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

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

Negation

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

Burmese nouns are marked for case.

Case markers

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

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

Numerical classifiers

Nouns are quantified using various classifiers.

Classifiers are not used for measurements of time or age.

Pronouns

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

Adjectives

In Burmese, verbs carry out the function of adjectives.

Reduplication is used to intensify the meaning of adjectives.

References

^ 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.