The Periphrastic Future with Shall and Will in Modern English

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Abstract
One cannot read through the mass of discussions of the problem of shall and will published during the past century nor even those written since 1900 without being impressed by the wide diversity of the points of view and the definite conflict of the opinions and conclusions thus brought together. Even among those articles that can be grouped as expressing the conventional rules there is considerable variety and contradiction, not in the general rule for independent declarative statements (that a shall with the first person corresponds with a will with the second and third) but in the other rules concerning questions, reported discourse, and subordinate clauses. That there is a considerable body of literary usage which conflicts with the conventional rules is indicated by the many pages in these articles devoted to pointing out instances in which “the best of our authors” have violated the rules.

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