The English auxiliaries shall and will express any one of teir various meanings when each of these verbs is situated in a sentence with respective subject. The original meaning of shall, obligation, and that of will, volition, are mostly realized by t...
The English auxiliaries shall and will express any one of teir various meanings when each of these verbs is situated in a sentence with respective subject. The original meaning of shall, obligation, and that of will, volition, are mostly realized by the subject of the sentence as the subject determines who imposes the obligation to whom or by whose volition an action is performed.
The describable meaning scope of shall and will is broad. Especially the meaning of future reference and their modal meanings are so frequently overlapped and gradient that they can not easily be classified or divided.
In this paper shall and will are treated as modal auxiliaries and their meanings are discussed in terms of several areas of common meanings, chiefly in the cosntructions with third person subject.
Shall, in the sentences with third person subject, is used as a "prophetic shall" or to express necessity, rarely in solemn literature. It also means duty in rules or regulations, and resolve, promise, or threat when it reflects the strong intention of the speaker. The interrogative form of shall with third person subject is used only in rhetoric questions or in asking the hearer's intention.
Will when used with third person subject makes it possible to describe something objectively. Therefore it is capable of meaning simple futurity as well as the colored future tinged with the speaker's mental attitude. It can also express the willingness, power, capacity, habit, characteristic, or insistence of the speaker.