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I am wondering about the usage of the word "any" with the construction "Are there...?".

Does it makes any difference if I ask

Are there any books on the shelf?

or

Are there books on the shelf?

I barely ever meet such question sentences without "any", so it sounds unusual to me, but I cannot find any rule that would say that one variant is more preferable to the other.

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    Generally, you should wait to get an answer on one site before asking on a related site. At a minimum, please link between them so people are aware.
    – MarcInManhattan
    Commented Feb 8, 2023 at 21:35

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I don't believe there are any rules on it - as you say, it's a preference, but it's definitely common for such sentences to include 'any'. My intuition suggests that it might be more natural to omit it if the speaker has an expectation that the object(s) will be present e.g. "Is there coffee in the pot?".

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  • Interesting. Also, if you're asking about coffee you don't want to know if there is any, you want to know if there is enough for a cup; I don't know if this makes a difference.
    – Stuart F
    Commented Feb 23, 2023 at 21:35

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