of huì as "to be" (a copula) before adjectives, in addition to the usual meanings "would" or "will". Compare typical ways to render "Are you hot?" and "I am (not) hot" in Putonghua, Guoyu, and Minnanyu: The use of to express "will" — as in Tā huì lái ma? 'Will he come?' — is also a notable feature of Guoyu. It is not necessarily considered ungrammatical in Putonghua, but is very rare. Sanders (1992), analyzing speech by groups of Mandarin speakers from Taipei and Beijing, found that the latter group never used to mean 'will' in this manner spontaneously (preferring instead Tā lái ma?). For them, speakers of Mandarin from Taiwan may be perceived as overusing . Compound (separable) verbs Speakers of Guoyu may frequently avoid splitting separable verbs, a category of verb + object compound words that are split in certain grammatical contexts in standard usage. For example, the verb bāngmáng 'to help; to do a favor', is composed of bāng 'to help, assist' plus máng 'to be busy; a favor'. The word in Guoyu can take on a direct object without separation, which is ungrammatical in Putonghua: 'I help him', acceptable in Guoyu, must be rendered as . This is not true of every separable verb in Guoyu'', and prescriptive texts still opt to treat these verbs as separable. Notes Citations References Languages of Taiwan Mandarin Chinese Taiwanese culture Chinese language