Gram - SEAS

(5)
cantabo
sing- ISG:FUT
'I will sing'
3.3 Reanalysis 53
The question is how phrasal constructions like (6), consisting of an infinitive and
a form of the verb habere 'to have,' came to compete with and eventually replace
constructions like (5):
(6) Haec habeo cantare.
these have- I SG:PRES sing-INF
'I have these things to sing.'
It was constructions like the one in (6) which were reduced, in various ways in
the various Romance languages, to form the new inflectional future illustrated by
French je chanterai.
The verb habere 'to have' in Latin was a verb of possession and belonging.
It was a transitive verb and could originally introduce only a nominal object. In
many contexts it did not have the strict meaning of possession, but rather had
a more general locative meaning of 'belonging, being in presence of,' etc. (for
the cross-linguistic interrelationship of locative-possessive-existential, see Lyons
1968; Clark 1978; Heine 1997: Chapter 5). In some contexts, especially those in
which the object was modified by a gerundive, for example (7), this verb acquired
Ii sense of obligation, or at least future orientation, presumably transferred from
the gerundive, which itself once expressed obligation.
(7) Aedem habuit tuendam.
house had look: after-GER
'He had a house to look after.'
(c. 40 BC, Cicero, Ve r. 11.1,130; cited in Pinkster 1987: 208)
Thus if I have a house to look after, I may have obligations to look after it, and
I may have future purposes, such as living in it, passing it on to my descendants.
etc. Pinkster (1987) suggests that habere + infinitive originated as an alternative
to habere + gerundive, most particularly in contexts of verbs of speaking:
(8) a. Quid habes dicendum?
what have-2SG say-GER
'What do you have to say?'
b. Quid habes dicere?
what have-2SG say-INF
'What do you have to say?'
The first instance, according to Pinkster, of habere with an infinitive is in the
context of a verb of speaking that introduces a sentential complement: