Technical remarks on differences in usage between Future and "Indefinite" Future

The differences in usage between the Future and "Indefinite" Future follow from the meaning difference between the two forms, i.e. the element of diffidence or uncertainty inherent in the "Indefinite" Future but not the Future.

• Question, emphasis, relative clauses: The Future, but not the "Indefinite" Future can appear in these contexts. These three situations all involve what is called a presupposition. If I ask, "What will you buy?", I presuppose that you are going to buy something. If I say, "What we will buy is beans," there is a presupposition that we we will buy things, and I am stressing what they will be. If I say, "the beans that we will buy," I presuppose that there are some beans that I can describe by saying that they are the ones that we will buy. Clearly, if I presuppose that an event will take place, I cannot be diffident or hestitant about saying that it will take place. Hence, the "Indefinite" Future would be inappropriate in such contexts.

   

• Future in the past: The Future can be used in contexts referring to events in the past, where is it usually translated 'was going to' or 'was about to'. If the context for such events is past time, I know what the situation was, i.e. I would not be diffident or hesitant in making a statement about what was being planned, even if it turned out not to take place. Hence, the "Indefinite" Future would be inappropriate.

• Future in clauses expressing conditions or reasons: If I say, "If you are going to rest, rest in full shade," I am not diffident about the event in the conditional clause--this is a given for the outcome in the main clause (which I may or may not be diffident about). Likewise, if I say, "She will go to the doctor because she's gonna give birth," I am using the "reason" ('because') clause as a given in order to explain the event in the main clause (which I may or may not be diffident about). Since in both conditional and reason clauses, the event is a given with relation to what happens in in the main clause, the "Indefinite" Future would not be appropriate.

These usage differences between the two futures are not something which might be called part of the grammar of Hausa, in contrast to the superficially similar differences in usage between the Completive and Relative Completive and the Continuative and Relative Continuative. Thus, for example, in a pair of sentences like

Continuative: Suna sayen kabewa.	'They are buying pumpkin.'
Relative Cont.: Me suke saye?	'What are they buying?'

there is no difference in the meaning of the Continuative, per se, in the two sentences--both refer to an ongoing event. It is simply a grammatical fact of Hausa that the statement uses the "plain" Continuative, the question uses the Relative Continuative.

In the case of the two futures, if you have a correct concept of the meaning of the "Indefinite" Future, you would know that it would not fit the meaning of the sentence to use the "Indefinite" Future in a context involving presupposition, past time, or an event set forth as a "given".