Contraction for "going to"

Question

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.

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]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.[/nq]
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

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]All of my dictionaries list the contraction for "going to" as "gonna" but almost everyone says "gunna" instead of "gonna". Why is that?[/nq]
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

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]All of my dictionaries list the contraction for "going to" ... Why is that? Thank you in advance for all replies.[/nq]
[nq:1]You're worried about people mispronouncing a word which does not exist?

You could probably make the same case for ... I first came to the US, and now I'm having a hard time relearning how to speak properly. Cheers, Pete[/nq]
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

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]All of my dictionaries list the contraction for "going to" ... Why is that? Thank you in advance for all replies.[/nq]
[nq:1]You're worried about people mispronouncing a word which does not exist?

You could probably make the same case for ... people pronounce different words differently - different accents. Most people around me pronounce it more like "gonna" than like "gunna".[/nq]
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"?
[nq:1]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.[/nq]
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.
[nq:1]Cheers, Pete[/nq]
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.

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Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]All of my dictionaries list the contraction for "going to" as "gonna" but almost everyone says "gunna" instead of "gonna". Why is that?[/nq]
"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)

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]So, the spelling "gonna" is phonetic for many people. If pronounced ('gVn@) ("gunna"), the spelling "gonna" is etymological, since it is based upon "going."[/nq]
My Random House Dictionary on CDROM pronounces it as "gonna" (gôÆnÃ; unstressed gÃ 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.

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]All of my dictionaries list the contraction for "going to" as "gonna" but almost everyone says "gunna" instead of "gonna". Why is that?[/nq]
[nq:1]"Contraction" usually means the ' in written words like isn't, hasn't etc. Gonna is something different, better called phonetic trancription ... Mark Twain, Joel Chandler Harris etc.) but should not be confused with contraction. Don Phillipson Carlsbad Springs (Ottawa, Canada)[/nq]
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

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]All of my dictionaries list the contraction for "going to" as "gonna" but almost everyone says "gunna" instead of "gonna". Why is that?[/nq]
[nq:1]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.[/nq]
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

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]There's one more consideration. Linguists believe that "gonna" is used by young children as a lexeme with the result that ... "gonna" is not just the standard spelling, it's the only spelling which makes sense: "going to" would represent a distortion.[/nq]
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)

Usenet · Answer

[nq:2]There's one more consideration. Linguists believe that "gonna" is used ... spelling which makes sense: "going to" would represent a distortion.[/nq]
[nq:1]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)[/nq]
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

Contraction for "going to"

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