Gram - SEAS

90 4 Pragmatic factors
could no longer be used with be going to, presumably because it had become
partially redundant, and did not fit the auxiliary verb structure into which the
construction had been absorbed. (Note, however, that the will-future can still occur
in the main verb construction be going to, as in I will be going to visit Aunt Mildred
tomorrow.)
The metaphor account, whereby a trajectory through space is mapped onto
a trajectory in time, does not give adequate insight into why the progressive and
most especially to are involved in the English expression be going to. This becomes
particularly clear when we compare the cross-linguistic grammaticalization of the
verb with the abstract meaning GO to future markers, each of which seems to have
a slightly different history. Sometimes, for example, there is no overt purposive, in
which case the future inference arises out of the directional verb and its associated
aspect alone, as in French. Sometimes, however, GO may be grammaticalized into
either a purposive or a temporal marker of imminence, as occurred to ·bang 'go'
in Rama:
(23) a. Tiiskama ni-sung-bang taak-i.
baby I-see-SUB go-TNS
'I am going in order to see the baby.'
b. Tiiskama ni-sung-bang.
baby I-Iook-at-ASP
'I am going to look at the baby.' (Craig 1991: 457)
In each case inferences from the highly local contexts of the verb in its linear
position within the clause appear to be the immeqiately motivating factors for
change, though the capacity to create metaphors of time from space may well
provide a cognitive framework that supports the changes.
We have suggested that semanticization of conversational inferences played a
major role in the development" of be going to. Another example is provided by
the development of while (see Traugott and Konig , 1991, on which the following
discussion is based). This connective originated in OE in an adverbial phrase
translatable as 'at the time that' consisting of the accusative