Appendix I. (25/30)

次のパラグラフへ ⇒

英語原文

The only dependent construction in which the optative is an original form, not representing another mood after a past tense, is that of protasis (including the conditional relative clause, but excluding the past generic condition.) Here we see the same relation between ἐὰν (or εἰ) ἔλθω and εἰ ἔλθοιμι, if I shall go and if I should go, as between the original ἔλθω, I shall go, and ἔλθοιμι, I may (or might) go, the optative being a less distinct and vivid form for presenting a future supposition, it may be for presenting the same supposition which has already been presented by the subjunctive. The distinction, whatever it may be tought to be, is that which appears in our distinction of shall and should, and there will always be differnces of opinion as to the exact nature of this.1 The objections to deriving this form of condition from the optative in wishes have already been considered. On the theory that the protasis is an offshoot of the conditional relative clause (see §398), we should understand εἰ ἔλθω as meaning originally in case (i.e. in the case in which) I shall go or may go, and εἰ ἔλθοιμι in case I should go or might go,—should and might being here merely weakened forms of shall and may. (Homeric optatives referring to the present are discussed below.)

1. For an attempt to make this distinction more clear and to remove some difficulties concerning it, see my paper on "Shall and Should in Protasis and their Greek Equivalents," in the Transactions of the Am. Phil. Assoc. for 1876, pp. 87-107, and in the English Journal of Philosophy, vol. viii. no. 15, pp. 18-38. I have there given the best answer in my power to the objection that may explanation of the optative in protasis as "less distinct and vivid" than the subjunctive lacks distinctness ; this answer is, briefly, that my statement is as distinct as the distinction itself to which it refers.

日本語解釈


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