future tense It is very common for full verbs to become auxiliaries and eventually inflexional endings. An example of this phenomenon can be seen in the change from the Old English (OE) verb ('to want/to wish') to an auxiliary verb signifying intention in Middle English (ME). In Present-Day English (PDE), this form is even shortened to 'll and no longer necessarily implies intention, but often is simply a mark of future tense (see shall and will). The PDE verb 'will' can thus be said to have less lexical meaning than its preceding form in OE. Content word: Old English (to want/to wish) Grammatical word: Middle English and Modern English will, e.g. "I will go to the market"; auxiliary expressing intention, lacking many features of English verbs such as an inflected past tense, in Modern English usage. The use of "would" as the past tense of "will", though more common in Middle English, has become archaic, demonstrating the ongoing loss of lexical content. Modern English will, e.g. "I will see you later"; auxiliary expressing futurity but not necessarily intention (similar in meaning to "I am gonna see you later") Clitic: Modern English 'll, e.g. "My friends'll be there this evening." This clitic form phonologically adapts to its surroundings and cannot receive stress unlike the uncontracted form. Inflectional suffix: This has not occurred in English, but hypothetically, will could become further grammaticalized to the point that it forms an inflexional affix indicating future tense, e.g. "I needill your help." in the place of "I will need your help." or "I'll need your help." The final stage of grammaticalization has happened in many languages. For example, in Serbo-Croatian, the Old Church Slavonic verb ("to want/to wish") has gone from a content word ( "s/he wants to walk") to an auxiliary verb in phonetically reduced form (on/ona "s/he will walk") to a clitic (), and finally to a fused inflection ( "s/he will walk"). Compare the German verb wollen which has partially undergone a similar path of grammaticalization, and note the simultaneous existence of the non-grammaticalized Modern English verb to will (e.g. "He willed himself to continue along the steep path.") or in Serbo-Croatian ( = I want that I walk). In Latin the original future tense forms (e.g. ) were dropped when they became phonetically too close to the imperfect forms (). Instead, a phrase like , literally 'I have got to sing'