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Can I use "when" + future tense in this case?

I'm not sure when it will be released.

tchrist
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Vlad Balmos
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3 Answers3

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Yes, you can and another correct alternative would be:

I'm not sure when it's going to be released.

Frantisek
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    +1, but I always like to mention on these occasions that English doesn't have a future tense. – Barrie England Jan 15 '12 at 19:09
  • That’s simply the periphrastic future instead of the modal future. Both count as future tenses in English. – tchrist Jan 15 '12 at 19:09
  • @BarrieEngland Define ‘tense’, please. You never use it the way I do, and I should like to know why. – tchrist Jan 15 '12 at 19:10
  • @BarrieEngland: as always - if you can explain further, I'll be happy to up-vote! – Frantisek Jan 15 '12 at 19:17
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    @tchrist: I’ll let the British linguist David Crystal do it: ‘a change in the form of a verb to mark the time at which an action takes place’. Most linguists, including David Crystal, recognize only two tenses in English, present and past. ‘He walks’, for example, is in the present tense, and ‘he walked’ is in the past tense. In the absence of a future tense, English can express the future in several ways: ‘he will walk’ and ‘he is going to walk’, and also, in some circumstances, the present tense ‘he walks’ and the progressive construction ‘he is walking’. – Barrie England Jan 15 '12 at 19:38
  • @BarrieEngland I’ve never heard of ‘tense’ being restricted to only an inflectional change in the verb and forbidding all auxiliaries. The OED reads: ‘Any one of the different forms or modifications (or word-groups) in the conjugation of a verb which indicate the different times (past, present, or future) at which the action or state denoted by it is viewed as happening or existing, and also (by extension) the different nature of such action or state, as continuing (imperfect) or completed (perfect); also abstr. that quality of a verb which depends on the expression of such differences.’ – tchrist Jan 15 '12 at 19:47
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    @BarrieEngland It seems an act of malicious casuistry to pretend English has no verbal construct to express the future. That’s like saying ‘put’ and ‘set’ have no past tense. It makes no sense. If English had no future tense, it would be impossible to translate into English any of Spanish ‘Qué será, será’, Latin ‘Eram quod es, eris quod sum’, or French ‘On verra’. As those all translate trivially&w/o ambiguity, I submit that the position that English has no future tense is untenable. In my work in natural language processing and computational linguistics, we surely process future-tense verbs. – tchrist Jan 15 '12 at 19:56
  • @tchrist: Oxford Dictionaries Online (I can't provide the link because I don't know how to do it) states exactly what Barrie says. If we speak strictly about verbs there are only two tenses, Present and Past. If we talk about verb phrases then things change. – Irene Jan 15 '12 at 19:58
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    @tchrist ‘English has a binary (i.e. two-way) tense system’(‘Linguistics: An Introduction’ by Andrew Radford and others). ‘English has only two tenses: a non-past (present) tense . . . and a past tense.’ (Language and Linguistics: The Key Concepts’ by R L Trask). ‘English has only two tense forms: present and past.’ (‘Rediscover Grammar’ by David Crystal) – Barrie England Jan 15 '12 at 20:01
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    @tchrist: But 'put' and 'set' do have a past tense. The present tense in the 3rd person singular is 'he puts' and 'he sets'. In the past tense they become 'he put' and 'he set'. Anyway, there's no point arguing with me about it. I merely report the orthodox view in the academic linguistic community. If you want to challenge that view, you are of course entititled to do so. – Barrie England Jan 15 '12 at 20:05
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    @BarrieEngland In my work, it is critical that future tense of a verb phrase be recognized as such. I cannot pretend it does not exist. I have also taught Romance languages to English-language learners, and it would be extremely awkward to pretend that Romance tenses don’t map to English ones. Both are ‘j’ai parlé’ and ‘je parlai’ are past tenses, and both ‘je vais parler’ and ‘je parlerais’ are future ones. You can and do create tenses with auxiliaries. You cannot pretend that ‘I will speak’ is in the present tense. That’s a lie. – tchrist Jan 15 '12 at 20:09
  • @BarrieEngland: I like having you around this site so much... I'd do anything to get the chance to befriend you on Facebook. – Frantisek Jan 15 '12 at 20:09
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    @tchrist: 'I will speak' expresses the future through the use of the modal auxiliary 'will' and the plain form of the verb 'speak'. That does not constitute a tense any more than 'I am going to speak' does. I wouldn't say that 'je vais parler' was a tense, but I would say that 'je parlerai' was. Anyway, I suspect we have abused the Stack Exchange rules for too long already to pursue the discussion here. – Barrie England Jan 15 '12 at 20:26
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    If periphrastic tenses are allowed, why stop with the Periphrastic Future? Why not the Periphrastic Past Potential Necessitive tense, like I might have had to go? As well as many, many others. This is why one only wants to use the term "tense" for English Present and Past. – John Lawler Jan 15 '12 at 20:34
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    @BarrieEngland: I think you've opened a can of worms here! I shall stick to my guns and defend the right of Englishmen (and Americans, if they play nice) to say what they say, and have it mean what they mean. If I don't, ELU will be (is?!) in danger of just becoming a talking shop for people to witter on endlessly about how others should use future/subjunctive/whatever - even when they plainly don't – FumbleFingers Jan 15 '12 at 22:01
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    @BarrieEngland If you wish to restrict your own use of ‘tense’ to mean nothing other than single-word inflection of the verb, I can’t stop you. But I for my part shall continue to use the more practical and comprehensive sense that the OED supports, and which everyone and their great-grandmother all know. You would be a lot clearer if you actually wrote ‘single-word inflected verb’ if that is all you mean. The 1st-p sg. ind. future *BLAHBLAH* of ‘to be’ is undeniably ‘je serai’ in French, either ‘seré’ or ‘estaré’ in Spanish, and ‘I will/shall be’ in English. All else is casuistry. – tchrist Jan 15 '12 at 22:59
  • @BarrieEngland Et voilà. – tchrist Jan 15 '12 at 23:04
  • @tchrist: What tense of "go" is "I could go"? – Colin Fine Jan 16 '12 at 00:38
  • @Colin You’ve asked the wrong question. I shan’t condescend to answer a wrong question with a wrong answer. The entire verbal phrase includes the auxiliaries, modals, and everything periphrastic. In the sentence, ‘I will see you tomorrow’, the verb is not ‘go’; the verb is the phrase ‘will go’, and that phrase is clearly in the future tense. You cannot ask what the tense of ‘go’ is in ‘will go’, because that’s entirely the wrong question. You may ask whether it is in the citation form or an inflected form, but that is a different question. Ask the right question if you want a right answer. – tchrist Jan 16 '12 at 03:07
  • @Colin: 'I could go' is a construction consisting of the modal verb 'could' and the plain form of the verb 'go'. The primary use of could is to express what is known in the trade as 'unreal meaning', but it can also express possibility, ability and permission. – Barrie England Jan 16 '12 at 08:07
  • OK, I apologise for trying to make my point by a cute question. I know of no morphological or syntactic test which will distinguish between the constructions "I will go" and "I could go", so I am suggesting that to refer to one of them as a tense and not the other is at least strange. It requires an appeal to semantics, but the "futurity" of "I will go" is far less clear-cut than is often represented. My reading (supporting Barrie's argument) is that "will go" is "future tense" only because it often corresponds in meaning to the future tense in some other languages which have one. – Colin Fine Jan 17 '12 at 12:09
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After when, you use present tenses like simple present, present continuous, present perfect, etc. to refer to the future - where when introduces a subordinate clause But, It does not apply to indirect question or constructions as in

I am not sure when I will clean the house.
I'm not sure when it will be released.
Mustafa
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Per existing answers, "future" tense is more common in such constructions. But per Barrie's comment to Rimmer's answer, English doesn't really have a future tense anyway.

I see nothing wrong with, say, I'm not sure when it's available. I accept there is often at least some implication that the date of availability/release/whatever may actually have already been set (even if that date isn't known to the speaker), but I don't think this is a precondition for the phrasing.

FumbleFingers
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  • This says otherwise. – tchrist Jan 15 '12 at 23:07
  • @tchrist: That can say it until it's blue in the face, but I would never run out of examples from competent speakers/writers to show that these rules are by no means sacrosanct. Here are 8000 instances of I'm not sure when it. Have a look, and you'll find plenty that continue in the present tense. – FumbleFingers Jan 15 '12 at 23:14
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    My point is that English clearly has a future *BLAHBLAH*, but that in this forum I am forbidden from giving it a name. That is stupid. Everyone knows it as the future tense, the OED concurs, and everything else is just so much dancing on the head of a pin. – tchrist Jan 15 '12 at 23:17
  • I do sympathise with your frustration. Obviously English manages to talk about the future just as much as other languages, and we do it by varying the words we use. But you must surely see that oftentimes it's not entirely clear whether we're really talking about the actual future, the present, or a possibility that may either be happening now or may happen in the future. In my example above, I specifically make the point that what's being spoken of can be envisaged as either present or future, sometimes simply depending on how you think about it, not on what verb forms you use. – FumbleFingers Jan 15 '12 at 23:30
  • I agree that "I'm not sure when it's available" is fine, but I think that's just because (for example) "It's available next week" is fine. I think it's simplest to say that "I'm not sure when [...]" uses whatever tense "[...]" would otherwise use. – ruakh Jan 15 '12 at 23:31
  • Aha! I think I have you there, sirrah! If "It's available next week" is fine, surely that can be the reply to "Do you know when it's available?" In which case, what difference can it make if we change available to released? The fact is, native speakers habitually follow that sort of reasoning, even if unconsciously, so they do actually use such variants. It's a bummer for you if you're trying to teach the basics to non-native speakers, I know. But you can't change what people say by throwing grammar books at them. :) – FumbleFingers Jan 15 '12 at 23:49
  • @FumbleFingers: Eh? Sorry, but your comment seems like a bizarre non-sequitur. (Maybe you were confusing me with tchrist? Or at least, maybe you were thinking that I was trying to support him/her? Because for the record: I completely agree with you that a proper analysis of English has only two tenses, past and non-past -- though I must admit that for convenience' sake, I do use the terms "present tense" and "future tense" when discussing the kinds of indicative-mood subordinate clauses that do and do not allow the auxiliary will.) – ruakh Jan 16 '12 at 01:18
  • @ruakh: oops! sorry, you're quite right - got you confused with tchrist. Yes, the "I'm not sure when" part doesn't/shouldn't/needn't affect the tense of whatever follows. And as "the professionals" keep reminding us here, we've only really got two "proper" tenses in English. I don't mind talking about "future tense" - but in a case like OP's example I just think it starts to become unhelpful because we know native speakers can be very flexible about how they verbalise the (theoretically future) event. – FumbleFingers Jan 16 '12 at 01:39
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    @FumbleFingers Morphologically, an English verb — meaning one single word alone — can only be in the present or the past. But a verb phrase often includes auxiliaries, and the resulting ‘compound tense’ is how we express many other nuances, including the future. No other language I’ve ever studied pretends that compound tenses are not real tenses. The Spanish pluperfect has a simple version direct from Latin (literary: hablara) and a compound version from proto-Romance (había hablado). Both are rightly deemed pluperfect. And its simple future can translate to ‘might’ not ‘will’; nuances. – tchrist Jan 16 '12 at 03:02
  • @tchrist: Apologies - That's twice I've been inattentive with comments to this answer. I confess didn't actually check your first "this" link properly - I just assumed you were taking issue with my main point (that there's nothing wrong with I'm not sure when it's available). The bit about English not having a future tense was a bit of a throwaway line because I'd just been trawling through the comments on Rimmer's answer, and I knew mine was going to blur the present/future boundary anyway. But we certainly have compound forms to indicate future, even if we don't have inflections for it. – FumbleFingers Jan 16 '12 at 03:43