ran@ho95b.UUCP (RANeinast) (02/18/85)
Something that's suddenly bugging me is the construction "I've got", as in "I've got to go to the store", sometimes also "I have got to go to the store." What does the "got" do? "I have to go to the store" says the same thing. I should mention that the construction seems to be standard English. I do it, and everybody I know does it, but, as I think about it, it still strikes me as pretty silly and useless. My guess on its origin is that people starting to say "I have" automatically contracted to "I've", and then the sentence didn't feel like it had a verb, so they put in the got (but why got?). Anybody out there have any words of wisdom (or otherwise) on this? -- ". . . and shun the frumious Bandersnatch." Robert Neinast (ihnp4!ho95c!ran) AT&T-Bell Labs
riddle@ut-sally.UUCP (Prentiss Riddle) (02/26/85)
>> Something that's suddenly bugging me is the construction "I've got", >> as in "I've got to go to the store", sometimes also "I have got to >> go to the store." ... >> >> My guess on its origin is that people starting to say "I have" >> automatically contracted to "I've", and then the sentence didn't >> feel like it had a verb, so they put in the got (but why got?). Aren't you confusing two things here? There's a much simpler and more commonplace case where colloquial English substitutes "have got" for "have": I have three bananas. I've got three bananas. This seems to me to be entirely analogous to the case you cite, even though they mean different things: I have to go to the store. I've got to go to the store. This would suggest that your puzzling question is really two puzzling questions: (1) Why is "have got" often substituted for "have"? (2) What is the connection between the verb of possession "have" (and, of course, "have got") and the concept of obligation or necessity? I've got no light to shed on the first question, although I suspect that there are historical reasons much more complicated than "the sentence didn't feel like it had a verb." As for the second question, I can only point out that other European languages do the same thing. Spanish, for instance, has two verbs corresponding to "to have," one the helping verb "haber" and the other the verb of possession "tener". Both are used by extension in expressions of obligation or necessity: Hay que ir a la tienda. (It is necessary to go to the store.) El tiene que ir a la tienda. (He has to go to the store.) --- Prentiss Riddle ("Aprendiz de todo, maestro de nada.") --- {ihnp4,harvard,seismo,gatech,ctvax}!ut-sally!riddle --- riddle@ut-sally.UUCP, riddle@ut-sally.ARPA, riddle@zotz.ARPA
tonyw@ubvax.UUCP (Tony Wuersch) (03/22/85)
> Something that's suddenly bugging me is the construction "I've got", > as in "I've got to go to the store", sometimes also "I have got to > go to the store." > > What does the "got" do? > "I have to go to the store" says the same thing. > > My guess on its origin is that people starting to say "I have" > automatically contracted to "I've", and then the sentence didn't > feel like it had a verb, so they put in the got (but why got?). > -- > Robert Neinast (ihnp4!ho95c!ran) > AT&T-Bell Labs My own "native language user" sense (I'm not sure I accept the idea that native language users have the right answers to these questions, but anyhow ...) would respond this way: That guess has some merit to it, since "I have" loses its sense of obligation ("must") when it's contracted to "I've", so "got" has to be used to get the sense of obligation back. It allows the contraction to "I've" to be automatic without seeming inappropriate in some sentences. To more tries: a) "got" often indicates the immediate future: "I've got to go" as "I have to go now." "Have" without "got" often indicates distant future, the time for which schedules get set: "I have to go" as "It's on my schedule to go today." Distinctions between immediate and distant time are major features of creoles and dialects, like Black English. "Got" could have passed over from a creole. b) "got" sometimes indicates lack of choice. "I have to go" can be an insult in some situations if it's followed by leaving, whereas "I have got to go" can carry hints of emergency or forced obligation. "I have got to go" cuts off the rejoinder, "Do you have to go?", for instance. Tony Wuersch {amd,amdcad}!cae780!ubvax!tonyw