Linguistic Universals and Dialects: The Future as ‘Injunctive’ in the Inscriptions of Mytilene

Abstract

This study poses the question of whether certain linguistic features are not subject to dialectal variation, a question that requires thorough examination in the corpus of Ancient Greek dialects. To this end, the semantics and the pragmatic function of the injunctive/existential future is examined in the dialectal inscriptions of Ancient Mytilene, in the framework of cognitive semantics, deontic modality, and STIT, a semantic model of agency and control. The first line of enquiry regards the distribution of the semantic functions of the form: is it the case that all semantic nuances of ‘FUTURE TENSE’ are attested in the entirety of Ancient Greek dialects? A second line of enquiry regards the semantics of the form, and more particularly the fact that it expressed extreme deontic force, as if it were a type of injunctive. The form was detached from a specific deontic source, i.e., it merely represented a moral principle in a rather abstract, general form. Its meaning approximated that of infinitive pro imperativo, in that both types indicated what was morally right as a general legal requirement. Particular attention is given to the semantic/pragmatic distinction of the form from the imperative mood. It is claimed that a scale of an agent’s involvement in the verbal action distinguishes imperatival infinitives, injunctive futures and imperatives and that a shift from an objective to a more subjective expression of deontic necessity affects injunctive futures in the history of Greek. The existential future had no performative, directive force, this pragmatic task was performed by imperatives and imperatival infinitives. The existential future denoted absolute certainty in the realization of a prospective fact and presented a projected reality as if it were real in the present of the utterance, hence the characterization as existential. As such it lends support to the view that temporality is tightly connected to modality. The existential meaning of the future seems to be an innovation within Greek and became more frequent in (post)classical times. It appears as a panhellenic feature, but further verification is needed.

1. Introduction: Aim of Study

Linguistics studies dialectal and/or typological variation intensively, but has not explained it fully: we know, as a fact, that languages differ, but, to a large extent, we do not know why this is so. Conversely, the exactly opposite question may be enlightening in this direction: is it the case that certain conceptual/semantic/linguistic features remain stable and possibly do not change across place (and over time)? The present contribution revolves around this latter question by considering a heavily ambiguous notion, that of the future tense. More specifically, in the ancient Aeolic dialect of Mytilene, the future can express an injunctive command (exs 1–8), and one may wonder whether this particular meaning/function is attested in other, or better, across all (Ancient Greek) dialects or in various languages in general.

Dialectologists deal with linguistic variation from the perspective of geographic language-internal variation; typologists deal with variation across languages. Dialectal variation and typology work hand in hand, an acknowledged fact, seeking to establish, through comparative concepts—conceptual/semantic categories and their morpho-syntactic features—and comparable grammatical phenomena across dialects/languages, crosslinguistic generalizations and parametrically defined variations. One of their aims is ultimately to establish whether languages are characterized by categorial universalism or by categorial particularism (Haspelmath, 2010). According to Haspelmath:

“grammatical categories are not crosslinguistic entities …Each language has its own categories … These categories are often similar across languages, but the similarities and differences between languages cannot be captured by equating categories across languages”.

(Haspelmath, 2010, p. 664)

The validity of typological universals and how they have spread across languages therefore remains an open question. The same question can or, better said, must be asked at the level of language-internal dialectal variation: are there linguistic features that are not subject to dialectal variation? The specific question that this paper poses is whether the category future has the same semantic range in all Ancient Greek dialects, and, even more particularly, whether the future is used to express commands in all dialects.

2. Materials and Methods

As a case study, in this contribution I will focus on the ‘future tense’ in archaic and classical inscriptions from the island of Lesbos, especially from Mytilene and Eressos. In what follows, I will examine the use of future verbal forms in the legal texts of the island, in which they function as imperatives, the so-called “injunctive future”. I will try to highlight the semantic and pragmatic differences between these future forms and imperatival orders as well as infinitive pro imperativo.

In order to understand the exact semantic and pragmatic nuance of an injunctive future, I will examine these future forms, as well as imperatival forms, within the framework of deontic modality from a cognitive perspective and within the framework of Seeing To It That (STIT), a semantic model that examines agentive constructions within language. After a brief overview on the notion of FUTURE, I seek to establish whether these future forms have primarily or exclusively modal or temporal value (sections on temporality (Section Temporality), modality (Section 4), deontic modality (Section 4.1), the truth value of modals and imperatives (Section 4.2), and the relevance of nominal participants, the issuer and recipient of a legal order, for the verbal act and hence the selection of a future or an imperative form (Section 4.3)). For deontic modality, I rely on Nuyts’ (2005, 2006) model. I then discuss the notion of the injunctive and existential future (Section 5), the differences between the future as injunctive and the imperative (Section 6), and the interrelationship between deontic force and objectivity (Section 7), and I conclude with a discussion of the future within STIT (Section 8). As far as the imperatival function of the infinitive is concerned, I will exploit and fully accept the excellent contribution to the study of this form by Allan (2010).

The broader programmatic question I wish to posit is whether future verbal forms can appear as injunctive, apart from all other nuances of a ‘futurity’ they may convey, in all of the Ancient Greek dialects that we have evidence for.

The examples (1–4) that follow show future forms which are the object of the present study. In exs (5–8), the future appears in relative final clauses. Exs 9–10 show cases with the imperative (see Section 4.3 and Section 6 below), and ex. 11 shows an infinitive pro imperativo (see Section 4.3 and Section 6 below). Future injunctives in the corpus of ancient inscriptions from Mytilene are affirmative with no instances of prohibitions. Their number, in all inscriptions from Mytilene, including formulaic repetitions, barely exceeds 30 instances. Such a number may appear as worthless or even trivial to study by the standards of our time, in which copious texts of all types abound. We have to project, however, this small numerical value to a practically illiterate period on the periphery of glorious Athens. Even though Ancient Greek inscriptional evidence amounts to thousands of documents, legal inscribed texts were not that many, and so we may feel lucky that even such scarce evidence exists (Hiller von Gaertringen, 1939; Paton, 1899).

(1) Inscriptiones Graecae XII.2.6. 27-9. Shortly after 324 B.C., Mytilene ()

[μάλιστα μ]ὲ[ν] διαλυθήσονται· αἰ δὲ μή, ἔσσονται ὠς δικ[αιότατοι] … [καὶ ἐν τα]ῖς διαλυσίεσσι … ἐμμενέοισι πάντες καὶ οἰκήσοισι τὰμ πό[λιν]

They shall preferably come to a settlement; but if not, they shall be judged as most just … and in the settlements … all shall abide by them and shall inhabit the city.

(2) IG XII Suppl., 142, l. 73 [MYT 024, b 73 Hodot] 73-4. Middle of 2^nd c. B.C., Mytilene

[τὰ δὲ κρίθεντα ὐ]πάρξοισι κύρια καὶ ἀμετέθετα … σταλώσοισι δὲ …

And the things that have been decided shall be valid and unalterable … and they shall send …

(3) Inscriptiones Graecae XII.2 528b.35. c. 200 B.C., Eressos

καλέοισ[ι δὲ αὖτον …]

And they shall call him …

(4) Inscriptiones Graecae XII.2.11.5. 330–300 B.C., Mytilene

τὸ μακρὸν πλεῦρον τὸ πρὸς τὸ πρὸς βορέαν πήχεις δύο ἀνακαθαίρων τὸ προσθεμελιούμενον, τὸ μὲν κατὰ τὸμ πρόδομον ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ ἔδαφος τῶι νῦν κειμένωι θεμελίωι, τὰ δὲ λοιπὰ ἀνακαθαρεῖ

The long side to the north: two cubits, clearing out the part to be additionally founded; the part along the pronaos on the same ground as the foundation now lying there, and the rest he shall clear out.

Ex. 4 is entirely in koine but has been included here because the diachronic development of the use of this future is also examined (Section 9).

(5) Inscriptiones Graecae XII.2.4. 10. 4^th c. B.C., Mytilene

καὶ [ὄπ]π[ως […] μήδεις κωλύσει χρη[ματίζην τὸν] δᾶμο]ν· αἰ δέ κέ τι δέηι …

And so that no one may prevent the people from conducting public business; but if something should be needed …

(6) Inscriptiones Graecae XII.2. Suppl. 14331-3 end of 3^rd c. B.C., Lesbos

Δεῖξαι δὲ καὶ πρέσβεια … ὅστις παραγενόμενος πρὸς τοῖς Λαμψακήνοις [τό τ]ε ψάφισμα ἀποδώσει καὶ ἀξιάσει ποιήσασθαι τ[ὰν ἀν]αγγελίαν

And an embassy is also to be appointed … whoever, after arriving among the Lampsacenes, shall deliver the decree and request that the proclamation be made.”

(7) Inscriptiones Graecae XII.2 5 B 48–52 end of 4^th c. B.C., Mytilene

Oἰ δὲ ἐ[ξέτασται] καὶ τάμιαι ἐ[πιμελ]ηθέντον ὄπ[ως ἀ]ναγραφήσεται [τ]οῦτο τὸ ψάφισμα

And the examiners and the treasurers shall see to it that this decree shall be inscribed

(8) Inscriptiones Graecae XII.2 15. 27. Ca. 193 B.C., Mytilene

Καὶ ὲπιμέλεσθαι … ὠς ἄ τε φιλία …διαμένει εἰς τὸν πάντα χρόνον καὶ … ὠς ἔσται αὔτοισι πάντα εἰς τὸ δύνατον

And to take care … that the friendship may remain for all time and … that everything possible may exist for them to the fullest extent.

(9) Inscriptiones Graecae XII 2.59.45–50,. 2^nd c. A.D., Mytilene

καὶ ὐπεύθυνος ἔστω ὁ παράβαις

And whoever transgresses shall be liable (to penalty).

(10) Inscriptiones Graecae, XII.2.1. 5 … 1^st half of 4^th c. B.C., Mytilene

[ὄττι δε κε αἰ] πόλις [ἀ]μφό[τεραι … … ] γράφωισι εἰς τὰν [στάλλαν ἢ ἐκκολάπ]τωσι, κύ[ρ]ιον ἔστω.

And whatever the two cities … write on the stele or erase, shall be valid.

(11) Inscriptiones Graecae XII 2.67.11-5. 2^nd c. A.D., Eressos

τὸ δὲ ψάφ[ι]σμα τόδε ἔμμεν[αι] ἐς ἀϊ ἐπὶ σαωτηρία καὶ φυλάκα καὶ ἀγάθα τύχα τᾶς πόλιος· καὶ ἐνχαράχθην ἐς στάλλαν μαρμαρίναν καὶ ἀνατέθην ἐν τῶ εἴρω τᾶς Ἀρτέμιδος τᾶς Θερμίας …

And let this decree remain forever for the safety, protection, and good fortune of the city; and let it be engraved on a marble stele and set up in the sanctuary of Artemis Thermia.

3. The Category Future

The future is notoriously a much-discussed and debated form, due to its polysemic abundance, functional multiplicity and pluriformity, but also due to its ambiguous nature, temporal and/or modal. This latter dilemma has been the subject of endless studies, but no consensus has emerged. Moreover, future tenses are normally not synonymous across languages regarding the denotation of time and aspect and their overall spectrum of semantic nuances. For instance, the Spanish future tense is also used to express probability, but not habituality (Butt & Benjamin, 2000, pp. 213–216), while “the Lezgian Future tense is also used to express habituality, but not probability” (Haspelmath, 1993, pp. 141–142).

Temporality

A linguistic expression is tensed if its primary semantic function is to indicate “whether the proposition expressed by the sentence is evaluated in the past, the present, or the future” (Enç, 1996, p. 345). As a temporal form, the future is a tensed verbal form that denotes time reference and, by default, refers to a prospective action. It indicates that some events will be realized or that a state of affairs will come into existence at a time posterior to the time of utterance. Occasionally future forms may have an atemporal gnomic use (Porter, 2012, p. 406; Ultan, 1978, p. 102; Mandilaras, 1973, p. 101), as in, e.g., ex. 12.

(12) Tomorrow hundreds of airplanes will take off from Heathrow (as usual).

4. Modality

Since the future is a metaphysically unknown situation to humans, it is quite reasonable to assume—and indeed it has been extensively—that the linguistic category of future does not indicate (mere) temporality but, mainly or exclusively, various (sub)types of modality. Modality is a semantic notion and covers the instances in which an utterance does not report objective reality but epistemic, dynamic or deontic nuances, i.e., prediction, certainty, probability, intention, volition, deliberation, aim, desire, prospect, expectation, ability, possibility, necessity, or obligation (cf., among many others, Porter, 2012, p. 407; Jaszczolt, 2009, with previous references; J. L. Bybee & Fleischman, 1995; Giannakidou & Mari, 2026; for English, Huddleston, 1995). The notion has been amply discussed, and as Nuyts (2005, p. 5 ff.) quite rightly states, it still remains controversial and at times confusing. The tight semantic interconnection between temporality and modality in future forms is both synchronic and diachronic, which is the so-called remodalization cycle (van der Auwera & Plungian, 1998, p. 111). The historical link between modality and future verb forms is verified by the fact that diachronically many future forms arise from modal expressions, and many future forms synchronically end up expressing modal meanings (the literature is too vast to be mentioned here, but see Jaszczolt, 2009, p. 41 ff. for extensive discussion; Fleischman, 1982, pp. 24–27; J. Bybee et al., 1994, pp. 243–244, 252–253; Enç, 1996, p. 347; Markopoulos, 2009).

An anticipated act or an obligation, like many modal futurate nuances, may refer to a time posterior to that of the utterance, and future tensed forms arise from modal forms; nevertheless, the question as to whether these two aspects of a futurate form, the modal and the temporal one, are inter-connected or are independent one of another remains probably open (cf. Markopoulos, 2009, p. 9; but see below on Jaszczolt, 2009, Section 5). Although I disagree with Porter (2012, p. 407) when he claims that

“To call the Future both a Tense and a Mood is to commit what Ryle calls a category mistake”

(Ryle, 2009, Concept, 16–18)

in the end it might be difficult, impossible or even unnecessary to attribute to what we normally call ‘future verb forms’ an exclusively temporal or modal character. Some languages may indicate that a co-existence of both attributes, modal and temporal, is present, at a different ratio and to different degrees, in these verbal forms, and one or the other prevails depending on the case (Brisard, 2011, p. 273; Fleischman, 1982, p. 153).

4.1. Deontic Modality

The future is related to deontic modality since it may be used to express must-equivalents (e.g., Fleischman, 1982). Deontic modality, a sub-component of modal logic, refers to normative, prescriptive notions. Generally, it is mainly related to obligation, duty, permission, and prohibition (Kratzer, 1978, p. 111; van der Auwera & Plungian, 1998, p. 81; Nuyts, 2005, 2006, p. 4; Charlow & Chrisman, 2016). Deontic propositions are the hallmark of laws, rules, and moral principles of obeyance, and express what is morally or legally obligatory or permissible; they refer to what is demanded or required. For an extremely insightful overview, see Allan (2013, 3ff).

In what follows, I adopt the innovative approach of Nuyts (2005) and Nuyts et al. (2005) to deontic modality, according to which this represents an attitudinal category in the qualificational domain and may be defined as “an indication of the degree of moral desirability of the state of affairs expressed in the utterance, typically but not necessarily on behalf of the speaker” (Nuyts, 2005, p. 9). Nuyts et al. (2005, p. 31ff), quite correctly, make a very interesting point with regard to the issue of whether a deontic meaning is necessarily accompanied by a directive nuance—which in our legislative texts would be a strong interdiction imposed onto an agent—or whether the two nuances are, in at least some instances, completely separate. Their investigation into everyday conversational Dutch data with mogen and moeten has led them to the conclusion that the deontic assessment and the directive force, depending on the context and the dynamic or non-dynamic involvement of the participants in the (extralinguistic) reality of the statement (Nuyts et al., 2005, p. 32), are independent one of another, and that they represent different nuances.

What is even more exciting about their approach is that they consider deontic modality as a totally separate category from the concepts of obligation and permission. According to the traditional view, as expressed by Han (1997) for instance, imperatives and non-imperative modal forms are similar in that they both assert deontic modality, their difference being in that with imperatives there exists a deontic source, the issuer, while in non-imperatival forms, the obligation simply exists somehow in the world. The opinion that imperatives are modal is not shared, however, by all researchers. The question of whether modal sentences have reportative and/or prescriptive meaning has a long history (for a useful overview, see Marra, 2013). Obligation and permission, according to Nuyts et al. (2005, p. 9), are solely connected with directive meaning, since they instigate “an ‘action’ plan (stimulating or [not] hindering somebody to do something),” and hence they must be viewed as speech act notions (Nuyts et al., 2005, p. 18). Furthermore, they elaborate on the distinction between deontic modality and obligation by considering a deontic utterance as the ‘sincerity condition’ of a directive, i.e., as the ‘mental state’ underlying the obligation or permission” (Nuyts et al., 2005, p. 18).

But now a very important divergence becomes apparent. So far, imperatives have been considered as carrying modal deontic force. An imperative, however, as an illocutionary directive form is merely used to urge or induce its recipient to perform a certain action in the future (cf. Panther, 2022). According to the new distinction between deontic modality and imperativity by Nuyts et al. (2005) modal sentences constitute cognitive qualificational categories as “central dimensions of our cognitive system for storing and handling world knowledge” (Nuyts et al., 2005, p. 32), whereas the directive notions of obligation and permission, expressed by imperatives, are merely performative directive notions that encode communicative regulations and organize our communicative behaviour, and hence are a separate category from modal sentences.

It Is also Important that Nuyts (2005, p. 9) introduces the notion of gradability into modality by suggesting that deontic modality is a gradual notion which covers absolute moral necessity, and through desirability and acceptability, it may end up covering absolute moral unacceptability.

4.2. Veridicality of Modal Sentences and Imperatives

The relationship or the analogies between alethic (truth-implicating) modal notions and deontic logic is a rather complicated issue. Modal forms are generally considered to be non-veridical (Giannakidou & Mari, 2026, passim), “the violation of a deontic obligation has no bearing on its truth or falsity” (Bucciarelli & Johnson-Laird, 2019, p. 89), and the future is closely related to irrealis or nonfactive modality. As a working hypothesis, however, we may concede to the view that deontic modal sentences, when they assert that there is an obligation in the current world, are true if there is indeed such an obligation, and false if there is no such obligation. The obligatoriness, the morality and the estimated truth value of a statement, however, can never guarantee that what is prescribed by it will necessarily be performed.

Imperatives on the contrary do not have assertive value and are neither true nor false (Portner, 2007, p. 363; Han, 1997, p. 120).

4.3. Participants

Deontic modality may at instances seemingly appear as participant-external, situational modality. Modal propositions, however, do not exist in abstracto; they refer to or impose on people obligations and duties; hence morality issues are by definition a participant-inherent notion. It is important to note that an imperatival legal enforcement indicates an issuer’s belief of what is right and proper. But an impersonal legal order of the type ‘law must be obeyed’ does not necessarily imply that some authority issues it. An impersonal deontic obligation, such as with existential futures and infinitives, arises from the deontic necessity of a moral principle, rule, and law. On the other hand, in an abstract sense, a deontic subject,., an addressee an agent/participant who must execute the legislative order, is a default notion, even if the linguistic expression is ‘impersonal’, and so, here too, I entirely agree with Nuyts (2005, p. 13) that deontic modality is in principle fully speaker-oriented (see also Allan, 2013, p. 5).

Imperatives represent speaker-oriented utterances by definition, since an imperatival verbal form clearly, apart from the presupposed ordering source/authority, imposes directive force, most typically on a second person, who is the receiver of the permission or obligation, even if a generic ‘you’ pronominal/verbal form is explicitly or implicitly used.

4.4. Deontic Force

Modality is intrinsically related to a sense of force. Some forms are considered to carry stronger modal force. In the case of deontic modality, this means that some modals express strong or inescapable necessity and/or obligation, and hence may end up indicating inferred certainty (J. Bybee et al., 1994, p. 195, from Allan, 2013, p. 4). On the basis of the scalarity of modal force, Allan (2013, p. 4ff.) introduces for Ancient Greek a four-term division of modal strength. His first category of ‘REALIS’ refers to the highest degree of modal strength:

“This type of modality relates to actual events, i.e., events that are presented as having actually occurred in the past or as actually occurring in the present (Langacker, 1991, pp. 242–243)”.

(Allan, 2013, p. 4ff. emphasis in the original)

This distinction is crucial for what follows.

5. Injunctive and Existential Future

Injunctive is a term that describes an obsolete IE mood, the verbal forms of which are considered to be “undifferentiated” (Renou, 1952, pp. 368–369) or “un(der)specified” (Kiparsky, 1968, 2005) for tense and mood (from Hollenbaugh, 2023, p. 125). They could therefore be connected to any kind of temporal or modal interpretation, commonly held to be determined by context (from Hollenbaugh, 2023, p. 125, with earlier references). Here I use this rather traditional label, ‘future as injunctive’, in an admittedly vague manner to refer to future forms in the legal inscriptions of Mytilene, which, according to the old-fashioned view, are reported to carry the semantic function of an imperative (Hodot, 1990, pp. 198–199). This particular subtype of future is considered as an authoritative form that indicates command (Porter, 2012, p. 411), and one of his examples is the following:

(13) (Gospel of Matthew 5:3, The New Testament, Approved by the Great Church of Christ, Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople, 1904)

καὶ ἐάν τις ὑμῖν εἴπῃ τι, ἐρεῖτε ὅτι ὁ Κύριος αὐτῶν χρείαν ἔχει· εὐθέως δὲ ἀποστελεῖ αὐτούς

And if anyone says anything to you, you shall say that the Lord has need of them, and he shall send them immediately.

Lightfoot (1975, p. 132) holds the view that this future does not express indefiniteness. It is New (1991) who has studied this sort of ‘imperatival’ future in depth, and he concludes that it is an almost exclusively authoritative feature of the legal language of the LXX (New, 1991, p. 115). He proceeds by seeking an answer as to whether this use can be traced to be a Hebraism in Greek, and then seeks to delineate its semantic divergence from the imperative proper (New, 1991, p. 120ff.). As for the first question, he definitively concludes that the Greek instances of such a form are not due to Semitic influence (New, 1991, p. 124). This is definitely correct, since this injunctive type of future appears in many pre-Hellenistic legal Greek dialectal inscriptions, such as the example from Arcadian (14) or the examples from Megara (15); Camirus, Rhodes (ex. 16); Cyrene (ex. 17); and Gortyn in Crete (ex. 18), for which Semitic influence is out of the question.

(14) (Dubois, 1986, p. 96). Coll. II. Mantinea, Arcadia, 5^th c. B.C.

Εὐχōλὰ [δ]‘ ᾱδε ἔ[σ]ετοι τοῖ ἀ[λιτερίοι] εἴ σις ἰν τοιεροῖ τōν τότ[ε ἀπυθανόντōν] φονές ἐστι …

And this curse shall fall upon the offender, if anyone in the sanctuary is the killer of those who died at that time …

(15) (Dubois, 1986, pp. 319–320). Arcadian or Megarian, Hellenistic era

ἀλ’οὔτ[ε] ποτέ σὺ ταῦτα <ἀν>αγνώσει οὔτ[ε] ποτὲ Ἀκέστωρ …

But you shall never read these things, nor will Akestor ever (read them) …

(16) (Buck, 1955, p. 298, n. 102). Camirus, Rhodes, 4^th or 3^rd c. B.C.

ἑλέσθαι δὲ ἄνδρας τρεῖς αὐτίκα μάλα, οἵτινες ἐπιμεληθησεῦντι ταύτας τᾶς πράξιος ὡς τάχιστα καὶ ἀποδωσεῦνται τῶι χρήιζοντι ἐλαχίστου παρασχεῖν τὰν στάλαν, …

(They) should elect three men immediately who shall take care of this deed and shall give out the contract to the one who is willing to furnish the stele at the lowest figure.

(17) (Buck, 1955, p. 307, n. 115). Cyrene, early 4^th c. B.C.

§ 3 Ἀπόλλων ἔχρησε … Ἀ[π]ὸ γυναικὸς ἀνὴρ τὰν νύκτα κοιμαθὲς θυσεῖ ὅ[πυι κα] δήληται.

Apollo proclaimed by oracle … A man (purifying himself) from a woman, if he has lain with her by night, he shall sacrifice wherever he wishes.

(18) (Buck, 1955, p. 315, n. 117) Gortyn law, Crete, 5^th c. B.C.

Aἴ κα τὸν ἐλεύθερον ἒ τὰν ἐλευθέραν κάρτει οἴπει, ἐκατὸν στατερανς καταστασεῖ

If one commits rape and adultery upon a free man or woman, he shall pay one hundred staters.

Its appearance has already been commented on (Jannaris, 1897; Goodwin, 1867/2011 §70; Mandilaras, 1973, p. 189).

As far as the relation of the future with the imperative is concerned, New (1991, p. 120), following Gildersleeve (1904), who estimates that this type of future “may imply resistless power or cold indifference, compulsion”, and Jannaris (1897), who believes that it conveys “a peremptory or absolute command,” agrees that the future-as-injunctive denotes a “command which purports to be fact,” (New, 1991, p. 124), and indicates “unconditional execution” (New, 1991, p. 124). Conversely, the imperative is considered merely as a “wishful command” (New, 1991, p. 124). Similarly, Wackernagel had characterized such forms as “express(ing) a very decisive command, the observance of which is not in doubt” (Langslow, 2009, p. 262).

Relying on these semantic nuances of the future, Lightfoot (1975, p. 134) called such future forms existential since they “expressed ‘existential futurity’, a notion of the future which was ‘presupposed’ to be as real as a present or past state or event” (New, 1991, p. 123). New finally concedes to the view that this future “expresses an ‘existential injunction’” (New, 1991, p. 126). He would have preferred the term ‘injunctive existential future’, but in the end avoided it as it seemed rather awkward.

The equivalence between Imperatives and some types of future is further corroborated by the juxtaposition of future and imperatival forms, either in Ancient Greek classical texts or in other modern languages. Wackernagel cites Plato, (Langslow, 2009, p. 262).

(19) Plato, Protagoras 338a 7 (Plato, 1967)

μήτ᾽ αὖ Πρωταγόραν πάντα κάλων ἐκτείναντα, οὐρίᾳ ἐφέντα, φεύγειν εἰς τὸ πέλαγος τῶν λόγων ἀποκρύψαντα γῆν, ἀλλὰ μέσον τι ἀμφοτέρους τεμεῖν. ὣς οὖν ποιήσετε, καὶ πείθεσθέ μοι ῥαβδοῦχον καὶ ἐπιστάτην καὶ πρύτανιν ἑλέσθαι ὃς ὑμῖν

Nor must you, Protagoras, let out full sail, as you run before the breeze, and so escape into the ocean of speech leaving the land nowhere in sight; rather, both of you must take a middle course. So you shall do as I say, and I strongly urge you to choose an umpire or supervisor or chairman.

Coates (1983, from Brisard, 2011, p. 277) cites instances of WILL in tag questions with imperatival value (ex. 20a), and as a plain imperative, as in (ex. 20b), both of which express command.

(20a) Sign this paper, will you.

(20b) Will you sign this paper!

As I accept Nuyts et al.’s (2005) view that imperatives have no modal force, but simply a performative directive one, I do not consider the modal deontic use of such future forms as equal or approximate to an imperative, even in concatenation. It is quite probable that what New (1991) wished to convey is that existential futures are strong deontic modals like must, which is considered stronger than ought, in their deontic interpretation. In my view, the future forms represent primarily expressions of a significantly strong modal force. Deontic modals establish or refer to world states of affairs, and, in my opinion, following Allan (2013, p. 4), existential futures do exactly that: they actually refer to an imminent future situation as if it were real and present. They are not even cases of projected reality (Allan, 2013, p. 5, following Langacker, 1991, p. 278). They express inescapable conviction, virtual certainty, or even compulsion.

Existential futures seem to represent instances in which a temporal future reference is probably almost nullified. In its place, the legislator states his absolute certainty, almost an assertion of the realization of an action, a confidence in reality stronger than the uncertainty which is innately related to most nuances of modality and future. Porter (2012, p. 414), relying on opinions of previous researchers, adopts their view that this employment of the future is semantically more marked and preferred over the subjunctive, which is more closely related to modality. He also expresses the following strong opinion, which is in accord with the one defended here, that:

“The Future is thus a unique form in Greek, similar both to the aspects and to the attitudes, but fully neither, and realizing not a temporal conception but marked and emphatic expectation toward a process”.

Porter (2012, p. 414, my emphasis)

Even though one may not be prepared to accept his views readily, it is certainly the case that when the existential certainty is the prevailing meaning of a future form, the temporal reference is neutralized, and instead, a modal value, that almost acquires the status of assertion, prevails.

The existential nuances of future forms provide extremely powerful support for the claim that temporal notions are intricately related to notions of modality. The conceptual and linguistic translocation of futurity into the present moment, as an almost real situation, may appear as a paradox and is merely a matter of cognitive construal. A psychological conceptualization of time is apparent in many linguistic codifications of the notion of TIME, according to which modality is intimately and intricately connected to temporality and “conceptually time supervenes on modality or even is modality”, as Jaszczolt (2009) has masterfully elaborated (Jaszczolt, 2009, p. 99).

The existential future represents an absolute declaration of morality, duty and obligation. With the deterministic force it carries, when it indicates that a moral obligation comes into existence, it supplies verification to the fact that modality is a way of conceiving time. This type of future refers to a state of affairs as if it were certain. In other words, the internal, mental and psychological representation of time supervenes on real time. Even though Jaszczolt’s approach concerns the relation of time notions with epistemic certainty and detachment, her overall conclusion that time is connected to modality allows us to exploit her theory for notions of deontic modality as well, because, as she also states, “temporality supervenes on what is intended, desired as Present” (Jaszczolt, 2009, p. 44, her emphasis).

Even more importantly, it should be noted, as Jaszczolt (2009, p. 45) also remarks, following de Haan (2006, pp. 41–42), that despite the fundamentally unreal character of the future, there exist languages, such as the Native American language Caddo, that consider future as a certain, realis category, so that future verbs contain both the future and the realis prefix.

Finally, along the same lines, some languages allow the expression of an extremely high degree of epistemic certainty as if it were a sort of prearranged future which is accordingly denoted grammatically (Jaszczolt, 2009, p. 41; from J. Bybee et al., 1994, pp. 248–249).

But questions persist. Earlier on, I claimed that future temporal reference is probably extinguished in the case of existential futures. Running the risk of utterly contradicting myself, I still believe that the question of whether these futures have any traces of temporal value should be asked. The answer, in my view lies in the fact that legislation creates a new universe of discourse, a new world that is ‘better’ than the current one, but this improved world remains to be created; it does not exist at the time of the composition of the legal text. It is possible that the verbal form is not totally deprived or devoid of a sense of ‘temporality’, and, besides its authoritative force, it also refers to a subsequent but entirely possible state of affairs to be realized, at a stage posterior to that of the present. One could then envisage that these futures ‘impose’ an ‘expressed world’ to come onto an actual ‘reference world’ (Frawley, 1992). In that case, Brisard (2011, p. 273) is right when he proposes that within a conceptual continuum these modal forms represent transient categories between modal and temporal values and oscillate between imminent futurity and a projected reality. An analogous case of cognitive and psychological oscillation between the present and future is prophetic present (Karali, forthcoming).

6. Future as Injunctive vs. Imperative

Future deontic modals (such as the Greek injunctive future) assess an attitudinal desired state of affairs, whereas the imperative prescribes and commands duties in order to enact such a reality (Nuyts et al., 2005; cf. Han, 1999). The so-called existential futures are suitable in legal contexts, because with such an absolutist objective diction, which emerges out of a moral obligation, a situation of extreme deontic force is enacted or is being described (Nuyts, 2006, p. 15). With imperatives on the other hand, the deontic source as a legal authority prescribes what is right to do and guards the commitment of the prospective agents. As Portner (2007, p. 361) would have put it, the imperatival order of a legislator follows from the rules—here, by rules I refer to generally held moral values as well as the legally established laws—and secures obedience to them, whereas an existential future creates the rules (my emphasis).

In traditional deontic logic, a distinction is often made between two types of obligation, the ought-to-be ‘Seinsollen’ and the ought-to-do ‘Tunsollen’ (cf. Hilpinen, 2017, pp. 173–174). The former refers to a desired world state of affairs, as a statement. The latter, however, does not merely refer to a desirable state of affairs but prescribes forms of action in order to attain the desired situation, which is most probably the function of imperatives. To prescribe a form of action most possibly brings a change to the world. On the other hand, the so-called existential future, a modal form too, carries the force of a settled state of affairs, or of a super-imposed reality, perhaps even non-negotiable, which may seem to be not so easy to deny or to escape from. It is true, however, that in practice neither an imperative nor an existential future can impose utter or absolute conformity to an obligation, as an inescapable form of action: the hearer agent, depending on the political and cultural circumstances of course, is allowed to negotiate, (dis)obey or contradict what is imposed.

A deontic statement ‘you will/must obey the law’ indeed has truth conditions. It is compatible, hence true, with all worlds which impose obligations. Since our world and the world in which these legal statements were issued are worlds in which one must obey the law, sentences with the injunctive future, as a form of deontic modality, are considered to be objectively true. On the other hand, any sentence with an imperatival command, as a non-assertoric form, cannot be considered as true or false, and hence it conveys merely performative, directive force.

Panther (2022), however, argues that the concept of truth is involved indirectly in imperatives, in the sense that some agent (the hearer) will make a proposition true (or not true) in the future. This is not a ‘truth condition’, but it could be considered a satisfaction condition (Panther, 2022, p. 10 with previous references). Nevertheless, it remains an open question as to whether the addressee will retain control over the situation and whether s/he will conform to it or not. A command, issued by an agent legislator, however strong it may be, cannot guarantee the recipient’s obedience or the enforcement of the dictum. There always remains a fraction of disobedience. As stated by Allan (2013, p. 18), it is a characteristic feature of modals that they do not indicate the execution of what is (morally) prescribed. The realization of the moral judgement is by default in the future; the performativity of the imperative, or the deontic force of a modal assertoric statement, for that matter, does not entail commitment or compliance to an obligation.

On the other hand, in legislative contexts, it seems to me that the deontic modality and the directive force are combined and complement each other. A strict legal text does not merely enact or describe obligations and duties; it also prescribes them. However implicitly or covertly, a legal text has a teleological, performative mission as well. It sounds reasonable to think that to state what is morally proper or obligatory would not be sufficient. Legal deontic locutions do commit the addressee agent to the realization of the modal proposition. If imperatival forms, as instances of authoritative diction, do not have by their very nature the enforcement of moral law, one may wonder about the reason for the existence of imperatives in (ancient) legal texts. Imperatives thus interfere with the normative configuration of reality and may appear to have a dynamic character.

In other words, legal texts appear to perform a double function: an assertive one, which serves as the statement of what is morally proper—hence future verbal forms should be seen as strong necessity modals—and a pragmatic one, which initiates the enforcement of the obligation with imperatives.

7. Deontic Force and Objectivity

An imperatival order is closely linked to what the issuer, with strong authoritative power, believes or wishes, and counts therefore as a rather subjective form. A modal expression on the other hand reports a deontic obligation as a generally valid rule, an objective necessity (cf. Nuyts, 2006, p. 13) or an inescapable predestined super-imposed reality to come, and lacks the subjectivity of a personal belief, conviction, or statement. There is no explicit deontic source in existential futures, even though the existence of an implied addressee is obvious. As with the imperatival infinitive (Allan, 2010, p. 205), an existential future does not represent the personal will or belief of a deontic authority but indicates that an action is due to the “appropriateness of a procedure”. In other words, an imperative may have a stronger subjective character, whereas the modal future (and the infinitive) is or appears to be more objective (cf. Han, 1997, pp. 116–117).

It seems therefore that a scale of personal involvement is at play here: an imperatival order presupposes both an issuer and some addressees, but a gradual elimination of the personal involvement of an legislator/issuer as personal agent is apparent as we move from the imperative, through the existential future, to the infinitival declaration (Allan, 2010)—the latter two of the type ‘law must be obeyed’—of a deontic obligation. The movement to an impersonal and most generic statement creates a sense of distancing effect, and this in its turn makes the modal expressions, a rather more impersonal type, more formidable and austere. Even though the latter notions may be fluid, and hence circular (Allan, 2010, p. 204) or unreliable, we may perhaps accept a common-sense view that an impersonal order carries intense authoritative power and thus creates a stronger emotional effect.

8. Seeing to It That

Within the framework of deontic modality, so far I have referred to (a) modals and the injunctive future that express deontic obligation as an enforced necessity, which indicates how reality ought to be, assessed as an attitudinal desired state of affairs and accordingly prescribed, and (b) to imperatives, a category related to deontic modality, as illocutionary directive forms used to urge an addressee to perform a certain action in the future.

A crucial aspect concerning the use of both existential futures and Imperatives—as well as infinitives—is agency, the involvement of participants in the execution of the prescribed actions and how language encodes control over future outcomes. Standard deontic logic follows a line of reasoning of the type “It ought to be that φ”. The deontic logic approach, however, may ignore who is responsible and whether an agent can actually bring φ about.

Seeing To It That (henceforth STIT) logic is an underlying theoretical semantic model of agency and control. It is related to deontic modality and extends it in particular with agency operators. It stems from philosophical logic on agency and responsibility, and models statements like “agent α sees to it that φ ensures f happens” (Horty, 2001, pp. 16–18).

It mainly seeks to ensure successful control over outcomes in agentive constructions in language. It uses a branching structure of multiple possible futures, where agents choose or control which alternatives become actual (Belnap et al., 2001), captures the moral burden of choice between many future possibilities, and the responsibility for making the required, norm-based one true. It is essential that obligation is treated as a constraint over which alternatives the agent may select (Horty, 2001, p. 17).

Existential futures that function as injunctives represent in my view a linguistic codification of STIT logic that involves authoritative control and enforcement of action by a moral necessity and poses constraints on possible futures, since they partition futures into acceptable and non-acceptable. Agents are enforced to eliminate the undesirable branches of the future. The objective of an existential future is to indicate not only that a situation φ just happens, but that an agent makes it happen. Horty (2001) provides the structure of agency—choices over branches of the future—and deontic obligation is defined in terms of choices available to the agent and his/her responsibility to control the execution of the dictated option.

A deontic STIT existential future emphasizes commitment, control and strong normative force and clearly projects norms into posterior time. The prescribed actions organize the future, and agents are to see to it that it becomes real. The agent’s obligation, as a normative function, is not merely a property of an ideal legal world but an actual controlled constrainment of his future choices. So for ex. (1) repeated here,

• Inscriptiones Graecae XII.2.6 (Mytilene, late 4^th c. B.C.)
  μάλιστα μὲ[ν] διαλυθήσονται·
  αἰ δὲ μή, ἔσσονται ὠς δικ[αιότατοι] …
  καὶ ἐν ταῖς διαλυσίεσσι …
  ἐμμενέοισι πάντες καὶ οἰκήσοισι τὰμ πό[λιν]
  the deontic regulation poses specific constraints not on specific individuals but on some form of relevant institutional agency over a future state. All clauses constitute prescriptions of conduct:
  διαλυθήσονται [relevant agents] see to it that (reconciliation occurs), they are to bring about reconciliation;
  but if reconciliation fails, ἔσσονται ὠς δικαιότατοι “they shall be (treated) most justly”;
  an alternative STIT obligation is imposed here: relevant agents see to it that justice and order are imposed;
  and finally:
  ἐμμενέοισι πάντες all citizens see to it that (they abide to the settlement)
  The clause is not a prediction, but a normative fallback condition.
  Oἰκήσοισι τὰμ πόλιν “they shall inhabit the city”

Again, this clause is not descriptive of a possible future outcome but poses the responsibility of maintaining civic order and excluding other future possibilities such as exile, civic breakdown, etc. In other words, a very specific ordered outcome is to be ensured to the exclusion of other unacceptable eventualities, obviously by the responsible agents, even though these are not explicitly referred to.

In a similar manner, in example (2), repeated here,

• IG XII Suppl., 142, l, 73 [MYT 024, b 73 Hodot] 73–74 middle of 2^nd c. B.C., Mytilene
  [τὰ δὲ κρίθεντα ὑ]πάρξοισι κύρια καὶ ἀμετέθετα …
  the future verb forms are not predictive but norm-imposing. The agency in the first part is not explicit; an impersonal, institutional authority is clearly understood, and the focus is on status enforcement: ‘make it that φ remains valid in the future too’.

It is, however, crucial to note at this point that, within deontic STIT logic, which provides the model for representing obligations as requirements on what an agent seeks to perform, both imperatives, as directive speech acts and futures-as-injunctive, are close semantically. Both correspond to the imposition of an obligation onto an agent to see to it that a proposition holds; both impose constraints on an agent’s admissible actions. Both forms restrict the set of optimal actions available to the agent, and imperatives represent the conventional marker of directive force. They differ, however, in the explicit reference to some particular agents or to an unspecified agency form, institutional or personal, that will undertake the execution of the order.

9. A Scale of Personal Involvement

The natural question that emerges here concerns the semantic difference between imperatives and injunctive futures and whether these two are interchangeable. One intuitively may feel that these are not simply equivalent or iso-functional, alternative linguistic codifications—i.e., grammatically declarative vs. imperative—of the evaluation over agentive possibilities and selection of acceptable outcomes. One of their differences is definitely their semantic spectrum of application. An imperative, in very general terms, may not necessarily represent a moral obligation; it may arise out of a speaker’s simple wish or request ‘(please) close the window, it is getting cold’.

The deontic force they encode is certainly another parameter of differentiation between the two. An injunctive future encodes and authoritatively imposes inescapable obeyance to a (moral) obligation, and even though it has no clear-cut relevance to a future situation, it appears as if it prescribes the reality-to-come. Imperatives command duties to specific agents in order to enact such a reality. As von Wright (1963) would have put it, a distinction can be drawn between norms (as impersonal prescriptions) and commands or imperatives (as speech acts), thus aligning deontic modals, and, I add, existential futures, closer to the logic of what is right or allowed, whereas imperatives are concerned with the pragmatics of issuing orders.

A significant parameter In the selection and use of these verbal forms—infinitive, imperative, and existential future—is in my view the connection and interrelationship of the verbal form with an agent. A two-fold scale of personal involvement can be noticed regarding the deontic source and the responsible agent for executing the moral statement.

As far as the deontic source is concerned, a specific act or/legislator can be found behind an imperative, but the statement of a general moral rule/law, without the interference of an agent legislator, instigates existential/injunctive futures and infinitives. In the ancient inscriptions, the injunctive form had predominantly modal value; it created a new deontic, legal reality by stating and referring to it, as a generally held and valid moral requirement, but it was not necessarily linked to a specific deontic source as was the case with infinitives (Allan, 2010). The injunctive future could either constitute the moral law whereby the statement referred to/indicated the principle itself (as in ex. 2: τὰ δὲ κρίθεντα ‘the things that have been decided’), or it could refer to moral principles as arising from an omnipotent god’s will (as in ex. 17, from Cyrene, in which the prescribed regulations follow Apollo’s oracle).

As far as the executing agent is concerned, the performative function was executed directly by obligative imperatival—an imperative expresses a direct command to a specific addressee—and indirectly by infinitival verb forms. According to Allan (2010, p. 225), “an imperatival infinitive can be characterised as a more indirect type of directive expression. Imperatival infinitives refer to appropriate actions which are elements of a particular procedure”.

Injunctive futures on the other hand did not carry any performative directive force imposed specifically onto some explicit recipients. Deontic executors of a moral principle indicated by injunctive futures were never mentioned as specific individuals (von Wright, 1963, p. 38). They were either implied as collective executive agents (von Wright, 1963, p. 38), or, when referred to, they were mainly referred to in generic terms with universal quantifiers (πάντες ‘everybody, all’ (ex. 1), or μήδεις ‘nobody’, as in ex. 5), non-specific persons (ἑλέσθαι ἄνδρας τρεῖς οἵτινες ἐπιμεληθησεῦντι ‘elect any three men who shall take care of… (ex. 16)) or an indefinite person (ἀνήρ ‘a/any man’ (ex. 17)). We may claim therefore that ancient existential futures referred to a human agent who would undertake the responsibility of performing what was prescribed, but, in contrast to imperatives, no specific referent was indicated. They hence occupied an intermediate position between infinitival orders and imperatives.

Moreover, it seems quite certain that a change concerning the connection of the verbal form with a deontic authority and an agent executor must have occurred over time. New (1991, p. 124) states that in the New Testament, “a specific recipient of an order is obligated to act according to the will of another (person)”. In Modern Greek too, the existential future can be pronounced by an agent locutor in authoritative position towards an addressee to indicate and impose the locutor’s own personal demand. The matter cannot be dealt with here, because it definitely needs further investigation, as to the factors that facilitated such a shift, but it is significant that, for injunctive futures, a gradual shift from an objective statement towards a more subjective one appears over time.

10. Results and Conclusions

Ancient Greek legal epigraphical texts, including those from the island of Mytilene, contain deontic rules and prescribe moral orders, as is normal with this type of text. From what precedes, it emerges that a sub-category of future forms, which have been called existential futures, was used with an extremely powerful modal deontic force, in order to enact new legal requirements, in the most austere and strict fashion. The appearance of such forms as compared to imperatives and imperatival infinitives is extremely limited. Conversely, in the texts we have, however few, imperatives and infinitives are almost countless. This future was definitely not due to Semitic influence, and its appearance in later Greek (as well as in modern colloquial Greek, in which it has become a conventional semi-idiomatic construction: “you will do X, whether you want it or not” or “not only shall you do X, but you shall also sing a song (out of your pleasure for doing what is prescribed)”) expanded considerably. The small number of examples in the ancient texts may be due to the fact that the form was “newly” introduced into Ancient Greek and flourished with the progression of time. From a thorough, but not yet conclusive, investigation into dialectal inscriptions, the form is more frequent during and after the classical period. Given that the morphologically marked future verbal form may be considered as an innovation in general within Greek, regarding its Indo-European origin, we may, however tentatively, surmise that it developed, apart from its initial Indo-European volitional meaning, new semantic functions within Greek. The fact, moreover, that this linguistic type was treated as solemn and austere shows that even within inscriptional practices, a stratificational layering of higher and lower varieties was in order.

The Greek existential futures had predominantly modal value; they created a new deontic, legal reality by stating and referring to it, as a generally held and valid moral requirement (just as was the case with infinitives, Allan, 2010). It is quite probable that, although they were eminently modal forms, they hinted at the projected reality they introduced and hence included vestigial temporal value. Once again, the evidence confirms the semantic and syntactic gradience and indeterminacy between present and future linguistic categories.

The imperatival future and its diachronic development within Greek brings to the fore the importance of the notion of agency, i.e., the involvement of particular agents, specified or not, in the execution of a verbal act, both at the level of an instigator of an order and of its execution. The Ancient Greek existential future expressed a general moral principle. In the ancient inscriptions, the form was not linked to a specific deontic source. The existential future constituted the moral law, and the statement referred to/indicated the principle Itself. A scale of personal involvement can thus be noticed, whereby a specific actor/legislator existed behind an imperative, but the statement of a general moral rule/law, without the interference of an agent legislator, instigated existential futures and infinitives. It is, however, quite probable that a change concerning the connection of the verbal futurate form with a deontic authority may have occurred in time. New (1991, p. 124) states that in the New Testament, “the recipient of an order is obligated to act according to the will of another (person)”. In Modern Greek too, the existential future can be pronounced by an agent locutor in authoritative position towards an addressee to indicate and impose the locutor’s own personal demand.

Imperatival futures in the ancient inscriptions did not carry any performative directive force imposed directly or explicitly onto some recipients. The performative function was executed directly by obligative imperatival and infinitival verb forms. Deontic executors of a moral principle indicated by existential futures were either implied, or, when referred to, this was done in generic terms with universal quantifiers or indefinite referential terms. As shown by biblical instances, however, as well as by the Modern Greek evidence, these futurate verbal forms were increasingly connected with more specific addressees/executors in a scale of STIT logic. The matter of agency and its diachronic development, both at the level of the instigator and that of the executor, cannot be dealt with here, because it definitely needs further investigation as to the factors that facilitated such a shift.

Finally, my initial, over-ambitious question as to whether the existential semantic value of a future form is a characteristic of all Ancient Greek dialects is definitely a matter for future investigation, even though many such examples are attested in various Ancient Greek dialects and individual authors.