Prefatory Note

This is the same as Appendix B in the new edition of Dr. Judson's Burmese and English Dictionary. It consists of that Grammar of the Burmese language, which was published in the quarto edition, with the addition of critical notes. Everything added in this way is carefully indicated by the letters st., which form an abbreviation for the name of the present editor,

E. O. STEVENS.

Prome, June 5th, 1883.

A GRAMMAR OF THE BURMESE LANGUAGE.

PRELIMINARY REMARKS.

. The Burmese language is written from left to right, and without any division of words.

. The pure Burmese is monosyllabic, every word consisting of one syllable only; but the introduction of the Pali language, with the Boodhistic religion, has occasioned the incorporation of many polysyllabic words of Pali origin into the pure Burmese.

. The form of the letters, the order of the vowels and consonants and the classification of the latter, prove that the Burmese alphabet is but one modification of the ancient Nagari; as the Pali language itself as used by the Burmese, is but a modification of the Sanscrit.

THE ALPHABET.

. The Burmese alphabet consists of ten vowels (သရ), and thirty-two consonants (ဗျည်း).

. The ten vowels are:—အ, a, အာ, a, ဣ, ee, ဤ, ee, ဥ, ဥိ, oo, ဦ, oo, ဧ, aa, [or ey in they, St.] အဲ, ai, ဩ, ဩော, au, ဪ, au,—to which may be added the diphthong, အို, o.

. The thirty-two consonants are:—

က, ka, | ခ, ʻka, | ဂ, ga, | ဃ, ga, | င, nga,

စ, tsa, | ဆ, ʻtsa, | ဇ, dza, | ဈ, dza, | ည, nya,

ဋ, ta, | ဌ, ʻta, | ဍ, da, | ဎ, da, | ဏ, na,

တ, ta, | ထ, ʻta, | ဒ, da, | ဓ, da, | န, na,

ပ, pa, | ဖ, ʻpa, | ဗ, ba, | ဘ, ba, | မ, ma,

ယ, ya, | ရ, ra, | လ, la, | ဝ, wa, | သ, tha,

ဟ, ha, | ဠ, la;– | to which may be added the character

(◌ံ) an. | | | |

. According to the foregoing arrangement, the first twenty-five consonants are distributed into five classes. The letters of the first or က class are gutturals (ကဏ္ဍဇာ); those of the second or စ class are palatals (‌တာလုဇာ); those of the third or ဋ class are cerebrals (မုဒ္ဓဇာ); those of the fourth or တ class are dentals (ဒန္တ‌ဇာ); and those of the fifth or ပ class are labials (ဩဋ္ဌဇာ).

. The first letter of each class is a simple articulation, smooth and soft; the third is the same, rough and hard; the second is the aspirate of the first; the fourth, according to the Nagari system, is the aspirate of the third, but according to the Burmese pronunciation, is the same; and the fifth is the corresponding nasal.

. The pronunciation of the cerebrals and the dentals, though different in the Nagari, is the same in the Burmese.

. Of the seven remaining consonants, five, viz; ယ, ရ, လ, ဝ, and ဠ are liquids; သ is properly a sibilant, but pronounced th, and ဟ is an aspirate.

. The cerebrals and the letter ဠ are found in words only of Pali origin.

vowels.

. The names and powers of the vowels are as follows:—

အ, | a or ah | as a in America.

အာ, | a or ah | as a in father.

ဣ, | ee | as i in pin, [or ee in been. St.]

ဤ, | ee | as ee in feet.

ဥ, ဥိ, | oo | as oo in good, or u in full.

ဦ, | oo | as oo in food, or u in rule.

ဧ, | aa or ay | as a in fate.

အဲ | ai | as ai in hair.

ဩ ဩော | au | as o in on.

ဪ | au | as au in audience.

အို | o | as o in note.

consonants.

. The names and powers of the consonants are as follows:—

ကကြီး, | great ka, | k, as in king.

ခခွေ, | curved ʻka, | ʻk, k aspirated, [pron. as if written ခခွေး. St.]

ဂငယ် | small ga, | g, as in good.

ဃကြီး, | great ga, | the same.

င, | nga, | ng, as in rang, when final; when initial, not to be exemplified in English.

စလုံး, | round tsa, | ts.

ဆလိမ်, | twisted ʻtsa, | ʻts, ts aspirated.

ဇခွဲ, | divided dza, | dz.

ဈ or , ဈမြင်းဆွဲ, | bridle dza, | the same, [pron. as if written ဈမြင်ဆွဲ. St.]

ဉ or ည, | nya, [ngya, St.] | ny, [ngy, St.]

ဋသံလျင်းချိတ်, | bier-hook ta, | t, as in time.

ဌဝမ်းဘဲ, | duck ʻta, | ʻt, t aspirated.

ဍရင်ကောက်, | crooked-breast da, | d, as in done.

ဎရေမှုတ်, | water-dipper da, | the same.

ဏကြီး, | great na, | n, as in not.

တဝမ်းပူ, | abdominous ta, | t, as in time.

ထဆင်ထူး, | elephant-fetter ʻta, | ʻt, t aspirated

ဒထွေး, | confused da, | d, as in done.

ဓအောက်ချိုက်, | bottom-indented da,

(formerly written ,) | the same.

နငယ်, | small na, | n, as in not.

ပစောက်, | | steep or deep pa, | p, as in part.

ဖဦးထုပ်, | capped ʻpa, | ʻp, p aspirated.

| ဗထက်ချိုက်‌, | top-indented ba, | b, as in book.

ဘကုန်း, | hump-backed ba, | the same.

မ, | ma, | m, as in make.

ယပက်လက် | supine ya, | y, as in young.

ရကောက်‌, | crooked ra, | r, as in run, or y, as above.

လ, | la, | l, as in love.

ဝ, | wa, | w, as in word.

သ, | tha, | th, soft, as in thin, or th, hard, as in this.

ဟ | ha, | h, as in home.

ဠကြီး, | great la, | l, as in love.

. The character (ံ) called သေးသေးတင်, small thing placed above, is placed over the letter with which it is combined, and has the power of a final န, or a final မ, divested of its inherent heavy accent (see Accents); thus အံ, an, သံ, than.

compound consonants.

. Compound Consonants are formed by combining one or more of the letters ယ, ရ, ဝ, and ဟ, under symbolic forms with simple consonants, according to the following table, in which မ is selected as the principal, because that is the only letter which admits all the adjuncts:—

| ယ | |ျ | | ယပင်း, ya combined, | | မျ | | mya.

| ရ | |ြ | | ရရစ်, ra curved round, | | မြ | | mra or mya.

| ဝ | |ွ | | ဝဆွဲ, wa suspended, | | မွ | | mwa.

| ဟ | |ှ | | ဟထိုး, ha thrust out, | | မှ | | ʻma.

. The letter ဟ, in the capacity of an aspirate, may be combined with the nasals, as ငှ, ညှ, ဏှ, နှ, မှ, and with the liquids လ and ဝ, as လှ, ဝှ. But when combined with ယ or ရ, the compound has the power of sh, as ရှန်, shan. လျှ, ʻlya also is frequently pronounced sha, and သျှ has the same power. ငြ is equivalent to ည, nya, and ယျ to ယ, ya.

combinations of vowels with consonants.

. The vowel အ is supposed to be inherent in every consonant that is not furnished with the symbol of another vowel, or marked as final.

. The other vowels are combined with consonants, simple or compound, under symbolic forms, according to the following table:—

| အာ | | ာ or ါ | | ချ, placed down, | | ကာ | | ka.

| ဣ | | ိ | | လုံးကြီးတင်, large round placed on, | | ကိ | | kee.

| ဤ | | ီ | | | လုံးကြီးတင်ဆန်ခတ်, large round placed on and kernel inserted, | | ကီ | | kee.

| ဥ | | ု | | တချောင်းငင်, one line drawn, | | ကု | | koo.

| ဦ | | ူ | | နှစ်ချောင်းငင်, two lines drawn, | | ကူ | | koo.

| ဧ | |ေ | | သဝေထိုး, tha-waa thrust out, | | ကေ | | kaa.

| အဲ | | ဲ | | နောက်သို့ပြစ်, thrown back, | | ကဲ | | kai.

| ဩော | |ော | | သဝေထိုးချ, as above, | | ကော | | kau.

| ဪ | |ော် | | သဝေထိုးချရှေ့ထိုး, as above and thrust forward, | | ကော် | | kau.

| အို | | ို | | လုံးကြီးတင်တချောင်းငင်, as above, | | ကို | | ko.

. The second symbol of the vowel အာ (ါ) is used whenever the use of the first would convert the consonant into another letter,—also with ခ and င, as ခါ, not ခာ. The latter part of the symbols of ဩော and ဪ, is similarly modified in the same circumstances, as ခေါ်, not ခော်.

. The symbol of any vowel may be combined with the vowel အ, in which case the compound has the power of the vowel which the symbol represents; thus အိ is equivalent to ဣ, အု to ဥ, &c.

final consonants.

. When a consonant is deprived of its inherent vowel အ, and not furnished with the symbol of another, it becomes final in the syllable. The absence of the inherent vowel အ, is denoted by the mark (်) called that, [th as in thin, St.] signifying killed, placed above the consonant thus, က်, or by another consonant subjoined, thus က္ခ; in which case the subjoined consonant becomes the initial of the next syllable, thus ကတ္တ, kat-ta.

. One consonant however is sometimes placed under another as a mere abbreviation, and does not therefore deprive the preceding consonant of its inherent vowel; thus သ္မား is equivalent to သမား, and is to be read, not thma, but tha-ma.

. ည has two forms, ဉ (single), and ည (double). In elementary works, therefore, the double form may be well distinguished by subjoining a double tail, thus .

. ဋ with ဌ subjoined is sometimes written ဌ, but frequently and more properly ဋ္ဌ. A double သ is written ဿ.

. Final consonants generally assume a new and peculiar power, and also modify the preceding vowel. These permutations, as they occur in words of pure Burmese origin, are exhibited in the following table:—

|. အ | |ဣ | |ဥ | | ဩော | | အို

. The final syllables, as here exhibited, are combined with any consonant simple or compound, as ကက် ket, ကျင် kyeen, &c. without any change in their pronunciation, except in two cases, viz: ဝ before တ် or ပ်, is commonly pronounce wŏt not wat, and before န်, မ်, or (ံ), wŏn or woon not wan; and consonants compounded with ဝ, as ကွ, စွ, &c. before တ် or ပ်, are commonly pronounced kooat, tsooat; and before န်, မ်, or (ံ), kooan, tsooan, &c. [These final consonants are not pronounced as distinctly as in English. St.]

. There are also many words of Pali origin, in which consonants, final in a syllable, are subject to permutations somewhat similar to the above, and others of a peculiar character. A key to the whole is furnished in the following table:—

. အ | ဣ | ဥ | ဧ | ဩော

အက် | as above. | | ဣက်, | | eik. | | ဥက်, | | ōk. | | ဧက်, | | eet, [or it. St.] | | ဩောက်, | ouk.

အင် | | ဣင်, | | eing. | | ဥင်, | | ōng. | | | | ဩောင်, | oung.

အစ် | | ဣစ်, | | eik. | | ဥစ်, | | ōk. | | ဧစ်, | | eet. | | ဩောစ်, | oot.

အည် | | ဣည်, | | eing. | | ဥည်, | | ōng. | | ဧည်, | | een, ee. | | ဩောည် | oon.

အတ် | | ဣတ်, | | eik. | | ဥတ်, | | ōk. | | ဧတ်, | | eet. | | ဩောတ်, | oot.

အန် | | ဣန်, | | eing. | | ဥန်, | | ōng. | | ဧန်, | | een. | | ဩောန်, | oon.

အပ် | | ဣပ်, | | eik. | | ဥပ်, | | ōk. | | ဧပ်, | | eet. | | ဩောပ်, | oot.

အမ် | | ဣမ်, | | eing. | | ဥမ်, | | ōng. | | ဧမ်, | | een. ee as in been. St. | | ဩောမ်, | oon.

အယ် | | | | | |

အရ်, | an. | | | | | | ဧရ်, | | ee.

အလ်, | an. | | ဣလ်, | | eing. | | ဥလ်, | | ōng. | | ဧလ်, | | een. | | ဩောလ်, | oon.

အသ်, | at. | | ဣသ်, | | eik. | | ဥသ်, | | ōk. | | ဧသ်, | | eet. | | ဩောသ်, | oot.

အံ, | an. | | အိံ, | | eing. | | အုံ, | | ōng. | |

. In the preceding table, final consonants are marked (်), for the sake of simplifying the tabular view; but though there are some instances of that kind, as ဥပုသ်, oo-pōk, မထေရ်, ma-ʻtee, in almost all cases derived from the Pali, final consonants are made so by having other consonants subjoined, as ဣန္ဒြေ eing-dray, or by modification (see §23), ein-dray, ဥစ္စာ, ōk-tsa, or by modification ōt-tsa, မေတ္တာ, meet-ta, ဩောတ္တပ္ပ, oot-tap-pa.

. As an appendix to both the preceding tables, note:—

1st. Cerebrals, when final, are the same as dentals; thus အဋ္ဌမ is pronounced at-ta-ma, as if written အတ္ထမ.

2d. The third letter of each class is the same as the first; thus ပြဿဒ်, pronounced pyat-that, as if written ပြဿတ်.

3d. The second and fourth letters of each class never occur as finals, except in some words derived from the Pali,—when they are mute; as မိုဃ်း, from မေဃ, the sky, pronounced mo.

4th. ယ်, ရ်, ဝ်, ဟ်, and ဠ်, after အို, are mute, e.g. ကိုယ်, ko, မြင်းမိုရ်, Myeen-mo, ဗိုလ်, bo, ထိုဝ်, ʻto, ဂြိုဟ်, gyo, သီဟိုဠ်, Thee-ho.

5th. အာ before a final gives the syllable the same power as အ, thus အာရ် is pronounced, an, as if written အရ်, e.g. မာရ်နတ် man-nat.

. The sound of a final consonant is frequently modified by the initial consonant of the following syllable or word, as အက္ခရာ, ek-ka-ra, [ek-kha-ra, St.] not et-ka-ra, သင်္ဘော, them-bau, not then-bau. But these permutations, being dictates of nature, will be naturally acquired without rule.

. There is another permutation of perpetual occurrence, which may be thus stated:—when two syllables are in juxtaposition, so as to form one word, the first syllable ending in a vowel (except အ), [expressed, St.] or a nasal, and the initial letter of the second syllable being the first or second letter of either of the five classes of consonants, it frequently takes the sound of the third letter of the same class; that is, က and ခ are pronounced as ဂ; စ and ဆ, as ဇ; ဋ and ဌ, as ဎ; တ and ထ, as ဒ; ပ and ဖ, as ဗ; thus စကား, a word, is pronounced, not tsa-kah, but tsa-gah, as if written စဂါး, and အင်တန်, considerably, is pronounced, not en-tan, but en-dan, as if written အင်ဒန်.

. But there are so many exceptions to this general rule, that regard to the coalescence of sounds as exhibited in common practice is recommended as the only true guide.

. There are two accents, the short, light accent (့), and the short, heavy accent (း).

. The short, light accent (့), called အမြစ်, the အ stop, (formerly a small subscriptive အ,) or အောက် မြစ်, the under stop, is placed under the letter, thus ကန့်. It is used with the vowels ဧ, အဲ, ဩော, အို, and the nasal consonants.

. The short heavy accent (း), called ဝတ် စ နှစ် လုံး, the two round woot-tsahs, or ရှေ့ ပေါက်, the dots before (after), is placed after the latter, thus ကန်း. It is used with the vowels အာ, ဤ, ဦ, ဧ, အို, and the nasal consonants. This accent is considered as inherent in the vowel အဲ (unless superseded by the light accent), and in the final consonant မ်, when combined with the vowel အ. In the latter case it is frequently omitted as superfluous; and in the former case, almost uniformly, in modern usage.

abbreviations.

. ၏ for | . . . . | ဧည့် | | မှ် for | . . . . | မည်

(ံ) " | . . . . | က် | | ၍ " | . . . . | ရွေ့

(when placed over ာ, in the symbol of ဩော.) | | လှ် " | . . . . | လည်

| ၎င် or ၎င်္ for | . . . . | လည်းကောင်း

ငေ့် " | . . . . | ကြောင့် | | သှ် " | . . . . | သည်

ကျွန်ုပ် " | . . . . | ကျွန်နုပ် | | ၆ or ၆ေ for | . . . . | သော

၌ " | . . . . | နှိုက် | | သွောံ " | . . . . | သွေးသောက်

. ယ is sometimes represented by its symbol, after က်, as ယောက်ျား for ယောက် ယား, လက်ျာ for လက် ယာ, &c.

. င် or င်း is frequently removed from its natural situation in the line, and placed over the following letter, as သင်္ကန်း for သင်ကန်း. [In this position it is called ကင်းစီး. St.] In the case of င်း, the accent is omitted, without affecting the pronunciation; as သင်္ဘော for သင်း ဘော.

NUMERICAL FIGURES.

၁, | ၂, | ၃, | ၄, | ၅, | ၆, | ၇, | ၈, | ၉, | ၁၀.

1, | 2, | 3, | 4, | 5, | 6, | 7, | 8, | 9, | 10.

PUNCTUATION.

. The mark ။ called ပိုက် or အပုဒ်, a stop, is used to separate sentences, and the clauses of a sentence. The double mark ။ ။, ပုဒ် ကြီး, a great stop, is used to divide paragraphs.

. The mark ပုဒ် က လေး, a little stop, begins to be used in printed books, as an equivalent to the English comma, (a great desideratum in Burmese writing) leaving the ။ to supply the place of the semicolon and period.

PARTS OF SPEECH.

. The Etymology of Burmese Grammar may be exhibited under the six classes of Nouns, Pronouns, Adjectives, Verbs, Adverbs, and Interjections.

nouns.

. The usual division of nouns into common and proper obtains in the Burmese, as in all other languages.

. Under common nouns are included three kinds of derivatives; the simple, the reduplicative, and the compound.

. Simple derivatives are mostly formed from verbal roots, by prefixing အ, as အ လင်း, light, from လင်း to be light; but in composition the အ, is commonly dropped; thus အ စာ, food, from စား, to eat, when combined with ည, evening, becomes ညစာ evening food, or supper.

. The same is true of all nouns, whose initial is a syllable အ; thus အရည်, liquor, when combined with ပျား, a bee, becomes ပျား ရည်, honey; and sometimes even when a syllable or word is added; thus အရောင်, brightness, when followed by ခြည်, a ray, becomes ရောင် ခြည်, a ray of brightness.

. Reduplicative derivatives are formed from nouns of one syllable, by prefixing အ to the noun reduplicated, or from nouns of two syllables, the first being a syllabic အ, by dropping the အ in the second number of the reduplication; and such derivations imply generality or universality; thus from ပြည် a country, is formed အပြည် ပြည် တို့ (with the plural affix), many or all countries; and for အမျိုး, a race, အမျိုး မျိုး တို့ many or all races.

. Compound derivatives will be considered under the head of verbal nouns.

number.

. Nouns have two numbers, the singular and plural. The simple noun may be regarded as being in the singular number, as လူ, a man; though the noun in its simple state, without any definite adjunct, has frequently a generic meaning, as လူ သေ တတ် သည်, man is mortal.

. The plural is formed by affixing တို့ (pronounced ဒို့), do, to the singular, as လူ, a man, လူတို့ men. The adjective များ is sometimes used instead of တို့, and sometimes both are combined, as လူများ, or လူ များ တို့, men.

gender.

. The Burmese language recognizes no grammatical or artificial gender, but that only which consists in the distinction of the sexes, viz, the masculine and the feminine.

. The two genders are distinguished, sometimes by different words, as ယောက်ျား, a man, မိမ္မ, a woman; sometimes by regarding the simple noun as masculine, and affixing မ for feminine, as ရဟန်း, a priest (of Boodh), ရဟန်းမ, a priestess; and sometimes by affixing ထီး, or ဖ, or ဖို, for the masculine, and မ for the feminine; as ခွေးထီး, a dog, ခွေးမ, a bitch; ကြက်ဖ, a cock, ကြက်မ, a hen; ငန်းဖို, a gander, ငန်းမ, a goose.

case.

. The relations of nouns expressed in most languages by prepositions or inflections, are in the Burmese language expressed by particles affixed to the noun, without any inflection of the noun itself.

. The noun affixes may be distributed into nine classes, viz, the Nominative, the Objective, the Possessive, the Dative, the Causative, the Instrumentive, the Connective, the Locative, and the Ablative.

nominative.

. သည် is the most common nominative affix, denoting the agent or subject of the verb; as ထို လူ သည် ကောင်း ၏, that man is good; but in simple sentences, it is most commonly omitted; as သူ ကောင်း သည်, he is good; also in participial clauses, ဆ ရာ ပြော သော စ ကား the words which the teacher speaks.

. ကား, သည် ကား, and မူကား (by abbreviation မူ), are also nominative affixes, denoting the agent or subject, but rather more definitive or distinctive than သည်, and from the latter quality, are much used in adversative clauses, as ငအ ကျင့် ကား ကောင်း ၏၊ သု အ ကျင့် ကား မ ကောင်း, my conduct is good; his conduct is not good. These affixes are frequently equivalent to as to, concerning, in regard to, a substantive verb being understood, as အ ကြောင်း မူ ကား, as to the reason, (it is as follows).

. ကား is sometimes used emphatically after another noun affix, as အ ရိုက် ကား ခံ နှိုင် ပါ သ လော, can you indeed bear the beating? Also repeated after successive clauses intended to be set adversatively, as မြေ အ ပြင် ၌ ကား မြင် သာ သည်၊ ရေ ထဲ ၌ ကား မ မြင် နှိုင်, on the land it is easy to see; in the water (we) cannot see. In such cases ကား is used adverbially.

objective.

. ကို is the true objective affix, denoting the object on which an action terminates; as ရေ ကို သောက် သည်, to drink water; sometimes, with some latitude of application, it denotes the object to which a thing is given; as ငကို ပေး ပါ, give to me; or the object to which motion is directed; as အိမ် ကို သွား တော့ go to the house! or the material out of which a thing is made; as ရွှေ ကို လုပ် သော တန် ဆာ, an implement made of gold. In the first and most proper application, it is frequently understood; as ရေ ပေး ပါ for ရေ ကို ပေး ပါ, give water.

. သို့ is an objective affix, denoting the object towards which or unto which motion is directed, as အိမ် သို့ သွား တော့, go to the house! though frequently, in colloquial style, it is superceded by ကို, as above. Various applications may seem to require the aid of various prepositions in English, as လက် သို့ အပ် သည် to deliver into (his) hand, အ လို သို့ လိုက် သည်, to follow (his) will, or according to (his) will, မြို့ သို့ ရောက် သည်, to arrive at the town; but in all such cases, it will be evident, on a little reflection, that the legitimate import of the affix is preserved.

POSSESSIVE.

. ၏ is the possessive affix denoting possession, as သူ ၏ အ သက်, the life of man. This affix is very frequently understood; in which case the preceding syllable, if capable of taking the short, light accent, is pronounced accordingly; thus အ ဖေ ၏ အ ဖေ, a father's father, if written အ ဖေ အ ဖေ, is pronounced as if written, အ ဖေ့ အ ဖေ.

DATIVE.

. အား is the proper dative affix, equivalent in various applications to to or per in English, as င အား ပေး ပါ, give to me. It is sometimes used for the objective affix ကို.

ငှါ, for, in order to, is used only with အလို, desire, as အ စာ အ လို ငှါ, for food, or for the sake of food; or with verbals in ခြင်း, as စား ခြင်း ငှါ, or စား ခြင်း အ လို ငှါ, in order to eating; or with verbs used substantively, as စား အံ့ သော ငှါ, or စား လို သော ငှါ, in order to eat. (See under verbal nouns, §124, and verbs used substantively, §122.)

causative.

. ကြောင့်, because, on account of, from အကြောင်း a cause or reason, is used with simple nouns, as အပြစ် ကြောင့်, because of the fault; but its great use is in connection with verbs used substantively, as အပြစ် ရှိ သော့ ကြောင့်, because of the fault. (See verbs used substantively, §122.) မို့ is equivalent to ကြောင့် but seldom used in writing.

instrumentive.

. ဖြင့်, by, with, by means of, as လက် ဖြင့် ကိုင် သည်, to hold with the hand, is the proper instrumentive affix; but it is more frequently superceded by the connective affix နှင့်, as လက် နှင့် ကိုင် သည်, of the same import; or used in connection with the secondary noun အား, in the sense of means, literally strength. (See secondary nouns, §74.)

connective.

, The connective affix နှင့် signifies 1st, with, together with, as လူ နှင့် လိုက် သည်, to follow with the man. In this sense it is much used with the secondary nouns အတူ, အညီ, &c. (See secondary nouns, §74.)

2d. It supplies the place of the copulative conjunction and between nouns, as ရွှေ နှင့် ငွေ ကို ရှာ သည် to seek gold and silver.

3d. It is frequently used for the instrumentive affix ဖြင့်, as stated above.

locative.

. တွင်, ၌, and မှာ, are locative affixes, signifying in, at, among, as အိမ် တွင်, အိမ်၌, အိမ် မှာ, in the house. They sometimes have a possessive import, as ငါ၌ ဥစ္စာ များ သည်, the goods with me (or my goods) are many.

မှာ, like the nominative affixes ကား, မူကား, &c., frequently signifies as to, concerning, in regard to.

ဝယ် signifies in, but is commonly restricted to nouns of place and time.

ablative.

. The ablative affix မှ signifies from, out of, separate from, besides, as တော မှ လာ သည်, to come from the wood; ထို မှ တပါး, besides that, one thing more); ထို နေ့ မှ စ ၍, beginning from that day, that is, from that day forth, င အိမ် မှ စ ၍ င ဥစ္စာ ရှိ သ မျှ, all my property, beginning with my house.

. က is an ablative affix of the same import with မှ, but has frequently the additional power of a nominative affix, particularly to verbs of speaking or communicating in any way, when the speech or matter communicated comes between the nominative and the verb; as ဘု ရား သ ခင် က အ လင်း ဖြစ် စေ ဟု မိန့် တော် မူ ၏။ God said, let there be light.

. Certain verbal affixes, as တုံ, လေ, ပေ, ပါ, and ပေါ့, when affixed to nouns, are merely expletive.

. The vocative is expressed by the noun in a simple state divested of all affixes. Sometimes in grave discourse, it is indicated by အို prefixed, as အို ဆ ရာ, O teacher.

SECONDARY NOUNS.

. Some relations of nouns are expressed by means of secondary nouns which take some of the preceding affixes, and are connected with the principal nouns by ၏ (dropping the formative အ) the sign of the possessive, expressed or understood, as in the following examples:—

အပေါ်, အထက်, | an upper part; | အိမ်၏အပေါ်မှာ, or အိမ်ပေါ်မှာ, အိမ်ထက်မှာ, above, over, or upon the house.

အောက်, an under part; အိမ်အောက်မှာ, under the house.

ရှေ့, a fore part; အိမ်ရှေ့မှာ, before the house.

နောက်, a hind part; အိမ်နောက်မှာ, behind the house.

အပ, အပြင်, | an outside; အိမ်ပမှါ, အိမ်ပြင်မှာ, without the house.

အထဲ, အတွင်း, | an inside; အိမ်ထဲမှာ, အိမ်တွင်းမှာ, within the house.

အနား, a side; အိမ် နား မှာ, by the house.

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Grammar of the Burmese Language

About this book

Prefatory Note

The end

Grammar of the Burmese Language

About this book

Prefatory Note

The end

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