74 Colorado College Studies. 



er wolle Unterkommen suchen, sie alsdann abholen, und er 

 lioffe, sie werde ilim ihre Hand niclit versagen. The same 

 confidence lies in sollen, e. g., Sie riefen lioehniscli aus: die 

 soUen mir nicht entwiscben; more emphatically, Der Brief 

 soil Morgenabend niit der reitenden Post abgehen; Es soil 

 das naechste Mai geschehen, etc. Sollen is besides used to ex- 

 press the conditional idea, e. g., Sollte ich mich irren? Wenn 

 er kommen sollte. However, this use of the modal auxiliaries 

 to denote the modal relation of the predication in German is 

 far less frequent than in languages which have no complete 

 modal flexions, as the English, which always expresses the 

 Conditional in independent clauses by auxiliaries, e. </., "I 

 should have sent you the book, if I had known that you would 

 be at leisure to read it". 



In an earlier stage of the German language sein with the 

 present participle paraphrases the incomplete tense of the 

 active and iverden was also soon used in the same manner. 

 The former combination denotes the duration of the action, 

 while the latter mostly denotes the inception of the action. 

 Soon, however, the present participle became the infinitive 

 both with sein and irerden. In Mod.H.G. only a few examples 

 are left with sein, but it is the only construction with icerden. 

 This inceptive force of werden, that is, the Werden des Zu- 

 standes, was quite common in Mid.H.G., e. g., Wan si noch 

 hinaht swanger wirt und einen sun wirt tragende, etc. The 

 future idea comes very near this, so that the employment of 

 werden with the present participle to express future time is 

 in Mid.H.G. the usual form, though sollen and wollen were 

 also used. It is the continuation of the inceptive force of 

 this combination and was replaced by iverden and the infini- 

 tive when the infinitive crowded out the present participle. 

 As we have seen above the preterite of werden and the infini- 

 tive (earlier present participle) retained still later than the 

 present its inceptive force. In the 13th cent, it is common, 

 e.g., daz wart in tragen sit; daz Morice na der art wahsen an 

 dem kinde wart; der kunic wart si vaste klagen, etc. 



We have now arrived at that point of our investigation 

 where we can roughly state the cause of the differentiation of 



