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From: lambert@boring.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.nlang
Subject: Re: The word "won't".
Message-ID: <6550@boring.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 5-Aug-85 11:09:07 EDT
Article-I.D.: boring.6550
Posted: Mon Aug  5 11:09:07 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 7-Aug-85 00:37:20 EDT
References: <565@rtech.UUCP> <1216@sjuvax.UUCP> <430@spar.UUCP>
Reply-To: lambert@boring.UUCP (Lambert Meertens)
Distribution: net
Organization: CWI, Amsterdam
Lines: 32
Apparently-To: rnews@mcvax.LOCAL

>>> Does anyone know how the contraction for "will not" came to be "won't"?
>>> "Willn't" seems more logical. --  Jeff Lichtman 
>
>    [...]
>    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
>
>    -- Michael Ellis

According to the Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, there once was an
intermediate form "wonnot", so the "l" was assimilated rather than dropped
before the contraction took place.

     Lambert Meertens
     ...!{seismo,okstate,garfield,decvax,philabs}!lambert@mcvax.UUCP
     CWI (Centre for Mathematics and Computer Science), Amsterdam
-- 

     Lambert Meertens
     ...!{seismo,okstate,garfield,decvax,philabs}!lambert@mcvax.UUCP
     CWI (Centre for Mathematics and Computer Science), Amsterdam