owe/must

Nigel Vincent nigel.vincent at MANCHESTER.AC.UK
Sat Feb 13 21:48:14 UTC 2010


In many of the Romance languages the same verb means both 'owe' and  
'must' (cf Italian debere, French devoir, Portuguese dever, etc). In  
English 'ought' is etymologically the past tense of 'owe'. I would be  
grateful for further instances of languages in which, either  
synchronically or diachronically, the same verb covers both the modal  
and the 'owe' meanings.
Nigel Vincent



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