Page:Studies in Lowland Scots - Colville - 1909.djvu/61

Rh say, and Jesus teared. In Matt, xxvii. 1, "That they might kill him," is "Ei af-dauthi-dedeina ina," reminding one of what the child said of the murdered fly, "Me deaded it."

This preterite tense is the only time inflection in Gothic. In common with all the Teut. languages it had no future. Wulfila renders the Greek future variously, most frequently by using the subjunctive. In Latin, as every boy knows, the Fut. Ind. and Pres. Subj. of some conjugations are perplexingly like each other. He also uses the Indic. and part. present, e.g. I coming heal him = Ik quimando gahailja ina, for I coming will heal him; "Thai guth gasaihwand," i.e. they seeing God, for they will see. Circumlocutions he employs, just as we may now say, I am going to, about to, intend to, have to. Our auxiliaries shall and will are always independent verbs in Gothic, with the decided meaning of duty and wish. Such is the tense condition of the Teutonic verb; the other forms which grammarians parade in English are simply imitations of Latin. All this goes to show that in primitive times little advance had been made in developing this, one of the subtlest and most abstract of conceptions. Even yet the commonest errors in translation, as every teacher knows, are due to confusion of tenses.

Many more striking illustrations of the value of Gothic to the student of grammar might be adduced. Suffice it to refer to one more verbal form, the passive. Here Gothic throws a unique light on the primitive condition of the Teutonic tongues. These all, like English, never had a conjugational or simple passive. We are so familiar with it in Greek and Latin that we can scarcely realise our poverty here. In point of fact, young learners have the greatest difficulty in grasping the conception of a passive. They fail to see the difference between I am struck and I am sick. For, in a compound tense such as am struck, the participle, which we call the main verb, is nothing more than an adjective in predicative relation to the subject. English, and still more French and German, avoid the passive by the use of indefinite and reflexive pronouns. Thus the book has been found is in German the book has found itself. Colloquially we regularly avoid the passive by using the indefinite they as a subject. Other modern languages adopt to an excessive extent reflexive forms. Thus, Italian has for it is said, it says