<)U Colorado College Studies. 



tional idea of duty and intention is to be expressed it employs 

 sccdl and icilh' (cf. Fr. il doit arriver. er wird ankommen). 

 Notice furthermore the Grothic sa auk habaida ina galewjan 

 ains wisands thize twalibe ( is eum proditurus erat, Jno., 6, 71 ; 

 also 12, 26: tharuh sa andbahts meins wisan habaith). 



We cannot, however, consider the absolute temporal rela- 

 tions of the present, the past, and the future without at the 

 same time discussing those of inception, completion, duration 

 and repetition of the action, though we are here only con- 

 c-erned with the inceptive action and the modal relations, to 

 which we shall confine ourselves. In A.S. gann ( began) has 

 an inceptive force, c. g., ic gann drinkan (cf. I am going to 

 write, je vais boire, mod. Eng. begin, Lat. coepi, etc.). In 

 German the future formed by sollen and icollen corresponds 

 to this French je vais vous dire, j'allais i^artir and the Eng- 

 lish I was about, was going to do it, rather than to the Latin 

 Ijeriphrastic future. In Gothic we find only one form with 

 soUcn, saei skulda (|iman (Matt. 11, 14, qui venturus erat J, 

 which seems to correspond more to the periphrastic future of 

 the Latin. Though sollen and icollen per se express modal 

 relations, they, however, have an inceptive signification in 

 such expressions as, Es will regnen. Die Wunde will lieilen, 

 Es sollte eben getanzt werden, als, etc., Der Tisch soil gerade 

 gedeckt werden, just as much as the French and English 

 forms cited aboye. A relative temporal relation to a preceding 

 event is inceptively denoted by the Imperfect, e.g., Die Wunde 

 wollte eben heilen, als sie wieder aufgerissen wurde, DerVer- 

 brecher sollte eben hingerichtet werden, als die Nachricht 

 von seiner Begnadigung ankam. Before proceeding farther 

 we shall have to discuss the modal signification of these aux- 

 iliaries in order to determine why and when they should be 

 used and how their modal and inceptive signification led to 

 their future use until differentiation settled modern use. 



A real necessity, that is, a necessity imposed upon matter 

 by nature, is expressed by murssen (vacare; cf. Musse^ mues- 

 sig). A moral necessity imposed, not by the will of the in- 

 dividual but by a general law, is not ditferent from a real 

 necessity, and is therefore likewise expressed by )iiiti'Sfie)i, 



