5(5 Colorado College Studies. 



the Present Subjunctive. The result of this was a new peri- 

 phrasis, by means of which all modern German Langua<;es 

 have enlarged their Subjunctive by one more tense than the 

 Indicative. This is called the Conditional, in imitation of the 

 Romance Grammarians. The auxiliaries formine; the future 

 also serve in the German' Languages for this Periphrastic 

 Conditional, and its signification is just the same as in the 

 Romance Languages. It cannot, according to Grimm, have 

 arisen earlier than the Periphrastic Future. 



This conditional idea, says Grimm further, was at first ex- 

 pressed by sollen, and still is in dialects whei'e sollen is used 

 for the future (cf. Netherl. zr/z/r/c, Engl. sJioiild and ironhL 

 Swed. skidle, Dan. skiildc). Mid.H.G. also uses soldc and 

 wolde in the same sense. A Mid.H.G. wuerde with the Infini- 

 tive is just as unheard of in the poets of the 13th cent, as the 

 present tense-form wirde as periphrastic future. In the 14th 

 and loth cent, isolated examples are found : wuerdent schactzen 

 (acsfimdrrid). Ls. 1, 15, and in the 16th cent, wuerde Sfigen 

 is as common in the language as iverde sagen. The Subjunc- 

 tive forms sollte and wollte, which had become less clear ber 

 cause they lacked the umlaut, is easily recognizable in icuerde; 

 it must therefore be considered a Subjunctive tense and not 

 Indicative. 



Furthermore this periphrastic form coincides with the sim- 

 ple Preterite Subjunctive in its signification. The Mid.H.G. 

 disiu ziihf gienge hilliclier neher mich,lw. 1678, vor im gemiese 

 niemen, Ben. 880, corresponds to a Mod.H.G. wuerde ergehen, 

 u'uerde genesen. though the simple tense may still be used, 

 as in Mid.H.G. might have been said, sohle gan. Both tenses, 

 the simijle and periphrastic, thus compete according to cir- 

 cumstances, as in the Indicative gieng and ist gegangen. But 

 gienge has a broader field and in many cases cannot be re- 

 placed by wuerde geheu, while gienge can almost always re- 

 place wuerde gehen. Wuerde gehen, icuerde lieben never 

 have optative force, and are thus differentiated from the passive 

 periphrastic form of the Preterite Subjunctive, which is not 

 to be placed on the same footing with it and was present 

 much earlier in the language. Wuerde uf getan (aperire- 



