16.8 Predicative Adjectives

We put predicative adjectives after the subject of a sentence to describe the subject. In English, a linking verb will be used to link the subject and the predicative adjective (e.g., I am busy). In Cantonese, we don’t use a linking verb, like 係 hai6 (‘to be’), to link the subject and the predicative adjective. Instead, we put an adverb between them. The default adverb is 好 hou2, which means ‘very’.

Note that 好 hou2 is sometimes added just because an adverb is needed to make the sentence grammatical. Therefore, the intensity expressed by 好 hou2 is often weaker than the intensity expressed by the word very in English.

We can fill the position of the adverb with different degree words to indicate different levels of intensity of the adjective.

To negate a predicative adjective, we can fill the position of the adverb with the adverb 唔 (‘not’).

We can put another adverb before 唔 m4 to indicate the intensity. Note that we don’t add 唔係好 m4 hai6 hou2 and 唔係幾 m4 hai6 gei2 before 唔 m4.

We can put a time expression before the adverb.