The marking of person deixis in the French future system – a diachronic approach

This article investigates the relation between person deixis and time deixis in the French future system during the period between Middle French and Modern French. Focus is made on the alternation between the morphological future (je chanterai ‘I will sing’) and the periphrastic future (je vais chanter ‘I will sing’). The major purpose is to show that the morphological future looses domains and the periphrastic future extends its use. The second purpose is to correlate person marking with the evolution of the future system in order to reveal interconnected tendencies of evolution in both domains, and thereby examine if the evolution of the future system can be held responsible for the evolution of person marking and vice versa.