La distribution des variables utilisées pour l'expression de l'ultériorité a fait l'objet de nombreuses études, centrées sur l'oral conversationnel ou sur l’écrit. Cet article apporte un éclairage inédit sur la question en considérant les marqueurs du futur dans un contexte communicatif d'oral préparé (le bulletin météo télévisé), et dans une optique diatopique (comparaison d'un corpus français et d'un corpus québécois). L'analyse distributionnelle indique une distribution des variables spécifique au contexte discursif. Par ailleurs, l'analyse multivariée par Goldvarb X révèle une variation diatopique et l'influence de certains facteurs linguistiques, en particulier celui du type de verbe, de même que des contraintes particulières pour les deux communautés étudiées.

This study seeks to advance understanding of second-language (L2) acquisition of future-time reference in French, by comparing the developmental trajectories of learners living in and away from the target-language setting. Study-abroad learners in France (n = 45), foreign-language learners living in the US (n = 37), and native speakers of Hexagonal French (n = 30) participated in this study. They completed a written-contextualized task, a language-proficiency test and a background questionnaire. For each written-contextualized-task item, participants selected from among three responses that differed with respect to the form (inflectional future, periphrastic future, present). Items were designed to test for the influence of three factors on the form selected: presence/absence of a lexical temporal indicator, temporal distance, and (un)certainty. Additionally, two extra-linguistic factors were examined: learning context and proficiency level. The analyses of frequency and the multinomial logistic regressions suggest that, despite developmental similarities between learning contexts, acquisitional paths of study-abroad and foreign-language learners were not identical.

This article adds a Caribbean perspective to the analysis of futurity by presenting a quantitative variationist investigation of the competing forms used by speakers to encode future time in the French département et région d'outre-mer of Martinique. The two variants under investigation are the inflected future (je partirai ‘I will leave’) and the periphrastic future (je vais partir ‘I am going to leave’). In this variety, the periphrastic future is identified as the most frequent variant. Fixed-effects and mixed-effects models furthermore tease apart the complex set of constraints governing variant selection and demonstrate the repercussions of considering speaker and lexical effects when analysing sociolinguistic data. Indeed, once individual speaker and word-level variation are controlled for, the future variable in Martinique French is constrained purely by temporal distance: while the periphrastic future acts as the default option in the majority of time contexts, the inflected future functions as the marker of distal time.

This article examines future temporal reference (FTR) in the French spoken in Vimeu, a rural area of France where French evolved alongside Picard, a Gallo-Romance regional language. Unlike most French varieties, which favour periphrasis, Vimeu Picard favours the inflected form. By comparing French data from Picard–French bilinguals and French monolinguals, we assess the potential effect of Picard contact on Vimeu French. We hypothesized that bilinguals may favour the inflected form more than monolinguals, a hypothesis that was not verified. Instead, education is the best social predictor: speakers with a baccalauréat or higher disfavour the periphrastic future. Regarding linguistic constraints, we expected sentential polarity to constrain FTR (negation favours the inflected form), as in many varieties. Surprisingly, only temporal distance constrains FTR in our data: proximate events favour periphrasis, and do so even more strongly with events to occur within the minute. These results suggest that Vimeu French marks imminence through periphrasis.