Re: USAGE: gotten

Quoting Tristan McLeay <kesuari@...>:

> I was just installing Windows XP today and happened to notice that it
> said 'If you've had a computer before, you've probably GOTTEN things the
> way you like it', or some-such like that (the actual wording isn't
> important, 'gotten' there is being used in the same way as it was on the
> banner).
>
> 'Gotten' there seems wrong to me (and my younger brother, who generally
> speaks more Americanly than I do). Is that some usage of 'gotten' that
> hasn't (yet) passed into Australian English, or is it ungrammatical in
> the US too and just somehow managed to slip through?
Almost all varieties of American English have two functionally distinct
past participles of the verb <get>:  <got>, which is homophonous with
the preterite form, and <gotten> which is not.  The former is used only
when "I've got (to)" is equivalent to "I have" or "I must". In all other
circumstances, <gotten> is used.

<gotten> is actually the original form that predominated in the
US until the above exceptions were imported from Britain. This is
one of those instances where American English preserves an archaic
feature no longer current in British English, much like Americans
still often say "fall" for the season known in Britain as "autumn".

(Likewise, sometimes RP has features that strike Americans as
old-fashioned, like the use of "amongst" instead of "among".)

> (My brother suggested that 'gotten' is used more to mean 'received',
> although 'I've gotten it' sounds wrong to me, too... I never (rarely)
> use 'gotten'; my younger brother does.)
That's interesting.  Does that suggest that your brother's
use of English is heavily influenced by American dialect?

ObConlang:  Phaleran uses two distinct lexical items to distinguish
between possession of animate things (ksoswa, dial. kwa), and inanimate
things (c'aswa).  Use of the verb for inanimates with humans strongly
implies that the human referred to is enslaved:

   Sorkwa eulta     c'aswasti,
   six    slave.ABS have.TR.1SgProgRe.Sen

   ai  phwalir   kwamiltes*.
   and seven.ORD buy-slave.1SgProsRe.Cog

   "I have six slaves, and am probably going to buy a seventh."

Replacing <c'aswasti> with its animate counterpart <ksoswasti> would
imply something along the lines that there are six slaves that you
personally have as friends, and you are going to buy yourself a
seventh such friend. Obviously, such a reading is pragmatically marked.

* The verb "kwami" is defective, in that it does not mark transitivity
except in valence changing operations like the passive and antipassive.
Some dialects have taken this as model to create a sporadically
productive alternative transitive marker -mi-.  Because this is homophonous
with the standard Phaleran -mi- that marks reflexive, reciprocative
and middle constructions, it is still quite rare.  In these dialects,
a different lexical verb for slave-buying, _xemi-_ is used in these
other voices.

=====================================================================
Thomas Wier          "...koruphàs hetéras hetére:isi prosápto:n /
Dept. of Linguistics  mú:tho:n mè: teléein atrapòn mían..."
University of Chicago "To join together diverse peaks of thought /
1010 E. 59th Street   and not complete one road that has no turn"
Chicago, IL 60637     Empedocles, _On Nature_, on speculative thinkers

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