Re: "Shouldn't ought" --and "might oughta"

[RonButters at AOL.COM]

In a message dated 8/1/05 12:39:53 PM, laurence.horn at YALE.EDU writes:


> I don't have "might oughta" either, and do have "shouldn't oughta" at
> least passively, but my inference from the field work and reading I
> did once on multiple modal dialects is that "might" in modal
> sequences virtually always (i) occurs first in the sequence and (ii)
> is paraphrasable by "maybe" or "perhaps", as a wide-scope epistemic.
> So this would be "Mebbe you (etc.) oughta..."
>

As I recall, Atwood (or was it Kurath and McDavid?) showed "might oughta" in
western Pennsylvania. Since Iowa is right in the path of that "North Midland"
track, my daddy might coulda got it naturally. Larry, om the other hand, would
be way too north for it.