[gothic-l] Conditional in Gothic

[M. Carver]

Conditional clauses implying hopyothesis or uncertainty (Wright, p. 193)
would use the subjunctive form of the verb:

	jabai hvas mis andbahtjai mik laistjai
	"if any man serve me, let him follow me"

	nih qemjau jah rodidedjau du im, frawaurht ni habaidedeina
	"if I had not come and spokent to them, they would not have had sin."

Thus I think this could be extended to the usage you speak of. Werden and
munan (NHG and NIc resp.) are generally used for a future auxiliary. Gothic
had no concrete future auxiliary, using the simple present tense most often.
Sometimes it used skulan, haban or duginnan. This future conditional would
perhaps use one of this modals in the subjunctive.

Matþaius


Ben van Poppel wrote:
>
> Godana dag allaim!
>
> I have a question about the Gothic conditional. Firstly, does it
> exist? If it did, I'd guess it could be formed with the past
> subjunctive form of wairthan as in German werden-->würde or
> Icelandic muna-->mundi.
>
> Regards,
> Ben

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