Can you please explain or elaborate to me why it is wrong to say "Are all of these have the same meaning?"? I thought since I was comparing 3 phrases/sentences I have to (and usually/often) use "are", and since the subject (all) is plural, the verb (are) should be also plural. I also didn't think of using "do" in asking this question. But because Pogo corrected me that it should be "Do all of these have the same meaning?" I tried to figure out why I was wrong.

Then I remember what I learned from my old post "What does she have?" I asked before why it was not "What does she has?" because of the rule "for present tense, third person singular he/she/it takes singular verb (ex. has). The verb in this sentence is "does have" (the main verb is "does" plus the helping verb "have") because the verb that must agree with the subject in "does have" is the verb "does" and not the verb "have" (which does not change). And if I rephrase that sentence it should be "She does have what?" So based from that, since my "composed" sentence included "have", and if I'm going to rephrase that sentence it should be "All of these are have the same meaning?" Which I think is wrong. Because it is wrong to say (or conjugate) "are have". It is more correct to say "Do all of these have the same meaning?" because if we rephrase, it will be "All of these do have the same meaning?"

Is my idea/undertanding correct? Please do correct me if I'm still wrong. Sorry for my bad English. Please bear with me. Thanks!

Last Edited on 28-Sep-2008 12:25 AM

TheMudge
The Real Mudge
2999 posts
Sep 28, 2008
8:52 AM

Your reasoning is correct. Quite simply, we do not use the verb combination "are have." When you wrote, "Are all of these have . . .," that is the verb you were trying to use. Even though the two parts of the verb are separated, it still consists of auxiliary + base verb. The auxiliary are (or any form of to be) cannot be used with the base verb have. We cannot use "are have," "is have," "was have," "were have," etc.

To be sure, we can use "is having," "are having," "will be having," "has been having," etc., but this is the use of to be with the participle having (in the progressive tenses), not with the base verb.
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Rich Turner (The Curmudgeon Himself)