I got hung up on contractions this morning regarding the word “you’ve”. Normally, I’d say “you’ve got a problem”, which expands to “you have got a problem”, which isn’t wrong, but I normally wouldn’t say. Not contracting, I’d say “you have a problem”, so then should I just say “you’ve a problem”? That sounds weird in my head. Is this just a US English problem?
In the sentence “you have a problem”, “have” is the main verb. When reduced to the clitic “'ve”, it becomes a weak form and is only expected to be used as an auxiliary verb. These types of verbs must be followed by the main verb. “a” is not a verb. Thus, we insert “got”.
If we do not insert “got”, the stress in the sentence moves and it sounds overly affected.
I’m not too sure, but I think “be” (“is”, “are”) is the only verb that can be contracted and still remain a main verb. I’m not too sure why.
🏆 Award for well thought out and educational answer!
To add to this, “have got” is perfect tense. “You’re a man” is different because “are” isn’t an auxiliary verb here, it is just added to “you” as a contraction. That phrase would probably be an existential clause.
I miss World Wide Words!
“You’ve a problem” actually still works, but it’s an older way of saying it
Yeah, I’ve definitely heard Brits say similar phrases
Yes, English is weird.
‘Bough’ and ‘cough’ are not pronounced the same. ‘Bough’ and ‘bow’ are pronounced the same. ‘Knee’ and ‘Leigh’ are pronounced the same. ‘Neigh’ and ‘nay’ are pronounced the same. ‘Polish’ (the nationality) and ‘polish’ (as in what you do to a metal object) are not pronounced the same. ‘Tear’ (as in to rip) and ‘tear’ (as in to cry) are spelled the same, but not pronounced the same. Other words which are spelled the same, but pronounced differently:
resume / resume present / present record / record close / close use / use live / live
‘Bough’ and ‘bow’ are pronounced the same
Except, of course, when “bow” is pronounced “bow” instead.
I shot the boughs with my bow and then gave a bow to my beau!
The last one should be spelled beau if you mean your special guy.
‘Knee’ and ‘Leigh’ are pronounced the same.
Well they rhyme, but I wouldn’t go as far as to say they’re pronounced the same
I’ve a solution!
What’s it?
It seems that i’m. The solution’s me.
English is weird. It can be understood through tough thorough thought, though
My god it’s a tongue twister for my internal monologue.
Yeah but that’s not English only. Try saying “de el” in Spanish and it sounds super wrong, for similar reasons. Sometimes contractions kill what they replace
It depends on your emphasis. “You HAVE got a problem there,” doesn’t sound weird when you emphasize the have. You’ve a problem doesn’t sound weird, just a bit British.
No, this is a problem with the language in general.
Tom Scott recently did a video about this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkZyZFa5qO0
You’ve got mail!
Goodbye!
It also has secret rules look up adjectives ordering and vowel ordering.
I actually think that 'you have a problem’s and ‘you have got/you’ve got a problem’ are subtely different in meaning. If someone has something, they may have had it all along. It sort of has an ongoing ontological quality. If someone has got something, it implies that they got it at some point in time. I think.
Tom Scott has a great video on contractions.
Y’all crack me up with many of these comments!
Contractions are very regional and a product of spoken English which varies quite a lot from place to place. For example, I use contractions that I don’t see people around me using like: y’all (plural 2nd person pronoun that’s missing in official English speech; verbs are conjugated the same as 2nd person singular forms), shouldn’t’ve, gonna (going to/ going to want to), wanna (want to), that’re, then’ll, then’re etc.
