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From: riddle@ut-sally.UUCP (Prentiss Riddle)
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: I've got it
Message-ID: <1119@ut-sally.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 26-Feb-85 00:30:11 EST
Article-I.D.: ut-sally.1119
Posted: Tue Feb 26 00:30:11 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 27-Feb-85 21:01:57 EST
References: <310@ho95b.UUCP>
Organization: U. of Tx. at Houston-in-the-Hills
Lines: 42

>> Something that's suddenly bugging me is the construction "I've got",
>> as in "I've got to go to the store", sometimes also "I have got to
>> go to the store." ...
>> 
>> My guess on its origin is that people starting to say "I have"
>> automatically contracted to "I've", and then the sentence didn't
>> feel like it had a verb, so they put in the got (but why got?).

Aren't you confusing two things here?  There's a much simpler and more
commonplace case where colloquial English substitutes "have got" for
"have":

	I have three bananas.
	I've got three bananas.

This seems to me to be entirely analogous to the case you cite, even though
they mean different things:

	I have to go to the store.
	I've got to go to the store.

This would suggest that your puzzling question is really two puzzling
questions:

  (1)  Why is "have got" often substituted for "have"?
  (2)  What is the connection between the verb of possession "have" (and,
       of course, "have got") and the concept of obligation or necessity?

I've got no light to shed on the first question, although I suspect that
there are historical reasons much more complicated than "the sentence didn't
feel like it had a verb."  As for the second question, I can only point out
that other European languages do the same thing.  Spanish, for instance, has
two verbs corresponding to "to have," one the helping verb "haber" and the
other the verb of possession "tener".  Both are used by extension in
expressions of obligation or necessity:

	Hay que ir a la tienda.		(It is necessary to go to the store.)
	El tiene que ir a la tienda.	(He has to go to the store.)

--- Prentiss Riddle ("Aprendiz de todo, maestro de nada.")
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--- riddle@ut-sally.UUCP, riddle@ut-sally.ARPA, riddle@zotz.ARPA