wollen

Forms

wollen (preterite-present, third-person singular present will, past tense wollte, past participle gewollt, auxiliary haben)^[1] Until the 19th century the older second person singular du wilt was still used in literature beside du willst.^[2]

Etymology

It is inherited from Middle High German wollen (also wellen), inherited from Old High German wellen (in Franconian also wollen from the 9th century), inherited from Proto-Germanic *wiljaną (“to want”).^[3][1] The same verb is Gothic 𐍅𐌹𐌻𐌾𐌰𐌽 (wiljan), Old Norse vilja, Old English willan, Old Frisian willa and Old Saxon willian, and it survives in Dutch willen, English will and Swedish vilja.^[3][4]

Kluge and Kroonen derive it from the optative of the root Proto-Indo-European *welh₁- (“to choose, want”): the Germanic verb is built on the wishing mood, which replaced the indicative.^[3][4][5] It was later reshaped on the model of the preterite-present verbs, from which it took a weak preterite, Old High German wolta beside Old English wolde.^[3] Kluge takes the /a/-grade of the Old High German form from the related verb that gave wählen, and Wiktionary likewise explains it as a blend of Proto-West Germanic *willjan and *walljan.^[3][1]

Outside Germanic the root appears in Latin volō (“to want”), Russian велеть (velet’, “to order”) and probably, with an extension, in Ancient Greek ἔλδομαι (éldomai, “to long for”).^[3][6][5]

Earliest recorded meaning

Old High German wellen is recorded from the 8th century.^[3][7] It appears in the Benedictine Rule, the Freising Paternoster, the Hildebrandslied, the Isidor translation and the Georgslied, meaning “to want, wish, desire, claim”, “to be wont to”, “to mean”, and also serving to express the future.^[8][7]

Semantic evolution

Middle High German had the forms wellen, wollen, wöllen and wullen; the second person du wilt is found from the 11th century.^[9] Paul describes how the preterite subjunctive weakened to express a mere wish, as in ich wollte, du wärest bei mir “I wish you were with me”, and how the verb came to be used with a subject that is not a person, to say what something needs: die Gelegenheit will genutzt sein “the opportunity must be used”.^[2]

With a perfect infinitive it reports a claim that the speaker doubts: er will es nicht gewusst haben “he claims not to have known”.^[10][1] The infinitive used as a noun, Wollen, became a term of law (“order, decree”) and of philosophy (“volition”).^[11]

Timeline

• 8th century – Old High German wellen is first recorded.^[3]
• 9th century – Franconian wollen appears beside wellen.^[3]
• 11th century – The second person singular du wilt is recorded.^[9]
• 19th century – Literary du wilt gives way to du willst.^[2]

Meanings

Verb

1. (modal, with infinitive) To want, intend, mean to do something: er will uns morgen besuchen “he wants to visit us tomorrow”.^[10][1]
2. (modal, in the preterite) Used to make a polite request: ich wollte Sie bitten… “I wanted to ask you…”.^[10]
3. (modal, dated, in the subjunctive) Used for a polite but firm instruction: man wolle bitte darauf achten “please be careful”.^[10]
4. (modal, with perfect infinitive) To claim, of a statement the speaker doubts.^[10][1]
5. (modal, mostly negated) Of a thing: not to work, not to happen as expected: die Wunde will nicht heilen “the wound won't heal”.^[10]
6. (modal, with past participle and sein or werden) To need, to require: das will gekonnt sein “that takes skill”.^[10]
7. (modal) To be meant as, to aim to be: das Buch will ein Ratgeber sein “the book is meant as a guide”.^[10]
8. (full verb) To want, wish for, desire: das habe ich nicht gewollt “I did not want that”.^[10][1]
9. (full verb, colloquial) To want to go somewhere: sie wollen ans Meer “they want to go to the seaside”.^[10]

Word family

• Wollen
• Wille

Related words

• wählen
• Wahl
• wohl
• Volontär
• English will

Usage notes

A separate adjective wollen means “woollen, made of wool”.^[12][1] It is Middle High German wullīn, from Old High German wullīn (9th century), a derivative of Wolle.^[13][1] The form wollen, assimilated to the noun, became general in the written language in the second half of the 18th century, as golden replaced gülden; dialects keep wüllen and wullen.^[14]

References

1. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ 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
3. ^ a b c d e f g h i Kluge, Friedrich; Seebold, Elmar (2011), Etymologisches Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache, 25th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 995
4. ^ a b Kroonen, Guus (2013), Etymological Dictionary of Proto-Germanic, Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series 11, Leiden / Boston: Brill
5. ^ a b Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 30, 1326
6. ^ Duden. Das Herkunftswörterbuch: Etymologie der deutschen Sprache (2020), 6th ed., Duden vol. 7, Berlin: Dudenverlag, p. 939
7. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 6th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
8. ^ Schützeichel, Rudolf (2012), Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch, 7th ed., Berlin / Boston: De Gruyter, p. 378
9. ^ a b Lexer, Matthias (1872–1878), Mittelhochdeutsches Handwörterbuch, 3 vols., Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 3, 753
10. ^ a b c d e f g h i j Duden. Deutsches Universalwörterbuch (2007), 6th ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
11. ^ Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 30, 1363
12. ^ Duden. Das große Wörterbuch der deutschen Sprache in zehn Bänden (1999), 3rd ed., Mannheim: Dudenverlag
13. ^ Pfeifer, Wolfgang, et al. (1993), Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Deutschen, 2nd ed., Berlin: Akademie-Verlag; digital revised version in the DWDS, dwds.de
14. ^ Grimm, Jacob; Grimm, Wilhelm (1854–1961), Deutsches Wörterbuch, 16 vols. in 32, Leipzig: Hirzel; digital: Wörterbuchnetz, Trier Center for Digital Humanities, p. 30, 1325