John's provided an excellent answer. So let me add one or two more technically linguistic details. You don't need them to explain "have" to your students, though. John's given you plenty for that.
Your question is in part one of orthography and in part one of grammaticalization. As John pointed out, the orthographic word "have" has uses as an auxiliary and as a main verb, as well as some uses that fall into the broadly modal area. They can be distinguished phonologically and syntactically.
"Have" as a main verb, with the meaning "possess" and quite a few related meanings, does not contract in American English, although in British English you can say "I've a new Rolls." As a main verb, it takes negative and question forms with "do." The final consonant, /v, z, d/, can devoice before a voiceless-initial word, as in
Have two more.
She has two new students today.
He had two new students yesterday.
We don't normally notice this devoicing, and we don't mark it orthographically. The final consonant of the third person is lax, /z/, even though we spell it <s>. We know it's lenis because lenes assimilate to the voicing state of adjacent segments and the corresponding fortes, like /s/, do not.
"Have" as an auxiliary usually reduces radically to /v/, /@/ (schwa), /z/, or /d/, depending on the form of the word involved and the construction it's used in.
She's been here.
He'd been here before.
We've been here.
They should 'a' been here too.
Such major phonological reduction is a common product of the grammaticalization process, a long-term process by which a word loses its lexical content and takes on grammatical function, like, in this case, perfect aspect marking. The grammaticalization of "have" also results in different syntactic behavior. It will invert in question formation while its lexical cognate won't. It also takes the negative marker "not" after it, which can cliticize to /-nt/. Lexical verbs, as noted above, don't do this. Incidentally, the grammaticalization of "have" to an auxiliary function is not unusual. German does it too, and in Romance languages Latin "habere" reduces to a clitic or a suffix marking future.
The "have" of "have to" has followed a different grammaticalization path. It doesn't contract, so we can't say "I've to go" or "I might've to go." Rather, it will generally lose the /h/ but the remainder of the word will be stressed and the infinitive marker "to" will cliticize to it. In this case the same devoicing of /v/ occurs, but we mark it in non-standard spelling as "hafta." The same thing happens with "has to" and "had to," but we don't reflect those devoicings even in non-standard spellings. This third use of "have" is as a semi-modal, rather like "need," "dare," and "ought." Of those three, only "ought" has grammaticalized to a similar degree.
The entry for "have" in Oxford English Dictionary Online, 2nd Ed., is one of the OED's longer entries and lists about three dozen distinct meanings and uses. It's worth a read if you have access. You'll be surprised at the huge variety of forms the verb has taken in its long history.
Herb
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Ingerman, Prudence (INGERMAN)
Sent: 2009-05-12 16:56
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: another question
Oh I am so enjoying this. Here is another which has kept my awake at night.
How many children do you have? I have two. ( now to be referred to as A)
Why do you work? I have to. ( B)
In A, the stress is clearly on the word two. In B, the stress is on the auxiliary verb.
My question is this, why is the V in "have two" pronounced fully when it is not in the stressed word, and why is the V in the verb "have to" pronounced as an F when it is clearly stressed. I realize this is a pronunciation problem but I am sure it is linked to grammar. I think somehow the omission or understood verb ( work) is related to the reduced pronunciation but I am not sure how.
Thanks for thinking,
Prudence
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of STAHLKE, HERBERT F
Sent: Tuesday, May 12, 2009 2:40 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: a grammar question
These are tricky. If we treat "mother-in-law" as a phrasal compound, then the -s plural would go on the head noun as a suffix. If we say "mother-in-laws" as a plural then either we're attaching plural -s to a phrase, making it a clitic, or we're treating the compound as a noun stem, in which case -s is a suffix. I lean towards the latter since these phrasal compounds tend to become stems over time. The genitive plural "mothers-in-law's" of recent polygamous fame, bears out the former analysis, with the plural suffix on "mother" and the genitive clitic -s on the phrasal compound. Other examples of phrasal compounds becoming stems would be "nice" < Latin nescius "foolish, ignorant" and "atonement" < at+ (one + ment). "onement" goes back to the 14th c., "atonement" to the early 16th, and the backformation "atone" to the mid 16th.
Complicating the question of what the -s is is the fact that we generally can't pluralize nouns within a compound noun, just the whole compound, so we can't say "bookskeeper" but rather "bookkeepers." That's what led me, in a paper that's taking its time getting published, to argue that the -s in sportsman, helmsman, gameskeeper, etc. is a derivational affix, not an inflectional affix. Derivational affixes can occur within compounds. Inflectional affixes cannot.
Herb
From: Assembly for the Teaching of English Grammar [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of John Dews-Alexander
Sent: 2009-05-12 14:07
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: a grammar question
Herb, I know you've studied clitics extensively; is there any evidence of the English plural marker (-s) moving away from affix status and toward clitic status?
I ask this because in actual usage, I hear "mother-in-laws" much more often than I hear "mothers-in-law" for the plural.
As a teacher I offer the wisdom of bowing to style guides, but as a linguist I get to have more fun and find out what actually happens in language. In this case, the linguist in me is more intrigued than the teacher.
John Alexander
On Tue, May 12, 2009 at 12:44 PM, STAHLKE, HERBERT F <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:
Works only if both husbands have remarried. Otherwise aren't both mothers-in-law your mother. Could her taste in clothes really be that bad? And so soon after Mother's Day.
Welcome to the list!
Herb
Herbert F. W. Stahlke, Ph.D.
Emeritus Professor of English
Ball State University
Muncie, IN 47306
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