Re: CHAT: Nonstandard usage (was Natural language change(wasRe:Charlie and I))

Eric Christopherson wrote:
> I forgot about <gotta>... I'm not sure, but I think I only use that in the
> first and second persons usually, and then in a jocular sense. I would
> otherwise say <-'ve got to> or <have/has to>.
Really?!  That's quite interesting, because I don't think I EVER use
"I've got to", except, perhaps, being very emphatic "I've GOT to go",
and even then I think it's probably usually "I've GOTTa go", but most
commonly just

I gotta
You gotta
He's gotta
We gotta
Y'all gotta
They gotta

So, except in third person singular, it's only "gotta"

> Speaking of <to have got> and grammaticalization, many American children (at
> least where I live) use <got> as if it were a simple present tense verb
> synonymous with "have": I got, you got, he gots, she gots, we got, they got.
My ten-year-old (I think he's ten) cousin once asked me "Do you got any
...?"

> How do we classify <got> and <gotten> anyway? They obviously have different
> usages in American English; is it possible they are both past participles?
> Maybe <gotten> is the start of a whole new category :)
Nah, I don't think so.  "Have got" is merely a lexical form which means
"have", it's synchronically no more related to the past tense "got" than
"lay" is to the past tense of "lie" (which is also "lay")

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