I have read a very short passage from an American textbook which is for elementary school students.
Has the lad a dog?
The lad has a fat dog.
The dog has Nat’s cap.
Nat and Rab ran.
Rab ran at a cat.What I couldn’t understand is this: “Has the lad a dog?”
I think it should be rephrased to:Does the lad have a dog?
Answer
OP’s citation is from William Holmes McGuffey’s “Eclectic Readers” (eclectic = selected). Given McGuffey lived from 1800 – 1873, it’s hardly surprising his selected examples include some usages which would be considered dated/obsolete/archaic by most Anglophones today.
The specific example “Has the lad a dog?” would probably never be uttered by any native speaker today in an informal context (we’d say “Does the lad have a dog?”). In more formal contexts you do still come across constructions like…
“Mr. President, have you any thoughts on the situation in Iran?”
…but personally I’d advise OP to throw away McGuffey’s primer and use something more modern.
Attribution
Source : Link , Question Author : user48070 , Answer Author : FumbleFingers
