Definition and Examples of Negative Contractions

A negative contraction is a   negative verb construction that ends in -nt. These are the negative contractions commonly used in speech and in informal writing: arent, isnt, wasnt, werentcant, couldnt, mustnt, shouldnt, wont, wouldntdidnt, doesnt, donthasnt, havent, hadnt Shant (the contraction of shall not) is extremely rare in American English, but it can still be heard in British English. Contractions for may not (maynt) and might not (mightnt) occur infrequently in contemporary English. Except in Hiberno-English (which uses amnt), there is no negative contraction for am, though the nonstandard form aint is sometimes used in casual speech.   Examples and Observations If you shouldnt be defendin him, then why are you doin it?For a number of reasons, said Atticus. The main one is, if I didnt I couldnt hold up my head in town, I couldnt represent this county in the legislature, I couldnt even tell you or Jem not to do something again.You mean if you didnt defend that man, Jem and I wouldnt have to mind you anymore?Thats about right.(Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird. J.B. Lippincott, 1960)Stella: Oh, you cant describe someone youre in love with! Heres a picture of himBlanche: An officer?Stella: A Master Sergeant in the Engineers Corps. Those are decorations!Blanche: He had those on when you met him?Stella: I assure you I wasnt just blinded by all the brass.(Tennessee Williams, A Streetcar Named Desire, 1947)Ill say, It was an accident Mom . . . a mistake . . . it wont happen again.And Ralph will say, If you hadnt been thinking about that girl this never would have happened.(Judy Blume, Then Again, Maybe I Wont. Bradbury Press, 1971)Im getting very d eaf. I suppose I dont hear people. Emilys got a bad toe. We shant be able to start for Wales till the end of the month.(John Galsworthy, The Forsyte Saga, 1922)Dont go to any trouble on my account, Paul D said.Bread aint trouble. The rest I brought back from where I work.(Toni Morrison, Beloved. Alfred Knopf, 1987) Negative Contraction and Auxiliary Contraction [N]egative contraction is possible for a much wider range of verbs than the auxiliary (or non-negative) contraction in standard English. Practically every verb (except am) has a form with a contracted negative, whereas auxiliary contraction is only possible for a smaller number of verbs. For this reason, speakers have a choice between negative vs auxiliary contraction for the following verb forms only: is, are; have, has had; will, would; shall, should. Some of the auxiliary contracted forms are ambiguous: hes not is the contracted form of both he is not and he has not (although this use is relatively rare); Id not  be derived from either I had not, I would not or I should not, and  youll not can, at least in principle, be the contracted form of you will not or you shall not. In addition, however, one has to consider different syntactic environments. The distinction between auxiliary and negative contraction is only relevant for declarative sentences. Only here and for those verbs listed above do speakers have a choice between negative contraction, auxiliary contraction and completely uncontracted forms. (Lieselotte Anderwald, Negation in Non-Standard British English: Gaps, Regularizations, and Asymmetries. Routledge, 2002) Rogue Contractions Negative contraction is not a possibility with am not (*I amnt), and this causes a difficulty in questions (where inversion does not allow verb contraction). In colloquial English, arent I is sometimes substituted for the non-existent *amnt I. (The full form am I not is generally avoided.) Im naughty arent I? (conv)Arent I supposed to understand? (fict) [Aint] is a very versatile negative contraction, capable of substituting for all negative contractions of be or the auxiliary have: There aint nothing we can do. (fict) isntIm whispering now, aint I? (fict) arentI aint done nothing. (conv) havent Aint is common is the conversation of some dialects, and it occurs in representations of speech in writing. However, aint is widely felt to be nonstandard, and so it is generally avoided in written language, as well as in careful speech. (Douglas Biber, Susan Conrad, and Geoffrey Leech, Longman Student Grammar of Spoken English. Pearson, 2002) The Case Against Aint Long a shibboleth for 20th-century Americans, the negative contraction aint continues to be Substandard when used unconsciously or unintentionally. It is a word, though, and in Vulgar and some Common use, it replaces are not, is not, am not, has not, and have not in statements. Standard English replaces I aint with Im not and the interrogative aint I (which is often added to statements, e.g., Im safe, aint I?) with a choice of somewhat clumsy locutions: am I not? arent I? or an even more roundabout Isnt that so? . . . The firm rejection of aint in Standard use is hard to explain, but clearly, Americans have come down hardest on it, and they have made the rejection stick in Standard American English. Consciously jocular uses are acceptable, but using aint in circumstances that do not suggest deliberate choice may brand you as a speaker of Vulgar English. (Kenneth G. Wilson, The Columbia Guide to Standard American English. Columbia University Press, 1993)​ Negative Contraction and Be Contraction Whereas for all auxiliary verbs negative contraction (e.g. havent, hasnt, wont) is vastly preferred over auxiliary contraction (e.g. ve not, d not, ll not), we get the reverse picture for be. Even isnt (12.5%) and arent (3.5%) are used very rarely in the British Isles, so that the near absence of amnt in standard as well as non-standard varieties is not a striking exception, but simply the tip of the iceberg.The motivation for this striking preference of be-contraction over negative contraction for all other auxiliaries is most likely a cognitive one, namely the extremely low semantic content of be.(Bernd Kortmann, Tanja Herrmann, Lukas Pietsch, and Susanne Wagner, Agreement, Gender, Relative Clauses. Walter de Gruyter, 2005) Negative Contractions and Language Acquisition [C]hildren will use some of the negative contractions prior to their acquisition of the rules for not in the verb phrase. The negative contractions dont, wont, and cant are acquired early and may be used prior to the acquisition of the particular auxiliaries which they represent. Children appear to learn these negative contractions as single morphemes and use them to negate prior to learning the auxiliary plus not.(Virginia A. Heidinger, Analyzing Syntax and Semantics: A Self-Instructional Approach for Teachers and Clinicians. Gallaudet University Press, 1984)