Burmese
WALS coordinates: 21° N, 96° E
spoken in Myanmar
Find examples here.
Alternative Names
| Ethnologue: | |
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| Ruhlen: |
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| Routledge: |
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| Other: |
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| ISO 639-3: |
Features
| ID | Feature | Value | Area | References | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1A | Consonant Inventories | Moderately large | Phonology | comment | |
| 2A | Vowel Quality Inventories | Large (7-14) | Phonology | comment | |
| 3A | Consonant-Vowel Ratio | Average | Phonology | comment | |
| 4A | Voicing in Plosives and Fricatives | In both plosives and fricatives | Phonology | comment | |
| 5A | Voicing and Gaps in Plosive Systems | None missing in /p t k b d g/ | Phonology | comment | |
| 6A | Uvular Consonants | None | Phonology | comment | |
| 7A | Glottalized Consonants | No glottalized consonants | Phonology | comment | |
| 8A | Lateral Consonants | /l/, no obstruent laterals | Phonology | comment | |
| 9A | The Velar Nasal | Initial velar nasal | Phonology | comment | |
| 10A | Vowel Nasalization | Contrast absent | Phonology | comment | |
| 11A | Front Rounded Vowels | None | Phonology | comment | |
| 12A | Syllable Structure | Moderately complex | Phonology | comment | |
| 13A | Tone | Complex tone system | Phonology | comment | |
| 18A | Absence of Common Consonants | All present | Phonology | comment | |
| 19A | Presence of Uncommon Consonants | 'Th' sounds | Phonology | comment | |
| 20A | Fusion of Selected Inflectional Formatives | Exclusively concatenative | Morphology | comment | |
| 21A | Exponence of Selected Inflectional Formatives | Monoexponential case | Morphology | comment | |
| 21B | Exponence of Tense-Aspect-Mood Inflection | monoexponential TAM | Morphology | comment | |
| 22A | Inflectional Synthesis of the Verb | 2-3 categories per word | Morphology | comment | |
| 23A | Locus of Marking in the Clause | Dependent marking | Morphology | comment | |
| 24A | Locus of Marking in Possessive Noun Phrases | Dependent marking | Morphology | comment | |
| 25A | Locus of Marking: Whole-language Typology | Dependent-marking | Morphology | comment | |
| 25B | Zero Marking of A and P Arguments | Non-zero marking | Morphology | comment | |
| 26A | Prefixing vs. Suffixing in Inflectional Morphology | Strongly suffixing | Morphology | comment | |
| 27A | Reduplication | Full reduplication only | Morphology | comment | |
| 28A | Case Syncretism | No case marking | Morphology | comment | |
| 29A | Syncretism in Verbal Person/Number Marking | No subject person/number marking | Morphology | comment | |
| 30A | Number of Genders | None | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 31A | Sex-based and Non-sex-based Gender Systems | No gender | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 32A | Systems of Gender Assignment | No gender | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 33A | Coding of Nominal Plurality | Plural word | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 35A | Plurality in Independent Personal Pronouns | Number-indifferent pronouns | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 36A | The Associative Plural | Associative same as additive plural | Nominal Categories |
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examples |
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| 37A | Definite Articles | No definite or indefinite article | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 38A | Indefinite Articles | No definite or indefinite article | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 39A | Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Independent Pronouns | 'We' the same as 'I' | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 40A | Inclusive/Exclusive Distinction in Verbal Inflection | No person marking | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 41A | Distance Contrasts in Demonstratives | Two-way contrast | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 43A | Third Person Pronouns and Demonstratives | Unrelated | Nominal Categories |
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examples |
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| 44A | Gender Distinctions in Independent Personal Pronouns | 3rd person singular only | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 45A | Politeness Distinctions in Pronouns | Pronouns avoided for politeness | Nominal Categories |
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examples |
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| 47A | Intensifiers and Reflexive Pronouns | Identical | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 48A | Person Marking on Adpositions | No person marking | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 49A | Number of Cases | 8-9 cases | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 50A | Asymmetrical Case-Marking | Symmetrical | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 51A | Position of Case Affixes | Case suffixes | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 53A | Ordinal Numerals | Various | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 54A | Distributive Numerals | Marked by suffix | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 55A | Numeral Classifiers | Obligatory | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 56A | Conjunctions and Universal Quantifiers | Formally similar, with interrogative | Nominal Categories | comment | |
| 58A | Obligatory Possessive Inflection | Absent | Nominal Syntax | comment | |
| 58B | Number of Possessive Nouns | None reported | Nominal Syntax | comment | |
| 59A | Possessive Classification | No possessive classification | Nominal Syntax | comment | |
| 60A | Genitives, Adjectives and Relative Clauses | Genitives and relative clauses collapsed | Nominal Syntax | comment | |
| 61A | Adjectives without Nouns | Without marking | Nominal Syntax | comment | |
| 62A | Action Nominal Constructions | Other | Nominal Syntax |
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examples |
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| 63A | Noun Phrase Conjunction | 'And' identical to 'with' | Nominal Syntax | comment | |
| 65A | Perfective/Imperfective Aspect | No grammatical marking | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 66A | The Past Tense | No past tense | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 67A | The Future Tense | No inflectional future | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 68A | The Perfect | From 'finish', 'already' | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 69A | Position of Tense-Aspect Affixes | Tense-aspect suffixes | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 70A | The Morphological Imperative | No second-person imperatives | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 71A | The Prohibitive | Normal imperative + special negative | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 72A | Imperative-Hortative Systems | Neither type of system | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 73A | The Optative | Inflectional optative absent | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 74A | Situational Possibility | Other kinds of markers | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 75A | Epistemic Possibility | Other | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 76A | Overlap between Situational and Epistemic Modal Marking | Overlap for either possibility or necessity | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 77A | Semantic Distinctions of Evidentiality | No grammatical evidentials | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 78A | Coding of Evidentiality | No grammatical evidentials | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 79A | Suppletion According to Tense and Aspect | None | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 79B | Suppletion in Imperatives and Hortatives | None (= no suppletive imperatives reported in the reference material) | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 80A | Verbal Number and Suppletion | None | Verbal Categories | comment | |
| 81A | Order of Subject, Object and Verb | SOV | Word Order | comment | |
| 82A | Order of Subject and Verb | SV | Word Order | comment | |
| 83A | Order of Object and Verb | OV | Word Order | comment | |
| 84A | Order of Object, Oblique, and Verb | No dominant order | Word Order | comment | |
| 85A | Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase | Postpositions | Word Order | comment | |
| 86A | Order of Genitive and Noun | Genitive-Noun | Word Order | comment | |
| 87A | Order of Adjective and Noun | Noun-Adjective | Word Order | comment | |
| 88A | Order of Demonstrative and Noun | Demonstrative-Noun | Word Order | comment | |
| 89A | Order of Numeral and Noun | Noun-Numeral | Word Order | comment | |
| 90A | Order of Relative Clause and Noun | Relative clause-Noun | Word Order | comment | |
| 90B | Prenominal relative clauses | Relative clause-Noun (RelN) dominant | Word Order | comment | |
| 91A | Order of Degree Word and Adjective | Degree word-Adjective | Word Order | comment | |
| 92A | Position of Polar Question Particles | No question particle | Word Order | comment | |
| 93A | Position of Interrogative Phrases in Content Questions | Not initial interrogative phrase | Word Order | comment | |
| 94A | Order of Adverbial Subordinator and Clause | Subordinating suffix | Word Order | comment | |
| 95A | Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adposition and Noun Phrase | OV and Postpositions | Word Order | comment | |
| 96A | Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Relative Clause and Noun | OV and RelN | Word Order | comment | |
| 97A | Relationship between the Order of Object and Verb and the Order of Adjective and Noun | OV and NAdj | Word Order | comment | |
| 98A | Alignment of Case Marking of Full Noun Phrases | Nominative - accusative (standard) | Simple Clauses |
comment
examples |
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| 99A | Alignment of Case Marking of Pronouns | Nominative - accusative (standard) | Simple Clauses |
comment
examples |
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| 100A | Alignment of Verbal Person Marking | Neutral | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 101A | Expression of Pronominal Subjects | Optional pronouns in subject position | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 102A | Verbal Person Marking | No person marking | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 103A | Third Person Zero of Verbal Person Marking | No person marking | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 104A | Order of Person Markers on the Verb | A and P do not or do not both occur on the verb | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 105A | Ditransitive Constructions: The Verb 'Give' | Double-object construction | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 106A | Reciprocal Constructions | No reciprocals | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 107A | Passive Constructions | Absent | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 108A | Antipassive Constructions | No antipassive | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 108B | Productivity of the Antipassive Construction | no antipassive | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 109A | Applicative Constructions | No applicative construction | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 109B | Other Roles of Applied Objects | No applicative construction | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 110A | Periphrastic Causative Constructions | Purposive but no sequential | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 111A | Nonperiphrastic Causative Constructions | Both | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 112A | Negative Morphemes | Double negation | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 113A | Symmetric and Asymmetric Standard Negation | Asymmetric | Simple Clauses |
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examples |
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| 114A | Subtypes of Asymmetric Standard Negation | A/Cat | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 115A | Negative Indefinite Pronouns and Predicate Negation | Predicate negation also present | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 116A | Polar Questions | Interrogative verb morphology | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 117A | Predicative Possession | Locational | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 118A | Predicative Adjectives | Verbal encoding | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 119A | Nominal and Locational Predication | Different | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 120A | Zero Copula for Predicate Nominals | Possible | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 121A | Comparative Constructions | Locational | Simple Clauses | comment | |
| 122A | Relativization on Subjects | Gap | Complex Sentences | comment | |
| 123A | Relativization on Obliques | Gap | Complex Sentences | comment | |
| 124A | 'Want' Complement Subjects | Subject is left implicit | Complex Sentences | comment | |
| 131A | Numeral Bases | Decimal | Lexicon |
comment
examples |
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| 136A | M-T Pronouns | No M-T pronouns | Lexicon | comment | |
| 136B | M in First Person Singular | No m in first person singular | Lexicon | comment | |
| 137A | N-M Pronouns | No N-M pronouns | Lexicon | comment | |
| 137B | M in Second Person Singular | No m in second person singular | Lexicon | comment | |
| 138A | Tea | Others | Lexicon |
comment
examples |
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| 143A | Order of Negative Morpheme and Verb | ObligDoubleNeg | Word Order | comment | |
| 143B | Obligatory Double Negation | [Neg-V]Neg | Word Order | comment | |
| 143E | Preverbal Negative Morphemes | [Neg-V] | Word Order | comment | |
| 143F | Postverbal Negative Morphemes | VNeg | Word Order | comment | |
| 143G | Minor morphological means of signaling negation | None | Word Order | comment | |
| 144A | Position of Negative Word With Respect to Subject, Object, and Verb | ObligDoubleNeg | Word Order | comment | |
| 144B | Position of negative words relative to beginning and end of clause and with respect to adjacency to verb | Immed postverbal | Word Order | comment | |
| 144L | The Position of Negative Morphemes in SOV Languages | ObligDoubleNeg | Word Order | comment | |
| 144N | Obligatory Double Negation in SOV languages | SO[Neg-V]Neg | Word Order | comment | |
| 144P | NegSOV Order | No NegSOV | Word Order | comment | |
| 144Q | SNegOV Order | No SNegOV | Word Order | comment | |
| 144R | SONegV Order | Prefix&OnlyWithAnotherNeg | Word Order | comment | |
| 144S | SOVNeg Order | Word&OnlyWithAnotherNeg | Word Order | comment |
