Re: USAGE: Aren't/Amn't

Melissa Phong wrote:

>Can anybody tell me how this developed in English? Why is it grammatically
>correct to say "aren't I" instead of "amn't I"?
Well, "am" + "n't" does exist, it's just irregular.  The form in question is
"ain't".  So the full paradigm is (or was):

        I ain't
        you aren't
        s/he isn't
        we aren't
        you aren't
        they aren't

Long ago, "ain't" became generalized in certain dialects, replacing "isn't",
"aren't", "hasn't", and "haven't" (or some subset of these, depending on
dialect).  Since these dialects were socially stigmatized, the use of "ain't"
eventually came under fire, and has now dropped out of Standard English.
An unforeseen side-effect of the linguistic pogrom is that now we no longer
have a contraction for "am" + "not", and are forced to use "am not" or
"aren't" instead.

Matt.