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Is "what have they to say?" grammatical? If so, what is the difference with the phrase "what do they have to say?"? Do they mean the same thing?

Pablo Messina
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    Same meaning, but the tone of have they is bookish, not colloquial. – Yosef Baskin Feb 11 '21 at 16:31
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    In British English, What have you got* to say for yourself?* is probably more common than What do you have* to say for yourself?, but I don't know if the same would apply in American English. What I'm getting at is that even though I personally would never* ask *What have they to say?, that shouldn't be taken as implying that I observe some general principle in favour of including do-support* in such constructions. It all depends on the *exact* context. – FumbleFingers Feb 11 '21 at 17:55
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    This question has been asked before as “Do you have” vs “Have you got” here on ELU, but that was closed as a duplicate of a question that doesn't address the relevance of *question* constructions. It's also been asked on English Language Learners (where it belongs), as Use of “Have” in questions “Do you have” or “Have you”. – FumbleFingers Feb 11 '21 at 18:02
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    @FumbleFingers But it has nothing to do with have got. I don't understand why this famous dividing-line between US and UK Englishes shouldn't be discussed on EL&U. Are AM English speakers to be designated as "learners"? (Or is it us UKers?) :-) – Araucaria - Him Feb 12 '21 at 03:11
  • @Araucaria-Nothereanymore.: I think you're just proving my main point, which is that ELL is *where this question belongs. As you say, my link to an ELU "duplicate" is questionable - but the ELL question is spot on. And just because AmE tends to favour "do-support" over "have-support" doesn't mean they don't recognise and understand the "less-favoured" form. Only learners* are likely to ask about that, and imho *by definition* they should be asking about such things on ELL, not here. – FumbleFingers Feb 12 '21 at 12:36
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    @FumbleFingers Well, it's actually fully ungrammatical for many Am English speakers. It's also one of just a handful of differences in the syntax of US and UK standard Englishes. So it's still quite interesting for linguists. – Araucaria - Him Feb 12 '21 at 13:46
  • Though archaic, it continues to be grammatical because English-speaking children learn songs that contain phrases like "have you any wool". – Kaz Feb 12 '21 at 22:37

4 Answers4

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Yes, it's grammatical. Though it's uncommon in American English, and therefore sounds better to an American ear if delivered in an RP British accent, which makes it falute much higher. The difference is strictly syntactic -- that is, it makes no difference in meaning.

The verb have has two usages in English, both common:

  1. It can be an irregular verb meaning 'possess', as in
    He has a green house.
  2. It can be an auxiliary verb with no meaning for the perfect and many other constructions
    He has converted it to a duplex.
    He had to pay a lot.

In American English, the two usages have different syntactic affordances. In particular, the first, meaningful, sense of have is treated like a lexical verb and undergoes Do-Support in questions and negatives.

  • Do you have the time/a minute/a car/a college degree?
  • I don't have the time/a minute/a car/a college degree.

The second, meaningless, auxiliary usage is treated like an auxiliary:
inverted with the subject in questions, and contracted with negatives

  • Has he converted it to a duplex?
  • He hasn't converted it yet.

The converses are strange. If you treat lexical have like an auxiliary, you get the British-sounding variant.

  • %Have you the time/a minute/a car/a college degree? ("%" marks dialectal variants)
  • %I haven't the time/a minute/a car/a college degree.

and sometimes you violate idiom constraints

  • *I haven't to go tomorrow; they cancelled it,
    instead of
  • I don't have to go tomorrow; they cancelled it.

But if you treat auxiliary have like a lexical verb, you get garbage

  • *Does he have converted it to a duplex?
  • *He doesn't have converted it yet
John Lawler
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    I started reading this before checking the author. Knew who it was as soon as I read the trademarkfalute. Btw, are some uses of possessive have as auxiliary ok in Am English? I'm thinking about sentences such as Have you no (x)?. For example: Have you no shame? I've found a few dozen instances in COCA, but this doesn't really give me a good idea. – Araucaria - Him Feb 11 '21 at 23:03
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    Have you no X? is a very theatrical way of chiding. On the other hand, chiding is by its nature theatrical. But that's a very limited pragmatic horizon. – John Lawler Feb 12 '21 at 01:51
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    I use the phrase NP complement exclusively to refer to the kind of clause in the report that he is going to resign soon. There are other uses, apparently; how do you use it? Auxiliary do and have have lots of differences already; what's the paper about? – John Lawler Feb 12 '21 at 02:28
  • He had to pay a lot is listed in the answer an example of have as an auxiliary, but it doesn't follow the pattern described later in the answer - *?Had he to pay a lot and *?He hadn't to pay a lot work much better as Did he have to pay a lot and He didn't have to pay a lot respectively. – psmears Feb 12 '21 at 12:10
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    (Also note that though some constructions described above may sound British to an American ear, they are not commonly used by most British speakers and sound just as odd to them as they do to Americans!) – psmears Feb 12 '21 at 12:12
  • Have to is a periphrastic modal construction, equivalent to must and idiomatically pronounced. The have/has/had part can't be separated from the to; it looks like two words, but it's actually just one, like don't. That's why I said "British-sounding"; Americans are easy to fool about language, as we demonstrate daily. – John Lawler Feb 12 '21 at 16:28
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    @Araucaria-Nothereanymore. The only complement clause I can think of for have is something along the lines of ..., although Smith has it that the genus is related to Liliaceae. One might omit the it, but I wouldn't. I'm sure I'd disagree with your solution; I'm allergic to named features. But it's true that there are problems that need solutions there. I think a phonological solution has a lot to recommend it. Have you read Schmerling 2019? I like the way she handles auxiliaries. – John Lawler Feb 12 '21 at 16:38
  • @JohnLawler: I agree with what you say about have to in your comment - but your answer as it stands says it works like auxiliary have, which it doesn't (eg in questions it takes do-support rather than inverting with the subject). This would be worth a clarifying edit. (Re the British thing - sorry, should have been clearer: I realise you know Brits don't really talk like that, but there are plenty of readers here who may not be aware of that :) – psmears Feb 12 '21 at 21:20
  • I'm not overly concerned with collateral misunderstandings, and I've said the same thing so many times here that it's clear those who need to read them seldom do (or can seldom find them, even if they're looking). – John Lawler Feb 12 '21 at 21:25
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    An aside regarding the inseparability of have to: an exception that comes to mind, in the vein of split infinitives, is have only to as in You have only to ask (also with but in place of only) which is grammatical but dated, with only have to in modern usage. – Mario Carneiro Feb 15 '21 at 10:19
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Yes, "what have they to say" is "grammatical," that is, it is a correct grammatical construction. It is an independent clause. It could stand as a complete sentence with the capitalization of "What" and with an ending question mark as punctuation. "what have they to say?" and "what do they have to say?" would have the same meaning to most readers. "what have they to say?" likely will sound formal and a bit archaic to most American English speakers.

lld
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"What do they have to say" could be interpreted as "what are they obliged to say". Imagine some children have been naughty and must apologise to the whole school. The other phrasing avoids the ambiguity.

Either is correct, whatever that means.

Bloke Down The Pub
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  • It could also be interpreted as "what would it take?" e.g. of car salesmen: "What do they have to say to get you into the seat of this fine vehicle over here?" (More common in first person singular of course). The other phrasing also could not be used in this context. – Darrel Hoffman Feb 12 '21 at 16:41
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They have the same meaning. "What have they to say?" is an older way of saying it. "What do they have to say?" is a newer way of saying it. In contemporary English, do/does/did <subject> <verb> is used a lot in questions, while <subject> <verb> is used a lot in statements.

However this is not a hard rule written in stone. You can choose either option in both cases (though the default, conventional word order is different). If you use <verb> <subject> in a question, it often sounds anywhere between fancy and/or archaic, depending on the situation. When you use <subject> do/does/did <verb> in a statement though, it is often done for emphasis (usually with vocal emphasis on the word do/does/did).

In general, completely ignoring the matter of normal, contemporary style and usage, the following holds true grammatically:

          <simple present verb> = do(es) <singular simple present verb>
<simple present verb> <subject> = do(es) <subject> <singular simple present verb>
<subject> <simple present verb> = <subject> do(es) <singular simple present verb>

         &lt;simple past verb&gt; = did &lt;simple past verb&gt;



<simple past verb> <subject> = did <subject> <simple past verb>
   <subject> <simple past verb> = <subject> did <simple past verb>
Panzercrisis
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