0500 est sstraigh bingsuns cc binghamton edu sun 26 mar 1995 linguist list said subject 6 435 sum whatever happened date fri 24 mar 1995 15 16 32 gmt 1000 dziegele arts cc monash edu au subject summary whatever happened 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 interrogative forms fine though latter surely frequent discourse reasons moreover parallel better otta strikes great 1 better otta stick knitting 2 nt b stick knitting 3 b leaving catch bus 4 nt b leaving 5 nt think noisy friends b shut quiet examples cast doubt applicability roger lass comments usage 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 h stephen straight binghamton university suny