dialect in novels

[Beverly Flanigan]

At 05:26 PM 2/23/01 -0600, you wrote:
>>I believe that the short written forms "gonna" and "gotta" are synonymous
>>with their respective standard written forms.
>>The equivalent in standardese of "I'm gonna go to London" is "I'm going to
>>go to London," not "I'm going to London." (You need two "go's" in the
>>second sentence as well, since "gonna" means "going to", not "going to
>>go".)  And again, the standard written form of "I gotta go to London" would
>>be
>>"I've [or I have] got to go to London."  (The "have" or "-'ve" is actually
>>often included in the fast-speech version as well.
>>On the other hand, the statement "I got to go to London" is in fact
>>ambiguous without more context, because it could just as easily be intended
>>to mean "I (-'ve) got to go to London."
>>You could disambiguate it by adding either "yesterday" or
>>"tomorrow", as appropriate.
>>
>>Victoria
>
>I may be in a minority, or merely may be a little ahead of the stream, but
>'gotta' works as a modal auxiliary. The sense is essentially that of 'must'.
>"I gotta go" is not "I got to go".
>
>As written English, "I have got to go" is the one that's ambiguous to me.
>
>With 'got', there are some things going on that I cannot explain, but would
>dearly like to know. The British, so I gather, are puzzled by some AmE
>usages of 'got'. Have/has seems to no longer be necessary before certain
>such usages of 'got'.
>
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Yes, and Americans are puzzled by some BritEng usages of 'got'.  And when
was 'have/has' ever "necessary" before 'got'?  And  why is "I have got to
go" ambiguous--either orally or in writing?


_____________________________________________
Beverly Olson Flanigan         Department of Linguistics
Ohio University                     Athens, OH  45701
Ph.: (740) 593-4568              Fax: (740) 593-2967
http://www.cats.ohiou.edu/linguistics/dept/flanigan.htm