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XXIV. 



ON THE FUI^CTIOIi[ OF THE SUBJUNCTIYE MOOD 11^ lEISH. 

 By EOBEET ATKINSO:^, M.A., LL.D., Sechetaey of Council. 



[EeadMay 25, 1891.] 



It is not intended in the present Paper to exhiibit any paral- 

 lelisms with the kindred members of the Aryan family of 

 languages, and still less to enter into general questions of the 

 origin and development of the subjunctive mood itself : the 

 investigation is limited to the one language, Irish, and even 

 therein, to the use of the mood as found in one single verb. 



But this verb is of constant occurrence, and its forms happen 

 to be singularly clear and precise ; besides which, the number of 

 cases in which it actually occurs in the real life of the literature 

 furnishes a satisfactory proof that the rule here laid down must 

 have been thoroughly realised, as it is constantly obeyed by the 

 various writers from whose works the examples are collected. 



To make it perfectly definite, I have limited the examples, 

 not only to one verb, but also to its occurrence in one set of 

 printed books, — the four published volumes of the Senchus Mor. 

 To make the investigation as complete as possible, I give here 

 an exhaustive statement of all the forms of the particular verb 

 found in the above four volumes. The instances of the occur- 

 rence and use of the subjunctive mood, will thus be peculiarly 

 significant. 



The verb is dognim, ' I do.' It is not necessary for me to 

 repeat what I have said in the Appendix to my edition of 

 Keating's 'C]\^ bio]-i-JAice An 15 ai]^, p. xxvii, as to the general 

 lines of transformation in the root- syllable. The list of forms is 

 followed by a table in which the twin stems of Present, Future, 



