It's no go for the Italian future

This article will take a look at the range of terms for expressing the future tense in Contemporary Italian. The evolution of the Italian synthetic future from its Latin origins, and the use of various analytic futures, will be explored from a panchronic viewpoint within the framework of grammaticization theory (for a detailed discussion see El-Chaar 1994; for more on a panchronic approach, see Heine, Claudi & Hünnemeyer 1991, Chapter 9). It will also be demonstrated that the current (non-temporal) uses for which the future gram is employed are not so unusual when viewed in light of this grammaticization process. Perhaps of most interest is that Italian, unlike other Contemporary Romance languages such as Spanish and French, does not have a documented go-future. The use of the present tense, to render a future meaning, is quite common, while the use of the synthetic future marker for this same purpose is not, I will attempt to provide some reasons for this curious situation based on the available evidence.