summary whatever happened weeks ago posted query list regarding disappearance contracted form expressions better stop appeared recent academic publication questioned people attitudes towards standardisation new form better subsequent status bare infinitive stop possibility association extraposed construction better stop implying subjunctive analysis stop likelihood substituting another adjective e g good place better result also questioned possibility inverting better subject interrogatives given analysis auxiliary form received 26 replies would like thank following people sent comments anyone yet tamara al kasey eleanor olds batchelder jonathon berg claudia brugman marsha bundman ellen contini morava max copperman john cowan logical language group david fertig frederik fouvry dorine houston marge jackman roger lass deborah kela ruuskanen james kirchner timothy miller catherine rudin raphael salkie alena sanusi hal schiffman jane simpson dan slobin frits stuurman larry trask ivan uemlianen max wheeler 18 replies question standardisation 9 replied considered standard 9 thought either normal informal ok 8 consider question nobody liked analysis stop subjunctive 2 people considering extraposed derivation sounded educated stilted one reply considered stop imperative form four people replied better auxiliary 7 thought modal semimodal 2 thought construction simply idiomatic john cowan made mention use better yiddish influenced american english sentence prefix better nt go regard inversion interrogatives 9 people considered sai ok one person thought ok invert tags one person thought main clause sai sounded ok also want thank frederik fouvry reference information based syntax semantics hpsg vol 1 pollard sag 1987 better analysed auxiliary nt allow inversion frits stuurman references comments g gazdar g pullum sag 1982 auxiliaries related phenomena restricted theory phrase structure _ language _ 59 3 591638 pp 610611 reference similar case vs gazdar e klein pullum sag 1985 _ generalized phrase structure grammar _ cambridge mass harvard p 64 gazdar pullum sag 1982 p 611 footnote 17 references different meanings modals like shall might inverted interrogatives frits stuurman also cites gpsg reference use better p sells 1985 _ lectures government binding theory generalized phrase structure grammar lexical functional grammar _ stanford csli p 93 many people found analogies modals invert e g claudia brugman mentions difficulty inverting stop stop got ta equally impossible invert james kirchner also mentions otta similar case tamara al kasey compares negative affirmative interrogatives better stop nt better stop suggesting latter acceptable interesting items vp deletion version observed max wheeler better least 2 people considered seems return inversion interrogatives generally use inversion better subject considered common tags especially amongst children teenagers jane simpson thinks tag bettern appearing australian english without preceding ivan uemlianen british speaker northern england claims always used tag bettern child always struck quite right never heard heard used old films dan slobin considers use archaic another variety era although inversion better go appear speech american english preschoolers data one respondent nt know came another reanalysed would way reanalysed conditional protases another suggestion analogous pluperfect auxiliary without tense two replied expression better stop example sloppy editing little discussion phonological processes particular found interesting following comments roger lass dialect anyhow new york city middle class certainly normal say sometimes less formal registers write better better better better better observe though pronouns end vowel alternative forms e g better though much less common however another type sometimes taken better nt b better sort geminate least halflong consonant fact none syntactic things mark seem occur would indication really kind reanalysis rather institutionalization fastspeech deletion assimilation creeping slower styles often happens fact construction weird anyhow since comparative nt seem exist except archaisms like liefer cant use heard note also occurred nt get deletion rather last comment think gives us plenty scope discussion debbie ziegeler