geschehen

Forms

geschehen (class 5 strong, third-person singular present geschieht, past tense geschah, past participle geschehen, past subjunctive geschähe, auxiliary sein)^[1]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German geschehen, inherited from Old High German giskehan, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *gaskehan, a prefixed form of the West Germanic strong verb *skehan.^[2][1] The simple verb survives in Old High German scehan and Middle High German schehen (“to hurry, chase, rush”), and the same verb is Old Frisian skiā (“to happen”), Old English scēon (“to go quickly, fly; to happen”) and Middle Dutch ghescien, now Dutch geschieden with an inserted ⟨d⟩.^[2][3][4]

Kluge points to the weak Middle High German verb for “to hurry” and to sciht (“flight”): the verb was transferred from a verb for running, so its first sense was “to run its course”.^[2] Kroonen also takes Proto-Germanic *skehaną as meaning first “to move quickly”, a sense that turned into “to happen” at an early stage.^[4] Outside Germanic Kluge and Kroonen compare Old Irish scuichid (“goes away, ceases”) and the Slavic verb for jumping, Russian скочить (skočítʹ, “to jump”);^[2][4][3] Pfeifer adds, probably, Lithuanian šókti (“to jump”) with a different initial.^[2][4][3] Wiktionary reconstructs Proto-Indo-European *skek- (“to move quickly, jump”).^[1] The noun Geschichte is formed from it, and schicken belongs to the simple verb.^[3][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

The simple verb scehan occurs in the Hildebrandslied;^[6][3] Pfeifer dates it to the 9th century.^[6][3] The prefixed giskehan appears about 1000 in Notker, in the glosses and in Williram, meaning “to happen, take place, befall, be granted to someone, come about”.^[3][7][6] Kluge dates it to the 11th century.^[2]

Semantic evolution

Duden explains the present sense as coming from “to go fast, occur suddenly”.^[5] In Middle and Early New High German the verb also meant “to be done, carried out”, of actions, which led to phrases where geschehen stands for an action: jm. geschieht die flucht “someone flees”.^[8][9] Only strong forms are recorded in Old High German.^[10]

The third person singular was geschicht in Early New High German and survived in archaic literary use into the 19th century.^[11] Luther's Dein Wille geschehe (Matthew 6:10) is one of several biblical phrases with an abstract subject.^[11] The noun Geschehen goes back to Middle High German, and Kant used it for coming into being after not being.^[9][12]

Timeline

• 9th century – The simple verb skehan “to roam, hurry” is recorded.^[3]
• about 1000 – Old High German giskehan appears in Notker.^[3][7]
• 1385 – Aachen geschien in the city accounts.^[10]
• 16th century – Luther's Dein Wille geschehe.^[11]
• 19th century – The old present geschicht still occurs in archaic literary style.^[11]

Meanings

Verb

1. To happen, occur, take place: Gestern Abend ist an der Kreuzung ein Unfall geschehen. The saying geschehen ist geschehen means that what is done cannot be undone.^[13][1]
2. To be done, carried out: Bis Freitag muss mit dem Antrag etwas geschehen.;^[13] gern geschehen! is a polite reply to thanks, “you're welcome”.^[13]
3. To happen to someone, befall: Den Kindern ist bei dem Sturz nichts geschehen. Das geschieht ihm recht means “it serves him right”.^[13][1]
4. In es ist um jemanden geschehen: someone is lost or ruined, or has fallen hopelessly in love;^[13][1] es ist um etwas geschehen: something is gone.^[13][1]

Word family

• Geschehen
• Geschehnis
• ungeschehen

Related words

• Geschichte
• schicken

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 352
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
4. ^ a b c d Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
5. ^ a b Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2014), 5th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin / Mannheim / Zürich: Dudenverlag, p. 333
6. ^ a b c Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 286
7. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
8. ^ Anderson, Robert R.; Goebel, Ulrich; Reichmann, Oskar, eds. (1989–), Frühneuhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, Berlin / New York: De Gruyter; FWB-online, fwb-online.de
9. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
10. ^ a b Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 5, 3838
11. ^ a b c d Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
12. ^ Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 5, 3845
13. ^ a b c d e f Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag