Questions & Answers about Hun skal føde snart.
What does skal mean in this sentence?
Here skal is used to talk about the near future: she is going to / will.
In Norwegian, skal can sometimes mean shall / must / is supposed to, but in Hun skal føde snart, it most naturally means that the birth is expected to happen soon.
So the sense is:
- Hun = she
- skal = is going to / will
- føde = give birth
- snart = soon
Why is føde in its basic form?
Because it comes after the modal verb skal.
After modal verbs in Norwegian—such as skal, vil, kan, må, bør—the next verb normally stays in the infinitive without å.
So:
- Hun skal føde snart
- not Hun skal å føde snart
This is similar to English:
- She will give birth
- not She will to give birth
Why is there no å before føde?
For the same reason: skal is a modal verb, and modal verbs are followed directly by the infinitive.
Compare:
- å føde = to give birth
- Hun skal føde = She is going to give birth
So å appears when you name the infinitive by itself, but not after skal.
What exactly does mean?