gotten leads to got
Many of the online dictionary’s describe the definition of ‘gotten’ as the past participal of ‘got’. Mumzie thought it best that I not use the word ‘gotten’ or indulge in using ‘got’ for anything other than indicating possession. I never really heard the word ‘gotten’ in use in England or the use of ‘got’ to refer to anything other than possession. Then I came to the USA where both words are liberally used in many different ways that, at first, felt ‘wrong’ to me. I looked them up and it seems that North America has held onto orginal usage of these words that have fallen by the wayside in Britain. I wonder why. It can’t all be due to Mumzies instructions…..
This Random House website attempts to tease out the differences between got and gotten:
In modern use the most important thing to remember is that British English has got almost exclusively, to the point where gotten is sometimes considered erroneous. (Some derived forms with gotten, such as begotten, forgotten, and ill-gotten are still in use in British English.) In American English gotten is more common, but got still has fairly wide use.
The use of gotten was previously criticized in American English by critics who used British English as a standard, but it is rarely objected to today.
Despite moderate study of the variation between got and gotten in American English, it is difficult to draw many firm conclusions. It is generally true that gotten is used for the sense ‘obtained; received’ (“We’ve gotten tickets” means ‘we acquired tickets’) while got is used for the sense ‘possessed; owned’ (“We’ve got tickets” means ‘we possess tickets’). This distinction cannot be made in British English without using a different word.
American English also uses gotten for the senses ‘come’ (“She should have gotten there by now,” not “She should have got there by now”) and ’cause’ (“I’ve gotten them to reply before,” not “I’ve got them to reply before”).
Other distinctions are sometimes suggested, but the usage is highly variable and cannot be easily summarized.
I found this one article that more fully describes a complex set of ways of using gotten, for the linguisitcally fascinated amongst you. Highlights include:
I’ve gotten the answer means I have figured out the answer, rather than I have the answer.
The key is the overlap between the Possessive use of have and the Perfect use of have, plus the fact that one of the senses of get is come to have. If one has come to have a cold, for instance, then one has a cold, and the AmE usage of has got means that one is currently infested, due to the present relevance aspect of the Perfect.
Faced with the overwhelming interpretation of (ha)ve got as simply have, AmE has innovated a new past participle gotten to be used whenever other, non-possessive forms of get are intended.
If one is simply speaking of the acquisition of something, for instance, rather than the current possession, one says I’ve gotten ….. in AmE since I’ve got implies that one still has it, and therefore focusses on the current Possession rather than the Perfective acquisition.
