Dear rttrr,
Perhaps you think, "there
is nothing wrong with the question".
"You �ve never stop, ______?"
But there is!
It is ungrammatical.
Your reply is not
correct!
In this sentence, �stop� is a verb,
not a noun, (as your own sentence indicates: "You never try to stop ... ...")
(With thanks to):
Oxford Collocations Dictionary for Students of English, 2nd edition
never adv.
Never is used with these VERBS: cry , dream , encounter
, end , envisage , envision , escape ,
fail , falter , flinch ,
forget , forgive , happen ,
intend , last , learn , like , materialize
, meet , mention , realize , recover ,
refer , regain , regret ,
slacken , solve , STOP , stray
, think , touch , vary
, venture , want
� Oxford University Press, 2009
Michael Swann, �Practical English
Usage�, OUP, page 418, gives examples of the Present Perfect Tense, including:
�She�s never apologisED for anything in her life.�
(�She has never apologised for anything in her life�)
As others, (including Jocel, the original questioner), have
correctly indicated, the question under discussion is also written in the Present Perfect Tense.
�You �ve never stop, ______?� (Except that �stop� should be the Past Participle, �stoppED�).
Writing this question without any contraction, the question becomes:
�You have never stop, ______?�
You contend that this sentence is equivalent to:
�You (??? have ???) never try to stop but continue on
your own way ... do you?�
Firstly, for some unexplained reason, you alter the sentence from the
Present Perfect Tense to the Present Simple Tense.
Secondly, you have decided to ignore the small, but extremely important
word, �have�.
Thirdly, if this were an equivalent sentence, (which it is not), the appropriate Tag
Question after, �you continue on your own way�, would be, �Don�t you?� not, �Do
you�, as you suggest.
A more accurate rendering of your
sentence could be:
�You have never tried to stop but have continued on your own way ... haven�t
you?� (Present Perfect)
OR
�You never try to stop but continue on your own way ... don�t you?� (Present Simple)
As others have correctly indicated, the original question should be:
"You�ve never stopped, have you?" (Present Perfect)
OR
"You never stop, do you?" (Present Simple)
The original question which was posed by the Exercise in the Book,
"You �ve never stop, ______?"
is
grammatically incorrect.
I am sorry to be so blunt.
Les
