Old Armenian does not exhibit a separate future tense; future events are commonly
expressed by means of modal forms. In Middle Armenian, the historic subjunctive
is lost as part of the process of replacing the synthetic present with an analytical,
originally progressive form; the historic present indicative takes on subjunctive
functions. Later in this period, a future develops by hypoanalysis and, secondarily,
univerbation of the former present indicative, whilst an innovative periphrastic
form supersedes it; the subjunctive persists.
In Modern Eastern Armenian, the new future takes on additional, secondary
functions; other, analytical future periphrases have arisen, increasing the aspectual
differentiation of the language in analogy to other tenses; not all are equally
productive. The synthetic future might be considered an aspectually unmarked form.
This paper outlines in as much detail as currently possible the development of the
future from Old to Modern Armenian, with particular attention to
grammaticalisation and hypoanalysis processes. Furthermore, a corpus-based sketch of the future
periphrases in Modern Eastern Armenian is given with a view to proposing a basic
diachrony of and motivation for their development.
Publication Date: 2026-06-04