OR, TWO CHAPTERS ON FUTURE AUXILIARY VERBS. BY SIR EDMUND W. HEAD, BART. LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 1856. The right of Translation is reserved. PREFACE. SOME years ago I found myself discussing with an accomplished French lady the various intricacies of 66 shall" and " will." The result of that conversation was, that I amused myself by putting together the remarks which I had met with, or which suggested themselves, on the subject of these puzzling auxiliaries. The two chapters now laid before the reader make no pretension to originality or profound research; they owe their origin to the discussion mentioned above, and they might have been better worth reading if I had, whilst writing them, had constant access to a large philological library. For the speculations in some of the notes I must ask indulgence. E. W. H. CONTENTS. Want of a future tense in languages of the Teutonic stock — Shall and Will English future in actual use - Ame- rican, Scotch, and Irish idiom Apparent anomalies in English Rules of English idiom in categorical sen- tences Principle on which these rules are founded Future auxiliaries in other languages - Celtic and German 66 THEY may talk as they will of the dead languages. "Our auxiliary verbs give us a power which the "ancients, with all their varieties of mood and "inflection of tense, never could attain."1 Such are Southey's words, and I believe them to be true. The observations of a more distinguished philologist, William von Humboldt,2 may be quoted in confirmation of these views. Speaking of the transition from a synthetic to an analytic structure in language, he says, "The practical convenience of ex"pressing the sense supersedes the fanciful pleasure originally felt in combining elementary sounds “with their full-toned syllables, each pregnant with meaning. The inflected forms are broken up into prepositions and auxiliaries. Men sacrifice other advantages to that of ready understanding, for "without doubt this analytic system not only "diminishes the labour of the intellect, but in par 66 66 66 66 The Doctor, p. 1. What may be called our "continuous present," "I am reading," affords a good instance of this greater precision. 2 Verschiedenheit des Menschlichen Sprachbaues, s. 284. |