Shall and will
Encyclopedia
Shall and will are both modal verb
s in English
used to express proposition
s about the future.
According to the New Oxford Dictionary of English, "In modern English the interchangeable use of shall and will is an acceptable part of standard British and US English."
Shall can also be used for this purpose in the first person (with "I" and "we"), and this usage has been presented as compulsory by some prescriptivist grammarians of English:
would express more the intention than mere futurity. For example: "Should you like it?" expects the answer "Yes, I should" or "No, I should not", whereas "Would you like it?" expects the answer "Yes, you would" (or the corresponding negative) from the same speaker (or used rhetorically), since "you would" is the right form for the speaker, but not for the respondent (if he exists).
Shall#First person offers|First person offers
Shall is used in the second and third persons to imply that the will
of the subject is not being taken into account, such as to make a promise, command or threat:
In more formal language shall (or the archaic second person variant "shalt") is used for similar purpose: "Thou shalt not steal".
The sentence above: "The prize should be given to whoever shall have done the best" may be restated either as "The prize is to be given to whoever does best" or "The prize would be given to whoever did best," depending on whether the meaning is a general obligation applied upon a condition ("is to be") or simply a hypothetical one ("would"...[preterite]).
Shall is used for this purpose in the United States, but should is a less marked alternative. Will instead of shall would not be interpreted as an offer or suggestion, but rather as a request (rather bizarre in the 1st person) for information.
In archaic usage would has been used to indicate present time desire. "Would that I were dead" means "I wish I were dead". "I would fain" means "I would gladly".
, particularly involving software, the words shall and will have special meanings. Most requirement specifications use the word shall to denote something that is required, while reserving the will for a statement of fact. However, some documents deviate from this convention and use the words shall, will, and should to denote the strength of the requirement. Some requirement specifications will define the terms at the beginning of the document.
Shall and will are distinguished by NASA and Wikiversity as follows:
On standards published by IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission), ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials), IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), requirements with "shall" are the mandatory requirements, meaning, "must", or "have to". The IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) defines shall and must as synonymous terms denoting absolute requirements, and ‘‘should’’ as denoting a somewhat flexible requirement, in RFC
documents.
is shan't. Shall is pronounced
in two different ways:
Shan't is pronounced /ʃɑːnt/ in England, New Zealand, South Africa etc.; it is pronounced /ʃænt/ in North America, and both are acceptable in Australia (due to the unique application of the trap–bath split).
The negative form of will is will not, for which the contraction is won't.
forms to express the future tense, but innovated by forming it with auxiliary verbs. This was the case in Gothic
and the earliest recorded expressions of Germanic languages.
Both shall and will are verbs of ancient Germanic
ancestry. The verb shall represents Old English
sceal, and is cognate
with Old Norse skal, German
soll, and Dutch
zal; these all represent *skol-, the o-grade
of Indo-European *skel-. All of these verbs function as auxiliaries in each language, and represent either simple futurity or necessity.
The verb will is cognate with the noun will, and continues Old English willan, which represents *willjan. It occurs in Old Norse vilja, German wollen, Dutch willen, Gothic wiljan; it has many relatives outside of Germanic as well, including, for example, Latin
velle "to wish for" or Polish (West Slavic) "ja wolę" - I would rather / prefer ("ę" is for a nasal open "e"); the root also occurs in voluptas, "pleasure". All of these forms derive from the e-grade or o-grade of Indo-European *wel-, meaning to wish for or to desire.
In addition to shall and will, other verbs were used as future auxiliaries in Old English, including mun, directly related to Old Norse munu and a defective verb
that is the immediate source of Scots
maun, and related to Modern English must.
Both verbs are preterite-present verbs in Old English, as they were generally in Germanic. This means that in their conjugation
, they were conjugated in the preterite with present meaning. They show this status by the fact that they are conjugated in the third person
as she shall (as opposed to *she shalls.) Will can be conjugated in both ways (she will, she wills) with a difference in meaning and construction; the simple present form is not used as an auxiliary verb and does not govern the infinitive. The forms should and would were derived from the dental suffix of the weak verb
s.
Old English
did not have a future tense
, but because the verbs shall and will hint at one, they became modal verbs used for this purpose. In the simple future usage, the different meanings of shall and will depending on which grammatical person
is being used is an example of suppletion
, the commingling of words from separate roots into a single paradigm.
According to Merriam Webster's Dictionary of English Usage
, the distinction in meaning between shall and will as markers of a simple future arose from the practice of English schools in the fourteenth century and their Latin exercises. It was the custom in these schools to use will to translate Latin velle; because shall had no exact equivalent in Latin, it was used to translate the Latin future tense. The usage of the schools kept shall alive in this role. John Wycliffe
used it consistently in this manner in his Bible translation into Middle English
. Will was already beginning to predominate as the marker for the simple future through all grammatical persons in English, and is the usual marker for a simple future in Chaucer
.
The most influential proponent of the distinction was John Wallis, whose 1653 Grammatica Linguae Anglicanae stated "The rule is... to express a future event without emotional overtones, one should say I shall, we shall, but you/he/she/they will; conversely, for emphasis, willfulness, or insistence, one should say I/we will, but you/he/she/they shall".
Fowler
wrote in his book The King's English, regarding the rules for using shall vs. will, the comment "the idiomatic use, while it comes by nature to southern Englishmen ... is so complicated that those who are not to the manner born can hardly acquire it". The Pocket Fowler's Modern English Usage, OUP
, 2002, says of the rule for the use of shall and will: "it is unlikely that this rule has ever had any consistent basis of authority in actual usage, and many examples of [British] English in print disregard it". Shall and will are now used as auxiliary
verbs. However, they have their origins as main verbs and are still sometimes used in a way that reflects aspects of their original Old English
senses, regardless of grammatical person
. Thus shall is used with the meaning of obligation and will with the meaning of desire or intention.
Modal verb
A modal verb is a type of auxiliary verb that is used to indicate modality -- that is, likelihood, ability, permission, and obligation...
s in English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
used to express proposition
Proposition
In logic and philosophy, the term proposition refers to either the "content" or "meaning" of a meaningful declarative sentence or the pattern of symbols, marks, or sounds that make up a meaningful declarative sentence...
s about the future.
Usage
These modal verbs have been used in the past for a variety of meanings. The use of "shall" is viewed as archaic in some dialects of English.According to the New Oxford Dictionary of English, "In modern English the interchangeable use of shall and will is an acceptable part of standard British and US English."
Simple future
Will is typically used in all persons to express simple futurity:- I will grow old some day.
- Will they be here tomorrow?
Shall can also be used for this purpose in the first person (with "I" and "we"), and this usage has been presented as compulsory by some prescriptivist grammarians of English:
- I shall grow old some day.
- We shall all grow old some day.
Questions
In questions, the traditional usage is that the auxiliary used should be the one expected in the answer: "Shall you accompany me?" – "I shall." To use will here would be a request; going-to futureGoing-to future
Going-to future is a term used to describe an English sentence structure referring to the future, making use of the verb phrase to be going to...
would express more the intention than mere futurity. For example: "Should you like it?" expects the answer "Yes, I should" or "No, I should not", whereas "Would you like it?" expects the answer "Yes, you would" (or the corresponding negative) from the same speaker (or used rhetorically), since "you would" is the right form for the speaker, but not for the respondent (if he exists).
Shall#First person offers|First person offers
Coloured future use of shall
Will (philosophy)
Will, in philosophical discussions, consonant with a common English usage, refers to a property of the mind, and an attribute of acts intentionally performed. Actions made according to a person's will are called "willing" or "voluntary" and sometimes pejoratively "willful"...
of the subject is not being taken into account, such as to make a promise, command or threat:
- You shall repent it before long. (My threat)
- You shall not pass! (My command)
- You shall go to the ball. (My promise)
Past time use and reported speech
Would and should are used in the same way as other preterite modal verbs to talk about situations seen from the perspective of an earlier time, sometimes called Future in the Past or Past Future. Use of shall in the traditional simple future sense in this past time use can give rise to ambiguities for hearers. The sentence "The Archbishop of Canterbury said that we should all sin from time to time." is reporting the sentence "We shall all sin from time to time" (assuming the archbishop is including himself in the proposition), where shall is used to denote simple futurity. In the preterite, however, listeners would tend to interpret shall in the sense of ought to, giving a comical and contradictory effect.Conditional sentences
Would and should are used in the same way as other preterite modal verbs in the apodosis clause when the conditional form is being used. Would is the most common modal verb used in this sense, as it expresses simple consequence (as opposed to the uncertainty involved with might or could). Some speakers may additionally use should in the first person for the same purpose. Such usage is confined to those who would use shall in the first person to express simple futurity. It remains in stock phrases such as "I should think" and "I should expect".- We should/he would have consented if you had asked.
- Should we/would he have missed you if you had been there?
- I should/you would like a bath.
- Should I/would he like it myself, himself?
- You should do it if we could make you. (Our conditional command.)
- They should have had it if they had asked. (My conditional consent.)
Shall as obligation
"Shall" derives from the Old English "sceal" meaning "must". "Should" is the past simple and conditional form of "shall", just as "would" is the past simple and conditional form of "will". Should is used with a sense of quasi-obligation, synonymous with ought to:- You should not say such things.
- Why should you suspect me? (What reason do you have to suspect me?)
In more formal language shall (or the archaic second person variant "shalt") is used for similar purpose: "Thou shalt not steal".
Shall in protasis
Should (and in archaic usage, shall) can be used in the protasis in conditional phrases (and by extension, similar phrases, such as those beginning with "who" or "so long as"):- If you should require assistance, please just ask
- The prize should be given to whoever shall have done the best
- Should you require any assistance, please speak to your flight attendant.
The sentence above: "The prize should be given to whoever shall have done the best" may be restated either as "The prize is to be given to whoever does best" or "The prize would be given to whoever did best," depending on whether the meaning is a general obligation applied upon a condition ("is to be") or simply a hypothetical one ("would"...[preterite]).
First person offers
In England and other parts of the English-speaking world shall is the normal form for first-person offers and suggestions of the type such as:- Shall I open a window? (as a response to "It is a bit hot in here")
- Shall we dance?
- Shall I open the door?
Shall is used for this purpose in the United States, but should is a less marked alternative. Will instead of shall would not be interpreted as an offer or suggestion, but rather as a request (rather bizarre in the 1st person) for information.
Will as desire or willingness
Will (and would in the a past time or conditional context) is used to express the willingness, desire or intention of the speaker:- "I will tell you presently."
- "We would go if we could." (Our conditional intention.)
- "I will have the steak" (more polite than "I shall have the steak")
- "I will lend you £10,000 at 5%" (the speaker is willing to make the loan, but it will not necessarily be made)
- I will have my way.
- I (he) asked him (me) to do it, but he (I) would not.
- I would not have done it for the world.
- Will you come with me?
- She that would not when she could, shall not when she will.
In archaic usage would has been used to indicate present time desire. "Would that I were dead" means "I wish I were dead". "I would fain" means "I would gladly".
Will as habituation
Will and would can be used to express habitual action in the present and in the past, respectively:- We would go fishing a lot. ("We used to go fishing a lot.")
- He will bite his nails, whatever I say.
- He will often stand on his head.
- Boys will be boys.
- I would be told to wait a while.
Will as expectation
Will can be used to express that the speaker expects that they would find that a proposition would be true should they later get more information:- You will still be talking (i.e., you always are).
- A coat will last two years with care.
Legal use
Legislative acts and contracts sometimes use "shall" and "shall not" to express mandatory action and prohibition. However, it is sometimes used to mean "may" or "can". The most famous example of both of these uses of the word "shall" is the , and claims that "shall" is in fact or is not used with these different meanings have caused discussion and have significant consequences for interpreting the text's intended meaning.Technical specifications
In many requirement specificationsRequirement
In engineering, a requirement is a singular documented physical and functional need that a particular product or service must be or perform. It is most commonly used in a formal sense in systems engineering, software engineering, or enterprise engineering...
, particularly involving software, the words shall and will have special meanings. Most requirement specifications use the word shall to denote something that is required, while reserving the will for a statement of fact. However, some documents deviate from this convention and use the words shall, will, and should to denote the strength of the requirement. Some requirement specifications will define the terms at the beginning of the document.
Shall and will are distinguished by NASA and Wikiversity as follows:
- Shall is usually used to dictate the provision of a functional capability.
- Will is generally used to cite things that the operational or development environment are to provide to the capability being specified. For example, "The building's electrical system will power the XYZ system."
On standards published by IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission), ASTM (American Society for Testing and Materials), IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), requirements with "shall" are the mandatory requirements, meaning, "must", or "have to". The IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) defines shall and must as synonymous terms denoting absolute requirements, and ‘‘should’’ as denoting a somewhat flexible requirement, in RFC
Request for Comments
In computer network engineering, a Request for Comments is a memorandum published by the Internet Engineering Task Force describing methods, behaviors, research, or innovations applicable to the working of the Internet and Internet-connected systems.Through the Internet Society, engineers and...
documents.
Pronunciation
The negative form of shall is shall not, for which the contractionContraction (grammar)
A contraction is a shortened version of the written and spoken forms of a word, syllable, or word group, created by omission of internal letters....
is shan't. Shall is pronounced
Phonetic transcription
Phonetic transcription is the visual representation of speech sounds . The most common type of phonetic transcription uses a phonetic alphabet, e.g., the International Phonetic Alphabet....
in two different ways:
- The non-stressed form: ʃəl
- The strong form: /ˈʃæl/
Shan't is pronounced /ʃɑːnt/ in England, New Zealand, South Africa etc.; it is pronounced /ʃænt/ in North America, and both are acceptable in Australia (due to the unique application of the trap–bath split).
The negative form of will is will not, for which the contraction is won't.
History
Germanic did not inherit any Proto-Indo-EuropeanProto-Indo-European language
The Proto-Indo-European language is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European languages, spoken by the Proto-Indo-Europeans...
forms to express the future tense, but innovated by forming it with auxiliary verbs. This was the case in Gothic
Gothic language
Gothic is an extinct Germanic language that was spoken by the Goths. It is known primarily from the Codex Argenteus, a 6th-century copy of a 4th-century Bible translation, and is the only East Germanic language with a sizable Text corpus...
and the earliest recorded expressions of Germanic languages.
Both shall and will are verbs of ancient Germanic
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages constitute a sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. The common ancestor of all of the languages in this branch is called Proto-Germanic , which was spoken in approximately the mid-1st millennium BC in Iron Age northern Europe...
ancestry. The verb shall represents Old English
Old English language
Old English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century...
sceal, and is cognate
Cognate
In linguistics, cognates are words that have a common etymological origin. This learned term derives from the Latin cognatus . Cognates within the same language are called doublets. Strictly speaking, loanwords from another language are usually not meant by the term, e.g...
with Old Norse skal, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
soll, and Dutch
Dutch language
Dutch is a West Germanic language and the native language of the majority of the population of the Netherlands, Belgium, and Suriname, the three member states of the Dutch Language Union. Most speakers live in the European Union, where it is a first language for about 23 million and a second...
zal; these all represent *skol-, the o-grade
Indo-European ablaut
In linguistics, ablaut is a system of apophony in Proto-Indo-European and its far-reaching consequences in all of the modern Indo-European languages...
of Indo-European *skel-. All of these verbs function as auxiliaries in each language, and represent either simple futurity or necessity.
The verb will is cognate with the noun will, and continues Old English willan, which represents *willjan. It occurs in Old Norse vilja, German wollen, Dutch willen, Gothic wiljan; it has many relatives outside of Germanic as well, including, for example, Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
velle "to wish for" or Polish (West Slavic) "ja wolę" - I would rather / prefer ("ę" is for a nasal open "e"); the root also occurs in voluptas, "pleasure". All of these forms derive from the e-grade or o-grade of Indo-European *wel-, meaning to wish for or to desire.
In addition to shall and will, other verbs were used as future auxiliaries in Old English, including mun, directly related to Old Norse munu and a defective verb
Defective verb
In linguistics, a defective verb is a verb which is missing e.g. a past tense, or cannot be used in some other way that normal verbs come. Formally, it is a verb with an incomplete conjugation. Defective verbs cannot be conjugated in certain tenses, aspects, or moods.-Arabic:In Arabic, defective...
that is the immediate source of Scots
Scots language
Scots is the Germanic language variety spoken in Lowland Scotland and parts of Ulster . It is sometimes called Lowland Scots to distinguish it from Scottish Gaelic, the Celtic language variety spoken in most of the western Highlands and in the Hebrides.Since there are no universally accepted...
maun, and related to Modern English must.
Both verbs are preterite-present verbs in Old English, as they were generally in Germanic. This means that in their conjugation
Grammatical conjugation
In linguistics, conjugation is the creation of derived forms of a verb from its principal parts by inflection . Conjugation may be affected by person, number, gender, tense, aspect, mood, voice, or other grammatical categories...
, they were conjugated in the preterite with present meaning. They show this status by the fact that they are conjugated in the third person
Grammatical person
Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...
as she shall (as opposed to *she shalls.) Will can be conjugated in both ways (she will, she wills) with a difference in meaning and construction; the simple present form is not used as an auxiliary verb and does not govern the infinitive. The forms should and would were derived from the dental suffix of the weak verb
Germanic weak verb
In Germanic languages, including English, weak verbs are by far the largest group of verbs, which are therefore often regarded as the norm, though historically they are not the oldest or most original group.-General description:...
s.
Old English
Old English language
Old English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century...
did not have a future tense
Future tense
In grammar, a future tense is a verb form that marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet, but expected to happen in the future , or to happen subsequent to some other event, whether that is past, present, or future .-Expressions of future tense:The concept of the future,...
, but because the verbs shall and will hint at one, they became modal verbs used for this purpose. In the simple future usage, the different meanings of shall and will depending on which grammatical person
Grammatical person
Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...
is being used is an example of suppletion
Suppletion
In linguistics and etymology, suppletion is traditionally understood as the use of one word as the inflected form of another word when the two words are not cognate. For those learning a language, suppletive forms will be seen as "irregular" or even "highly irregular". The term "suppletion" implies...
, the commingling of words from separate roots into a single paradigm.
According to Merriam Webster's Dictionary of English Usage
Merriam Webster's Dictionary of English Usage
Merriam–Webster's Dictionary of English Usage is a usage dictionary published by Merriam-Webster, Inc., of Springfield, Massachusetts. It is currently available in a reprint edition ISBN 0-87779-132-5 or ISBN 978-0877791324. Merriam–Webster's Dictionary of English Usage is a usage...
, the distinction in meaning between shall and will as markers of a simple future arose from the practice of English schools in the fourteenth century and their Latin exercises. It was the custom in these schools to use will to translate Latin velle; because shall had no exact equivalent in Latin, it was used to translate the Latin future tense. The usage of the schools kept shall alive in this role. John Wycliffe
John Wycliffe
John Wycliffe was an English Scholastic philosopher, theologian, lay preacher, translator, reformer and university teacher who was known as an early dissident in the Roman Catholic Church during the 14th century. His followers were known as Lollards, a somewhat rebellious movement, which preached...
used it consistently in this manner in his Bible translation into Middle English
Middle English
Middle English is the stage in the history of the English language during the High and Late Middle Ages, or roughly during the four centuries between the late 11th and the late 15th century....
. Will was already beginning to predominate as the marker for the simple future through all grammatical persons in English, and is the usual marker for a simple future in Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer
Geoffrey Chaucer , known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey...
.
The most influential proponent of the distinction was John Wallis, whose 1653 Grammatica Linguae Anglicanae stated "The rule is... to express a future event without emotional overtones, one should say I shall, we shall, but you/he/she/they will; conversely, for emphasis, willfulness, or insistence, one should say I/we will, but you/he/she/they shall".
Fowler
Henry Watson Fowler
Henry Watson Fowler was an English schoolmaster, lexicographer and commentator on the usage of the English language...
wrote in his book The King's English, regarding the rules for using shall vs. will, the comment "the idiomatic use, while it comes by nature to southern Englishmen ... is so complicated that those who are not to the manner born can hardly acquire it". The Pocket Fowler's Modern English Usage, OUP
Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press is the largest university press in the world. It is a department of the University of Oxford and is governed by a group of 15 academics appointed by the Vice-Chancellor known as the Delegates of the Press. They are headed by the Secretary to the Delegates, who serves as...
, 2002, says of the rule for the use of shall and will: "it is unlikely that this rule has ever had any consistent basis of authority in actual usage, and many examples of [British] English in print disregard it". Shall and will are now used as auxiliary
Auxiliary verb
In linguistics, an auxiliary verb is a verb that gives further semantic or syntactic information about a main or full verb. In English, the extra meaning provided by an auxiliary verb alters the basic meaning of the main verb to make it have one or more of the following functions: passive voice,...
verbs. However, they have their origins as main verbs and are still sometimes used in a way that reflects aspects of their original Old English
Old English language
Old English or Anglo-Saxon is an early form of the English language that was spoken and written by the Anglo-Saxons and their descendants in parts of what are now England and southeastern Scotland between at least the mid-5th century and the mid-12th century...
senses, regardless of grammatical person
Grammatical person
Grammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...
. Thus shall is used with the meaning of obligation and will with the meaning of desire or intention.
See also
- English verbsEnglish verbsVerbs in the English language are a part of speech and typically describe an action, an event, or a state.While English has many irregular verbs , for the regular ones the conjugation rules are quite straightforward...
- Grammatical personGrammatical personGrammatical person, in linguistics, is deictic reference to a participant in an event; such as the speaker, the addressee, or others. Grammatical person typically defines a language's set of personal pronouns...
- Verbs in English Grammar, wikibookWikibooksWikibooks is a Wiki hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation for the creation of free content textbooks and annotated texts that anyone can edit....
External links
- "Shall and Will". Fowler, H. W. 1908. The King's English - thorough discussion on the subject
- Complete descriptions of the English Tenses
- Webster 1913 - Entry for Shall
- "The Origins of some Prescriptive Grammar Rules" - quoting The Origins and Development of the English Language, Pyles and Algeo, 1993
- The Rise of Prescriptivism in English (PDF format)