This bin full of ice in front of a dépanneur (corner shop) in Montréal asks us:
As-tu ta glace?
Have you got your ice?
Yes, we’ve got enough ice in Montréal these days, thank you very much!
In addition to asking questions with as-tu, you’ll also hear t’as-tu used spontaneously in conversations.
The title of this La Presse article asks us:
T’as-tu ton tattoo?
Have you got your tattoo?,
but feels more like: Ya got your tattoo?
(Tattoo, borrowed from English, is pronounced tatou. It means the same thing as tatouage and is used informally in conversations.)
T’as is a contraction of tu as. When tu is placed after it, we get a yes-no question.
T’as / ton tattoo.
You’ve got / your tattoo.
T’as-tu / ton tattoo?
You’ve got-(yes or no) / your tattoo?
Asking yes-no questions with tu is often misunderstood. Sometimes people think that the second-person singular tu is being stuck in all over the place! But that’s not what’s happening. In t’as-tu ton tattoo?, the second-person singular tu appears just once — it’s the t’. Tu on the other hand signals that we’re being asked a yes-no question here.
Back to the wording on the bin…
How come it says as-tu on the bin and not t’as-tu?
The question as-tu ta glace? could also be asked informally as t’as-tu ta glace?, but remember that the t’as-tu form is informal. We can liken asking t’as-tu ta glace? to something informal in English like “ya got your ice?” Probably too informal for the text on this bin.
You will on occasion see the yes-no tu used in advertising, but when it occurs, the writers are deliberately seeking an informal style.
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