Burmese grammar

Burmese is an agglutinative language. It has a subject-object-verb word order and is head-final. Particles are heavily utilized to convey syntactic functions, with wide divergence between literary and colloquial forms.

Verbs[edit]

Verbs in Burmese are heavily affixed to convey meaning, such as modality.^[1]

Negation[edit]

Verbs are negated by the prefix မ ma. [mə] and suffixed with နဲ့ nai. [nɛ̰] (literary form: နှင့် hnang. [n̥ɪ̰̃]) or ဘူး bhu: [bú] to indicate a negative command or a negative statement, respectively.

မသွား

ma.swa:

[məθwá

နဲ့

nai.

nɛ̰]

'Don't go'

မသွား

ma.swa:

[məθwá

ဘူး

bhu:

bú]

'[I] don't go'

Nouns[edit]

Burmese nouns are marked for case.

Case markers[edit]

The case markers are:


	High register	Low register
Subject	thi (သည်), ká (က), hma (မှာ)	ha (ဟာ), ká (က)
Object	ko (ကို)	ko (ကို)
Recipient	à (အား)
Allative	thó (သို့)
Ablative	hmá (မှ), ká (က)	ká (က)
Locative	hnai (၌), hma (မှာ), twin (တွင်)	hma (မှာ)
Comitative	hnín (နှင့်)	né (နဲ့)
Instrumental	hpyin (ဖြင့်), hnin (နှင့်)	né (နဲ့)
Possessive	í (၏)	yé (ရဲ့)

Number[edit]

Plural nouns are formed by adding the suffixes တွေ twe [dwè~twè] or များ mya: [mjà] (literary).

Numerical classifiers[edit]

Nouns are quantified using various classifiers.

Classifiers are not used for measurements of time or age.

Pronouns[edit]

Burmese makes use of an extensive system of pronouns that vary based on audience.

Adjectives[edit]

In Burmese, verbs carry out the function of adjectives.

Reduplication is used to intensify the meaning of adjectives.

References[edit]

^ Vittrant, Alice (Ed ) (2015). "Burmese as a modality-prominent language Discourse and stylistic register" (PDF). Pacific Linguistics. CRCL, CRCL, Pacific Linguistics And/Or The Author(S): 4.1M, 143–162 pages. doi:10.15144/PL-570.143.