(kS Colorado College Studies. 



druagi in henti er sines dages enti, er todes io ni koreti, er er 

 ^ den drost liabeti (Otfrid ). 



In Mod.H.G., however, besides the present ich spraeche, 

 and the preterite ich haette gesprochen, the Conditional also 

 has a future ich wuerde spreclien and a future perfect ich 

 wuerde gesprochen haben, as we now call these forms. But 

 these futures, if they are used in the real signification of the 

 Conditional, do not have the temporal ( tense, time) significa- 

 tion corresponding to the form of the simple future; for the 

 future is not distinguished from the present, and the future 

 perfect from the preterite, e. r/.,Waere er abgereiset, so wuesste 

 ich es, or, so wuerde ich es wissen; waere er eingeladen wor- 

 den, so waere er gekommen, or, so wuerde er gekommen sein. 

 Only when the futures stand in a dependent clause and have 

 the signification of the Subjunctive do they denote the tem- 

 poral relation corresponding to their form, e. g., Ich hofifte, er 

 wuerde kommen; Er sagte, er wuerde kommen, instead of er 

 werde kommen; Er glaubte, er wuerde die Arbeit schon vol- 

 lendet haben, ehe du abreisest. The use of the future per- 

 fect, as in the Indicative, is here also very limited. In the 

 real signification of the Conditional the futures are used only 

 in the independent clause, e. g., Waere er nicht krank, so 

 wuerde ich ihn besuchen; haette er den Brief geschrieben, so 

 wuerde ich ihn erhalten haben. The Romance and English 

 * languages, which in other respects express the relation of the 

 assumed reality by the preterite of the Indicative, generally 

 use in the conditional sentences a form of the future, e.g., s' il 

 avait faim, il mangerait; s' il le savait, il vous 1' aurait dit; If 

 I were thisty, I should drink. 



The use of the forms of the future here ( in the cases we 

 have just explained) has its justification in the special rela- 

 tion of the conditional sentence as a causal relation. For in 

 truth the conditioning thought is conceived as a possible rea- 

 son and the conditional thought as that caused by the reason; 

 thus here the condition is represented as something following 

 in time the conditioning thought and as something future in 

 reference to the conditioning thought. We can furthermore 

 add to this also that the relation of possibility expressed in 



