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Anonymous Posted 11 years ago
Linguistics Studies

Have or Has? (An innocent post that became a linguist's non-finite dummy-do rant.)

Is it He/She doesn't have or is it He/She doesn't has?
  

Top answer

’ The reason is that, if you use an auxiliary verb, you only need to conjugate the auxiliary verb — the main verb must remain in its main form. The main verb may only be altered when it has no auxiliary verb. The main verb here is have , and the auxiliary verb is do .

— MrGuedes

  • ’ The reason is that, if you use an auxiliary verb, you only need to conjugate the auxiliary verb — the main verb must remain in its main form.
  • The main verb may only be altered when it has no auxiliary verb.
  • The main verb here is have , and the auxiliary verb is do .
  • Thus, you must say, ‘He/She has ’ (since there is no auxiliary verb, the main verb is changed to agree with ‘he/she’) and, ‘He/She does not have ’ (since there is an auxiliary verb, that is the one that suffers a change) .
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49 Answers
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It is ‘He/She doesn't have.’

The reason is that, if you use an auxiliary verb, you only need to conjugate the auxiliary verb — the main verb must remain in its main form. The main verb may only be altered when it has no auxiliary verb.

The main verb here is have, and the auxiliary verb is do. Thus, you must say, ‘He/She has’ (since there is no auxil
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She does not have a car.
She does not has a car.

An alternative, possibly simpler explanation is that does is the main verb and have a car is a non-finite complement. Under this analysis dummy do would be a catenative verb.
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Anonymouspossibly simpler
Hmm.

CJ
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if we are talking about a quality, can we say, whe does not has it in her ?
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Anonymous?
I wouldn't call an explanation containing the expressions 'non-finite complement', 'dummy do' and 'catenative verb' simpler.
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Anonymous if we are talking about a quality, can we say, whe does not has it in her ?
No. in your sentence, 'does'' is the auxiliary (helping) verb; it is followed by the bare infinitive 'have'.
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fivejedjonI wouldn't call an explanation containing the expressions 'non-finite complement', 'dummy do' and 'catenative verb' simpler.
It’s easily understandable if you’re acquainted with those terms, and it actually makes a lot more sense than the traditional account. Besides, a learner of English would do well to familiarize himself with such basic grammar t
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And doesn’t CalifJim use ‘catenative’ all the time? Why am I being sweated for it? Or do we really want to get into a tedious argument about whether my answer was really simpler or not? Come on.
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AnonymousIt’s easily understandable if you’re acquainted with those terms ...
Yes, of course, but that's not really the point. We need to look at it from the learner's point of view, attending particularly to the implied question the learner is asking.

If I am told upon asking how to make chicken piccata that it is a very tasty dish that contains chi
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