English grammar - Roger Berry 2012
A7.2 Contractions
A7 Varying the verb phrase
Section A. Introduction
As we have already seen in A6 and B6, in spoken English (and informal written English) it is normal to ’contract’ not and certain auxiliaries. The following contractions are common:
Table A7.2.1 Common contractions
The auxiliary contractions are joined to the subject of the verb: He’s . . . etc. Note that -’s and -’d appear more than once as contractions, so He’s done is potentially ambiguous. It could represent He has done or He is done, though other factors will clarify the situation.
The auxiliary contractions, apart from -’s, are normally used only after subject pronouns (including there); thus
The dog’s outside. (= is)
The cats broken the vase. (= has)
We’d already finished. (= had)
He’d like to eat it. (= would)
However, the dog’d like to eat it would be unlikely.
Note also that does can also be contracted in casual spoken English: What’s he mean? Here -’s stands for does. Thus all three primary auxiliaries can be abbreviated to -’s.
The negative contraction -n’t may be used with all auxiliaries (e.g. haven’t, wouldn’t), apart from am and may (’mayn’t’ is occasionally found; ’amn’t’ is not). There are three irregular forms: won’t, shan’t and can’t (rather than ’willn’t’, ’shalln’t’ and ’cann’t’). Negative contractions are also found with be and (sometimes) have when used as main verbs: She isn’t happy / They haven’t a clue (though They don’t have / haven’t got a clue would be more usual).
Thus in negatives of auxiliaries there are two possibilities: to contract the auxiliary
She’ not coming.
or to contract the negative
She isn’t coming.
But it is unusual to contract both: ’She’sn’t coming’.
Activity A7.2
Expand these contractions into their full forms:
1. She’ satisfied.
2. We’ll be there soon.
3. I’d rather stay at home.
4. I couldn’t’ve done it without your help.
5. She’ satisfied the examiners.
NON-STANDARD FORMS
1. Ain’t is very common in speech and transcriptions as a non-standard contraction of the present forms of both have and be combined with not:
It ain’t gonna happen. (= isn’t; it also stands for aren’t)
I ain’t done it. (= haven’t; it also stands for hasn’t)
This happens also when be is a verb as well as an auxiliary (as it is in the above examples):
She ain’t here.
2. Many dialects of English have a rule that allows for double negation, for example:
I ain’t done nothing.
The standard version of this would be:
I haven’t done anything.