dialect in novels

[MVSCHNUR]

I think the "have" is superfluous. "Got" means, or should mean, "I obtained
it", ie. I didn't have it, so I obtained [got] it. Thus, by getting it, I
"have" it, is understood.


At 09:58 AM 2/24/01 -0500, you wrote:
>My sense of "have got" is that the "got" is usually superfluous.
>
>Bob
>
>Mark Odegard 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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