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Message |
Daniel Prince
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 12:34 am
Post subject: Contraction for "going to" |
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All of my dictionaries list the contraction for "going to" as
"gonna" but almost everyone says "gunna" instead of "gonna". Why is
that? Thank you in advance for all replies.
--
My cat really loves me. When it is cold at night he lies right
up against me in the bed to help keep me warm. |
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Pete
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 12:50 am
Post subject: Re: Contraction for "going to" |
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"Daniel Prince" wrote
| Quote: | All of my dictionaries list the contraction for "going to" as
"gonna" but almost everyone says "gunna" instead of "gonna". Why is
that? Thank you in advance for all replies.
|
You're worried about people mispronouncing a word which does not exist? :)
You could probably make the same case for "wanna" being pronounced more like
"wunna".
Different people pronounce different words differently - different accents.
Most people around me pronounce it more like "gonna" than like "gunna".
Personally, I hate these contractions. They sound terrible. I learned them
when I first came to the US, and now I'm having a hard time relearning how
to speak properly.
Cheers,
Pete |
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Adrian Bailey
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 2:07 am
Post subject: Re: Contraction for "going to" |
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"Daniel Prince" <neutrino1@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:n438d15vhhrnv54j824i7pc73af1l1rodv@4ax.com...
| Quote: | All of my dictionaries list the contraction for "going to" as
"gonna" but almost everyone says "gunna" instead of "gonna". Why is
that?
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I think the spelling is because of the "o" in the original. There's no
objection in principle though to writing "gunna", so do it if you prefer.
Adrian |
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Raymond S. Wise
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 2:09 am
Post subject: Re: Contraction for "going to" |
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Pete wrote:
| Quote: | "Daniel Prince" wrote
All of my dictionaries list the contraction for "going to" as
"gonna" but almost everyone says "gunna" instead of "gonna". Why is
that? Thank you in advance for all replies.
You're worried about people mispronouncing a word which does not exist? :)
You could probably make the same case for "wanna" being pronounced more like
"wunna".
Different people pronounce different words differently - different accents.
Most people around me pronounce it more like "gonna" than like "gunna".
Personally, I hate these contractions. They sound terrible. I learned them
when I first came to the US, and now I'm having a hard time relearning how
to speak properly.
Cheers,
Pete
|
Not only is "gonna" a word, but it's a word with a standard spelling (
look it up via www.onelook.com ), which would make any spelling other
than "gonna" a questionable choice. I expect that most of the
dictionaries listing it, however, would show the first vowel to be the
same as that in "gone." For example, the *Oxford-Hachette French
Dictionary,* in the English section, gives [A.] for the first vowel of
"gonna," which is the same vowel as that is gives for the British (RP)
version of "gone."
So, the spelling "gonna" is phonetic for many people. If pronounced
['gVn@] ("gunna"), the spelling "gonna" is etymological, since it is
based upon "going."
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com |
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meirman
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 4:16 am
Post subject: Re: Contraction for "going to" |
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In alt.english.usage on Tue, 12 Jul 2005 14:50:00 -0400 "Pete"
<escape2music@hotmail.com> posted:
| Quote: |
"Daniel Prince" wrote
All of my dictionaries list the contraction for "going to" as
"gonna" but almost everyone says "gunna" instead of "gonna". Why is
that? Thank you in advance for all replies.
You're worried about people mispronouncing a word which does not exist? :)
You could probably make the same case for "wanna" being pronounced more like
"wunna".
Different people pronounce different words differently - different accents.
Most people around me pronounce it more like "gonna" than like "gunna".
|
I doubt everyone says it the same way, and gonna retains the "o" from
going. I think it's a better spelling. How do you prounouce "won"?
| Quote: | Personally, I hate these contractions. They sound terrible. I learned them
when I first came to the US, and now I'm having a hard time relearning how
to speak properly.
|
It depends where you are. Presenting a proposal at work is different
from singing folk songs** or cheering for the team.
**No folk songs with gonna come to mind. Only popular songs below.
| Quote: | Cheers,
Pete
They're important for songs, where extra syllables mess up the rhythm. |
It's not just coincidence. Situations that call for "going to" would
require a whole differnt melody, with a melody hard to maintain for an
entire song.
"I'm gonna make you love me..." Diana Ross
I'm gonna sit right down and write myself a letter.... I"m gonna write
words oh so sweet, they're gonna knock you off your feet. A lot of
letters at the bottom, you'll be glad you got 'em. The Four
Freshmen? Late 50's early 60's anyhow.
And an example of 2 different usages:
Going to the chapel and I'm gonna get married... The 60's.
s/ meirman
Posting from alt.english.usage
--
If you are emailing me please
say if you are posting the same response.
Town NW of Pittsburgh Pa. 0 to 10 years
Indianapolis 7 years
Chicago 6 years
Brooklyn NY 12 years
now in Baltimore 22 years |
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Raymond S. Wise
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 7:03 am
Post subject: Re: Contraction for "going to" |
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Adrian Bailey wrote:
| Quote: | "Daniel Prince" <neutrino1@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:n438d15vhhrnv54j824i7pc73af1l1rodv@4ax.com...
All of my dictionaries list the contraction for "going to" as
"gonna" but almost everyone says "gunna" instead of "gonna". Why is
that?
I think the spelling is because of the "o" in the original. There's no
objection in principle though to writing "gunna", so do it if you prefer.
|
There are two objections I would make to ['gVn@] being represented by
"gunna." The first, as I mentioned before, is that there is a standard
spelling of "gonna," and that spelling represents ['gVn@] and [ g @ n @
] (I stretch that out to avoid Google's munging of text containing @)
as well as other pronunciations.
The second is similar to my objection to representing "was" as "wuz."
To people who pronounce "was" with a vowel different than [V] or [@],
"wuz" seems an acceptable pronunciation spelling. To those of us who
say the word with [V] or [@], however, "wuz" either appears to be eye
dialect, in which case it is an insult, or it appears to represent a
pronunciation different than [wVz] or [ w @ z ], in which case we would
pronounce an exaggerated version of [V] instead of the pronunciation
intended by the author. "Gunna" would be similarly treated, I would
expect.
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com |
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Raymond S. Wise
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 7:03 am
Post subject: Re: Contraction for "going to" |
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Don Phillipson wrote:
| Quote: | "Daniel Prince" <neutrino1@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:n438d15vhhrnv54j824i7pc73af1l1rodv@4ax.com...
All of my dictionaries list the contraction for "going to" as
"gonna" but almost everyone says "gunna" instead of "gonna". Why is
that?
"Contraction" usually means the ' in written
words like isn't, hasn't etc. Gonna is something
different, better called phonetic trancription of
the way (some) people talk. This is not new.
"Dialect" writing has been in and out of fashion
several times (cf. Mark Twain, Joel Chandler
Harris etc.) but should not be confused with
contraction.
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)
|
The representation of dialect can be either phonetic or it can be "eye
dialect." Mark Twain did not write in eye dialect but instead carefully
represented dialect by the use of phonetic spelling. Joel Chandler
Harris, on the other hand, wrote in eye dialect. In *Uncle Remus: His
Songs and His Sayings,* for example, he represents "says" in the speech
of white characters by "says" while he represents the same word spoken
by a black character, Uncle Remus, as "sez." As the American linguist
George P. Krapp, who coined "eye dialect," put it, in eye dialect "the
convention violated is one of the eyes, not of the ear."
There's one more consideration. Linguists believe that "gonna" is used
by young children as a lexeme with the result that it is not divisible
into "going" and "to." When representing the speech of such children,
"gonna" is not just the standard spelling, it's the only spelling which
makes sense: "going to" would represent a distortion.
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com |
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Daniel Prince
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 7:03 am
Post subject: Re: Contraction for "going to" |
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"Raymond S. Wise" <mplsray@my-deja.com> wrote:
| Quote: | So, the spelling "gonna" is phonetic for many people. If pronounced
['gVn@] ("gunna"), the spelling "gonna" is etymological, since it is
based upon "going."
|
My Random House Dictionary on CDROM pronounces it as "gonna"
(gôÆnÃ; unstressed gà nÃ).
The only other dictionary I have that pronounces words is Microsoft
Bookshelf 1996-97 and it does not list "gonna".
--
My cat really loves me. When it is cold at night he lies right
up against me in the bed to help keep me warm. |
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Don Phillipson
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 7:04 am
Post subject: Re: Contraction for "going to" |
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"Daniel Prince" <neutrino1@comcast.net> wrote in message
news:n438d15vhhrnv54j824i7pc73af1l1rodv@4ax.com...
| Quote: | All of my dictionaries list the contraction for "going to" as
"gonna" but almost everyone says "gunna" instead of "gonna". Why is
that?
|
"Contraction" usually means the ' in written
words like isn't, hasn't etc. Gonna is something
different, better called phonetic trancription of
the way (some) people talk. This is not new.
"Dialect" writing has been in and out of fashion
several times (cf. Mark Twain, Joel Chandler
Harris etc.) but should not be confused with
contraction.
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada) |
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Don Phillipson
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Jul 13, 2005 6:50 pm
Post subject: Re: Contraction for "going to" |
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"Raymond S. Wise" <mplsray@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:1121230209.829214.183090@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
| Quote: | There's one more consideration. Linguists believe that "gonna" is used
by young children as a lexeme with the result that it is not divisible
into "going" and "to." When representing the speech of such children,
"gonna" is not just the standard spelling, it's the only spelling which
makes sense: "going to" would represent a distortion.
|
How do language scientists tell whether a lexeme is in
the eye or ear of the observer, or in the language? Does
any independent rule define lexeme?
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada) |
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Raymond S. Wise
Guest
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| Posted: Thu Jul 14, 2005 1:21 pm
Post subject: Re: Contraction for "going to" |
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Don Phillipson wrote:
| Quote: | "Raymond S. Wise" <mplsray@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:1121230209.829214.183090@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
There's one more consideration. Linguists believe that "gonna" is used
by young children as a lexeme with the result that it is not divisible
into "going" and "to." When representing the speech of such children,
"gonna" is not just the standard spelling, it's the only spelling which
makes sense: "going to" would represent a distortion.
How do language scientists tell whether a lexeme is in
the eye or ear of the observer, or in the language? Does
any independent rule define lexeme?
--
Don Phillipson
Carlsbad Springs
(Ottawa, Canada)
|
I don't really know, and don't wish to speculate. I do know, however,
that some linguists have argued that position, but I may have given the
wrong impression (because I myself had the wrong impression) about how
widely that position is believed in the linguistics community. Geoffrey
K. Pullum--that's the correct spelling of his name, the page I cite
below misspells it--the co-author of *The Cambridge Grammar of the
English Language argues against that position and against another
competing one:
From
http://www.lsadc.org/language/731.html
[quote]
_The morpholexical nature of English to -contraction_
Geoffry K. Pullum
University of California, Santa Cruz
The forms represented orthographically as [wanna], [hafta], [gonna],
[oughta], [usta], and [sposta] have standardly been analyzed as
involving a syntactic rule or cliticization operation called
_to_-contraction. Occasionally it has been suggested that the forms in
question have been 'lexicalized', i.e. _wanna_ and _hafta_ are
synchronically distinct lexemes from _want_ and _have._ I argue that
neither approach is correct.
[end quote]
I've omitted his argument, which you can read on that page.
--
Raymond S. Wise
Minneapolis, Minnesota USA
E-mail: mplsray @ yahoo . com |
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Guest
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| Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2005 2:35 am
Post subject: Re: Contraction for "going to" |
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Daniel Prince wrote:
| Quote: | All of my dictionaries list the contraction for "going to" as
"gonna" but almost everyone says "gunna" instead of "gonna". Why is
that? Thank you in advance for all replies.
--
|
Almost everyone who? Where?
What I hear is [gO n@]. I have seen this spelled "gonna" all my life
-- except in mysteries written by Jon Cleary, an Australian, who spells
it "gunna." I figured that must be local accent or dialect.
Cece |
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Mike Lyle
Guest
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| Posted: Sun Jul 17, 2005 3:03 am
Post subject: Re: Contraction for "going to" |
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ceceliaarmstrong@yahoo.com wrote:
| Quote: | Daniel Prince wrote:
All of my dictionaries list the contraction for "going to" as
"gonna" but almost everyone says "gunna" instead of "gonna". Why
is
that? Thank you in advance for all replies.
--
Almost everyone who? Where?
What I hear is [gO n@]. I have seen this spelled "gonna" all my
life
-- except in mysteries written by Jon Cleary, an Australian, who
spells it "gunna." I figured that must be local accent or dialect.
Cece
|
No problem: Americans, the majority English-speakers, pronounce "o"
differently from most of the rest of us. See "Mom".
--
Mike. |
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Iain
Guest
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| Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2005 4:20 pm
Post subject: Re: Contraction for "going to" |
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Raymond S. Wise wrote:
| Quote: | Pete wrote:
"Daniel Prince" wrote
All of my dictionaries list the contraction for "going to" as
"gonna" but almost everyone says "gunna" instead of "gonna". Why is
that? Thank you in advance for all replies.
You're worried about people mispronouncing a word which does not exist? :)
You could probably make the same case for "wanna" being pronounced more like
"wunna".
Different people pronounce different words differently - different accents.
Most people around me pronounce it more like "gonna" than like "gunna".
Personally, I hate these contractions. They sound terrible. I learned them
when I first came to the US, and now I'm having a hard time relearning how
to speak properly.
Cheers,
Pete
Not only is "gonna" a word, but it's a word with a standard spelling
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The word is go'n' 'o
~Iain |
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