<P> It is sometimes possible to mark the time of an occurrence as being in the past or future not relative to the present moment (the moment of speaking), but relative to a time of reference, which can itself be in the past or future (or in some hypothetical reality) relative to the present moment . (See relative tense .) Thus an occurrence may be marked as taking place in the "past of the future", "future of the past", etc . (For the "past of the past", see pluperfect .) </P> <P> The past of the future, marking an occurrence expected to take place before some future reference time, is typically marked by a future perfect form (in languages that have such a form), as in the English "I shall have finished by tomorrow afternoon ." </P> <P> The "future of the past" may be expressed in various ways in English . It is possible to use would in its capacity as the past tense of the future marker will (see English modal verbs and future - in - the - past); for example: "The match started at midday but would not end until the evening ." It is also possible to use the past tense of other expressions that express future reference, as in "I was going to wait"; "I was to wait"; "I was about to wait ." Such expressions can also be put into other tenses and moods (and non-finite forms), to achieve future reference in hypothetical and future situations, e.g., "I would be going to take part if ..."; "I shall be about to leave ." More examples can be found in the section Expressions of relative future in the article on the going - to future . </P> <P> In Germanic languages, including English, a common expression of the future is using the present tense, with the futurity expressed using words that imply future action (I go to Berlin tomorrow or I am going to Berlin tomorrow). There is no simple (morphological) future tense as such . However, the future can also be expressed by employing an auxiliary construction that combines certain present tense auxiliary verbs with the simple infinitive (stem) of the main verb . These auxiliary forms vary between the languages . Other, generally more informal, expressions of futurity use an auxiliary with the compound infinitive of the main verb (as with the English is going to ...). </P>

Why is there no future tense in english