To vs For

[mybabyblue]

Hi folks,

I was watching a movie called "Wind River" and heard a sentence as below. That sentence prompted me to think about this grammar but I could not relate it to some rule or grammar. I did some search but unfortunately It ended bad and now I am uncomfortable
The sentence is that "I got a lion to kill", can I say "I got a lion for killing".
I found some more examples like below :
I got a confession to make
I got a dragon to slay
I got a witch to cook

Can anybody tell me what grammar it is?
Thanks in advance.

 

[Rover_KE]

It's substandard, casual, ungrammatical speech.

It should be I have (got) a confession to make etc. (The 'got' is optional.)

 

[teechar]

It's substandard, casual, ungrammatical speech.

I agree, but it's colloquially not uncommon, especially in (at least some varieties of) AmE.

 

[jutfrank]

It's substandard, casual, ungrammatical speech.

I think it's just an elision of the /v/ sound. It's still 'there' in a manner of speaking, but undetectable. The written form is a way to represent this.

In answer to the question (if I understand it correctly), only to is possible in this construction.

 

[Tdol]

"I got a lion to kill", can I say "I got a lion for killing".
I found some more examples like below :
I got a confession to make
I got a dragon to slay
I got a witch to cook

It means that they have to something- the hunter probably does not have the lion in a cage, but has to hunt it down and kill it.

 

[jutfrank]

If it is, it's often undetectable even to the speaker! When I was teaching in comprehensive schools in England, I not infrequently had to correct the written form 'I got' when it should have been 'I've got'.

I think that some speakers at least think it is 'I got'.

I think it's become so ingrained that people don't realise it, yes. I'd be interested to know for sure whether I'm right, and if so, whether historical linguistics has anything to say about it.

 

[jutfrank]

This mention of elision reminds me of a similar situation with 'd better. Palmer notes that there is oftenno indication of the 'd in speech. He says that he has actually heard children say /betnt hi/.

That would be a clear sign that, for these children, the 'd wasn't elided; it simply wasn't there.

Very interesting. I was just about to mention the case of had better.

Another similar case is have got to (E.g. We gotta live together)

 

[tzfujimino]

/betnt hi/

Does that stand for 'bettern't he'?

 

[Tdol]

They better not. ;-)

 

[jutfrank]

That would be a clear sign that, for these children, the 'd wasn't elided; it simply wasn't there.

I've just spent the last half an hour thinking about this. -D How I love the usage of language!)

It seems to me another piece of evidence that for some speakers the elided element is no longer 'there' is the unusual example of the phrase I don't got it to mean 'I have not got it'—a usage I associate with American English. The introduction of the auxiliary don't shows that for the speaker, got is a lexical verb, and that the elided auxiliary have in the positive form (I got it) is just not there.