future perfect

Question

HiEven highly succesful businesses will have experieced growing pains in the early days.A general truth is expressed with the aid of simple present, AFAIK.My question is why the present perfect?'will' serves as a modal expressing truths and facts, right?thanks

CalifJim · Accepted Answer

To my ear, in this sentence will expresses a high degree of confidence -- a thought which can be paraphrased by surely, doubtless, most likely/probably, or very likely/probably. This is the will of probability, as in That will be John calling upon hearing the phone ring.

Even highly successful businesses have [surely / doubtless / most likely / ...] experienced growing pains in the early days.

(It's not present perfect, as you say in the text. It's future perfect, as you say in the thread title.)

CJ

Anonymous · Answer

Crystal clear. Thanks CJ.

Believer · Answer

Hi, CalifJim. Thank you.

As to your sentence, "That will be John calling upon hearing the phone ring," would you say "John calling" is a noun phrase almost identical to "his calling" where "calling" is a genitive functioning as a noun? And in the phrase "hearing the phone ring," would you say "hearing" isn't a participle in a subordinate clause, but rather it is a noun phrase? If my question seems confusing to you, can you parse the forementioned sentence of yours?

Are the underlined parts a noun phrase?

Thinking deeply upon the issue that was presented at the meeting isn't what he needs to be doing at this moment of time.

His thinking deeply upon the issue that was presented at the meeting isn't what he needs to be doing at this momnet of time.

Using a spoon skillfully to feed two babies almost simultanously and doing it in a way that not many people can notice it is (are??) a skill that not many people can duplicate. -- I think an argument for 'is' can be used in that two actions are meant to be thought of as single result-producing actions.

His using a spoon skillfully to feed two babies almost simultaneously and doing it in a way that not many people can notice it is (are??) a skill that not many people can duplicate.

CalifJim · Answer

would you say "John calling" is a noun phrase almost identical to "his calling" where "calling" is a genitive functioning as a noun?

No. There is nothing genitive going on here. It's (among other things) a Whiz-Deletion. That will be John who is calling. So calling is part of the verb phrase is calling. The underlying relative clause seems to be used adjectivally to describe John, so it also seems possible to analyze calling as a present participle modifying John. But this is deceptive.

The structure is similar to, but not an exact match to, a cleft sentence like It is John who is calling, derived from the underlying John is calling. But here we have dummy It, whereas with That we have a referring expression. (Note the position of John in John is calling vs. That is John.) So this too is deceptive.

In fact, I think the best analysis is that the element That is being modified by (who is) calling. That (person) who is calling will be John. / That calling (person) will be John. So the noun phrase you may be looking for is the underlying That calling, which does not occur in that form at all in the surface structure of That will be John calling.

Compare:
That's Mary standing by the bench. / That person standing by the bench is Mary.
That's Mary beside the bench. / That person (who is) beside the bench is Mary.
[Here we see quite clearly that Mary beside the bench is not a constituent, so it cannot be a noun phrase. In the same way, John calling is not a constituent of the original sentence you asked about.]
____________

And note the ambiguity that can occur with this structure:
Those are the children in the water. / Those children (who are) in the water are the children (you are looking for). [Answers a question like Where are the children?]
Those are the children in the water. / Those children are those particular children who are in the water -- not the other children who are on the beach. [Answers a question like Which children are those?]
[In the first of these, there is no constituent of the form the children in the water. In the second version, the noun phrase the children in the water does occur.]

CJ

CalifJim · Answer

The underlined portions in your examples are all noun phrases. Use is in the last two examples. It is two actions thought of as one, as you say.

CJ

CalifJim · Answer

would you say "hearing" isn't a participle in a subordinate clause, but rather it is a noun phrase?

No, I don't think we can call it a noun phrase, but maybe others have another opinion about it.

CJ

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