American English Phonetics

7.4 Gradation of ‘have, will’ and the present pense of ‘be’

The second column gives the SF, the third the WF, and the fourth column gives an illustration of the use of the WF.

The WFs of the auxiliaries have, will, and be (present tense, both as an auxiliary and as a copula (koppelwerkwoord)) are usually contracted with the pronominal form of the subject when this precedes. The word there, equivalent to Dutch er, also commonly contracts with these verbs, and has therefore been included in the table. Note that weak /i/ in these forms could also be transcribed /ɪ/, there being no opposition here.

	be	have	hard or would	will
I	aɪm	aɪv	aɪd	aɪl
you	jər	juv	jud	jəl
he	hiz	hiz	hid	hil
she	ʃiz	ʃiz	ʃid	ʃil
it	ɪts	ɪts	ɪt̬əd	ɪt̬l
there (sg)	ðərz	ðərz	ðərd	ðərl
there (pl)	ðərər	ðərv	ðərd	ðərl
we	wɪr	wiv	wid	wil
they	ðɛr	ðeɪv	ðeɪd	ðɛl

In informal writing the following spellings occur for these contracted auxiliaries: (I)’m, (you)’re, (he)’s, (I)’ve, (I)’d and (I)’ll. These auxiliary WFs, which consist of a single consonant, typically only occur after a pronominal subject, as in the table above. In other situations, the longer WFs of these auxiliaries are more usual. However, it should be noted that:

• /s,z/ for has, too, may occur after other words (The form /s/ occurs after /p,t,k,f,θ/, /ɪz/ after /s,z,ʃ,ʒ/, and /z/ elsewhere):

The book has /bʊks/ or /ˈbʊkəz/ been reprinted

Mary has /ˈmɛri(ə)z/ done it

Madge has /ˈmæd͡ʒəz/ given it up

• /l/ for will is also used more freely, especially when it is syllabic The others will /ˈʌðərzl/ finish it.

In the table below the longer WFs of these auxiliaries are given.

	SF	longer WF	Example
am	æm	əm	So am I
has	hæz	(h)əz	Neither has /niːðərəz/ Eric
have	hæv	(h)əv	Tom and Mary have moved
had	hæd	(h)əd	Where had they put it?
would	wʊd	(w)əd	Matthew would do it
will	wɪl	(w)əl	Peter will tell you