"has to" as a helping verb?

Hello Anon

The verb "have" in your sentence acts as a modal verb. As a modal verb, it takes an infinitive:

1. She eats salad every day. ] A simple statement about a regular occurrence.

2. She has to eat salad every day. ] We now learn something about the eating: it's something she's compelled to do.

When "have" acts as a modal verb, the pronunciation is slightly different:

3. She has to eat salad] the S in "has" is a hissing noise.

4. She has eaten the salad ] the s in "has" sounds like a Z.

5. We have to eat salad every day ] the V in "have" sounds like an F.

6. We have eaten the salad ] the V sounds like the v in "love".

MrP

Milky wrote:

"Have to" is normally used for subjective obligation or necessity, e.g. when a person feels he/she is obliged to do something or something is necessary, and "must" (in one use) is used for expressing objective obligation or necessity. that is, when the obligation or necessity is placed upon us by another person.

It's an attractive theory, Milky; but would you say it holds true of all these examples?

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1     the chance to grow up graciously. He had to acquire  everything he was going to
2    ng man had so little time to learn he had to  be curious; he had to find out. Th
3     internal combustion became cheap, he had to be near  a railroad siding and a tr
4     cut two-thirds of  the rail lines he had to break and Sherman lived in  mortal
5    ain Chandler long to realize  that he had to carry a heavy load of tradition on
6     job too big for his imagination;  he had to cling to routine, tested procedures
7    e slowly.  He rose from his chair. He had to cough then; he went  to the window
8    prepared for almost any emergency. He had to depend  on himself, since he was in
9    on.  He had to make Jess talk, and he had to do it before  Stacey Black got curi
10   y as many as six strokes.  Now all he had to do was finish in even par to collec
11   n by Blue Throat and his gang. All he had to  do was light the fuses of the dyna
12   g  with them he never knew whether he had to do with a  Frenchman or with a devi
13   ox this time. When  he finally did he had to duck his head quickly away  as the
14   ast the moment was postponed  when he had to face the mystery of the power tools
15   'dikkat to  the door of the cabin. He had to fight the bliss of  super-condamine
16   me to learn he had to  be curious; he had to find out. The Secretary did not  te
17   e sight of the beloved bishop. But he had to  follow the light. Unless God expec
18   cratic procedure  in the beginning he had to go along with their decision-  afte
19        The cave in his stomach hurt. He had to go into  the water. He'd tell Sabel
20    fuses, however, he hesitated.     He had to have fusion power to catch up with
21   r to catch up with the  skiff, and he had to have it fast. But fusion power  in
22   of customers waited on and that if he had to  he would jerk open the door and dr
23     them- make them toe the line, as he had to- if he knuckled  under to this smal
24   gait he moved quickly  enough when he had to. It is not in the record, but  he m
25   the piazza  looking at Santa Maria he had to keep a straight face,  not letting
26    Crosson's office  to explain that he had to leave, but there was now  such a pa
27    he couldn't limit himself to  it. He had to look for other prospects, other mot
28   road by a high barbed-wire  fence. He had to make for the section of road just 
29   n problems to pay much attention.  He had to make Jess talk, and he had to do it
30   at in  order to retain the account he had to pad his invoices  and pay the exces
31   ng down on his  extra reading, for he had to pick through several columns  of on
32   im- even the court of Louis /15,!- he had to play  a role of self-effacement.  
33   Sir Giles Overreach (how often had he had to  play that part, who did not believ
34   e city and then rose toward home,  he had to pull over to the curb and wait for
35   o be it now, any second, and  what he had to remember was to keep his eye on the
36   ld  answer; if, as often happened, he had to repeat because  he had spoken too s
37   ding operations  of the Government he had to resort to borrowing small  sums fro
38   the  muggy Washington weather, and he had to return to the  dry climate of the W
39   said, Lewis reports. That was all  he had to say.     In answer to a New York Ti
40   rojects  failed, that much of what he had to show his country  and the world wou
41   f that  after all there was no God he had to speak for and  that he was just an
42   and. But there was one thing  that he had to stress, and that was that the contr
43     and among the first to come out. He had to study the  recordings of the langua
44   as not stone. He  was not unmoved. He had to teach himself patiently  that these
45   nter of the company,  such stories he had to tell. He had sold oil stock  to Bob
46   gs were hard to  find. Hudson knew he had to use these men as long as  he remain
47   ely to painting. Like many others, he had to  work hard, long hours in a struggl
48    nearly fell. Inside  the passage, he had to work his way over the fallen  timbe
49   that"?     "I don't have a lemon". He had to write very small  to get it on the

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MrPedantic wrote:

Milky wrote: "Have to" is normally used for subjective obligation or necessity, e.g. when a person feels he/she is obliged to do something or something is necessary, and "must" (in one use) is used for expressing objective obligation or necessity. that is, when the obligation or necessity is placed upon us by another person. It's an attractive theory, Milky; but would you say it holds true of all these examples? ________________________________________________

Hard to tell, as so many of those examples are too short. I'm talking about the General Semantic Meaning (see M Lewis) of those forms in BrEng.. I showed the prototypical meaning of each of those forms, but that which happens in numerous contexts and with varied speakers is often hard to track.

I would take those as subjective. But there seem to be some complications with "had to". It's often presented as the "past tense" of "must", e.g.

1. "You must go directly to the headmaster's study and wait for me there."

Later: "He said I had to go directly to the headmaster's study and wait for him there."

But:

2. "You must not pass Go. You must not collect £200."

Later: ?"You had not to pass Go. You had not to collect £200."

While "You didn't have to pass Go..." seems ambiguous: it can also read like a subjective opinion.

It's interesting in itself that we don't have a past form of "must".

Cf. also this use of "had to":

3  ...by Blue Throat and his gang. All he had to do was light the fuses of the dynamite...

Here, the sense of the underlined part is "all there remained for him to do": an objective requirement, but not an objective compulsion.

MrP