Re: [tied] Ger. "Sollen" VS Engl. "Shall"

From: Miguel Carrasquer
Message: 24926
Date: 2003-08-01

On Fri, 01 Aug 2003 11:47:59 +0000, ghozzis <ghozzis@...> wrote:

>Hello,
>"Sollen" means "Shall" and they both are etymogically from the same
>origin. But how is it that sh ----> s from english to german, I have
>never heard of this transformation.

There are a few genuine cases (she ~ sie), but in this case PGmc. has *sk-,
so the Continental West-Germanic variants with s- instead of sk- (OFr sela
~ skela/skila, MLG solen ~ scholen, MHG suln, soln ~ scholn, Germ. sollen,
OLF sulan, MDu. sullan, Du. zullen) are irregular. In the case of Dutch
(where no variants with sc-, sch- are attested at all), the use of sul(l)an
~ zullen as an auxiliary verb to form the future tense (already in Old
Dutch = Old Low Franconian) can serve as an explanation, but this is not
the case in Low or High German.

=======================
Miguel Carrasquer Vidal
mcv@...