A striking grammatical difference between BE and AE is the various uses of auxiliary verbs (now, modal verbs) of will and shall. When I was a high school boy studying English without any chance of speaking English, we were taught in the English grammar class a special use of shall, used particularly in the second and third persons ‘to represent the will of the speaker’ rather than that of the subject as in ‘You shall have the money tomorrow’ often paraphrased into ‘I will give you the money.’ Some more examples are found in Collins Grammar on the web:
- The president shall hold office for five years.
- Member states shall decide the conditions for granting access to the labour market for the applicant.
But I am not speaking about this use usually seen in regulations or legal documents, but sentences to imply a command, promise or threat made by the speaker. Some examples are cited in Wikipedia:
- You shall regret it before long. (speaker's threat)
- You shall not pass! (speaker's command)
- You shall go to the ball. (speaker's promise)
And another is also given in Leech’s Grammar (1987).
- Good dog, you shall have a bone when we get home.
These four examples suggest that this is in actual use even today. But, from my own long experience of studying English, I have assumed that around 1970 in Great Britain, this special use of shall was already out-of-date or old-fashioned in daily conversation or informal writings. Can I have some guidance about my assumption, or some information or data on this special use of shall?
VP
? and Shall weVP
?. And since there's no "future tense" in English, the "rule" just crumbles into dust, which we shove embarrassedly under the rug. The "actual use" you mention is entirely in fixed phrases; those are coffins, not uses.