On-Going Change in English Modality: Emancipation Through Frequency
When looking at language historically, one Ànds that many words are derived from more complex constructions. For instance, in English, never used to be ›not ever‹ (Old English ne æfre), and maybe means ›it may be that‹; a rather bizarre case is ampersand (the name of the character ›&‹), which apparently is derived from ›and per se and‹. In today’s English, we accept these words as fully legitiOn-Going Change in English Modality: Emancipation Through Frequency The English modal expressions BE going to, HAVE got to, and want to are often contracted to gonna, gotta, and wanna in spoken language. These contracted forms have gained both in frequency and conventionality in recent times.In this article, I present an investigation into the status of the contractions between phonetic reduction
