The Plan's the Thing: Deconstructing Futurate Meanings

Abstract

A futurate is a sentence with no obvious means of future reference, which conveys that a future-oriented eventuality is planned or scheduled. I argue that the component of planning found in the meaning of futurates should be derived from the more familiar modal concepts of abilities and desires. A futurate statement presupposes that some contextually salient entity d, the director, has the ability to bring it about that p, and asserts that d is committed to bringing it about that p.