futureimperative

Futureimperative is a linguistic term used to describe a verb form or construction whose primary function is to issue a directive that is to be carried out in the future. It is distinct from the present imperative, which commands immediate action, and from ordinary future tense forms that do not impose direct coercion on the addressee.

Typological work notes that some languages encode future-oriented imperatives by marking the verb with a future tense or by a dedicated mood; others use periphrastic constructions that pair an auxiliary indicating future with the imperative stem. In some analyses, the futureimperative is not a true morphological category but a pragmatic function of existing moods (for example, jussive or hortative) when the action is intentionally scheduled for the future.

Usage and pragmatics: it can express planning instructions, scheduled tasks, or conditional commitments, sometimes with hedges or politeness. The explicit time reference (e.g., “tomorrow”) is often provided by the discourse context or accompanying temporal adverbials.

Attestation: The term is largely theoretical and appears mainly in typological or theoretical discussions rather than as a widely attested, independently described mood in well-documented languages.

See also: imperative mood, jussive, hortative mood, future tense, periphrasis, discourse pragmatics.