The Ordinary Future Tense

Also known as: simple future, bhaviṣyat ("about to be"), lṛṭ

Introduction

So far, we have only learned how to talk about events in the present tense. To talk about other time periods, we use a different verb form. In this lesson, we will learn a verb form that lets us talk about things that have not happened yet. Such verbs are said to be in the future tense.

Sanskrit has two different "future tense" verbs. The one we'll study in this lesson is by far the most common. For that reason, let's call it the ordinary future tense. You can see some examples of the ordinary future tense below.

• गम् → गमिष्यामि

  gam → gamiṣyāmi

  go → I will go.

• मन् → मंस्ये

  man → maṃsye

  think → I will think.

• जि → जेष्यन्ति

  ji → jeṣyanti

  conquer → They will conquer.

Forming the ordinary future tense

The ordinary future tense is based on a special future stem. This stem uses the endings that we've studied already: P verbs use P endings, and A verbs use A endings:

• भविष्य → भविष्यसि

  bhaviṣya → bhaviṣyasi

  will be → you will be

• भाषिष्य → भाषिष्यते

  bhāṣiṣya → bhāṣiṣyate

  He will speak.

Since it's much harder to form the future stem than to attach endings to it, let's spend a little more time on forming the future stem.

Forming the future stem

To produce the future stem, we strengthen the ordinary verb root to the medium level and attach sya to the end of it. For some roots, the vowel i may come between the strengthened root and sya. This i will change sya to ṣya according to the following internal sandhi rule:

s, if it follows a vowel other than a or ā, becomes ṣ.

This all seems straightforward enough. However, we should ask: Why does Sanskrit have all of these i vowels in front of its suffixes? That is, Sanskrit has suffixes like tvā and sya, but why does it also have itvā and iṣya? The answer is complex and related to the history of the Sanskrit language; it cannot be answered easily.

But we can still observe some facts about how this i is used. To start, a root that uses i in the gerund will almost always use i in the future stem.

• भाष् → भाषित्वा, भाषिष्य

  bhāṣ → bhāṣitvā, bhāṣiṣya

  speak → having spoken, will speak

• मन् → मत्वा, मंस्य

  man → matvā, maṃsya

  think → having thought, will think

(As an aside, note the change that occurs in man:)

ns is, for some reason, usually written as ṃs.

Now, back to this mysterious i. gam makes an important exception, as it often does:

• गम् → गत्वा

  gam → gatvā

  go → having gone

  The gerund uses the weakest form of the verb root; gam becomes ga.

• गम् → गमिष्य

  gam → gamiṣya

  go → will go

A root that ends in a vowel, meanwhile, usually uses a connecting i if the strengthened root ends in o or ar.

• भू → भो → भविष्य

  bhū → bho → bhaviṣya

  will become

• कृ → कर् → करिष्य

  kṛ → kar → kariṣya

  will do

• जि → जे → जेष्य

  ji → je → jeṣya

  will conquer

Keep in mind that we have only described some tendencies of Sanskrit, not hard rules. Do not spend time trying to remember these tendencies. Rather, just observe them; they will come to mind as you see more examples.

Exceptions and Sandhi

Roots containing ṛ

A few roots that contain ṛ will strengthen to contain ra instead of ar. Two of these roots are dṛś and sṛj. dṛś is far more common:

• दृश् → द्रश् → द्रश्स्य → द्रक्ष्य

  dṛś → draś → draśsya → drakṣya

Note that a new sandhi rule has appeared:

In internal sandhi, the combinations śs and ṣs become kṣ.

This is an exception to the general principle we devised in Starting Out: If two tongue consonants with two different points of pronunciation are next to each other, both become retroflexed. But if we change the general principle so that the second tongue consonant has to be a stop consonant (like t), then we have no problem accepting this new rule.

Almost every ś consonant exists as a *k in Proto-Indo-European, where * represents a hypothetical form. A cognate to Sanskrit dṛś is the Greek verb δέρκομαι (with root form δέρκ, or derk if you can't read Greek). This comparison is easier to make if we strengthen the Sanskrit root to darś. Further, compare the noun aśva to Old Latin *equos, stem form *equo (pronounced "ekwo").