All the contractions seem to follow some sort of logic: they place the mark between the words, and leave only the part of the sound that is predominantly heard (“I will” -> “I’ll”, “you have” -> “you’ve”). But with “not”, the mark is placed right in the middle of the word (like in “does not”-> “doesn’t” ), leaving the “n” attached to the previous word.
Is this an historical accident (and if it is, how it was born?), or does it have some (may be phonetic) explanation?
Answer
Contractions in speech do not have anything whatever to do with “marks” or “apostrophes” or “letters”, or any other part of the contingent technology called “writing”.
They arise in speech, and the written language just has to find a way of accommodating them – sometimes it does so better than others. (Eg “doesn’t” is standard, whereas “gonna” is not).
I agree that it is a little surprising that the consonantal /n/ of “not” has become the syllabic /n/ of “n’t”, but that is nevertheless what has happened.
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : Angel Perea , Answer Author : Colin Fine
