Using "shall" in Contracted Conditionals
Can I use "shall" to imply conditionality in the following way:
"Shall he be killed, his inheritance will be bequeathed to his sons."
I guess I could use the following sentence, though I am not sure:
"Should he be killed, his inheritance will be bequeathed to his sons."
You're right about "should".
AHD says:
- Used to express conditionality or contingency: If she should fall, then so would I.
So does Meriam-Webster:
past tense of shall
1 —used in auxiliary function to express condition
if he should leave his father, his father would die —Genesis 44:22 (Revised Standard Version)
Regarding the use of "shall", Webster's New World College Dictionary says:
shall
auxiliary verb
...
used in formal conditional subordinate clauses: if any man shall hear, let him remember
However, I've never seen "shall" used in an inversion without "if" as in your first suggested example. Not in a single contract.
In contrast, I've encountered constructs such as "Should the Vendor fail to ..." in tons of contracts.