Publisher's Synopsis
From the PREFACE.
THE classification of sentences, upon which the treatment of the Moods in this pamphlet is based, is that of the English Public School Latin Primer: it is compactly exhibited in the Analysis on page v. The aim of the Editor has been to describe, clearly and accurately, in language not too technical, the actual uses of the moods in Latin and Greek; and he has been especially on his guard against the danger of misstating any usage, or misrepresenting its frequency, for the sake of a more complete parallelism. A Parallel Syntax is not less instructive for the divergences of idiom which it discloses, than for the coincidences which it illustrates.
Experienced teachers best realize how often, after much attention given to the subject, even good scholars show themselves unable to recognize and distinguish the common, essentially different uses of the moods. And yet the subject is not hopelessly obscure, and it is so vitally important that, in its outlines at least, it should be grasped by every scholar.
The points which have received particular attention, and in the statement of which great pains have been taken, are the following: to sharply distinguish between the uses of the moods in independent and dependent sentences; to show how the uses of the moods in substantive clauses (in their three varieties) are affected by subordination (in Oratio Obliqua); to set forth the nature of the fourfold classification of conditional sentences; to explain what is meant by a general or indefinite condition; and to unfold the important analogy between the uses of the moods in indefinite conditional, and in temporal clauses....
