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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?

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    Same meaning, but the tone of have they is bookish, not colloquial.
    – Yosef Baskin
    Commented Feb 11, 2021 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
    Commented Feb 11, 2021 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
    Commented Feb 11, 2021 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
    Commented Feb 12, 2021 at 3:11
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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
    Commented Feb 12, 2021 at 13:46

4 Answers 4

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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
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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
    Commented Feb 11, 2021 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
    Commented Feb 12, 2021 at 1:51
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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
    Commented Feb 12, 2021 at 2:28
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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
    Commented Feb 12, 2021 at 12:12
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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
    Commented Feb 12, 2021 at 16:38
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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.

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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.

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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
    Commented Feb 12, 2021 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>

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