没什么好看的 - grammatical structure

[gill]

Hi all,

I'm still studying for HSK level 3.

And in my notebook, there is a sentence I don't understand.

A photo shows a couple seating on a sofa, the guy holds a TV remote controller.

And we hear the following dialog.

男：告诉我你想看什么节目。

女：没什么好看的，我还是读我的书吧。

I understand *roughly* that the guy is asking the girl what she'd like to watch. But the girl wants to read a book, not to watch TV.

However, I don't understand well (I'm not sure about) the structure 没什么好看的.

Is this the combination of 没什么 and 好看的?

Meaning, "there is nothing" and "good (TV program)" = "there is no good TV programs"?

...

Has anyone a clue or explanation about the grammatical structure used here ?

Thanks in advance.

[skylee]

Consider - "(there is) nothing worth seeing". I don't know how to explain grammar/structure, though.

[陳德聰]

Are 没什么 and 好看的 two special grammatical structures on their own??

Sometimes people might complain that 没什么能吃的 at their house, or 没什么好吃的 or something like that. Do you see the pattern?

没什么X的（Y） is the pattern I believe, meaning there aren't any Y's that are X.

[gougou]

They should be separate patterns, as you could also have 没什么 without the 的 construction (e.g. in the original example the girl could say 没什么电影看) and vice versa.

[creamyhorror]

I'd say 没什么好看的 simply denotes 没好看的. 什么 intensifies the statement, giving it the feel of "There's nothing worth watching".

(没好看的 is of course the opposite of the structure 有好看的. And 好看的 means 好看的[东西].)

[lingo-ling]

没什么 = there is nothing

好看的 = good to watch; good-looking

There is nothing good to watch.

Often, when a phrase like this ends with 的, you can imagine that an omitted noun (such as 東西) follows.

[tooironic]

You may find this article on my blog useful. It's about nouns ending in 的 in Chinese.