Analyzing Morpho-Syntactic Variants of Future Expression Influenced by Social Factors in Persian

The present research aims to investigate the role of speakers’ gender، age، educational status، socio-economic status and formality level of context in expressing future in their speech. The linguistic variable targeted was expression of future time. Speakers were found to use nine morpho-syntactic variants to express future، including: Present progressive، simple present، KHA: H (AD) + verb، MIKHA: (M) + verb، ELTEZAMI present، DARI: (M) + verb، GHARARE + ELTEZAMI present، Simple past and DAR (AM) MIR (AM) + verb. Results indicated that present progressive was the most frequent form of expressing future (over sixty-four percent). The frequency of occurrence and percentage of use of the other eight variants were also estimated and reported in each social group in the natural، every day speech of Persian speakers.