INCEPTIVE.

PERFECT.

Act.

might, could, would, should, have smitten.

might, could, would, should, be about to

1 It is only in the 2nd pers. sing. that this can be seen to differ from the Indicative.

Obs. 2. The fact that what is as yet only conceived in the mind, is in general a something which can only be realised in the future, causes so close a connection to arise between the Conjunctive mood and the Future tense, that parts of the former have sometimes been derived from the latter, and the latter from the former. But though a predication in the conjunctive mood may refer to a future fact, yet there is no necessary implication of futurity in this mood, simply as a mood. Thus 'I may be willing' remains unchanged, whether the adverbials at the present moment' or 'ten days hence' be added; and there is no difference in the tense, whether I say 'He might go just now' or 'He might go next week.'

Obs. 3.-The adoption of a set of past tenses in the formation of the potential mood has given rise to a well known ambiguity. Thus in such a sentence as 'He said that they might go,' we have an oblique assertion 'they might go' after a past tense 'said.' But it is impossible, at all events in absence of a protasis, to tell whether this oblique assertion represents the direct assertion 'They may go' [Subjunctive], or 'They might go' [Potential]. Hence there is in many Aryan languages a close connection between the Potential [or Optative] mood and the oblique assertion after an historic

tense.

Obs. 4.-There is no true Future Indicative tense in English, but, since O.E. times, some of the Conjunctive auxiliaries have been adopted to serve for a Future, as follows:

In the Direct assertion.

I shall go,-thou wilt go,-he will go, &c.
In the Oblique assertion after a present tense.

I say that I shall go,-thou wilt go,—he will go.
Thou sayest that thou shalt go,—I will go,—he will go.

He says that he1 shall go,—{I will go

-he will go.

thou wilt go

In the Oblique assertion after a past tense.

I said that I should go,-that thou wouldst go,-that he would go.
Thou saidst that thou shouldst go,-that I would go,-that he would go.

He said that he 2 should go,

{

I would go
thou wouldst go

},—that he would go.2

1 The 'he' refers to himself.' If it referred to any other person or thing it would be followed by 'will' or 'would.'

2 There is no difficulty as to the auxiliaries in these Oblique clauses. If the word be 'shall' in the direct clause, it is 'shall' or 'should' in the oblique. If it be 'will' in the direct, then it is 'will' or 'would' in the oblique.

The ambiguity referred to in the previous observation exists here also in the oblique future after a past tense. The old conjunctive force still to some extent clings about this modern future indicative, as we see in the Scotch 'What o'clock will it be? = What o'clock may it be; and as we see in the A.V. No man can spoil his goods, except he will first bind the strong man,' where 'will bind' represents the subjunctive simple of the Greek, the O.E., Wycliffe, and Tyndale, of the same passage. But if the above 'shall' and 'will,' become 'will' and 'shall'; and the 'should' and 'would' become 'would' and 'should'; we cease to have an indicative Future and have once more a Conjunctive. Thus the change in the R.A.V. in Heb. iii. 7 and 15, of 'will' and 'shall,' arose from the Revisers noticing that the word rendered 'will hear in the A.V. was in reality a tense of the Greek conjunctive.

21. The Classification of Verbs according to their meaning in a sentence is to some extent reflected in the various conjugational Voices, but by no means completely so. This classification by meaning rests primarily on the consideration. Whether the subject of the verb is Active or Quiescent; and secondarily, Whether the said subject affects or is affected by anything or nothing. Such a classification may be tabulated and illustrated as follows:

So great however are the fluctuations of meaning, not only in the course of ages, but in the course of our own conversation, that the same verb often slides out of one class into another. Thus for example 'I breathe' is capable of meaning 'I exist," and may therefore slide from the active intransitive class into the neuter class. Again, if by 'I breathe' I mean 'I inspire air,' the verb 'breathe' slides from the active intransitive into the

active transitive class.

Lastly, when we render the French 'Je me promène' by 'I walk,' we see how readily a middle voice passes into an active. Indeed some tenses tend to impart a transitive, and others an intransitive complexion to the same verb; for though we say ‘I wrote a letter, before you came,' we feel no need of an object in ‘I was writing, before you came.'

These illustrations are sufficient to prevent the student from attaching too much importance to any classification which depends on the ever-changing meaning of words.

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Obs. Although the Middle Voice always refers to 'self,' the student must not imagine that the 'self' is always in the relation of a direct object. Thus παρασκευάζομαι I prepare for myself. But in English we have no Middle Voice save that which is represented by the so-called Reflexive verbs, where 'self' is invariably in the relation of a direct object. See § 49, Obs. I.

22. The Copula, although it existed before the separation of the great Aryan race, may nevertheless be looked at as in a sense the highest point in the growth of speech; inasmuch as the formation of the Copula marks the point where, for the first time, language and thought, grammar and logic met [$ 5].

There is more than one part of speech out of which the logical copula might grow, but in Aryan speech it is a verb, or rather several verbs, which generally predicated Existence, but have now ceased necessarily to predicate anything at all. It is not difficult to follow the process of this formation. The idea of the existence of the Subject of our thought is usually so much a matter of course, that without some special emphasis we scarcely note the fact :

:

Thus if I said, 'This horse exists swift,' the unemphatic predication of the horse's existence would drop out of sight in comparison with the more important additional predication of its swiftness. So long as the first predication, viz. that of existence, was conveyed to the mind, the word 'swift' would be nothing

but a co-ordinating attribute [§ 77] suggesting an additional predicate; but, as soon as the needless predication of existence dropped out of sight, the only predicate remaining would be 'swift,' and the disregarded verb of existence would gradually sink to the level of a mere link. Such was the formation of our copula; and such were the steps by which the logical predicate or its attribute came to be expressed.

A super-sensuous idea like that of Existence could of course only be expressed by associating it with some sensuous idea. Now, inasmuch as such ideas as 'growing,' 'breathing,' 'dwelling,' 'standing,' call special attention to the life or existence of the something which grows, breathes, dwells, or stands, these verbs very readily lent themselves to the expression of existence; and, along with some others, have all come to be used as copulas. Thus in English

'be' is from a predicative root bhu-, expressive of growing.

Obs. When we notice how frequently there is a coincidence between the subject and logical predicate (see § 3), we see it was possible that our copula might have grown out of a pronoun having the force of 'the same.' Such was indeed the case in old Egyptian, where 'Bachtan the-same thy city' Bachtan is thy city. See Renouf's Egyptian Grammar, p. 15.

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23. The Metamorphosis of one part of speech into another is a common phenomenon in the growth of our language; for though all the parts of speech are but the modification of two, viz. the noun and the verb' [Primer of Philology, p. 121], yet all these parts, or special parts of these parts, are liable to be used for, or modified to suit, other than their original purposes.

For example, nouns expressive of a material are constantly used for adjectives, as 'The table is mahogany.' Most nouns may be turned into verbs, as 'Who will bell the cat?' Verbs