Grammar

Question

What tense is "will be seen"?

Regards · Accepted Answer

Hi,

It's the future tense - passive voice.

Regards

BillJ · Answer

AnonymousWhat tense is "will be seen"?

It is present tense. Contrary to what is traditionally assumed, English does not have a future tense.

Syntactically, the modal auxiliary verb "will" has two tenses: present and preterite. Semantically, it is most often used to make reference to future time:

"The film will be seen at the Edinburgh Festival" is syntactically a present tense clause with "will" as the tensed verb. But in that example, "will" clearly expresses reference to future time; something that could be done in various other ways as well ("The film is going to be seen at the Edinburgh Festival", "The film is about to be seen at the Edinburgh Festival". etc.).

BillJ

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