Adjective-verbs express a relative quality. 大 dà (= be-big) actually means be-relatively-big, i.e. big in comparison to something else.
| 中 | 国 | 大 | ， | 德 | 国 | 小 | 。 |
| zhōng | guó | dà | _ | dé | guó | xiǎo | _ |
| middle | country | big | _ | virtue | country | small | _ |
| China | big, old, main | ， | Germany | small | 。 | ||
| China is (relatively) big, Germany is (relatively) small. | |||||||