[Grammar] "What does China have planned ... ”

[cubezero2]

Hi, everyone.

I have come across the following sentence recently.

What does China have planned for the Type055 cruiser (or cruiser-size destroyer)?
http://thediplomat.com/2016/10/lets-talk-about-the-chinese-navys-type-055-destroyer/

I originally thought the writer had meant to use the present perfect tense and unfortunately made a faux pas and the sentence should be re-written as "has China planned".

But the article is from The Diplomat. So, I checked this with an English friend, who said it’s correct and is a rhetorical question. He was so kind and further expanded on the subject by giving me the following example:

A:What has Daniel planned to spend his 30000rmb on? I heard he will get a car.
B: I don't know, he said he only has 30000 rmb but he doesn't want to buy a second-hand car.
A: So, what does he have planned for his30000 rmb? This isn't enough for a new car.

I thought perhaps when people write rhetorical questions they do use this special form.

I decided to dig into this and went to the wiki page for rhetorical questions. The first quote I found was "What have the Romans ever done for us?", rather than "What do the Romans have done for us?" I went through the wiki page and consequently opened several other webpages dedicated to this phenomenon. No example has been found to use the “do/does + subject + have + past participle” form.

I was perplexed. Now I’m utterly lost.

I’d like to hear your thoughts on this.

Many thanks

Richard

 

[Tdol]

China has plans for this kind of destroyer. They may not be direct plans based on the current situation, but they are plans based on the military situation, which is what the sentence refers to. They may do nothing this year or next, but people had better be careful as they have plans for the future. The quote about the Romans is from a comedy film and, while funny, has nothing to do with this.

 

[GoesStation]

It isn't a rhetorical question. The sentence is a question, using the typical question form do + bare infinitive. "Planned" is an adjective here, not a past participle, and the verb is in the simple present tense. If it were a statement, it would say something like "China has major development planned for the Type 055 cruiser."

 

[tzfujimino]

China has something planned for ...
Does China have anything planned for ...?
What does China have planned for ...?

I hope these will make sense to you.