The Conditional in German. 73 



relation essentially diiferent from that of the Subjunctive 

 proper. It represents the assumed reality as something that 

 has been and therefore not real, that is, a logically possible 

 thought intuitively conceived by the speaker and forming a 

 grammatical member in an intuitive conception. Its real 

 significance is that it serves, like every abrogative antithesis, 

 to emphasize the thought presented, especially when the In- 

 dicative form is used. Its most original signification would 

 seem to be "was going to", or "is going to" be done. We 

 have furthermore seen that the Indo - Germanic aorist ex- 

 presses the inceptive action in nearly every case and that 

 this use is also found in Greek. "In the conclusion the aorist 

 sometimes refers to present time, being used of the inception, 

 or bringing to pass of the action." The inceptive action leads 

 gradually to the future idea, and, if Whitney is right in his 

 conjecture that the Imperative, Subjunctive and Optative 

 "may all be uses of forms originally equivalent — having, for 

 instance, a general future meaning"; if, moreover, our ex- 

 planation of the use of the future forms in the special relation 

 of the conditional sentence as a causal relation (see above, 

 p. 68,) is true, then it is easy to understand the use of the 

 different forms, both simple and periiArastic, to express the 

 modal relation of the Conditional. For the inception of the 

 action always has the accessory idea of will, of intention, and 

 is denoted by periphrasis, especially by solleu, wollen, werden. 

 Cf. the Latin hortaturus sum, eram, ero, etc. In order to 

 express this modal and inceptive shade of thought (just given 

 in summary) which we have concluded to call "conditional" 

 par excellence, the German language has used various forms, 

 simple and periphrastic. In O.H.G., as we have seen, the 

 preterite form (the so-called imperfect Subjunctive) was al- 

 ways used. Later in the development of the language, as the 

 endings wore away and the different forms were no longer 

 distinguishable, .-^o/Zr^, /ro//r>/,and irerdcn were used. Let us 

 turn to these auxiliaries and consider the appropriateness of 

 each for expressing this conditional thought. Their use to 

 exjjress future time has already been stated. To this we can 

 add that iccrdcn is surer, the speaker accepts the news as his 

 own, e. </., Der liebe Gott unrd uns helfen; er theilte ihr mit. 



