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I am a bit confused about this sentence I came across while studying:

質問のある方はどうぞ。 "Please feel free to ask any questions."

I'm not sure about the "のある方" part of the sentence.

My guess is that it would have to mean "to ask" in some way, but I can't figure out how. Is the の possessive?

Thank's for the help.

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    You may want to look into「の」in relation to「が」^^;
    – summea
    Jun 26, 2013 at 18:56

2 Answers 2

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方 here is かた (honorific 'person'), so 質問のある方 means 'anyone who has questions'. の is often used in relative clauses to mark subject (where が might otherwise be expected).

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This is the same thing as 質問がある方はどうぞ → "Anyone who has a question, go ahead (and ask)". here is just the polite word for "person". As @summea suggested in their comment, can replace in some situations, so you should look into that. There are some questions on this site regarding that, but I'm having a hard time finding them right now.

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    が emphasizes the subject in particular (preceding が) and の is used for normal sentence flow. 質問がある方 would be said if you weren't expecting people to have questions but you felt like offering help to the small number who do.
    – HAL
    Jun 26, 2013 at 22:34

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