The scholarship on the Modern German periphrastic future, or the werden future (that is, werden + infinitive) has brought forth different hypotheses about its origins. One of these hypotheses states that it developed from werden + present participle in the 13th century (for example, Bech 1901). While many have criticized this hypothesis, no one until now has proposed a valid solution for the problem. In this study, I carried out a comprehensive examination of the instances of werden in combination with present participles and infinitives in Middle and Early New High German. The analysis indicates that although werden + present participle and werden + infinitive were often used in similar contexts, the former construction was not the source from which the werden future emerged. Old High German data also show the use of werden + infinitive, which suggests that it was already well established in the first two centuries of the Middle High German period. This provides evidence against the view that the construction developed as late as the 13th century. I also address the grammaticalization process that werden + infinitive underwent during the Early New High German period and suggest that it culminated in the 16th century.

关于现代德语周边未来或werden未来（即werden + 不定式）的学术研究对其起源提出了不同的假设。其中一个假设指出它是从werden + 现在分词在 13 世纪发展而来的（例如，Bech 1901）。尽管许多人批评了这一假设，但直到现在还没有人为这个问题提出有效的解决方案。在本研究中，我结合中早期新高地德语的现在分词和不定式对werden的实例进行了全面的考察。分析表明，虽然werden + 现在分词和werden+ 不定式经常用在类似的语境中，以前的结构并不是werden未来出现的来源。古高地德语数据也显示了werden + 不定式的使用，这表明它在中高地德语时期的前两个世纪已经很成熟。这提供了反对该建筑发展到 13 世纪的观点的证据。我还谈到了werden + 不定式在早期新高地德语时期所经历的语法化过程，并建议它在 16 世纪达到顶峰。