Possession: Have you vs Do you have
I guess it must have been discussed on the forum, but I have not found it in the archives.
Some time ago I heard the following conversation on the BBC:
Am. lady - Do you have many children?
Br. lady - No, usually only one.
How do the British/ Americans look on people who do not use the auxiliaries? Is it a feature of a good education, is it stilted or high-brow?
In short, has it any connotations?
In my dialect (and I think this applies for most NAmEng speakers), the only way to start a question like this would be, "Do you have..." As far as connotations, using "Have you..." would strike me as British, or, if it were being used by an American, as high-brow or archaic.
In my dialect, which I'd consider to be standard British English, it is possible to say "Have you a pen?" rather than "Do you have a pen" but it can come across as slightly stilted or archaic.
However it is perfectly normal to say "Have you got a pen?" rather than "Do you have a pen?"
What Lazar says about his dialect applies just as much to the dialect here, except that there is a third way of forming such questions in informal speech, which is to structure them like statements and use intonation alone to mark them as questions. Consequently one can have say "You have a pen?" in addition to "Do you have a pen?". Note that while said third way does exist in other English dialects, historically it has primarily been used as for indicating primarily things like doubt rather than for forming normal questions in most English dialects.
Thinking about this issue, if some stranger asks you for the time here they would mostly say "Have you got the time"? It's just a standard enquiry even though it's obvious that you have the time when they see you with a watch on your wrist, but some people do just ask for the time. In London, it could just be "wozza toime, may(-)?"
"Have you got the time?" definitely strikes me as British. It doesn't sound wrong of course but to my ears it belongs to the category of archaic phrases such as "have you got a light?" you always hear in old movies.
"Do you have the time?" sounds more like something I'd likely hear here but I think many people here (myself included) would just say something like this:
"Excuse me--what time is it?"
or a little more polite:
"Excuse me--could you tell me what time it is?"
"Excuse me--could you tell me the time?"
"In my dialect, which I'd consider to be standard British English"
Please explain:
a. what your dialect is; and
b. just how it gets to be considered "standard British English" rather than, say, the dialect of another BE speaker?
<< "Have you got the time?" definitely strikes me as British. It doesn't sound wrong of course but to my ears it belongs to the category of archaic phrases such as "have you got a light?" you always hear in old movies. >>
How common is "I've got ..." in American and such "have got" phrases?
Increasingly heard is a "do" answer to a " have" question, which makes no sense at all.
Q. Do you have any idea what that is?
A. I do. It looks like a plan to improve speech.
As for "I've got", the American equivalent seems to be "I've got ten".
"Increasingly heard is a 'do' answer to a 'have' question, which makes no sense at all."
I'm not sure where you got this notion from but you're mistaken on two counts:
1. it's a common feature of English that has been around a dog's age; and
2. it makes perfect sense.
Take a look at the example you gave:
Q. Do you have any idea what that is?
A. I do. It looks like a plan to improve speech.
Q asked a question with auxiliary "do" and "base verb form" (in this case, "have"). A answered using a very common English elliptical device - dropping the words that were unnecessary to repeat because they were clearly implied:
Q. Do you have any idea what that is?
A. I do [have an idea what that is]. It looks like a plan to improve speech.
Maybe he meant the usage I quite often hear from Americans (and increasingly from the British:
Q: Have you got a pen?
A: Yes, I do
This used to sound strange to me, as in BE the reply would more likely be 'Yes, I have', although as I said, I have noticed the AE usage creeping in, and have even caught myself using it.
Also, the Americans often seem to dispense with the 'have' altogether, saying 'Do you got...'
So, I would say, the use of 'Do' and 'got' together, without 'have' is something that can sound strange to some ears.
"Q: Have you got a pen?
A: Yes, I do"
This is also perfectly fine English. Again, it's a case of an elliptical construction that avoids repetition:
"Q: Have you got a pen?
A: Yes, I do [have a pen]"
<<As for "I've got", the American equivalent seems to be "I've got ten".>>
Not quite. North American English has both "I've got" and "I've gotten" but they're usually not interchangeable. "Gotten" is the past participle of "get" as in "receive" or "become" (and maybe a few other meanings) while the "I've got" as equivalent of "I have" is never *I've gotten in NA English. Compare the following examples of possible NA usage:
"Have you gotten the letter yet?"
"If I hadn't gotten sick I could've come to the party"
"I've got a couple of things in the bag," never "*I've gotten" there.
"We've got a few things to say about it," never "*We've gotten" there.
<<Increasingly heard is a "do" answer to a " have" question, which makes no sense at all.
Q. Do you have any idea what that is?
A. I do.>>
<<This used to sound strange to me, as in BE the reply would more likely be 'Yes, I have', although as I said, I have noticed the AE usage creeping in, and have even caught myself using it. >>
That's actually nothing new in English (it arose with Early Modern English as a periphrastic affirmative construction). "I do" has long been used as an affirmative for any verb, so that should be no exception. Observe the following:
Person A: "Do you like tea and scones?"
Person B: "I do."
Person A: "Do you take the bus to work?"
Person B: "I do."
Person A: "Have you got any time today?"
Person B: "I do."
<<Also, the Americans often seem to dispense with the 'have' altogether, saying 'Do you got...' >>
Be careful about generalizations :) I rarely hear "do you got" even in the most informal of speech here. Yes, it's a possible form in spoken English for some people but it's certainly not the form most often used by the majority of the population.
Kirk
'That's actually nothing new in English (it arose with Early Modern English as a periphrastic affirmative construction). "I do" has long been used as an affirmative for any verb, so that should be no exception. Observe the following'
I did think it was a bit different in the case of answering 'I do' to a 'Have you got' question. I thought this maybe had to do with the phrase 'Have you got' being more like a past tense construction, even when it is being used in the present tense i.e. starting with 'Have' and then using the past form of 'to get'. And we don't answer 'I do', if someone asks us whether we have done something, we say 'I have'.
Are you saying it is because the 'do' affirms the 'have' in the sentence, and doesn't really have anything to do with the 'got' i.e.
A: Have you got any time today
B: yes, I do have time.