I've seen it on TV that a guy asking another man, "have you a map?"
If I were him, I would probably say, "do you have a map?"
I would like to know what grammatical rules it followed in this case.
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I believe that Spanish often places the subject after the verb to indicate a question. This may be similar.– shawnt00Commented Aug 25, 2016 at 18:26
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1Note also "Have you a map" can be a command, although it's probably dialectal.– Alan CarmackCommented Aug 26, 2016 at 2:48
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@BillJ If you want to leave an answer in a comment to help someone before there are other answers, that's great, but you shouldn't expect them to persist above all of the answers that can get properly vetted by the community. I know this is different from EL&U, but the target audience there is much more fluent and can quickly read through a lot of comments. That's not the case on ELL.– ColleenVCommented Dec 31, 2017 at 12:46
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9 Answers
The most common form of the question, in both British and American dialects is "Do you have..."
Using "Have you" is a non-typical use. It sounds old fashioned. For example there is a nursery rhyme which goes:
Baa baa black sheep,
Have you any wool?
There is a similar form "Have you got a map". This is quite common in some British dialects, but is frowned on by some teachers.
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1in fact I've heard the phrase from the movie pirates of the caribbean where the british majesty asking jack if he has a map. I wonder if this british dialect is/was merely used in the royalty. Commented Aug 26, 2016 at 14:10
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1Well PotC is not an accurate guide to mid 17th century English dialects. Instead it is using an old fashioned form of English to sound distinctive and odd. The King at the time (George II) only spoke English as a third language, but I don't think this is significant.– James KCommented Aug 26, 2016 at 14:35
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6Fifty years ago "Do you have?" was rare in BrE, and would only be used ina habitual sense. the normal form was "Have you got?", but in a more formal register "Have you". (I remember a children's English book that described "got" as like a weed in the garden). During my lifetime, "Do you have" has spread from North America. Commented Oct 18, 2017 at 23:03
The syntax of
have you something?
gets used in BrE and possibly formal and literature situations.
It is a direct syntax copy from the French
avez vous?
Many things French had great influence on the English as they are neighbours.
A couple contemporary examples of the phrase which are often used
Have you any thoughts...
Do you have an opinion about...Have you got the time?
Do you know what time it is
Other equivalents "have you" might be
Do you have?
Would you have?
Might you have? (BrE)
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The Norman rule of England established French as the language of the "elites," and of the court, courts, and commerce in England. This was not seen as particularly neighborly at the time, and it may account for many borrowings from the French language, although I'm not sure your example is one of them. Commented Aug 25, 2016 at 19:46
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9I think it is more likely to be a hangover from Middle English, which used verb-subject inversions for all questions ("does he eat" = "eteth he", not "doth he eteth") nativlang.com/middle-english/middle-english-grammar.php– James KCommented Aug 25, 2016 at 21:43
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2Maybe I'm misreading your answer, but I don't see how 'have you thought about' is an example? Surely the 'have' is here simply an auxiliary, with inversion for the question. Statement: I have thought about it. Question: have you thought about it? An example would be, 'have you a/any thought(s) on the matter?'– Au101Commented Aug 26, 2016 at 3:33
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Do you have some evidence that "have you thought..." is not just the perfect tense? Commented Aug 26, 2016 at 4:52
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1"Have you got the time" is not the same construction as "have you any thoughts" or the sentence in the OP. The "have" here is an an auxiliary verb and does not indicate possession, though "have got" is idiomatic for possession. Also, is this equivalent to "do you know what time it is" or can it mean "do you have available time"? Commented Aug 27, 2016 at 9:07
This form of question is using non-auxiliary "have" with an auxiliary verb syntax. It is somewhat dated, but is still used in some occasions, mainly in formal speech. A well-known example is the phrase "Have you the ring?" used in wedding ceremonies. It is also more common in some dialects.
According to Google ngrams, this form was dominant in writing in the past. "Do you have" became dominant very quickly since the early 20th century.
answered Aug 27, 2016 at 8:32
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1
Both are correct except no. 2 is a little more old-fashioned or fancy because it doesn't use the auxiliary "Do". I disagree somewhat with BillJ insofar as I do not think "Have" is acting as an auxiliary verb in your example above; I just believe the writer is using an old-fashioned way of forming a question by way of inversion without the periphrastic "Do":
"How much spent he?" = "How much did he spend?"
"How much knows he?" = "How much does he know?"
I would agree with BillJ that "Have" is acting as an auxiliary verb if it were written in question form using the present perfect:
"Have you ever had an English book?"
In this instance, one could not use a periphrastic "Do" since the present perfect construction already uses an auxiliary verb in "Have", but that's not the case in, "Have you an English book?", wherein it is clear that it is merely inversion of a lexical verb to form a question—a process that is a wee bit outmoded these days, but is still used from time to time, particularly with the verb "Have" as used in the question above.
I hope that might have helped you out. Take care and good luck!
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1And in spoken AE you are quite likely to hear, "You have an English book?" No need for the 'do'.– EllieKCommented Dec 29, 2017 at 19:55
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Of course "have" is acting as an auxiliary in "Have you an English book? Whatever the pragmatics, the absence of do support is sufficient evidence to prove that the verb is being used as an auxiliary. Your example "Have you ever had an English book?" is irrelevant, since "have" is always an auxiliary verb in the perfect, as evidenced by the impossibility of do support.– BillJCommented Dec 30, 2017 at 8:45
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1It's not acting as an auxiliary verb. The word "auxiliary" means "helping" verb in essence. "Have" is not helping any other verb there. In, "I should do this," "should" is an auxiliary verb because it's helping "do". In, "Have you an English book?", there's no other verb but "Have"; therefore, it's not an auxiliary verb. It's equivalent to my saying, "Gets he the difference between lexical and auxiliary verbs?" when I could just say, "Does he get the difference between lexical and auxiliary verbs?" thefreedictionary.com/auxiliary+verb.– NickCommented Dec 30, 2017 at 17:21
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1Mickey Mouse terms? Sometimes, you're hilarious, BillJ. I always get a rise out of you--unintentionally, of course. I disagree and, obviously, my answer has two votes and a check mark of approval from this site, whereas your original comment was deleted above if you haven't noticed. I didn't delete it. Can you just admit for once that you're wrong or that there may be differing opinions in this matter? If you should still disagree, you are welcome to author an answer here and we shall dispense with this spat since the voters will decide. What say you? Is that an auxiliary verb too?– NickCommented Dec 31, 2017 at 9:13
• Have you a book?
• Have you got a book?
• Do you have a book?
These three forms are correct and are in use in the two main English-speaking countries of the eastern North Atlantic and in the main English-speaking country of the western North Atlantic (I am not familiar with Canada). I am a native English speaker who lived for decades in Britain, Ireland, and the United States, and have studied English at school and university. If anyone argues that any of these three forms of the question is incorrect, he or she is ignorant of common speech or has a thorn up his arse about some defunct rule that I have never encountered in my studies.
People in the United States do not, as stated above, generally ask "Do you have a book?" Most commonly, they say "Have you got a book?" or even more commonly, "Ya gotta book?" The latter is slangy and a little ugly, but that is what they actually say most often. To argue against it with an American would sadly find you being called, incorrectly, either a pedant or a grammar nazi. One is not a pedant or a nazi for correcting a simple error. A pedant or grammar nazi is one who is "too concerned with unimportant details or traditional rules," while "Ya gotta book?" is simply wrong no matter if everyone says it.
It is claimed here that the form "Have you a book?" is dated but it is, in fact, commonly used. I am surprised to read this "outdated" claim and wonder why such a strange claim is being made. The form is alive and well. Citing ngrams is only partially useful because it provides usage statistics only for written language, not for speech. Bear in mind, also, that ngrams reports on prevalence, not on correctness.
(Hollywood often does not provide models of good English usage. The "Pirates of the Caribbean" series was written by industry employees ignorant of old British usage who tried to sound "English" and "old" and who failed. Only the seventh film included a British writer; I have not watched it.)
There are two forms to express possession in English. Have or Have got Do you have a car? Have you got a car? He hasn't got any friends. He doesn't have any friends. She has a beautiful new home. She's got a beautiful new home.
While both forms are correct (and accepted in both British and American English), have got (have you got, he hasn't got, etc.) is generally the preferred form in British English while most speakers of American English employ the have (do you have, he doesn't have etc.)
Have you got a map? = Have you a map?
"Have you a map?"
This is an example of subject-verb inversion that was more common in older forms of English than it is today. I still sometimes say,
"Have you the time?"
to mean,
"Do you have the time?"
but many people in Modern English find it stuffy or pedantic or archaic. Last week, I said to my brother in a text message,
"What said he?"
to mean,
"What did he say?"
I was being lazy and didn't want to type out the periphrastic way that we write it now, but it caused confusion because my brother replied, "Huh?" I just rolled my eyes and typed it the normal way for him.
We still see this subject-verb inversion in questions when people say,
"What say you?"
to mean,
"What do you say?"
In French, this is also pretty old-fashioned, but still heard from time to time?
"Que sais-tu?" ("What knowest thou?"/"What know you?")
"Qu'est-ce que tu sais?" ("What dost thou know?"/"What do you know?")
I use "thou" above to show that the French that I'm using is in the second-person singular form of English "you" and not the plural "you". Also, these inversions were more common during Shakespeare's time when the pronoun "thou" was prevalent in speech still, so one would hear, "What knowest thou?" way more often than a periphrastic form using "do/did" in questions. Notice that the French have gone to a periphrastic form as well. For instances:
"Qu'est-ce que tu sais?"
(literal translation: "What is it that thou knowest?" or "What is it that you know?")
As you can see, this is relative to our periphrastic "do/did" in questions.
answered Oct 18, 2017 at 21:09
"Have you a map?" is 100% German grammar. In German: Hast du eine (Land-)Karte?
Actually we in Germany learnt in school in one of our first English lessons (in 1985): "Have you got a map?" But I wouldn't ask like that now. I'd ask" D'you have a map?"
"Have you" when the word 'have' expresses a helping verb, (for example: I have made it.) we can make it question just by replacing 'have' before the subject (Have I made it?). And whole the rest sentence will remain same. In the sentence "I have made it" , 'made' is the main verb where 'have' is just helping it.
"Do you have" when the world 'have' is used as main verb, (I have a pen) we use 'do' before the subject to form question (Do I have a pen?).
