[gothic-l] Re: "would" & "should"

Fri Feb 4 17:59:25 UTC 2005

--- In gothic-l at yahoogroups.com, OSCAR HERRERA <duke.co at s...> wrote:
> whats the word for would....ist wesith thau hwa....wes ist waurd 
faur were...samaain gatiehan mis....thagkam
> 
> OSCAR HERRERA <duke.co at s...> wrote:
> who were the amals...also when you use would,like for instance 
were is wes , so is would wesith....you could use skuld or 
should ,but would and should are different words....oscar herr

Hi Oscar,

For a table of verbal inflections in Gothic and related languages:

http://titus.fkidg1.uni-frankfurt.de/didact/idg/germ/gotverb.htm

In English, the words "would" and "should" each have a number of 
different uses, which would be translated in different ways into 
Gothic.  Often "would" is not represented by a separate word in 
Gothic, but by a change in the form of the verb, usually the past 
subjunctive (sometimes "past" is also called "preterite", and some 
people call the "subjunctive" the "optative"--but in Gothic these 
refer to the same thing).

Simple statements are usually in the indicative mood: WAS "it was"; 
but the subjunctive mood expresses doubt, uncertainty WESI "it would 
have been".  WESUN "they were"; WESEINA "they would have been".  
TAWIDEDUN "they did"; TAWIDEDEINA "they would do / have done".  Just 
as there are indicative endings for past tense and present, in both 
active and passive voices, so there are past active & passive 
subjunctive endings and present active and passive ones.

Some examples:

WOULD

1) hypothetical: "that WOULD have gone against what is appropriate" 
(if he did that, but he didn't, so it's just hypothetical, an 
imaginary possibility).

3) possibility (whether): "they watched him to see if he WOULD heal 
on the sabbath so that they could accuse him" (he might yet do, but 
so far we just don't know).

3) intentional: "and many made threats to him SO THAT HE WOULD BE 
SILENT" (or: ...to be silent / ...that he should be quiet / warned 
him to be quiet, etc).

4) concessive (then, in that case--accompanying an "if" 
clause): "WOULD it not then seem...?"

5) future in past: "for he WOULD betray him" = he was going to 
betray him (but this hadn't happened yet at this time in the story).

1) þatuh wesi wiþra þata gadob
2) jah witaidedun imma hailidediu sabbato daga, ei wrohidedeina ina
3) ei þahaidedi
4) ni auk þuhtedi þau...
5) sa auk habaida ina galewjan

Things to note:

1 and 3, "would" is represented not by a separate word, but by a 
change of inflection in the verb to the subjunctive mood, 
specifically the past subjunctive.  Thus: WAS WIÞRA ÞATA GADOB "it 
was inappropriate"; WESI "it would have been".  The subjunctive has 
various uses besides this, connected with the idea of uncertainty or 
unreality or wishing/intention: maht wesi frabugjan "it could have 
been sold" (but it wasn't); nih qemjau jah rodidedjau du im, 
frawaurht ni habaidedeina "if I hadn't come and spoken to them, they 
WOULDN'T have had sin".

2 also uses the subjunctive, but with the addition of the 
interrogative particle -u.  The quote is from Mark; Luke's gospel 
expresses it in a slightly different way: witaidedunuh þan þai 
bokarjos jah Fareisaieis, jau in sabbato daga leikinodedi, ei 
bigeteina til du wrohjan ina "now the scribes and Pharasees kept a 
watch to see if he WOULD heal on the sabbath, so that they 
WOULD/might/could have a chance to accuse him".

In 4, the concessive particle ÞAU would probably come nearer the 
front of the clause if it wasn't for the other particle AUK.  E.g. 
iþ weseis her, ni þau gadauþnodedi broþar meins "if you had been 
here, then my brother would not have died"; jabai allis Mose 
galaubidedeiþ, ga-þau-laubidedeiþ mis "if you had believed Moses, 
then you would have believed me".  ÞAU can be omitted in the "then" 
clause, whether the "if" clause is introduced by IÞ or JABAI or 
simply a subjunctive verb as in the example NIH QEMJAU... above.

5, future in past, is a compound tense formed with an infinitive 
verb + the past tense of haban "to have".

The subjunctive is also used in various other circumsatnces where 
English has "would" expressing uncertainty, e.g. "we went to see 
what he would do" (MADE UP EXAMPLE, TREAT WITH CAUTION: iddjedum ei 
gasehveima hva tawidedi; iddjedum gasaihvan hva wesi þatei tawidedi--
or something like that maybe), and requests "would you 
[please]...?".  In fact the irregular verb WILJAN "want" only has 
subjunctive-like forms: WILJAU "I want/like, I would like".

SHOULD

This is often expressed with the Gothic verb SKULAN, e.g. skulum 
weis "we should / ought to".

Obligation "should" or "must" can sometimes be expressed with the 
combination of neuter past participle of skulan + the verb "to be"-- 
SKULD IST +dative, e.g. skuld ist unsis "we must/should... / we are 
obliged / have a duty to" + infinitive.  Ni skuld ist unsis "we 
should not / are not allowed to / it is not right for us to..." + 
infinitive.

The passive is similar, except that SKULD is inflected for person 
and number: allai weis ataugjan skuldai sijum faura stauastola 
Xristaus "...we must all be shown [i.e. appear] before the judgement 
seat of Christ"; sunus mans skulds ist atgiban in handuns manne "the 
son of man must be given into the hands of men".

I've used "must" here, but it's easy to see how such constructions 
might be equivalent to English "should", for example in indirect 
speech, perhaps with Gothic subjunctives.  If MAHT WESI FRABUGJAN 
= "it could have been sold", presumably SKULD WESI = "it should have 
been".  I can't think of an example of this right now...

Llama Nom

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