have vs. have got

Oops, I meant:
Interesting. Well, I guess I "got" outvoted then.

Well, we all have our personal preferences -- our idiolect, I guess it's called. There are things that I balk at saying out of personal dislike, like "whom", and even ordinary words that I avoid, just because I feel silly or strange saying them. But other people use them all the time.

I think there are other things -- especially habits of contraction -- that I do notice being different between Americans and the British. I was watching a British movie once where a character said "I've not brought it." That would never slip out of my mouth. Instead of contracting the "have", I would tend to want to contract the "not" -- but even that's pretty hypothetical, since even "I haven't brought it" would be a strange thing for me to say -- I would be far more likely to say "I didn't bring it".

>>I, personally never say "I've got a piece of paper."
I say, rather "I have a piece of paper."
but of course I have heard other people use the "I've got" or "She's got" form. It's always the contracted form though.<<

Okay, so one can say that Americans generally rather use only 'have' instead of 'have got', though - like Uriel explained - it still has something to do with the idiolect of a person. Regional differences within the US may also play a role.


>>"I've not brought it."<<

This sounds strange to me, too :)

But isn't there a slight difference in meaning between "I haven't brought it" and "I didn't bring it". I thought present perfect is used to express an action that has been finished right now with a relationship to the present, while the simple past refers to something that happened some time in the past and furthermore emphazises the action only.

>> But isn't there a slight difference in meaning between "I haven't brought it" and "I didn't bring it". I thought present perfect is used to express an action that has been finished right now with a relationship to the present, while the simple past refers to something that happened some time in the past and furthermore emphazises the action only. <<

Nope. Not in my idiolect. For some reason, while I can use the "haven't X" form for most words: e.g. "I haven't seen it." or "I didn't see it.", the word "to bring" is an exception. So the only form I use would be "I didn't bring it." I would never say "I haven't brought it."

So for me, "I didn't bring it." and "I haven't brought it." mean exactly the same thing (and I use only the former), even though I make a distinction with other words such as "to see".

<<But isn't there a slight difference in meaning between "I haven't brought it" and "I didn't bring it". I thought present perfect is used to express an action that has been finished right now with a relationship to the present, while the simple past refers to something that happened some time in the past and furthermore emphazises the action only.>>

That difference in meaning exist in British English and in most dialects found in commonwealth countries. But as you see there's no such difference in American English.

Yeah, we don't make much distinction between them. "I haven't done it" can certainly mean the same thing as "I didn't do it", unless there is some specific contextual clue that the action MAY still be pending in the future -- in which case we would automatically understand the distinction, i.e., "I haven't done it YET".

And we would of course preserve it in such phrases as "I haven't done that in a while" -- "I didn't do that in a while" would not make sense and isn't interchangeable.

I am a native NAE speaker, and yet I myself still perceive a difference between "I didn't bring it" and "I haven't brought it". The first I perceive as a simple statement of the fact that the object in question has not been brought. The second, however, is stating that the object's having been brought has not happened *yet*, and rather than being a closed, hard statement of fact is more open-ended in nature (as in it may very well imply that one could, indeed, go back and bring it). Also, the first comes off as more narrative in nature than the latter, which is more something that would come up in actual conversation rather than simply talking about something in the past tense. This is more clearly shown by how one can easily say "I haven't brought it yet" in the dialect here, but "I didn't bring it yet" sound much more akward in nature even though it is understandable, showing the difference between the open-endedness of "I haven't brought it" versus the closed narrativeness of "I didn't bring it".

From thinking about this one more, I have to say that in actual everyday speech I tend to actually prefer the present perfect over the simple past except when asking questions or talking about past events without relation to the present (generally in a factually-oriented fashion), where then I normally prefer the simple past over the present perfect. This is unlike in writing, where I normally always prefer the simple past except in more informal writing, such as at times in forums or when chatting (where more speech-like patterns may be followed).

I have to say that, at least for myself, I do not conflate the simple present and past perfect at all, but in addition to maintaining the idea of a distinction with respect to relation to the present (albeit not quite as strongly as in English English dialects, as some of the examples I have seen English English-speakers give do not have quite as much semantic weight for me) I also have a narrative versus non-narrative (conversational) distinction as well with respect to them. I haven't seen the idea of such mentioned much in talk about such, but from thinking about it, such a distinction is definitely present in the dialect here. The only thing is that unlike English English I do tend to prefer the simple present over the present perfect for questions, but may still use the present perfect at times to emphasize connection to the present (implying that such a distinction is still present).

Also note that for me at least, the present perfect for me is used to the practical exclusion of the simple present with time words/phrases such as "yet", "already", and so on which somehow indicate some relation between the event in question and the present. This again shows that there definitely is a remaining underlying distinction between the two at least for myself, as much as many NAE-speakers may merge the two semantically in some contexts.

I am a native speaker from California, and I would say I agree with Travis on the difference between the present perfect and simple past in that case. If you say "I didn't bring it.", it implies that the time you had for bringing it is now over, but if you say "I haven't brought it.", you have time to bring it in the future.

I tend to think of conflating the two tenses as being somewhat informal in nature, but I really don't sweat it much.

>>I have to say that, at least for myself, I do not conflate the simple present and past perfect at all
...This again shows that there definitely is a remaining underlying distinction between the two at least for myself, as much as many NAE-speakers may merge the two semantically in some contexts.<<

Then it seems that this may also dependent on the idiolect or dialect of a person, although I think it makes sense to draw a distinction between the two and use them in different contexts.

>>The first I perceive as a simple statement of the fact that the object in question has not been brought. The second, however, is stating that the object's having been brought has not happened *yet*<<

Yes, that is exactly how I learned it.

oops...
*dependent -> depend

i think "have" or maybe " 've got" is most commonly used, but in school you learn the "have got" thing all the time. i recommend you use the have without the got when you talk or write stuff just for yourself or your friends and in school you use have got so your teachers won't freak out...!

>> i think "have" or maybe " 've got" is most commonly used, but in school you learn the "have got" thing all the time. i recommend you use the have without the got when you talk or write stuff just for yourself or your friends and in school you use have got so your teachers won't freak out...!<<

I've never seen "have got" in very formal writing. ever.