The Conditional in German. 71 



sdrvam dyur jivyasain ( pre,), 'I would fain live out my whole 

 term of life'. Here the modes would be interchangeable 

 with a hardly perceptible change of meaning." ( Sec. 578 ff.) 

 In many of its uses the Optative takes the place of our Con- 

 ditional and it has one other characteristic like it, viz., its use 

 in conditional clauses contrary to fact. 



If we consider the use of old prose in Greek and compare 

 the usage of the Greek aorist, we cannot doubt that the usage 

 of the Indie aorist extends back to a time of the inceptive 

 action. Bartholomae asserts that the Iranian aorist does not 

 essentially differ from the Greek aorist, only that the Iranian 

 still denotes by the imperfect one part of what the Greeks 

 express by the aorist. It is therefore probable that the Greek 

 aorist in the main corresponds to tlie Indo-Germanic aorist, 

 though varying here and there in its final development. But 

 the Indie aorist expresses the inceptive action in nearly every 

 case and this use is found in Greek oftener than one would 

 suppose from the statements of the grammarians. Naturally 

 the "now" does not inhere in the aorist, but is expressed by 

 a particle like vD/, e. g., 



Ztu<i IJ.Z fxiya hpfividri<; clrrj ividrjfTS jSapztrj, 

 <T'/izXi()<;^ S? -(H'^ ,'j.iv ij.<)t bitiayerit /.ai /.aTZMZoavj 

 "//:(>v ly.-if)(7avr toT^iyto'^ d-o'^istjUat^ 

 VMV <)h z«zy> «-«rr}v l^()uktU(Tar«. — // 114. 



,'j.ij ,'/.£, yovuc^ ya/.s-olmv o'/atdztrc Ou/wv sv'.-ts. 

 vuv //£v yaf) Me'/i/.uo'i ivixr/trev truy \iOrj'^rj 

 7.z'i-Mtv tV aurt^ iycu. — F 439. 



"In the conclusion, the aorist sometimes refers to present 

 time, being used of the inception or bringing to pass of the 



action, e.CJ., ^t iym trt irdyyoyav d'^eiiwzw'jj rt av inn d-sx/n.'O)^ "if I 



happened to be asking yon, what would you (proceed to) 

 answer?" Had. Sec. 895. In Indo-Germanic, then, we may 

 conclude that the aorist-stem marks the incejjtive action, 

 which the Indicative transfers to the past; the xlistance of 

 the time from the speaker was not indicated. Cf. Delbruck, 

 Griech. Synt., p. 107. The aorists are frequently translated 

 by the present in colloquial style, c. g., vov di aeu u)V(ifTd/j.rjv 



