Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site spar.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!harpo!decvax!decwrl!spar!ellis From: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis) Newsgroups: net.nlang Subject: Re: The word "won't". Message-ID: <430@spar.UUCP> Date: Wed, 31-Jul-85 03:25:32 EDT Article-I.D.: spar.430 Posted: Wed Jul 31 03:25:32 1985 Date-Received: Fri, 2-Aug-85 05:38:38 EDT References: <565@rtech.UUCP> <1216@sjuvax.UUCP> Reply-To: ellis@spar.UUCP (Michael Ellis) Distribution: net Organization: Schlumberger Palo Alto Research, CA Lines: 64 >> Does anyone know how the contraction for "will not" came to be "won't"? >> "Willn't" seems more logical. -- Jeff Lichtman > > The word 'will' comes from the German verb 'wollen', meaning to want.(cf. >also the English verb "to will" meaning basically the same thing). Actual- >ly, the 'o' appears more often in the conjugation of that verb than the 'i', >which is found only in the present tense. My best guess is that the 'o' in >'wollen' carried over into the English contraction. -- Dave Iannucci I do not see how this is a reasonable explanation, in light of how insignificant the impact of German on English has been. Also note that `will', a modal auxiliary verb, is part of the structural vocabulary, and such words are typically native in most languages. If you check your dictionary, you'll probably see that `will' derives from Anglo-Saxon `willan'. No doubt, German `wollen' is related, but I cannot accept the statement that `will' comes from German! Therefore I offer some more idle speculation and handwaving of the most dubious sort. According to some old texts by Wright and Sweet, Middle English also had alternate unaccented forms with -o-, which apparently resulted from the labial influence of the preceding w- on the weak vowel. Eventually the -o- form spread to accented contexts as well. At a later point, the variation between wil/wol became fixed so that the -o- appeared only in the negative, which approached the modern form thru the phonetic steps below: wolnt => wowlnt => wownt Note the similarity below: folk => fowlk => fowk One weakness of this argument is that -l- drops out before + k, as in {walk, yolk..}, but not usually elsewhere. In its defense, one could point out that -l- in fact dropped out in {would, should, shan't} as well. Admittedly, this all sounds most speculative, and Wright/Sweet are hardly the latest word on such matters. Also note that commonly used words often follow exceptional paths. Sometimes this is due to change in stress, as in our 1st person singular pronoun, whose modern pronunciation apparently came about by repeated splits due to accentuation and levelings in four different periods: 1 2 3 4 accented ich - ich ii --- ay / \ [ii=long-i, ch as in church] unaccented ich - i ---- i ay Other times, analogy with unrelated forms can cause otherwise unexpected changes, and I would not be surprised if (don't) has had some effect on the selection of the modern form (won't), since they both often appear in similar contexts. As I said, idle speculation and handwaving... -michael