjyd + past participle or adverbials, wada hon/zajn + past participle, and zuła + infinitive, as well as various modally based future expressions) while the second class consists of two novel and "rare" locutions which are accepted uniquely by a limited number of speakers (this group includes locutions such as wada + past participle and wada + present). Furthermore, two other Vilamovicean periphrases will be discussed, namely wie + past participle and wie + present, which, even though restricted to the conditional value, display a similar morphosyntactic shape as the "rare futures".