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

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

Negation

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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]

မသွား နဲ့

ma.swa: nai.

[məθwá nɛ̰]

'Don't go'

မသွား

ma.swa:

[məθwá

ဘူး

bhu:

bú]

မသွား ဘူး

ma.swa: bhu:

[məθwá bú]

'[I] don't go'

Nouns

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Burmese nouns are marked for case.

Case markers

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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)
Possessive í (၏) yé (ရဲ့)

Number

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

Numerical classifiers

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Nouns are quantified using various classifiers.

Classifiers are not used for measurements of time or age.

Pronouns

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

Adjectives

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In Burmese, verbs carry out the function of adjectives.

Reduplication is used to intensify the meaning of adjectives.

References

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  1. ^ 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.

Further reading

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