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I would normally say 'He has homework to do, doesn't he?' but I've heard some people say the other variant is correct.

Which one would you say is correct? Or are both of them correct?

KillingTime
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Razvi
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    The rule states that if the anchor predicator is an auxiliary verb, select the same one; otherwise select "do". For most speakers, the "has" in your example is a lexical verb so the tag should be "doesn't he?" – BillJ Oct 28 '21 at 08:52

2 Answers2

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Relevant link.

The English tag question is made up of an auxiliary verb and a pronoun. The auxiliary must agree with the tense, aspect and modality of the verb in the preceding sentence.

  • If the verb is in the present perfect, for example, the tag question uses has or have;
  • if the verb is in a present progressive form, the tag is formed with am, are, is;
  • if the verb is in a tense which does not normally use an auxiliary, like the present simple, the auxiliary is taken from the emphatic do form;
  • and if the sentence has a modal auxiliary, this is echoed in the tag

It seems to me that the easy way to remember these rules is to phrase the initial statement as a question, as it reveals the same auxiliary verb. In order of the above bullet points:

He has painted the house.
=> Has he painted the house?
=> He has painted the house, hasn't he?

He is painting the house.
=> Is he painting the house?
=> He is painting the house, isn't he?

He paints houses.
=> Does he paint houses?
=> He paints houses, doesn't he?

He will paint the house.
=> Will he paint the house?
=> He will paint the house, won't he?

Note that you can substitute all of these with past tense and the same structure will apply.

In your case, you are using present simply with no modal auxiliary, so the tag question is formed from the emphatic do:

He has homework to do, doesn't he?

Coincidentally, "doesn't" is completely unrelated to the earlier "to do". It has everything to do with the main verb being "to have" without any auxiliary. To prove this, we can change the example to not contain "to do":

He has houses to paint, doesn't he?

However, other links on the same topic reveal that these rules are very different from locale to locale (e.g. UK English uses "hasn't" much more frequently than US English), so these rules are not universally set in stone across the English speaking world.
I suspect UK English speakers would've used "hasn't he" in your example, or at least considered both options to be valid. But I'm no native UK English speaker so I'm not the best source on that.

It seems this is one of those cases where speakers of a certain English dialect will intuitively sense which verb is the right one to use, and it's hard to encapsulate all possible use cases in a simple rule that everyone agrees with.

Flater
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    Yes, British English speakers would certainly use hasn't he? to match the main verb has. – Kate Bunting Oct 28 '21 at 09:32
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    The uncertainty arises from the fact that stative "have" is an auxiliary verb for some speakers, and a lexical one for others. For those who take it as an auxiliary, the tag is "hasn't he"; for those who take it as a lexical verb, the tag is "doesn't he". Overall, most speakers consider this "have" to be a lexical verb. – BillJ Oct 28 '21 at 09:50
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    @BillJ: I understand your point, but I think that in the current example it can't be an auxiliary verb. There is a difference between "He has to do homework" and "He has homework to do". They don't mean the same thing, and they're parsed differently from a grammatical perspective. For the latter, I cannot see how "has" can be parsed as an auxiliary (but I can for the former). However, I do agree that informal usage often glosses over grammatical nuance and is liable to interchangeably use two very similar things, which can justify why these two sentences are conflated. – Flater Oct 28 '21 at 10:00
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    If one considers the negative to be "He hasn't homework to do", has he?", then it's an auxiliary. Lexical "have" requires do support in inversion, though that is irrelevant in a sentence like the OP's – BillJ Oct 28 '21 at 10:34
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Consider a grammatically similar sentence that does not use the words have or do until the last part. For example "She brings sea shells to sell, xxxn't she?"

In this sentence the only natural ending is "doesn't she". As the original sentence follows the same pattern I would suggest it should end in the same way.

After "He has got homework to do" it must certainly be "hasn't he" because it must agree with the verb "has".

When "has" is used as a simple verb it is common to see it used again in a follow-up phrase or sentence. For example "He has a piano. Has he?" and "He has a piano. Does he?" are both used, but for "He owns a piano. Does he?" there is no alternative using "has".

Often a verb can be replaced by "does verb". For example "He has a piano" becomes "He does have a piano". In this form "does he" is the response. On the other hand "he has got homework" can't be replaced by "he does have got homework".

The general rule is to use "does he" in sentences like OP's example, where the "does verb" replacement can be done.

Peter
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  • In the OP's example most speakers would say that "has" is a lexical verb, not an auxiliary, so the preferred tag for them is "doesn't he?" For those speakers who treat it as an auxiliary verb, the tag is "hasn't he?" Incidentally, the auxiliary verb "have" is not modal. – BillJ Oct 28 '21 at 12:57
  • @BillJ, I usually steer away from much of the formal grammatical language, partly because I am likely to get it wrong. Thanks for your correction. After I posted my first version of my answer I wondered about "it is larger isn't it", compared with "it appears larger doesn't it". Following my original logic the first should be "it is larger, doesn't it". Hardly anyone says "it does be larger", though so the "does verb" rule discriminates here, at least. – Peter Oct 28 '21 at 13:11
  • The verb "be" is an auxiliary verb even if it's the only verb in the clause. Thus the tag in "It is larger, isn't / *doesn't it" can only have the same verb, i.e. "isn't it". This explains why "doesn't it?" is ungrammatical in that example. – BillJ Oct 28 '21 at 13:40