English Language Learners Asked by zenith3 on January 21, 2021
In a class situation, with a student asking another for coloured pencils, what is the difference in meaning between:
"Do you have coloured pencils?"
and "Do you have ANY coloured pencils?"
The word "any" is normal in this context and should be used. It is odd to ask "Do you have coloured pencils".
There are contrastive contexts in which it might appear, for example
I have soft pencils for sketching, and hard pencils for writing.
Okay, by do you have coloured pencils, because I have a whole rainbow.
Or perhaps
I have coloured pens and coloured ink.
Do you have coloured pencils.
In these cases the contrast is being made by the stress (indicated by the slanting letters). However in normal, non-contrastive sentences you would use a determiner of some form:
Do you have any coloured pencils
Yes I have some./ No I don't have any.
Correct answer by James K on January 21, 2021
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