Want I should?

[Douglas G. Wilson]

>>I'm curious where or in what group "want I should" is spoken and
>>from, as in
>>"You want I should come over?" I found the link below that says
>>it's from
>>Yiddish. (BTW, is this "Ben" on the ads-list?)
>>
>>http://positiveanymore.blogspot.com/2006/03/you-want-i-should-grow-
>>beard.html
>
>wonderful, wonderful comments.  i think i might do a Language Log
>posting on "if it sounds german, it's yiddish (and from new york city)".
>
>by the way, "want" plus finite clause (rather than infinitival)
>complement could trace back to a number of different substrate
>languages, not just germanic ones, since 'want'-verb plus finite
>clause is very widespread.

But in this case one would like to account for the "should", I
suppose. One might speculate that it is a 'naive translation' of
German "sollen" (or some Germanic-language equivalent). In what
likely non-Germanic languages would the equivalent clause naturally
include a word which would likely be 'translated' as "should"? [Could
be many of them for all I know ....]

However, I wonder why the construction should be assumed to be
adopted from a foreign language at all. Maybe it's just old-fashioned
or currently-unfashionable English, or dialectal English from the old
days. English is Germanic, right?

I find a number of published examples of "want [that] I should" etc.,
going back quite a ways. E.g., at Google Books, from 1794 [looks
genuine too!]: <<But in this I will say no more, as you do not want I
should reason, but merely state facts.>>

-- Doug Wilson


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