13.1 Yes-No Questions with 有冇 jau5 mou5 I

To ask whether someone does an activity or not, we can put 有冇 jau5 mou5 (‘to have + to not have’) before the verb phrase for the activity to form a yes-no question. This type of yes-no question focuses on whether someone actually does the activity or not.

To answer the question, we can give a short answer or a long answer. We give a short answer more often.

For short answers, we can simply say 有呀 jau5 aa3 for ‘yes’ or 冇呀 mou5 aa3 for ‘no’. We can also form a short answer by keeping the verbs and omitting the subject and the object in the long answer. If the verb is a separable verb (e.g., 拍拖 paak3 to1), we usually keep the first syllable (the verb part) and omit the second syllable (the object part).