She gotta/ she has gotta

nemo eve walle

Senior Member
chinese
''You gotta be kidding me!'' is a common sentence, gotta means got to, which means have got to, but in informal American English, the "have" is sometimes omitted. So I wonder if I can say this: she gotta be kidding me. Omit the ''has''.
''Have'' can be omitted, so the ''has'', I assume, is the same. Am I right?
 
  • I wouldn't expect to hear anybody omit "has" unless that person used a contraction, nemo eve walle: She's gotta be kidding me. People who speak certain dialects might omit the contraction. I don't recommend that you copy this practice.

    Are you sure you didn't hear "You've gotta be kidding me"?
     
    Oh yes I've heard of it. But I also heard of ''You gotta be kidding me'' with no ''have'' often, that is why I said it was a common sentence.
     
    I've often heard (and even said) "You gotta be kidding me." However, I'm sure I have never heard "she gotta be...."
     
    But, gotta represent ''have got to'', ''you gotta be kidding me'' actually is ''you have got to be kidding me'',
    ''she's gotta be kidding me'' does this mean ''she has have got to kidding me''?
     
    But, gotta represent ''have got to'', ''you gotta be kidding me'' actually is ''you have got to be kidding me'',
    ''she's gotta be kidding me'' does this mean ''she has have got to kidding me''?
    "Gotta" represents "got to", nemo eve walle. The auxiliary "have" isn't included in "gotta".
     
    What you are talking about is a representation of informal speech. I think we are agreed that if we were transcribing what was said in standard spelling, we would write 'She has got to be kidding me'. The level of reduction will depend on many things, and I think 'She gotta be ...' and 'She's gotta be ...' represent two ways in which 'She has got to be ...' is reduced in pronunciation. (The reduction itself is not peculiar to American English. It's perhaps the representation of it that is more associated with it.)
     
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