> 1: *What's the main thing a paramedic does have to do?* 2: *What's the main thing a paramedic has to do?* Example #1 above is *only* valid in contexts where the speaker is responding to having been told that a paramedic *doesn't* have to (isn't *required* to) do certain things - in which case ***does*** must always carry ***very heavy stress***. Also note that the auxiliary ***have*** would almost always carry at least *secondary* stress, and be pronounced ***haff*** with a "hard" vowel ending rather than the soft vowel of ***have***. This is a special use of the verb form ***to have to [verb]*** (always followed by an infinitive verb), where it means ***be obliged to***. In Past Tense contexts it's usually pronounced ***hat*** rather than ***had***, so arguably it's actually a "different" verb, rather than a specialized sense of the existing verb. --- Another way to illustrate the significant syntactic as well as semantic difference between the "obligatory" sense and the more general case is to consider... > 3: *I don't have anything to do* 4: *I don't have to do anything* (usually pronounced ***haff***) ...where #3 means *there are no (appealing) choices of action available to me* (effectively, *I'm bored*), whereas #4 means *there is nothing which I'm **obliged** to do*. In the above examples, we can tell which sense is intended by the word order, but given a written utterance such as... > 5: *These are the toys I have to play with* ...with no indication of stress or the pronunciation of the final vowel sound in ***have***, it's ambiguous whether the speaker means... > 5a: *I **must** play with these toys* OR 5b: *I have these toys **available to me** [if I wish to play with them]*