clitics (was Re: Jovian's Verbs From Hell)

On 2 Sep 02, at 15:18, Thomas R. Wier wrote:

[-a as a cliticised form of "have" as an auxiliary]
> Mastery of this clitic is one quality of fluency in the
> language.
As is mastery of the -a from "to", and knowing when to use it. One of
my pet peeves is when learners of English use "gonna" or "wanna" in
written English -- and then sometimes go on to claim that "everyone
does it"!

Well, maybe it's useful to learn those pronunciations in order to
understand people who use that in speech, and possible even to use the
pronunciations themselves -- but IMO those spellings look awful in
writing. IMAO they make the writer look stupid, just like abbreviating
à la "r u" for "are you".

Cheers,
Philip
--
Philip Newton <Philip.Newton@...>

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