Germanic conditional clauses and English

[Beli Orao]

Afaik, you can only form conditional sentences in English with the word if = (O.E gif). Was there ever a point where the word when could be used in English to have a conditional meaning in addition to the temporal meaning c.f. German wenn?

Also, does gif have any modern/past cognate in non-Anglic languages?

[Yng]

I always assumed 'if' was cognate to German 'ob', as in 'ich weiss nicht, ob er kommt'.

Yeah, the etymology dictionary agrees with me.

[Jipí]

My dictionary just says that the etymology of "ob" (the conjunction) is not clear

[Travis B.]

I know ef, cognate with English if, is used similarly in Old Norse and Icelandic...

(Also, at least Etymonline says that English if is cognate with German ob and Dutch of...)

[Yng]

Conditional clauses in Germanic languages seem generally to have gone a bit weird.

I assume, looking at oldey-worldey English, that they were all originally formed with if + subjunctive (or a subjunctive in initial position) in the protasis + a subjunctive in the apodosis. English has restructured this system, replacing it with if + subjunctive/preterite (except with 'be' and 'have', where the word order change is acceptable - and a few other verbs at a pinch) and a frozen subjunctive form of 'will', whilst German and Dutch have replaced both halves with subjunctive auxiliaries derived from 'to become'. I don't know what the Scandinavian languages have done.

[Magb]

The subjunctive is all but gone in most Scandinavian dialects, but the verb-initial conditional construction remains. (Although I'd describe it as quite rare in spoken language, at least in Norwegian.) The conditional clause is VSO with any indicative verb, while the consequential clause is AuxSVO, where Aux can be various modals like "would", "should", "had", etc. In poetic language you can get away with omitting the auxiliary in the second clause, like in this song, which has lines such as "Var jeg en vind, smøg jeg meg inn, strøk jeg ditt kinn." ("Were I a wind, crept I in, stroked I your cheek.") A more colloquial phrasing might be "Var jeg en vind ville jeg smøget meg inn." ("Were I a wind would I have crept in.") But by far the most common way of phrasing it would be "Hvis/om jeg var en vind ville jeg smøget meg inn." ("If I were a wind would I have crept in.")

[Travis B.]

In literary English you can still use "were subject to infinitive ..., other clause", "had subject past participle..., other clause", and "should subject infinitive..., other clause" as well as the same but with other clause before the conditional clause.

[Ulrike Meinhof]

The subjunctive is all but gone in most Scandinavian dialects, but the verb-initial conditional construction remains. (Although I'd describe it as quite rare in spoken language, at least in Norwegian.)

It's very much alive and well in Swedish. Om is probably more common, but it doesn't raise anything close to an eyebrow using the verb-initial conditional in any register. If I may throw out completely untested hypotheses, I would guess that it's more commonly used with auxiliaries than other verbs, though.

[jal]

whilst German and Dutch have replaced both halves with subjunctive auxiliaries derived from 'to become'.

No, not in Dutch. Dutch doesn't use its subjunctive in conditionals, instead using either the simple past or a past tense form of the verb "zullen" (which has normally a future meaning):

"Als ik rijk was/zou zijn, dan zou ik een huis kopen"
"If I were rich, I'd buy a house"

See here, here, here and here.


JAL

[Yng]

No, not in Dutch. Dutch doesn't use its subjunctive in conditionals, instead using either the simple past or a past tense form of the verb "zullen" (which has normally a future meaning):

Oh, okay. I thought you used 'would' in both parts (thus the propensity of Dutch speakers to say 'if I would be').

[jal]

Oh, okay. I thought you used 'would' in both parts (thus the propensity of Dutch speakers to say 'if I would be').

Yeah, I suffer from "if I would" syndrome as well. There's free variation between simple past and an auxiliary "zou", the one form or the other triggered by pragmatic considerations.


JAL