Origin
The going to future originated by the extension of the spatial sense of the verb 'go' to a temporal sense (a common change - the same phenomenon can be seen in the preposition before). The original construction involved physical movement with an intention, such as I am going to harvest the crop. The location later became unnecessary, and the expression was reinterpreted to represent a near future.
The colloquial form gonna is a relaxed pronunciation of going to. For example, "This is gonna be awesome!". Other variants in different forms of English are gon and a, thus, a phrase like "You're going to like it" could also be said as "You're gonna like it", "You gonna like it", "You 'gon like it" or even "You 'a like it". This now forms a clear separation of the locative and temporal senses of the expression: while "I am gonna swim" is syntactically similar, a sentence like "I am gonna the beach" is not.
Read more about this topic: Going-to Future
Famous quotes containing the word origin:
“There are certain books in the world which every searcher for truth must know: the Bible, the Critique of Pure Reason, the Origin of Species, and Karl Marx’s Capital.”
—W.E.B. (William Edward Burghardt)
“For, though the origin of most of our words is forgotten, each word was at first a stroke of genius, and obtained currency, because for the moment it symbolized the world to the first speaker and to the hearer. The etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant picture.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“We have got rid of the fetish of the divine right of kings, and that slavery is of divine origin and authority. But the divine right of property has taken its place. The tendency plainly is towards ... “a government of the rich, by the rich, and for the rich.””
—Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1822–1893)