14Resultative and causative sentences with dou

Resultative sentences denote the state resulting from an action (usually a verb) or the extent of a certain state (usually an adjective). They are formed with dou, one of the grammatical words with many functions which are crucial to Cantonese grammar. As a verb in its own right, dou means ‘arrive’, ‘reach’, and also goes with other verbs to form verb-particle units like sāu dou ‘receive’. dou also serves to introduce the state of affairs resulting from an event, which may be seen as an extension of the core meaning of ‘getting to’, ‘reaching a certain state or point’. The nearest equivalent of this dou in English is ‘until’, and indeed in some cases dou simply means ‘until’:

Yāt dím jūng dáng dou sāam dím (from one of Faye Wong’s songs) (lit. one o’clock wait till three o’clock) Wait from one until three o’clock

dou with verbs

The resultative meaning of dou is ‘to the point of…’ as we see here:

Ngóh góng dou móuh saai hei (lit. I talk till no all breath) I talked till I had no breath left A-Lìhng sēui dou yàhn-yàhn dōu ngāak (lit. Ling bad till everyone all cheat) Ling is so bad that she’ll cheat anyone

In the clause following dou, the subject is omitted if it is the same as that of the main verb:

Same subject:

Different subject:

Kéuihdeih chòuh dou ngóh jouh dóu yéh (lit. they noisy till I work not manage things)

Kéuih guih dou hàahng yūk (not *Kéuih guih dou kéuih hàahng yūk)

(lit. s/he tired till walk not move)

S/he was so tired that s/he couldn’t move

They’re making so much noise that I can’t get any work done

dou with adjectives

Since adjectives and verbs generally behave alike in Cantonese (see Unit 7), it is no surprise that we can use dou with adjectives as well as with verbs. Especially productive is (adjective) dou séi ‘to death’ with adjectives of emotive evaluation, typically where negative evaluation is involved:

While the emphatic meaning of dou séi is also applicable to positive evaluation, others such as dou fēihéi (‘to the point of taking off) and dou wàhn (‘to the point of dizziness’) are often more idiomatic:

…dou jeuhn ‘to the full’, ‘to the limit’ often appears in colloquial expressions:

For example:

Gām chi kéuihdeih ló saai sei go jéung jānhaih wāi dou jeuhn la (lit. this time they got all four prizes really cool to the limit) This time they got all four prizes; they’re super cool

A common use of these phrases is as an answer to questions of the type …sèhng dím a? ‘to what extent?’