mögen

Forms

mögen (preterite-present, third-person singular present mag, past tense mochte, past participle gemocht, past subjunctive möchte, auxiliary haben)^[1] Old High German had the plural magum in Alemannic and Bavarian but mugum in Franconian; the u-forms spread, and Middle High German has mugen, mügen.^[2] The past tense mochte was often spelled mogte in the 18th century, after the present.^[3] Adelung rejected mogte and gemogt around 1800.^[4]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German mügen, inherited from Old High German mugan, also magan, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *magan, inherited from Proto-Germanic *maganą (“to be able”), a preterite-present verb.^[5][6][1] The same verb is Gothic 𐌼𐌰𐌲𐌰𐌽 (magan), Old Norse mega, Old English magan and Old Saxon mugan, and today Dutch mogen, English may and Swedish må.^[5][6]

Outside Germanic it is closest to Old Church Slavonic мошти (mošti, “to be able”), with Russian мочь (moč’).^[5][6] Pfeifer and the Duden add Sanskrit मघ (maghá, “power, wealth, gift”) and Lithuanian magė́ti (“to please”), and derive the group from a root Proto-Indo-European *magʰ- (“to be able, have power”);^[6][7] Wiktionary writes it Proto-Indo-European *megʰ-.^[1] Kluge regards the further connections as unclear, and notes that the ablaut of the Germanic forms is hard to define.^[5] The noun Macht belongs to the same verb.^[6][7]

The umlaut of the infinitive is not historically expected; it spread in the same way as in können.^[1]

Earliest recorded meaning

The verb is recorded from the 8th century, in Old High German glosses of 765, the Hildebrandslied, the Isidor and many other texts;^[5][6][8][9] Pfeifer dates magan to the 8th and mugan to the 9th century.^[5][6][8][9] It meant “to be able, have power”, and also “may, must, shall”.^[9]

Semantic evolution

The original sense “to be able” remained usual until the 17th century, as in Luther's fürchtet euch nicht vor denen, die den Leib töten und die Seele nicht mögen töten (Matthew 10:28); after that können and vermögen took its place.^[6][3] The modern sense “to like, want” arose in negative sentences: “not to be able to” became “not to be inclined to, not to want to”.^[5][6] Pfeifer and Wiktionary date this shift to the 16th century, while the Duden places it in Middle High German.^[6][1][7]

Adelung, around 1800, still gave “to be able” as the first sense, but noted that it was dated in High German and alive only in Upper German.^[4] The Swiss and some regional dialects keep it.^[10] The past subjunctive möchte is now used as a polite present, “would like”.^[10][1]

Timeline

• 8th century – Old High German magan is recorded.^[6][5]
• 9th century – The form mugan is recorded.^[6]
• 16th century – The sense “to like, want” develops in negative sentences.^[6][1]
• 17th century – The sense “to be able” falls out of general use.^[6][1]
• 18th century – The past tense is often spelled mogte.^[3]

Meanings

Verb

1. (modal, with an infinitive) To express a supposition, may: es mag drei Uhr gewesen sein.^[10][1]
2. (modal) To express a concession: sie mag ruhig lachen.^[10][1]
3. (subjunctive möchte) To wish, would like: ich möchte gern ein Glas Wasser.^[10][1]
4. (modal, mostly negative) To want, be inclined to: ich mag jetzt nicht spazieren gehen.^[10]
5. (modal) To express a request: er möge sich melden.^[10]
6. (Switzerland, otherwise regional) To be able.^[10][1]
7. (transitive) To like, be fond of: sie mag Katzen.^[10][1]

Word family

• möglich
• vermögen
• Vermögen
• vermögend

Related words

• Macht
• können
• English may

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 12, 2449
3. ^ a b c Paul, Hermann (2002), Deutsches Wörterbuch: Bedeutungsgeschichte und Aufbau unseres Wortschatzes, 10th ed., ed. Helmut Henne, Heidrun Kämper and Georg Objartel, Tübingen: Niemeyer
4. ^ a b Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf
5. ^ a b c d e f g h Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 630
6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
7. ^ a b c Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 561
8. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
9. ^ a b c Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 228
10. ^ a b c d e f g h i Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag