sollen

Forms

sollen (preterite-present, third-person singular present soll, past tense sollte, past participle gesollt, auxiliary haben)^[1] The second person singular was du sol(l)t until the second half of the 18th century, as is usual for a preterite-present verb.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German suln, inherited from Old High German sculan, inherited from Proto-West Germanic *skulan, inherited from Proto-Germanic *skulaną, a preterite-present verb whose original meaning was “to owe”.^[3][1][4] The same verb is Gothic 𐍃𐌺𐌿𐌻𐌰𐌽 (skulan), Old Norse skulu, Old English sculan, Old Saxon skulan and Old Frisian skela;^[3][4][1] English shall and should, Dutch zullen, Swedish skola and Yiddish זאָלן (zoln) continue it.^[3][4][1] Outside Germanic only Baltic has related words: Lithuanian skelė́ti (“to owe”), and without the initial ⟨s⟩ kaltė͂ (“guilt”).^[4][5] Pfeifer sets up a root Proto-Indo-European *(s)kel- (“to owe, be guilty”) from these, while Kluge calls the further origin unclear.^[4][3] The Grimms' dictionary rejects Jacob Grimm's idea that the verb first meant “I have killed and so owe wergild”, since the sense “owe” is found in Baltic as well.^[6] The noun Schuld belongs to the same old verb.^[5][7]

The modern initial ⟨s⟩ comes from a simplification of /sk/ in the unstressed position the word usually has in a sentence; the same happened in English.^[3][8] In Old High German ⟨sk⟩ (⟨sc⟩) is the regular spelling until the 11th century; forms with ⟨s⟩ appear from then on, and rarely earlier, already in the Tatian.^[8] Pfeifer dates the simplified forms solan and sulan to the 9th century.^[4]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German sculan is recorded from the end of the 8th century in glosses and in Isidor, the Monsee fragments, the Tatian and Otfrid.^[8] It meant “to be obliged, must, shall”, but also “to owe, be indebted for” and “to be due”.^[8][9]

Semantic evolution

The full sense “to owe” survived longest in the language of merchants: er soll mir 10 Taler “he owes me ten thalers” was in use until the end of the 18th century, or by Pfeifer's dating the early 19th.^[5][4] Logau writes wer mir fünfzig Gulden soll “whoever owes me fifty guilders”, and Goethe in a letter of 1774 asks what he “owes” for the tea.^[2] From this use comes the bookkeeping noun Soll “debit”: account books from the 16th century head their left-hand page soll “owes”, rendering Medieval Latin debet.^[3][4][5]

Since Old High German the verb has mostly been used with an infinitive to pass on someone else's will, as in the commandment du sollst keine andern Götter neben mir haben “thou shalt have no other gods before me”.^[2] It also expresses what is fitting, usually in the past subjunctive (das sollte man niemals tun “one should never do that”), and in the philosophy of Kant das Sollen is the moral “ought”.^[2]

Timeline

• Late 8th century – Old High German sculan appears in glosses and Isidor.^[8]
• 9th century – Simplified forms solan, sulan are recorded.^[4]
• 11th century – Forms with ⟨s⟩ replace the spelling ⟨sk⟩.^[8]
• 16th century – soll “owes” heads pages of account books, the source of the noun Soll.^[5][4]
• 1774 – Goethe still uses sollen “to owe” in a letter.^[2]
• End of the 18th century – The sense “to owe” goes out of use outside merchants' language.^[5][2]

Meanings

Verb

1. With an infinitive: to be told or required to do something; to be supposed to (er soll sofort kommen).^[10][1]
2. Expressing a wish or intention of the speaker or another person (du sollst dich hier wie zu Hause fühlen).^[10]
3. In questions or negated: expressing perplexity (was soll ich nur machen?).^[10]
4. Expressing a necessity or recommendation.^[10][1]
5. In the past subjunctive: what would be expected or desirable; should, ought to (das sollte er eigentlich wissen).^[10][1]
6. In the past tense: what was destined to happen later .^[10][1]
7. Reporting a claim made by others: is said to, reportedly.^[1]
8. In a conditional clause in the subjunctive: should, if.^[1]
9. (dated) To owe (Cajus soll mir noch hundert Thaler).^[11][2]

Word family

• Soll

Related words

• Schuld
• English shall

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 f g 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. 857
4. ^ a b c d e f g h i j 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 c d e f Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 790
6. ^ Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 16, 1452
7. ^ Wahrig-Burfeind, Renate, ed., Wahrig Herkunftswörterbuch, Gütersloh / München: Wissen Media Verlag; online edition at wissen.de
8. ^ a b c d e f Lloyd, Albert L.; Springer, Otto; Lühr, Rosemarie, et al. (1988–), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Althochdeutschen, Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht; online ewa.saw-leipzig.de, p. 8, 306
9. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 294
10. ^ a b c d e f Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
11. ^ Adelung, Johann Christoph (1793–1801), Grammatisch-kritisches Wörterbuch der Hochdeutschen Mundart, 2nd ed., 4 vols., Leipzig: Breitkopf