Taking a Free Ride in Morphophonemic Learning McCarthy, 2005
Pullum’s Cliticization vs. Inflection: English n’t 1983, by the contrasts in between English clitic auxiliaries e.g. ’s ‘is, has’, ’d ‘would’ and the element
they argue is an inflectional affix, n’t or might be said as ‘NEG’. Zwicky and Pullum 1983:508 have made the list of negative contractions
in auxiliaries and modal verbs. The table can be seen as follows:
No Auxiliaries and
Modal Verbs Phonetic
Transcription Negative
Contraction Form Phonetic
Transcription
1. do
[du] don’t
[dont] 2.
does [dʌ z]
doesn’t [dʌ zṇ t]
3. did
[dɪd] didn’t
[dɪdṇ t] 4.
have [hæv]
haven’t [hævṇ t]
5. has
[hæz] hasn’t
[hæzṇ t] 6.
had [hæd]
hadn’t [hædṇ t]
7. can
[kæn] cannot
can’t [kænat]
[kænt] 8.
could [kʊd]
couldn’t [kʊdṇ t]
9. may
[me] —
— 10.
might [mait]
mightn’t [maitṇ t]
11. shall
[šæl] shan’t
[šænt] 12.
should [šʊd]
shouldn’t [šʊdṇ t]
13. will
[wɪl] won’t
[wont] 14.
would [wʊd]
wouldn’t [wʊdṇ t]
15. dare
[der] daren’t
[dernt] 16.
must [mʌ st]
mustn’t [mʌ sṇ t]
17. need
[nid] needn’t
[nidṇ t] 18.
ought [ɔ t]
oughtn’t [ɔ tṇ t]
19. am
[æm] —
— 20.
are [ar]
aren’t [arnt]
21. is
[ɪz] isn’t
[ɪzṇ t] 22.
was [wʌ z]
wasn’t [wʌ zṇ t]
23. were
[wṛ] weren’t
[wṛnt] 24.
— —
ain’t [ent]
Table 1. The list of negative contraction in auxiliaries and modal verbs
Based on the Table 1, the clitic auxiliaries can attach to words of any class that happen to fall at the right edge of the preceding constituent. n’t can only be
added to finite forms of auxiliary and modal verbs. Combinations of clitic auxiliaries with preceding material are limited only by the possibilities of the
syntax; some combinations of modal plus n’t do not exist e.g. mayn’t, amn’t while one ain’t does not correspond to a specific non-negative form.
Combinations of host plus clitic auxiliary are governed by the regular phonology of English as seen for instance in regular plurals and past tense forms with the
endings z and d; forms such as don’t, won’t, can’t and shan’t bear idiosyncratic relations to their non-negative counterparts.
Clitic auxiliaries make the same syntactic and semantic contribution to a sentence as full forms; auxiliaries in n’t can have idiosyncratic semantics. Thus, in
you mustn’t go the negation is within the scope of the modal, while in you can’t
go the modal is in the scope of negation. Zwicky-Pullum, 1983:509
Clitic auxiliaries do not move together with their host. Thus, a question corresponding to I think John’s at the door is Who do you think’s at the door? and
not Who’s do you think at the door?. On the other hand, the negated auxiliaries move as a unit. The question corresponding to I haven’t any more bananas is
Haven’t you any more bananas? and not Have youn’t any more bananas?
Zwicky-Pullum 1983:506