CHAPTER II.

ANY discussion of the English auxiliaries "shall” and "will" is incomplete without some notice of the corresponding idioms in other languages; more especially in those of the same family as our own. The original signification too of our own future auxiliaries must necessarily be traced out, and even a cursory glance that way suggests many questions of deep interest which, unfortunately, would demand for their satisfactory solution philological attainments of a very high order. In this chapter I attempt no more than what may serve to point in the right direction, and I claim no merit whatever on the score of originality.

Whether it be that our thoughts are not easily directed to the future 62 because the present is too absorbing, or that there is "an awful, irrepressible, " and almost instinctive consciousness of the uncer

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tainty of the future which makes men avoid the appearance of speaking presumptuously of it the fact is certain-the want of a future tense as an organic part of the conjugation of verbs is a common defect in many modern languages.

In all those of the Teutonic stock this defect appears inherent. Dr. Prichard 63

says, "It has

62 Archdeacon Hare. Philolog. Museum, vol. ii. p. 218. 63 Eastern Origin of the Celtic Nations, ch. vii. p. 107. Compare p. 175.

"been observed that the Teutonic verbs have one "form for the future and the present tense.

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"same remark applies to the Welsh; for the Welsh language, except in the instance of the verb sub"stantive,64 which has two distinct forms, one for “the present and the other for the future tense, has only one modification of the verb, which is used "to represent both. In the German dialects the single form above referred to is properly a present "tense, but the Welsh grammarians consider that "their language has only a future, and say that the future is put for the present."

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Grimm states the case as follows:- "Our language in all its branches has the power of expressing only two tenses of the verb-the present and "the past. In this it differs remarkably from all "the languages originally allied to it, which are

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provided with abundant means for expressing the "relations of time. On the contrary, the German approaches to the simplicity of the Hebrew and "other tongues which are capable of denoting only "the future and the præterite. Thus, in our older dialects, the identity of the future and the present "is shown by the fact that the latter tense serves "for the former, although, as an exception, the Anglo-Saxon appropriated a particular root of the "verb-substantive, eom, to the present as distinguished from the future form, beo. The same

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6 Ib. pp. 173, 175. Compare Davies' Antiquæ Linguæ Britt. Rudimenta, Oxon. 1809, p. 92; Zeuss. Grammatica Celtica, Lipsiæ, 1853, vol. i. pp. 482, 527, 539.

peculiar relation is seen in the case of the Lithu"anian 'esmi,' 'sum,' and 'busu, ero;' the Scla"vonian 'jesm' and 'budu ;' and the Irish 'taim' "' and 'biad.' "65

am"

Ulfilas constantly uses the present indicative for the future, and the practice continued in the old High-German.66 There are instances of the same kind in the middle High-German, and even in the modern language, but then the verb is commonly accompanied by some adverb implying or expressing future time, as, ich komme morgen, or, ich komme bald: such sentences would no doubt require "venior" viendrai" in Latin or French. A similar idiom is said to exist in Swedish,67 and in English we not unfrequently say, "I am going to London to-morrow." In the Gothic the present subjunctive also lends its aid in expressing futurity, as the optative with av may do in Greek. Ulfilas applies this form in such cases as the following: "haitais," xaλé"Thou shalt call his name John" (Luke i. 13); “bidjau,” Epwτnow (John xvi. 26); but its use does not appear to have extended to other dialects besides the Moso-Gothic. Grimm observes truly enough that the close relation between the future tense and the subjunctive mood is sufficiently

σεις

65 Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache, b. ii. s. 842. Compare Deutsche Grammatik, b. i. s. 1051; b. iv. ss. 139, 176; Latham's English Language, p. 321; Thorpe's translation of Rask's AngloSaxon Gr. p. 84. See App. B.

66 Grimm, Deutsche Gramm. b. iv. s. 176. Compare Bopp. Comp. Gramm. Transl. p. 888.

67 Grimm gives an example, Deutsche Gramm. b. iv. s. 177, n. 1.

shown by the analogy of their forms in the Latin conjugation.

Ulfilas evades the difficulty with regard to the verb-substantive by sometimes using the tenses of "vairthan,68 fio," the verb corresponding to werden, which plays so distinguished a part as an auxiliary in modern German.

According to Adelung 69 the Magyar, as well as the Finn and the Esthonian, have no future properly so called, but employ the present instead. From the following extract from M. von Humboldt's Appendix to the Mithridates 70 I infer that the Basque forms its future by means of the auxiliary and a participle; in such a manner, however, that the future force depends upon the participle employed, as it may be said to do in "sum facturus" or habeo faciendum."

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"The tenses," Humboldt says, "are expressed by "means of the auxiliary and the participle of the "verb. The auxiliary has two tenses; one complete in itself, and the other incomplete, or implying continuance, which can be employed for the present, præterite, and future respectively. These "three last distinctions of time are marked by the “participle, which accordingly is threefold, and all "tenses are thus compounded without difficulty. "The two tenses of the auxiliary with the present

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68 Thus in Matthew viii. 12, "There shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth," oral is translated by vairthith, fit. Compare Grimm, Deutsche Gramm. b. iv. s. 177, Bopp, p. 888. 69 Mithridates (Vater), 1809, b. ii. s. 774, n.

70 Ib. b. iv. s. 332.

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participle express the present or imperfect, with "the past participle the perfect or pluperfect, and

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It thus seems that in very many languages, including all those of the Teutonic stock, a proper future tense is wanting. It is still more remarkable that those modern tongues which are based on Greek and Latin were unable to retain the regular inflection of future forms with which the classical languages were so well provided; yet, as we shall see, many of them had no sooner lost their regular future, than they set to work, with almost perfect uniformity of principle, to reconstruct, by means of an auxiliary, another inflected future, which they made part of themselves, and have cherished as one of their established tenses.

The German tongues and the modern Greek, on the other hand, do not appear to have organised any such inflection of the verb, but they have continued to supply the place of the future by auxiliaries of various kinds. The principle on which such auxiliaries have been selected is obvious enough. Some one of the states or conditions which usually precede an action or an event is predicated of the subject of the sentence, and the action or event itself is thus left to be inferred. When a man "has a thing to "do," it may be supposed that he will do it; when he "wills" or "intends" a thing, or "is obliged" to do it, or is actually about it, we may conclude that the act itself will probably follow. Accordingly in those languages which do not possess a future, some one of these preliminary conditions is asserted by