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While the engineers will give a press conference, the inspection team will investigate the accident scene.

While would be synonymous with (the moment) when or during the time when, and I know "when" is normally not followed by "will + verb". So is this sentence correct, or should it be instead:

While the engineers give a press conference...

I am not looking for replacements for "while", I only wish to know if it can be followed by "will" when it refers to time. Sorry if my example is not the best.

Online, I only find instances of it with Present continuous like in this definition of Cambridge dictionary:

Would you like something to eat while we’re waiting?

or with Past Continuous as on this BBC site:

When / While the prison warders were eating their lunch, the prisoners escaped.

Gngram tells me it prefers the present after while.

So is "while" not possible with "will"?

fev
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    While = Although, in that context. – Lawrence Jan 16 '21 at 14:51
  • No, I mean it in the temporal sense. "At the same time, when". – fev Jan 16 '21 at 14:53
  • Um, there's no future tense in English. There's also no connection between while and the modal auxiliary will. And the use of will here means that while is not synonymous with 'the moment when'. When a native speaker says or writes something, they often violate the artificial rules in textbooks. – John Lawler Jan 16 '21 at 14:54
  • @fev In that case, consider using “as long as” instead of “while”. – Lawrence Jan 16 '21 at 14:54
  • @JohnLawler: is "While they will give a press conference" acceptable then? In a written text? – fev Jan 16 '21 at 14:55
  • @Lawrence: What is wrong with "while" here? – fev Jan 16 '21 at 14:57
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    @fev The “although” sense comes across a lot more strongly, so using “while” doesn’t convey your intent. – Lawrence Jan 16 '21 at 15:00
  • I think 'as' is a better alternative to while; implies the simultaneous nature of the 2 activities without being vague. – perpetuallyperplexed Jan 16 '21 at 15:11
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    @perpetuallyperplexed Using as runs the risk of being understood as because. "Because the engineers will give the press conference, the inspectors will assess the scene. There's no-one else now that the engineers are otherwise engaged." While that does indicate simultaneous actions, it also indicates a causality. – Andrew Leach Jan 16 '21 at 15:24
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    @fev It's really bad practice to edit questions so majorly when they've already been answered. – Andrew Leach Jan 16 '21 at 15:50
  • @ Andrew Leach: Somebody Close Voted it. So I edited to include the research I had done. Sorry if it is bad practice. Your answer still stands, I upvoted, so I hope you are not too bothered. – fev Jan 16 '21 at 15:54

4 Answers4

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There's no formal future tense in English, although the future may be referred to by using will.

"I will go tomorrow" expresses at least an intention; but that can also be expressed by "I am going tomorrow" or even "I go tomorrow".

[What follows may not apply to other versions]

While (= "at the same time as") does not license the will form of expressing the future. If you use while with will, as you propose, then while always has the meaning "although". [Note: this is a shibboleth for non-native speakers: many languages do license — if not insist upon — a future "tense" with while which cannot simply be translated word-for-word.]

For the "future tense" with while, you need to use a different form of the verb; this might be present continuous or simple present:

While the engineers give a press conference, the inspection team will investigate the accident scene.
While the engineers are giving a press conference, the inspection team will investigate the accident scene.

Using will give for the engineers' part in the process always makes while mean something similar to "although":

While the engineers will give a press conference, the inspection team will investigate the accident scene.
Although it is the engineers who will give a press conference, the inspection team will investigate the accident scene.
The engineers will give a press conference, but the inspection team will investigate the accident scene.

Neither of those alternatives has quite the same meaning as the while version.

Andrew Leach
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  • +1 for an excellent answer. Just a little doubt— Simple present isn't used for future tenses unlike present continuous. And so while the engineers give a press conference talks about the likelihood of engineers' giving a press conference in the future doesn't sound ok. Would you please explain this bit? @Andrew Leach – user405662 Jan 16 '21 at 15:32
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    Simple present is used for future actions. "I go tomorrow" demonstrates that. – Andrew Leach Jan 16 '21 at 15:40
  • Thanks. So it's optional to choose between simple present and present continuous when talking about future events? – user405662 Jan 16 '21 at 15:46
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    They're not entirely interchangeable, but in this case with while, either is fine. – Andrew Leach Jan 16 '21 at 15:47
  • An example please highlighting the point of your last comment. – user405662 Jan 16 '21 at 15:51
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    @user405662 Please observe ELU requirements. One question per thread, no questions in 'comments' ... and reasonable research. The 'present simple for future events' usage has been well dealt with in earlier threads. See, for instance, using the simple present for future actions. – Edwin Ashworth Jan 16 '21 at 17:01
  • ‘There's no formal future tense in English’ — I’m not sure this is entirely correct, though it is close. English has no inflectional future tense, but will is still very much a future tense, albeit a periphrastic one. (I suppose you might be able to say that will is primarily a modal auxiliary and only secondarily has a future meaning, but my understanding is that this is the case with very many uncontroversial ‘future tenses’.) – bradrn Jan 17 '21 at 00:55
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There are two possible meanings here, and the differences are subtle. If the person making the statement is essentially setting a schedule, "will" would not be used.

"While the engineers give a press conference, the inspection team will investigate the accident scene."

That is, the engineers will give a press conference at the same time that the inspection team investigates the scene.

If the speaker is dealing with a more general division of responsibility, and is prescribing roles or functions of the two teams, "will" could be used.

"While the engineers will give a press conference, the inspection team will investigate the accident scene."

In this case the speaker is telling the engineers to give the press conference, and the inspection team to inspect the wreckage. It also suggests that either group could give the press conference.

The distinction is between uses of the word "while". If it is used to establish a future time, there is no need for "will", which would normally be used to do that.

The other use of "while" is to establish preference between choices, as in, "While I like both cake and pie, I'll have the pie for dessert." In this case it would be used to tell each team what they will do, while acknowledging that either could give the press conference. The alternative would be that both teams give the press conference, since presumably the engineers are not as good at investigation as the inspection team.

WhatRoughBeast
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Looking up while in any good dictionary tells you that it's a conjunction that connects two events, both taking place in the present or in the past.

Examples:

While I'm working on my PC, I do not want any distraction.

We were watching the TV, while the slanging match was going on in the other room.

While he was walking, he often seemed to reel.

It would thus be seen that tenses as such pose no encumbrance to using while to carry out its primary function as conjunction— to introduce subordinate clauses.

But as a note of caution, and as has been pointed out by @Lawrence, while in OP's first sentence, instead of faithfully conveying the simultaneity of two events as is apparently the intended usage of the word, seems to suggest its other meaning— whereas: when on the other hand. And this could sometimes be potentially misleading.

user405662
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From CGEL, 15.28 (Same time) p. 1083

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In the two copies above, among the material provided so as to situate the discussion more precisely, is directly relevant the following sentence.

  • While and the less frequent whilst require that their clause must be durative , but the matrix clause need not be.

Of course, the answer to the question depends on what is meant by the term "durative clause". It is not a term that you find often in grammatical text. However, the concept of durative verb is clearly defined in this reference: flesl.net grammar glossary; moreover, there is a part in it that indicates, although implicitly, what is meant by "durative clause"; the part showing it has been copied below for convenience.

enter image description here

The revealing sentence

  • When a durative verb is put into a progressive tense, the meaning is that an event is (or was) going on over a period of time. It follows that not any tense (aspect) of a durative verb necessarily yields a durative meaning, or in other words a durative clause.

Notice that "to give" is a durative verb. The necessity of this durative construction is corroborated by the fact that if there is doubt about the sentence in question (rightly so) there is no doubt for the following variant: it is correct and carries the idea of "same time" (not that of concession).

  • While the engineers will be giving a press conference, the inspection team will investigate the accident scene.

As a conclusion, it can be said that if a verb form with "will" in a clause introduced by "while" is in a continuous tense it does confer the notion of "same time".

LPH
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    Please don't post images without making them accessible. Quote the relevant passages in plain text as well (although plaintext with a link will do just as well — it's the text which is needed, not the image of it). – Andrew Leach Jan 17 '21 at 09:18
  • @AndrewLeach Is that to say that I shouldn't post scanned material from sources not available on the web? CGEL is accessible (either you buy it or use a library for consultation), although not on the web. Also, you say that the image is not needed, but it saves a large amount of time in needless typing; as far as that goes, it is needed; is it not useful to save oneself time? – LPH Jan 17 '21 at 10:27
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    It's not needless typing. Images cannot be read by the sight-impaired, their screen-reader software, or search engines. Relevant Meta post. – Andrew Leach Jan 17 '21 at 10:40