Predicative Adverbs (Можна, Треба, Холодно)

Some of the most everyday Ukrainian sentences have no grammatical subject at all — and the word doing the heavy lifting is an adverb. "I'm cold" is Мені́ хо́лодно (literally "to-me cold-ly"); "you must go" is Тобі́ тре́ба йти; "one may smoke here" is Тут мо́жна кури́ти. The words хо́лодно, тре́ба, мо́жна look like adverbs and historically are adverbs, but here they function as the entire predicate of an impersonal (subjectless) sentence. Ukrainian grammarians give them their own part-of-speech label — слова́ катего́рії ста́ну ("words of the state category"), or предикати́вні прислі́вники ("predicative adverbs"). This page shows the two families — state predicatives (how it feels) and modal predicatives (what is allowed or required) — and the three rules that govern them: no present-tense verb, a dative experiencer, and a bare infinitive for the modals.

What a predicative adverb is

In a normal sentence, an adjective describes a noun and agrees with it: холо́дний ві́тер ("a cold wind"), masculine to match ві́тер. A predicative adverb describes a whole situation and agrees with nothing, because there is nothing to agree with — there is no subject in the nominative. It just states the condition of the world or of a person's experience.

There is no "it" here to be the subject — Ukrainian has no dummy subject pronoun the way English has "it" in "it's cold." The sentence is genuinely subjectless, and хо́лодно is the predicate by itself. Compare the three jobs the same root can do:

State predicatives + the dative experiencer

To say who feels the state, you do not use the nominative ("I"). You use the dative — the case of the person something happens to. The state happens to the experiencer, so the experiencer goes in the dative: мені́ ("to me"), тобі́ ("to you"), їй ("to her"), нам ("to us").

When the state is about a place rather than a person, you simply drop the experiencer: Тут га́рно ("It's nice here"), Надво́рі те́мно ("It's dark outside"). When it is about a person, add the dative: Мені́ га́рно ("I feel good").

No "to be" in the present — but було́ / бу́де for past and future

This is the cleanest rule on the page. In the present tense, the predicative stands alone, with no verb "to be" — Ukrainian, like other Slavic languages, drops present-tense бу́ти ("to be"). Мені́ хо́лодно has no verb at all. (The dropped present copula is treated on the buty in the present page.)

For the past and future, you bring in the neuter singular forms було́ ("was") and бу́де ("will be") — neuter because there is no subject to agree with, so the verb defaults to neuter singular:

To say a state came on (a change), use ста́ло ("became") instead of було́: Ра́птом ста́ло те́мно ("Suddenly it got dark"), Мені́ ста́ло шко́да його́ ("I started feeling sorry for him").

Modal predicatives: possibility and necessity

The same impersonal frame carries modality — what is permitted, required, advisable. These predicatives combine with a bare infinitive and (optionally) a dative for the person concerned. This is the everyday way Ukrainian expresses "can / may / must / should," alongside the modal verbs мо́жу and му́шу.

A few practical notes. мо́жна alone is the standard way to ask permission — Мо́жна? on its own means "May I?" не мо́жна is a strong "must not / forbidden," not merely "cannot" (for "I'm unable to" you would use the verb не мо́жу). тре́ба and потрі́бно both mean "need to / must"; потрі́бно is a touch more formal, тре́ба the everyday word. The fuller comparison with the personal modal verbs му́сити and пови́нен is on the треба / мусити / повинен page.

Like the state predicatives, these take було́ / бу́де for past and future:

Note the word order in the past: the infinitive can sit either side, but тре́ба було́ (predicative + було́) is the natural sequence — "it was necessary."

Source-language comparison

For an English speaker, the whole construction is foreign in shape. English props up these sentences with a dummy subject "it" and a real verb "to be": "It is cold," "It's worth trying." Ukrainian has neither — no "it," no present-tense verb — just the bare predicative: Хо́лодно, Ва́рто спро́бувати. And the experiencer that English makes the subject ("I am cold," "I must go") Ukrainian puts in the dative ("to-me cold," "to-me necessary to-go"): Мені́ хо́лодно, Мені́ тре́ба йти. Internalising "the feeler is in the dative, and there is no verb in the present" unlocks dozens of natural sentences at once.

For a learner from Russian, the system is structurally identical (мне холодно → мені́ хо́лодно; надо/нужно → тре́ба/потрі́бно; нельзя → не мо́жна). The work is purely lexical: learn тре́ба (not надо), мо́жна / не мо́жна (not можно/нельзя), слід, ва́рто, and шко́да with Ukrainian forms, and use було́ / бу́де for the tenses.

Common Mistakes

Key Takeaways

• Predicative adverbs (хо́лодно, су́мно, мо́жна, тре́ба) are the whole predicate of a subjectless sentence — Ukrainian has no dummy "it."
• The experiencer is in the dative: Мені́ хо́лодно, Їй су́мно, Тобі́ тре́ба йти — never the nominative я.
• No verb "to be" in the present; use neuter було́ (past) and бу́де (future), and ста́ло for "became."
• Modal predicatives — мо́жна / не мо́жна / тре́ба / потрі́бно / слід / ва́рто — combine with a bare infinitive (Тре́ба йти).
• не мо́жна = "forbidden / must not" (impersonal), distinct from не мо́жу = "I am unable" (personal verb).