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Wisconsin Academy of Sciences , Arts and Letters. 
gam, an indeclinable adjective signifying “ beneficent, advantageous, whole¬ 
some, good.” This word, which has not yet become a particle in Sanskrit, 
Osthoff thinks became one in Greek and in the signification of the German 
wol united itself in its weak or unaccented form xa with the primitive 
inflection of the perfect: e. g., SeSed-, to form the -net- perfect, Sedaoxa. 
SeSaoxa would therefore mean “ I have indeed given,” or as Osthoff puts 
it in German, “ ich habe wol gegeben .” 
It is in fact this very correspondence in meaning between the Sanskrit 
gam and the German wol that leads Osthoff so decidedly to prefer the ety¬ 
mology of xev which he proposes and advocates. He traces the develop¬ 
ment of the German wol from its Old High German force of “ well,” 
through the Middle High German, where it takes on the additional mean¬ 
ing of “quite, very, thoroughly, certainly,” until it reaches that force, 
untranslatable in English, which it exercises with such frequency in the 
German of to-day, as for example in such expressions as “Sie sindwol 
krank; das haben Sie wol gesehen. , ' > Osthoff believes xev or xa has gone 
through the same course of development. The Sanskrit gam he considers 
to represent the original signification of xev , namely “excellently,” while 
in the historical period of the Greek language he thinks he finds clear 
traces of xev in the same sense as Germam wol in its weak, almost pleon¬ 
astic force. 
The question that naturally first presents itself is: Does xev actually 
have this force ? 
Delbrtick, Syntaktische Forschungen, I., 90, expresses the opinion that 
while xev, dv “ begleiten den conjunctiv und optativ durch alle inneren 
wandlungen , sie erzeugen dieselben nicht. Sie sind nar ein beredter aus - 
druck dessen , was auch durch den blossen conjunctiv und optativ ausge- 
druckt wird;” i. e., the force of the subjunctive and optative does not de¬ 
pend upon the xev or dv but the xev or dv simply adds a more eloquent 
expression to tbe force already inherent in the subjunctive or optative 
themselves. If this be true, it accords excellently with the signification 
which Osthoff wishes to attach to xev, and we shall then not be surprised 
if we find xev joining itself freely with any mode and tense. 
Thus in Homer we find xev with the future indicative as A 139 6 8e xev 
KExoXoodErai uv xev ixcojuai, which Osthoff would render “ der wird wol 
zurnen, zu dem ich kommen werde;” or A 176 xai xe ri$ ( 08 ' epssi Tpoocov 
“so wird wol mancher unter den Troern sprechen ,” and a number of similar 
instances. 
The present indicative also occurs, though rarely, as 484 rep xai xe 
tv, s svxerai dvrjp “ darum wunscht sich ivolil auch mancher A 
Faesi, in his edition of the Iliad, in commenting upon these and similar 
passages says that xev with the future and present indicative does not ex¬ 
press any doubt or uncertainty, but a calm confidence, equivalent to that 
expressed by 7 tov, oipai. Cf. his notes on W 102, 484. In this sense xev 
corresponds exactly to the German wol in such expression as “ das ist wol 
