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.

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.

Nouns
Burmese nouns are marked for case.

Case markers
The case markers are:

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.