You read earlier in this chapter how present “time” and present “tense” are relative concepts. The future tense is also relative, since it takes the present as its reference point and shows something that happens after it. It doesn't matter exactly when the reference point is, the future tense simply follows it. It could just as easily be called the “later-on tense.”

With respect to aspect, TABLE 11-3 shows that the future tense functions like the present tense does. The form curret, then, can be translated “he will be running” as a continuous aspect tense, or “he will run” for the aorist aspect. (Unlike it does for the aorist present, English does not have a corresponding emphatic form “he do will run” or “he will do run”!)

Table 11-3 Action and Aspects