1. Family: Sino-Tibetan
  2. Subfamily: Tibeto-Burman
  3. Genus: Burmese-Lolo

Burmese

WALS coordinates: 21° N, 96° E

spoken in Myanmar

Alternative Names

Ethnologue:
Ruhlen:
  • Burmese
Routledge:
    Other:
    • (Colloquial) Burmese,
    • Burmese (Colloquial)
    ISO 639-3:

    Features

    Feature Value References
    Phonology
    Consonant Inventories Moderately large
    Vowel Quality Inventories Large (7-14)
    Consonant-Vowel Ratio Average
    Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives In both plosives and fricatives
    Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems None missing in /p t k b d g/
    Uvular Consonants None
    Glottalized Consonants No glottalized consonants
    Lateral Consonants /l/, no obstruent laterals
    The Velar Nasal Initial velar nasal
    Vowel Nasalization Contrast absent
    Front Rounded Vowels None
    Syllable Structure Moderately complex
    Tone Complex tone system
    Absence of Common Consonants All present
    Presence of Uncommon Consonants 'Th' sounds
    Morphology
    Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives Exclusively concatenative
    Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives Monoexponential case
    Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb 2-3 categories per word
    Locus of Marking in the Clause Dependent marking
    Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases Dependent marking
    Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology Dependent-marking
    Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology Strongly suffixing
    Reduplication Full reduplication only
    Case Syncretism No case marking
    Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking No subject person/number marking
    Nominal Categories
    Number of Genders None
    Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems No gender
    Systems of Gender Assignment No gender
    Coding of Nominal Plurality Plural word
    Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns Number-indifferent pronouns
    The Associative Plural Associative same as additive plural
    Definite Articles No definite or indefinite article
    Indefinite Articles No definite or indefinite article
    Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns 'We' the same as 'I'
    Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection No person marking
    Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives Two-way contrast
    Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives Unrelated
    Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns 3rd person singular only
    Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns Pronouns avoided for politeness
    Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns Identical
    Person Marking on Adpositions No person marking
    Number of Cases 8-9 cases
    Asymmetrical Case-Marking Symmetrical
    Position of Case Affixes Case suffixes
    Ordinal Numerals Various
    Distributive Numerals Marked by suffix
    Numeral Classifiers Obligatory
    Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers Formally similar, with interrogative
    Nominal Syntax
    Obligatory Possessive Inflection Absent
    Possessive Classification No possessive classification
    Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses Genitives and relative clauses collapsed
    Adjectives without Nouns Without marking
    Action Nominal Constructions Other
    Noun Phrase Conjunction 'And' identical to 'with'
    Verbal Categories
    Perfective/Imperfective Aspect No grammatical marking
    The Past Tense No past tense
    The Future Tense No inflectional future
    The Perfect From 'finish', 'already'
    Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes Tense-aspect suffixes
    The Morphological Imperative No second-person imperatives
    The Prohibitive Normal imperative + special negative
    Imperative-Hortative Systems Neither type of system
    The Optative Inflectional optative absent
    Situational Possibility Other kinds of markers
    Epistemic Possibility Other
    Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking Overlap for either possibility or necessity
    Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality No grammatical evidentials
    Coding of Evidentiality No grammatical evidentials
    Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect None
    Verbal Number and Suppletion None
    Word Order
    Order of Subject, Object and Verb SOV
    Order of Subject and Verb SV
    Order of Object and Verb OV
    Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb No dominant order
    Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase Postpositions
    Order of Genitive and Noun Genitive-Noun
    Order of Adjective and Noun Noun-Adjective
    Order of Demonstrative and Noun Demonstrative-Noun
    Order of Numeral and Noun Noun-Numeral
    Order of Relative Clause and Noun Relative clause-Noun
    Order of Degree Word and Adjective Degree word-Adjective
    Position of Polar Question Particles No question particle
    Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions Not initial interrogative phrase
    Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause Subordinating suffix
    Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase OV and Postpositions
    Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun OV and RelN
    Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun OV and NAdj
    Simple Clauses
    Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases Nominative - accusative (standard)
    Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns Nominative - accusative (standard)
    Alignment of Verbal Person Marking Neutral
    Expression of Pronominal Subjects Optional pronouns in subject position
    Verbal Person Marking No person marking
    Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking No person marking
    Order of Person Markers on the Verb A and P do not or do not both occur on the verb
    Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' Double-object construction
    Reciprocal Constructions No reciprocals
    Passive Constructions Absent
    Antipassive Constructions No antipassive
    Applicative Constructions No applicative construction
    Periphrastic Causative Constructions Purposive but no sequential
    Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions Both
    Negative Morphemes Double negation
    Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation Asymmetric
    Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation A/Cat
    Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation Predicate negation also present
    Polar Questions Interrogative verb morphology
    Predicative Possession Locational
    Predicative Adjectives Verbal encoding
    Nominal and Locational Predication Different
    Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals Possible
    Comparative Constructions Locational
    Complex Sentences
    Relativization on Subjects Gap
    Relativization on Obliques Gap
    'Want' Complement Subjects Subject is left implicit
    Lexicon
    Numeral Bases Decimal
    M-T Pronouns No M-T pronouns
    N-M Pronouns No N-M pronouns
    Tea Others