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Use of"got"

 
 
Lisette
 
Reply Wed 17 Oct, 2012 01:40 am
I am learning english in belgium. I have been marked down for the following sentence -" I have a dog". My teacher says I should have said-"I have GOT a dog". Is this correct?
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Type: Question • Score: 4 • Views: 682 • Replies: 13
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Setanta
 
  2  
Reply Wed 17 Oct, 2012 01:48 am
Your instructor is incorrect. Either sentence is acceptable.
0 Replies
 
fresco
 
  1  
Reply Wed 17 Oct, 2012 05:25 am
@Lisette,
In written UK English, your sentence is stylistically better than your teacher's because the use of "got" is considered superfluous in many cases, or in other contexts could be replaced "received" (etc).
( Note that "English" and "Belgium" should be capitalized )
OmSigDAVID
 
  1  
Reply Wed 17 Oct, 2012 05:40 am
@Lisette,
Lisette wrote:
I am learning english in belgium. I have been marked down for the following sentence -" I have a dog".
My teacher says I should have said-"I have GOT a dog". Is this correct?
Your sentence is completely correct.
"I have a dog" correctly expresses
the state of your possession of a dog.

The way that your teacher wrote it seems to imply
a very recent acquisition of that dog.

The way that you wrote it is better.
Note that I was born in New York
and that I have lived there for many decades.





David
JTT
 
  0  
Reply Thu 18 Oct, 2012 06:57 pm
@Lisette,
Quote:
I have been marked down for the following sentence -" I have a dog". My teacher says I should have said-"I have GOT a dog". Is this correct?


For NaE they have the same meaning but there is a different emotional feeling, Lisette. 'have' is a normal neutral while 'have got' is often used to describe more emotional circumstances.

"I've got a [new] dog!!"

"I've got a [terrible] cold."

"Yay yay yay yay, I've got the winning ticket."

Is your teacher a native English speaker?

In casual speech, the <'ve> is very compressed or completely unvoiced.

I got a new dog!!!!

0 Replies
 
dalehileman
 
  1  
Reply Fri 19 Oct, 2012 12:38 am
@fresco,
Fres is right, "I have got a dog" sounds dumb
JTT
 
  0  
Reply Fri 19 Oct, 2012 09:04 pm
@dalehileman,
Quote:
Fres is right,


For BrE, he most assuredly is, Dale.

When I first saw your name I thought it was Da - le hi le man. Funny what we see sometimes, isn't it?
dalehileman
 
  0  
Reply Sat 20 Oct, 2012 12:24 pm
@JTT,
Quote:
I thought it was Da - le hi le man
Wow
But JTT you'll have to explain the logic behind that

Does it translate "Da, the high, the manly"
JTT
 
  0  
Reply Sat 20 Oct, 2012 12:59 pm
@dalehileman,
Quote:
Wow
But JTT you'll have to explain the logic behind that


There was no logic behind it, Dale - I suspect your name is actually Dale Hileman. There are a lot of westerners who go to India and the like to meditate and seek redemption - but mostly to live a hedonist life style - I thought yours was one of the names these folks often choose.

Quote:
Does it translate "Da, the high, the manly"


Beats me.
dalehileman
 
  0  
Reply Sat 20 Oct, 2012 01:32 pm
@JTT,
Quote:
a hedonist life style - I thought yours was one of the names these folks often choose.
Well I certainly share their hedonistic instincts
0 Replies
 
InfraBlue
 
  1  
Reply Sat 20 Oct, 2012 01:40 pm
@JTT,
JTT wrote:

Quote:
Fres is right,


For BrE, he most assuredly is, Dale.

When I first saw your name I thought it was Da - le hi le man. Funny what we see sometimes, isn't it?


HA, I also thought his name was Indian.
0 Replies
 
JTT
 
  0  
Reply Sat 20 Oct, 2012 02:50 pm
@OmSigDAVID,
Quote:
The way that your teacher wrote it seems to imply
a very recent acquisition of that dog.


No, it doesn't, Om.

Quote:
The way that you wrote it is better.
Note that I was born in New York
and that I have lived there for many decades.


Even after all those decades, it's amazing that you still know virtually nothing about how language works. But it is testament to your pigheadedness.


Quote:

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jlawler/aue/gotten.html

Here's what David Crystal says about The gotten/got distinction in
The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language (p.311):

"Gotten is probably the most distinctive of all the AmE/BrE grammatical
differences, but British people who try to use it often get it wrong.

It is not simply an alternative for have got. Gotten is used in such
contexts as
They've gotten a new boat. (= obtain)
They've gotten interested. (= become)
He's gotten off the chair. (= moved)

But it is not used in the sense of possession (= have). AmE does not
allow
*I've gotten the answer.
or *I've gotten plenty.
but uses I've got as in informal BrE. The availability of gotten
does however mean that AmE can make such distinctions as the following:
They've got to leave (they must leave) vs
They've gotten to leave (they've managed to leave)."

I'd add that Crystal's I've gotten the answer isn't starred [starred indicates ungrammatical for a given dialect] if it means I have figured out the answer, rather than I have the answer.

The key is the overlap between the Possessive use of have and the Perfect use of have, plus the fact that one of the senses of get is come to have. If one has come to have a cold, for instance, then one has a cold, and the AmE usage of 'has got' means that one is currently infested, due to the present relevance aspect of the Perfect. This is so common that kids regularly use got without have or even -'ve to mean have, and young kids even think it's the regular verb for possession, as witness such constructions as He gots new shoes.

Faced with the overwhelming interpretation of '(ha)ve got' as simply 'have', AmE has reinvigorated an old past participle gotten to be used whenever other, non-possessive forms of get are intended.

If one is simply speaking of the acquisition of something, for instance, rather than the current possession, one says I've gotten ..... in AmE since I've got implies that one still has it, and therefore focusses on the current Possession rather than the Perfective acquisition.

And all of the idiomatic uses of get, like the get-Passive of get married, the Inchoative become/come to be inherent in get tired, the Concessive of get to go that Crystal mentions, etc. use gotten as their participle. Whereas any construction, even an idiomatic one like have to (= must) where one can use have equally well, use got as the participle.

Weird, but that's English for you.

followup --

>John doesn't disown the second example sentence, so I suppose he's
>one of the AmE speakers who can make that particular distinction.
Yup.
>I certainly am NOT another; not only can I not imagine myself
>producing the second sentence (with any meaning), I had immense
>trouble understanding it (with any meaning) when I read it, and
>cannot imagine that I'd have understood it if anyone had spoken
>it to me. (Do Crystal's example sentences come from a corpus,
>or does he make them up as he goes along? If the latter,
>could he--a BrE speaker, I guess--just be flat out wrong in
>this particular case?)
He doesn't say, but I assume they're simply made as the need arises, like all sentences. It might not be the best of all possible example sentences -- this is just a sidebar in the Encyclopedia, after all -- but certainly one hears this sort of thing all the time, if one is paying attention. Consider:
Mikey always gets to pitch, but my son hasn't gotten to play at all.
I don't know about that store -- I've never gotten anything there that really lasted.
I'll start the report tomorrow; I haven't gotten the bills done yet.
I could also use got with the last one above (though not with the first two); however, it would have a slightly different sense, focussing on the resultant state, a paraphrase of

I haven't got (= don't have) the bills in a finished state yet.
rather than the simple negation of the work with gotten.
- John Lawler Linguistics Department and Residential College University of Michigan
"Language is the most massive and inclusive art we know, a - Edward Sapir
mountainous and anonymous work of unconscious generations." Language (1921)
0 Replies
 
dalehileman
 
  0  
Reply Sat 20 Oct, 2012 03:36 pm
@dalehileman,
dalehileman wrote:

Fres is right, "I have got a dog" sounds dumb
However there are subtle differences. For instance you'd reply "I've got a dog" in response the q, "Can I give you this dog"
JTT
 
  0  
Reply Sat 20 Oct, 2012 03:45 pm
@dalehileman,
Quote:
However there are subtle differences. For instance you'd reply "I've got a dog" in response the q, "Can I give you this dog"


That's right, Dale. The reply, "I've got a dog" means exactly the same thing as "I have a dog". Both refer to possession.

They do NOT refer to acquisition/receiving/getting a dog.
0 Replies
 
 

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