haben

Forms

haben (irregular, third-person singular present hat, past tense hatte, past participle gehabt, past subjunctive hätte, auxiliary haben)^[1] Paul notes that many forms once existed both in a regular and in a contracted shape; of the contracted ones hast, hat and the past hatte became general.^[2] Middle High German also had ich hān, wir hān and the infinitive hān, which live on in the Upper German dialects.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German haben, inherited from Old High German habēn, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *habbjan, inherited from Proto-Germanic *habjaną (“to have, hold”).^[3][4][1] The same verb is Gothic 𐌷𐌰𐌱𐌰𐌽 (haban), Old Norse hafa, Old English habban, Old Frisian habba and Old Saxon hebbian, with the modern Dutch hebben, English have and Swedish hava.^[3][4] Kluge describes it as a durative verb formed beside the one that became heben “to lift”.^[3][5]

It goes back to the root Proto-Indo-European *kap- (“to grasp, seize”), also found in Latin capiō (“to seize, take”): what one has seized, one holds and owns.^[3][4][1] The meaning thus shifted from “seize, grasp” to “hold, have”.^[6][5]

The Latin verb habeō (“to have, hold”) looks like a close match, but Kluge, Pfeifer and Duden all keep it apart: it belongs with geben to the root Proto-Indo-European *gʰabʰ- (“to take”).^[3][4][6] Kluge sees the roots as parallel formations, perhaps both imitating a snapping movement, while Pfeifer allows only for an influence of one on the other.^[3][4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German habēn is recorded from the glosses (765) on and in nearly every Old High German text, from the Benedictine Rule, Isidor and Tatian to Otfrid and Notker.^[7][8] Its senses were wide: to have and possess, but also to hold, keep, guard, seize and regard as; it already served as an auxiliary verb.^[8][7]

Semantic evolution

Paul takes “hold” as the oldest sense; it survives in the reflexive sich haben “to behave, make a fuss” and in the noun Handhabe “handle”.^[2] He also places here etwas haben für “to regard as” and Gretchen's question in Goethe's Faust, wie hast du's mit der Religion? (“how do you stand with religion?”).^[2] The Early New High German verb has an unusually wide range of senses, with many fixed phrases that may be modelled on Latin ones.^[9]

In bookkeeping, soll (debit) was set against soll haben (credit) in the 18th century; the second soll was then dropped, and Soll und Haben came to be felt as a pair of nouns, used also outside commerce and in the title of Gustav Freytag's novel.^[10][11]

Timeline

• 765 – Old High German habēn appears in glosses.^[7]
• 1060–1065 – Middle High German haben in Williram's commentary on the Song of Songs.^[12]
• 1725 – Heyne's instruction on Italian bookkeeping heads accounts with soll and soll haben.^[10]
• 1794 – Jacobsson's technological dictionary knows only the formula Soll und Haben.^[10]

Meanings

Verb

1. To own, possess: Sie hat einen Garten hinter dem Haus.^[11][1]
2. To have at one's disposal: Hast du heute Zeit?^[11]
3. To have as a quality or feature: Der Hund hat braune Augen.^[11][1]
4. To feel or suffer from: Durst haben, Fieber haben.^[11][1]
5. (auxiliary) Forms the perfect and pluperfect with a past participle: Wir haben gegessen.^[1][13]
6. With zu and an infinitive: to have to, must: Du hast zu warten.^[1][13]
7. (colloquial, reflexive) To make a fuss: Hab dich nicht so!^[1][2]
8. (regional, impersonal) es hat: there is, there are.^[1]

Word family

• Habe
• Haben
• habhaft
• Habseligkeit
• Habgier
• Habsucht
• Habenichts
• handhaben
• anhaben
• vorhaben
• innehaben
• teilhaben

Related words

• aufhaben
• heben
• Haft
• haschen
• English have

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
3. ^ a b c d e f Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 382
4. ^ a b c d e Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
5. ^ a b Wahrig-Burfeind, Renate, ed., Wahrig Herkunftswörterbuch, Gütersloh / München: Wissen Media Verlag; online edition at wissen.de
6. ^ a b Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 346
7. ^ a b c Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
8. ^ a b Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 136
9. ^ Anderson, Robert R.; Goebel, Ulrich; Reichmann, Oskar, eds. (1989–), Frühneuhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, Berlin / New York: De Gruyter; FWB-online, fwb-online.de
10. ^ a b c Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 10, 77
11. ^ a b c d e Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
12. ^ Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Mittelhochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 3rd ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
13. ^ a b Wiktionary, das freie Wörterbuch (German Wiktionary), de.wiktionary.org