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• She has a child

Questions for the above example:

Does she have a child? (This could be the common question for the above sentence as far as I know)

My question is,

Is it possible to make a question with "Has she" for the above sentence? like Has she........? )

If both are wrong, please help me with some examples.

Please help. Thanks in advance.

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3 Answers 3

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In American English they use the auxiliary verbs “do” and “does” because the main verb is “have”. Examples:

“Do you have a child?”

“Does she have a child?”

In British English we do not use the auxiliary verbs “do” or “does”. Instead, the main verb is “got”, and “have” is the auxiliary verb. Examples:

“Have you got a child?”

“Has she got a child?”

Notice that in both cases the third person singular is different.

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5
  • Has she got a child? Grammatical?
    – Raj 33
    Nov 26, 2017 at 8:39
  • Yes! do you suspect it is ungrammatical?
    – Ziya bano
    Nov 26, 2017 at 8:42
  • Thanks for the answer. I just want to confirm that is grammatical.
    – Raj 33
    Nov 26, 2017 at 8:44
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    "Does she have" is perfectly correct and common in British English. "Has she got" is an alternative, and "Has she" is a rarer alternative.
    – James K
    Nov 26, 2017 at 17:25
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    '...In British English we do not use the auxiliary verbs “do” or “does”...' - absolutely incorrect.
    – Dawood ibn Kareem
    Nov 26, 2017 at 23:42
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Does she have a child?

Has she a child?

In American English, you need to use the auxiliaries do and does with the main verb have to form a question in the present tense.

In British English, you can use either the do and does with have or the main verb have only as in the second sentence to form a question. So the second sentence that starts with the verb have is correct in formal BrE.

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  • "Has she a child?" seems to be wrong. "Has she got a child?" is the right one, i think. Please clarify.
    – Raj 33
    Nov 26, 2017 at 9:16
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    Does she have a child? Has she got a child? Has she a child? All are correct in BrE.
    – Khan
    Nov 26, 2017 at 9:37
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    dictionary.cambridge.org/grammar/british-grammar/common-verbs/…
    – Khan
    Nov 26, 2017 at 10:39
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    Have you got a drill? is not correct according to Ngram but it's correct according to Cambridge (BrE)..
    – Khan
    Nov 26, 2017 at 10:48
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    I'm upvoting this answer. Traditionally BrE favours "Has she (got) ...?" (with "does she have ..?" for habituals, e.g. "has she got a headache (now)?" versus "does she have headaches (often)?"). But "Does she have ...?" is considered completely acceptable in modern BrE, having spread under American influence. As for "has she a child?" without "got", it is correct but sounds very formal. There are some sentences where got-less "have" is reasonably natural though ("Have you really no idea?" works at least as well as "Have you really got no idea?").
    – rjpond
    Nov 26, 2017 at 11:18
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There are two different "have" verbs in English that are semantically distinct, but morphologically both similar. There is the auxiliary verb "have" that indicates the perfect aspect, and there is the main verb "have" that means "possess", as well as related meanings. Thus, one can say "Have you ever had a car?" where "have" indicates perfection and "had" is being used is the possessive sense. In the question "Has she any children?", "Has" is being used in the non-auxiliary sense, so modern English (at least, American English) requires that it have the auxiliary verb "do" placed in front of it to form a question. Having a bare "have" in a question or negation is archaic, but it survives in some places, such as the nursery rhyme: "Baa, baa black sheep, have you any wool?"

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