devoir (in conditional) + verb ?

Bonjour,

I am reading an essay on world's growing population. There I met the folloing sentence :

« La population mondiale devrait augmenter de 50 % d'ici à 2050, .....»

I have trouble in understanding this.

I think this "devrait" is devoir, in 3rd-person singular conditional,

and according to my dictionary, the core meaning of "devoir" is "to have to".

Considering that, it makes me think that this sentence can be translated to

"The world population would have to (or something like that..strange..) increase by 50% in 2050,.."

although

"The world population is expected to increase by 50%.."

seems natural.

Maybe this problem I'm having is connected to my understanding of the conditional itself.

I'd like to know i) the correct translation for this sentence, and hopefully ii) how I could get there.

Thanks in advance. I'd appreciate any kind of help.

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EducatorPermalink Reply by stu harris on January 13, 2012 at 8:16pm

"increase by 50% in 2050" is not quite right. The French expression d'ici à means from now till. I would render this as World population is expected to increase by 50% between now and 2050.

I think I'm right in saying that the à is often omitted, so the phrase becomes d'ici 2050. Native French please comment.

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Permalink Reply by Neil Coffey on January 13, 2012 at 9:35pm

You're absolutely right that (1) "devrait" is a conditional form. And you're absolutely right that (2) usually the conditional carries the notion of "would...". And so you're absolutely right (3) to ask, "so how the hell does it mean 'is expected to...', as is apparently the case here".

And the answer to (3) is simply that 'devoir' is a "special" verb in that it's different tense forms (notably the conditional) can have "special" uses/meanings. Other verbs like this include "pouvoir", "vouloir" and to a certain extent some other verbs that express the idea of 'wanting/wishing', e.g. "aimer", "souhaiter". Some of these verbs' counterparts in English and over languages actually behave in a similar way. For example, if in English I say "I would like a coffee", I'm usually not expressing the idea that I "potentially, under some circumstances would enjoy/appreciate/savour a coffee", but simply expressing in a polite way the fact that I at this moment want a coffee. Similarly in French, if I say "J'aimerais un café" or "Je voudrais un café", what I'm effectively expressing with different degrees of politeness/hesitation is the fact that I "want" a coffee. You might say that these depart from the 'core meaning' of "aimer" and "vouloir".

And so it turns out that the conditional form of "devoir" is often used not with its 'core' logical meaning of "would under some circumstances have to", but rather with other idiomatic meanings, including the meaning you've come across here.

But, the key is that "devoir" is a special verb from this point of view. With most other verbs, the conditional is effectively used with the 'expected' meaning of "would ...".

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Permalink Reply by joll on January 14, 2012 at 2:35am

Thank you very much, everyone !

Thank you for Frechrescue and Neil Coffey : I think I've understood.

and Thank you for stu harris : I didn't recognise that and it's of great help, too.