English grammar tells us that: I haven’t got a clue. I don’t have a clue. are the correct ways to express negative possession. However, there is the rarer, older British sounding: I haven’t a clue. Notice that a superlative phrase is common to give emphasis: I haven’t the slightest idea how he works. listen Here are the search results from […]
HAVE NOT + noun phrase Read More »
In this post, we explore long complex noun phrases in the object position after the verb ‘have‘. Here is a search in the iWeb corpus for: _VH _A _JJ _NN of 1 HAS A LONG HISTORY OF 12459 C1+ Huff Hoyle has a long history of bad business practices. listen 2 HAVE A WIDE RANGE OF 9459 B1 You have a wide range
HAVE + article + adjective + noun + OF Read More »
The following grammar pattern does not have an entry in the English Profile. It relates to questions with stranded prepositions which are generally pegged at B2. It also relates to either A1 possession or ownership = have got or A2 modality = have got to do something. The overall complexity of this pattern is at least
What + HAVE + PRONOUN + got to be Read More »
