Dutch <i>willen</i>’s steps towards a future marker

Abstract Desire verbs commonly change into markers of future events. Bybee et al. (1994) report of the common pattern in language change in which verbs like want become future markers. Van Dooren et al. (2019) observe that Dutch willen ‘want’ shows indications that it is currently on the path from desire to future: A sentence like Het wil nog wel regenen vandaag ‘It will probably rain today’ (lit. It wants particle particle rain today) indicates that rain might happen later today. The desire element has disappeared. In this short paper, we will further specify and explain van Dooren et al.’s semantic analysis of the future use of Dutch willen . We will argue that it is a root modal, which is pragmatically always future-oriented (extending Condoravdi 2002 ).