Friday, April 3, 2015

Why does the contraction of "I will" sound strange in certain sentence constructions?

Recently, while chatting with a friend via text, my friend asked me, "Can you ask them tomorrow?"



I responded with:




I will when I go.




It occurred to me when writing this response that it would be really weird sounding to say:





I'll when I go.




However, it would have been normal sounding if I had said:




I'll ask when I go.





Is there any formal reason why the version without "ask" following "I'll" is incorrect? Or maybe it is correct, but merely awkward?



I suppose there may not be any explanation deeper than, "it just sounds weird," but any informative insights into why, ideally with examples of similar cases, would stand as an answer.

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