I HAVE TO GO NOW..............
WHY IS THE QUESTION; DO YOU HAVE TO GO NOW?
WHY IS THE HAVE CHANGRD INTO A DO?
I HAD A ROW WITH THE BOSS.
WHY NOT HAD YOU?
DO V HAVE
Moderators: Dimitris, maneki neko2, Lorikeet, Enrico Palazzo, superpeach, cecil2, Mr. Kalgukshi2
Claire73 answered you correctly, but I want to add a couple of angles.
Your first sentence can be paraphrased:
- I have to go / I have got to go / I must go
These three variants can be turned into questions as follows:
- Do I have to go? / Have I got to go? Must I go?
Replace "I" with a third person pronoun, and you will understand why you must use (or have to use) "do":
- He has to go - does he have to go?
In old English, there were different verb forms for the different persons: Thou hast, he hath, etc. Old English was more like German still is, with almost every person (first, second, third, singular or plural) locking only with a given verb form. It was not necessary then to use an auxiliary verb "do" to make a question or to put a statement in a negative context. But English grammar has been so simplified as to warrant a new device to turn statements into questions - hence the use of the auxiliary 'do'.
With modal verbs such as must, can, will, would, could, might, may, the 'do' auxiliary is redundant because these verbs exist in one form only, and have no tenses.
Your first sentence can be paraphrased:
- I have to go / I have got to go / I must go
These three variants can be turned into questions as follows:
- Do I have to go? / Have I got to go? Must I go?
Replace "I" with a third person pronoun, and you will understand why you must use (or have to use) "do":
- He has to go - does he have to go?
In old English, there were different verb forms for the different persons: Thou hast, he hath, etc. Old English was more like German still is, with almost every person (first, second, third, singular or plural) locking only with a given verb form. It was not necessary then to use an auxiliary verb "do" to make a question or to put a statement in a negative context. But English grammar has been so simplified as to warrant a new device to turn statements into questions - hence the use of the auxiliary 'do'.
With modal verbs such as must, can, will, would, could, might, may, the 'do' auxiliary is redundant because these verbs exist in one form only, and have no tenses.
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Norm Ryder
- Posts: 118
- Joined: Wed Jan 29, 2003 9:10 pm
- Location: Canberra, Australia
mmaille
You asked why we use "do you have?" rather than "have you?"; and picking up from Roger's reply, we have to say that the choice was made around 400 years ago.
David Crystal, in The English Language (p.65), notes that the translators of the King James Version of the Bible (1611) still preferred the old form "they knew him not" rather than "they did not know him" which was just becoming current. The same goes for "Know you not that ...? " rather than "Do you not know that ?" Shakespeare, on the other hand, had already been using "did not" for some years by then.
You can see this easily in the first few scenes of Hamlet (ca 1602). In I.ii.214, Hamlet asks: "Did you not speak to it (the ghost)?" rather than: "Spoke you not to it?" But a few lines later he asks: "Hold you the watch tonight?" rather than "Do you hold the watch tonight?". Then, later, in I.iii.4 back to: "Do you believe his tenders as you call them?" rather than: "Believe you his tenders ...?" Shakespeare clearly considered that he had a choice.
A little later again, in I.iv.8, there is a clue as to how this might have come about. Hamlet says: "The king doth (does) wake tonight and takes his rouse". That intensifying "does" was used much more frequently than than it is today, and it opens the way to the question form: "Does the king wake tonight?" rather than "Wakes the king tonight?"
Crystal implies that it took about 100 years for the modal to take over from the verb at the beginning of this kind of question. We have an idea, then, of how it happened; but why people took to preferring that form is the stuff that historians of socio-linguistics make PhD papers out of. Maybe there's one luking out there who'll drop in and refine the story a bit more for us.
Cheers.
Norm
You asked why we use "do you have?" rather than "have you?"; and picking up from Roger's reply, we have to say that the choice was made around 400 years ago.
David Crystal, in The English Language (p.65), notes that the translators of the King James Version of the Bible (1611) still preferred the old form "they knew him not" rather than "they did not know him" which was just becoming current. The same goes for "Know you not that ...? " rather than "Do you not know that ?" Shakespeare, on the other hand, had already been using "did not" for some years by then.
You can see this easily in the first few scenes of Hamlet (ca 1602). In I.ii.214, Hamlet asks: "Did you not speak to it (the ghost)?" rather than: "Spoke you not to it?" But a few lines later he asks: "Hold you the watch tonight?" rather than "Do you hold the watch tonight?". Then, later, in I.iii.4 back to: "Do you believe his tenders as you call them?" rather than: "Believe you his tenders ...?" Shakespeare clearly considered that he had a choice.
A little later again, in I.iv.8, there is a clue as to how this might have come about. Hamlet says: "The king doth (does) wake tonight and takes his rouse". That intensifying "does" was used much more frequently than than it is today, and it opens the way to the question form: "Does the king wake tonight?" rather than "Wakes the king tonight?"
Crystal implies that it took about 100 years for the modal to take over from the verb at the beginning of this kind of question. We have an idea, then, of how it happened; but why people took to preferring that form is the stuff that historians of socio-linguistics make PhD papers out of. Maybe there's one luking out there who'll drop in and refine the story a bit more for us.
Cheers.
Norm
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Norm Ryder
- Posts: 118
- Joined: Wed Jan 29, 2003 9:10 pm
- Location: Canberra, Australia
