grammar - "Hurry, give me anything that will hold water!" What verb tense is this?


In the following sentence, "Hurry, give me anything that will hold water!" What verb tense is "will hold" ? Not future simple, I presume.



Answer



You have only two possibilities: a) future simple - will as auxiliary verb b) will as modal verb such as can


As future tense makes no sense at all it can only be possibility b) and then the tense is present tense of "will".


The meaning is nothing but


1 something that holds water or


2 something that can hold water.


Due to the ambiguity of will + infinitive the use of "will" as a modal verb is somewhat limited, mostly to negative forms as in



  • I tried but the door would not open. The door is jammed.


As to your sentence above this use of "will" looks like the language of an earlier time or like individual or regional habit of speech.


As to your sentence above this use of "will" looks like language of an earlier time or an individual habit of speech or a regional variant of speech.


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