It's no go for the Italian future

This paper examines the range of future tense expressions in Contemporary Italian through a panchronic lens informed by grammaticalization theory. It traces the evolution of the synthetic future from Latin periphrastic constructions to its current temporal and modal uses. The study highlights the limited use of the synthetic future in everyday speech, with present tense forms often preferred for future reference. Unlike other Romance languages, Italian notably lacks a documented “go-future” construction. Analytic forms such as stare per are discussed as emerging markers of imminent future, though their generalization remains uncertain. The findings suggest that Italian’s future tense system reflects broader patterns of grammatical change and offers insight into the interplay between aspect, modality, and temporal reference (AI generated abstract, Copilot)