Shall and will are two of the English modal verbs. They have various uses, including the expression of propositions about the future, in what is usually referred to as the future tense of English.
Historically, prescriptive grammar stated that, when expressing pure futurity (without any additional meaning such as desire or command), shall was to be used when the subject was in the first person, and will in other cases (e.g., "On Sunday, we shall go to church, and the preacher will read the Bible.") This rule is no longer commonly adhered to by any group of English speakers, and will has essentially replaced shall in nearly all contexts.
Shall is, however, still widely used in bureaucratic documents, especially documents written by lawyers. Owing its use in varying legal contexts, its meaning can be ambiguous; the United States government's Plain Language group advises writers not to use the word at all. Other legal drafting experts, including Plain Language advocates, argue that while shall can be ambiguous in statutes (which most of the cited litigation on the word's interpretation involves), court rules, and consumer contracts, that reasoning does not apply to the language of business contracts.Kenneth Adams, "Making Sense of 'Shall'", New York Law Journal, October 18, 2007. These experts recommend using shall but only to impose an obligation on a contractual party that is the subject of the sentence, i.e., to convey the meaning "hereby has a duty to".Chadwick C. Busk, "Using Shall or Will to Create Obligations in Business Contracts", Michigan Bar Journal, pp. 50-52, October 2017."Basic Concepts in Drafting Contracts", presented by Vincent R. Martorana to the New York State Bar Association, December 10, 2014 (via Reed Smith University).Tips for Achieving Clarity in Contract Drafting
Etymology
The verb shall derives from Old English sceal. Its cognates in other Germanic languages include Old Norse skal, German soll, and Dutch zal; these all represent *skol-, the o-grade of Indo-European *skel-. All of these verbs function as auxiliaries, representing either simple futurity, or necessity or obligation.
The verb will derives from Old English willan, meaning to want or wish. Cognates include Old Norse vilja, German wollen (ich/er/sie will, meaning I/he/she want/s to), Dutch willen, Gothic wiljan. It also has relatives in non-Germanic languages, such as Latin velle ("wish for") and voluptas ("pleasure"), and Polish woleć ("prefer"). All of these forms derive from the e-grade or o-grade of Indo-European *wel-, meaning to wish for or desire. Within English, the modal verb will is also related to the noun will and the regular lexical verb will (as in "She willed him on").
Early Germanic did not inherit any Proto-Indo-European forms to express the future tense, and so the Germanic languages have innovated by using auxiliary verbs to express the future (this is evidenced in Gothic and in the earliest recorded Germanic expressions). In English, shall and will are the auxiliaries that came to be used for this purpose. (Another auxiliary used as such in Old English was mun, which is related to Scots maun, Modern English must and Dutch moet.) Derived forms and pronunciation Both shall and will come from verbs that had the preterite-present conjugation in Old English (and generally in Germanic), meaning that they were conjugated using the strong preterite form (i.e., the usual past tense form) as the present tense. Because of this, like the other modal verbs, they do not take the usual -s in Modern English's third-person singular present; we say she shall and he will – not *she shalls, and not *he wills (except in the sense of "to will" being a synonym of "to want" or "to write into a will"). Archaically, there were, however, the variants shalt and wilt, which were used with thou.
Both verbs also have their own preterite (past) forms, namely should and would, which derive from the actual preterites of the Old English verbs (made using the dental suffix that forms the preterites of weak verbs). These forms have developed a range of meanings, frequently independent of those of shall and will (as described in the section on should and would below). Aside from this, though, shall and will (like the other modals) are defective verbs – they do not have other grammatical forms such as infinitives, imperatives or participles. (For instance, I want to will eat something or He's go to sleep do not exist.)
Both shall and will may be contracted to -'ll, most commonly in affirmative statements where they follow a subject pronoun. Their negations, shall not and will not, also have contracted forms: shan't and won't (although shan't is rarely used in North America, and is becoming rarer elsewhere too).
The pronunciation of will is , and that of won't is . However shall has distinct weak and strong pronunciations: when unstressed, and when stressed. Shan't is pronounced in England, New Zealand, South Africa etc.; in North America (if used) it is pronounced , and both forms are acceptable in Australia (due to the unique course of the trap–bath split).
Specific uses of shall or will The modal verbs shall and will have been used in the past, and continue to be used, with a variety of meanings.Many of the examples are taken from Although when used purely as future markers they are largely interchangeable (as will be discussed in the following sections), each of the two verbs also has certain specific uses in which it cannot be replaced by the other without change of meaning.
The most common specific use of shall in everyday English is in questions that serve as offers or suggestions: "Shall I ...?" or "Shall we ...?" These are discussed under below.
In statements, shall has the specific use of expressing an order or instruction, normally in elevated or formal register. This use can blend with the usage of shall to express futurity, and is therefore discussed in detail below under .
Will (but not shall) is used to express habitual action, often (but not exclusively) action that the speaker finds annoying: He will bite his nails, whatever I say. He will often stand on his head.
Similarly, will is used to express something that can be expected to happen in a general case, or something that is highly likely at the present time: A coat will last two years when properly cared for. That will be Mo at the door.
The other main specific implication of will is to express willingness, desire or intention. This blends with its usage in expressing futurity, and is discussed under . For its use in questions about the future, see .
Uses of shall and will in expressing futurity
Both shall and will can be used to mark a circumstance as occurring in future time; this construction is often referred to as the future tense of English. For example: Will they be here tomorrow? I shall grow old some day. Shall we go for dinner? When will or shall directly governs the infinitive of the main verb, as in the above examples, the construction is called the simple future. Future marking can also be combined with aspectual marking to produce constructions known as future progressive ("He will be working"), future perfect ("He will have worked") and future perfect progressive ("He will have been working"). English also has other ways of referring to future circumstances, including the going to construction, and in many cases the ordinary present tense – details of these can be found in the article on the going-to future.
The verbs will and shall, when used as future markers, are largely interchangeable with regard to literal meaning. Generally, however, will is far more common than shall. Use of shall is normally a marked usage, typically indicating formality or seriousness and (if not used with a first person subject) expressing a colored meaning as described below. In most dialects of English, the use of shall as a future marker is viewed as archaic.Crystal, David, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, pages 194 and 224, Cambridge Press Syndicate, New York, NY 1995
Will is ambiguous in first-person statements, and shall is ambiguous in second- and third-person statements. A rule of prescriptive grammar was created to remove these ambiguities, but it requires that the hearer or reader understand the rule followed by the speaker or writer, which is usually not the case. According to this rule, when expressing futurity and nothing more, the auxiliary shall is to be used with first person subjects (I and we), and will is to be used in other instances. Using will with the first person or shall with the second or third person is asserted to indicate some additional meaning in addition to plain futurity. In practice, however, this rule is not observed – the two auxiliaries are used interchangeably, with will being far more common than shall. This is discussed in more detail in the following sections.
Prescriptivist distinction
According to Merriam Webster's Dictionary of English Usage,Merriam Webster's Dictionary of English Usage, Merriam-Webster, 1989, the distinction between shall and will as future markers arose from the practice of Latin teaching in English schools in the 14th century. It was customary to use will to translate the Latin velle (meaning to wish, want or intend); this left shall (which had no other equivalent in Latin) to translate the Latin future tense. This practice kept shall alive in the role of future marker; it is used consistently as such in the Middle English Wycliffe's Bible. However, in the common language it was will that was becoming predominant in that role. Chaucer normally uses will to indicate the future, regardless of grammatical person.
An influential proponent of the prescriptive rule that shall is to be used as the usual future marker in the first person was John Wallis. In Grammatica Linguae Anglicanae (1653) he wrote: "The rule is [...] to express a future event without emotional overtones, one should say I shall, we shall, but you/he/she/they will; conversely, for emphasis, willfulness, or insistence, one should say I/we will, but you/he/she/they shall".
Henry Watson Fowler wrote in his book The King's English (1906), regarding the rules for using shall vs. will, the comment "the idiomatic use, while it comes by nature to southern Englishmen ... is so complicated that those who are not to the manner born can hardly acquire it". The Pocket Fowler's Modern English Usage, OUP, 2002, says of the rule for the use of shall and will: "it is unlikely that this rule has ever had any consistent basis of authority in actual usage, and many examples of [British] English in print disregard it".
Nonetheless, even among speakers (the majority) who do not follow the rule about using shall as the unmarked form in the first person, there is still a tendency to use shall and will to express different shades of meaning (reflecting aspects of their original Old English senses). Thus shall is used with the meaning of obligation, and will with the meaning of desire or intention.
An illustration of the supposed contrast between shall and will (when the prescriptive rule is adhered to) appeared in the 19th century, and has been repeated in the 20th century and in the 21st: I shall drown; no one will save me! (expresses the expectation of drowning, simple expression of future occurrence) I will drown; no one shall save me! (expresses suicidal intent: first-person will for desire, third-person shall for command) An example of this distinction in writing occurs in Henry James's 1893 short story The Middle Years: "Don't you know?—I want to what they call 'live.'" The young man, for good-by, had taken his hand, which closed with a certain force. They looked at each other hard a moment. "You will live," said Dr. Hugh. "Don't be superficial. It's too serious!" "You shall live!" Dencombe's visitor declared, turning pale.