Reduction in Burmese Compounds - University of Hawaii · Level a long, low or mid, final rise when phrase -final, often breathy Creaky a̰ short, high or high falling, often glottalized

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Journal of the Southeast Asian Linguistics Society JSEALS 13.1 (2020): 129-159

ISSN: 1836-6821, DOI: http://hdl.handle.net/10524/52465 University of Hawaiʼi Press

REDUCTION IN BURMESE COMPOUNDS

Dan Cameron Burgdorf Cornell University [email protected]

Abstract Burmese is a sesquisyllabic language that allows major syllables to be reduced to minor syllables in certain circumstances. This occurs in many compounds, where the first word may reduce its final syllable. Previous descriptions of Burmese have relied on limited data and concluded that this reduction is unpredictable. This paper more thoroughly examines Burmese compounds, distinguishing different types and uncovering patterns in reduction. Reduction only occurs in a certain subset of nominal compounds, and is phonologically sensitive: with extremely few exceptions, only high and level tone syllables reduce, not creaky or checked tone. Keywords: Burmese, compounding, reduction ISO 639-3 codes: mya

1 Introduction Burmese is a sesquisyllabic language with some unusual traits. As is typical of sesquisyllabic languages, minor syllables have restricted phonological forms and must occur to the left of major syllables, but unlike others, Burmese allows two minor syllables to occur consecutively, and also allows major syllables to reduce to minor syllables in certain environments. The most expansive of these environments is in compounds. Some examples of reducing compounds are given as (1). (1) a. �ကမးပး tɕàN+pò → tɕəbò, dʑəbò floor + insect/germ → bug, bedbug b. ငါးချဉ ŋà+tɕɪN → ŋətɕɪN, ŋədʑɪN fish + sour → pickled fish c. ထမငးေရ tʰəmɪN+je → tʰəməje rice + water → rice water

Roots can combine tightly in Burmese, and the differences between morpheme and word or between compound and phrase are not always obvious. The writing system is little help in this regard, as spaces are optional and usually inserted only between phrases and clauses rather than between words, and native speaker intuitions about word boundaries vary. Ozerov (2015) suggests that words are best understood by their intonation pattern. The ambiguity around wordhood has led to some difficulty and overextension in previous descriptions of compounds, which have been unable to motivate, explain, or predict reduction to minor syllables.

Okell (1969) takes reduction, like voicing sandhi, to be an indication of the “tightness” of a compound but doesn’t describe or predict when it happens. More recent descriptions, such as Green 2005, seem to draw much of their data from Okell 1969, and are limited by that. Green (2005:20) concludes that “whether a Burmese compound will be of the reducing or nonreducing type cannot be determined phonologically,” in other words, that reduction is unpredictable and lexically specified.

To overcome previous limitations, I have compiled a new set of 726 Burmese compounds. The majority, 476, are of the type found here to be reducible (i.e., nothing about them precludes reduction, but they may or may not show it). I stopped collecting nonreducible compounds once their nonreducibility became apparent. Reducible compounds and some other types of nominal compounds are given in the Appendix. Of the 476 reducible, 347 are disyllabic, and 64 of those show reduction. These compounds and notes on their

Name BURGDORF | Reduction in Burmese Compounds | JSEALS 13.1 (2020)

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pronunciations and transparency were compiled with the aid of Okell’s (1969) reference grammar, Cunningham and Aung Soe Min’s (2009) Burmese-English/English-Burmese Dictionary, the SEAlang Library Burmese Dictionary and Corpus, and consultation with several native speakers, including some living in the US and others living in Myanmar. Compounds from Okell’s (1969) grammar were cross-referenced with more recent sources. Most consultants were from Yangon; three were from Mawlamyaing, two of whom spoke Burmese as L2 with L1 Mon; and two were from small villages in Karen State, both of whom spoke Burmese as L2 with L1 Karen.

I’ve taken a more cautious and exclusive approach than Okell and others as to what qualifies as a compound. I examine only compounds that do not contain function morphemes, excluding verb complexes1 and verbs with non-finite arguments.

Though Okell (1969) and subsequently Green (2005) report some examples of reduction to minor syllables in such environments, I have not encountered them directly myself. Their examples are given in (2). (2) Green 2005, examples 63a–b, also in Okell 1969 §1.18, adapted to my spelling a. lʊʔ+pi+là → lʊʔpəlà free + is + Q → is (one) free? b. ne+mɛ+là → neməlà stay + IRREALIS + Q → will (one) stay?

The native speakers I consulted disagreed that the /mə/ in (2b) is a reduced form of the morpheme /mɛ/ used in declarative sentences, insisting instead that they are unrelated, and I have not observed anything like (2a) either in casual speech or targeted elicitations. Reduction in that environment may be more common in Upper Myanmar than the areas my consultants were from.

I reserve my examination to compounds that act either as nouns or as verbs, which I refer to as nominal compounds and verbal compounds respectively. By acting as a noun or verb, I mean that the compound must be able to take noun markers and classifiers or must be able to be slotted into the verb complex and take marking for tense, negation, mood, etc. I also consider only compounds formed of real words, excluding what Okell (1969) calls “artificial compounds” wherein a real word is followed by a rhyming or chiming nonce word (e.g., /làNpàN/ ‘road,’ /təjàtəbaʊN/ ‘law’).

I find that verbal compounds, like those in (3), never reduce, while nominal compounds as in (4) may or may not. Even nominal compounds with related members, similar meanings, and similar frequencies can differ in reduction, as in (5). (3) verbal compounds a. ေနထင ne+tʰaɪN → netʰaɪN stay + sit → reside b. ေစာင�ကည saʊN+tɕḭ → saʊNtɕḭ wait + look at → watch c. နားေထာင nà+tʰaʊN → nàtʰaʊN ear + set on end → listen d. ေခါငးမာ ɡaʊN+ma → ɡaʊNma head + be hard → be stubborn (4) nominal compounds a. �ကမးပး tɕàN+pò → tɕəbò, dʑəbò floor + insect/germ → bug, bedbug b. ငါးချဉ ŋà+tcɪN → ŋətɕɪN, ŋədʑɪN fish + sour → pickled fish c. �ကကဥ tɕɛʔ+ṵ → tɕɛʔṵ chicken + egg → chicken egg d. ဇာတလမး zaʔ+làN → zaʔlàN drama + road → plot, story

1 By “verb complex,” I refer to the main verb and its morphological markers. The verb complex always occurs

sentence-finally and in some cases can be an entire sentence in itself. The main verb may be preceded by a negation marker and followed by an auxiliary, and the complex ends with some suffix(es) indicating tense, modality, and/or politeness.


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(5) a. ဝမးကအစမ wʊNkwɛ+əma → wʊNkwɛ(ʔ)əma cousin + older sister → older (F) cousin b. ဝမးကညမ wʊNkwɛ+ɲima2 → wʊNwəɲima3 cousin + younger sister → younger (F) cousin

Only a certain subset of nominal compounds is reducible: non-coordinate, non-formative nominal compounds whose first members are nouns. In this type of compound, tone plays a significant role in rates of reduction, with high and level tones (such as in 4a–b, both high) reducing while creaky and checked tones (4c–d, both checked) do not. Reduction is, therefore, partially predictable.

Moving forward, Section 2 briefly lays out the basic facts of Burmese phonology. Section 3 then examines different types of verbal compounds, all of which are non-reducible. Section 4 examines nominal compounds, identifies sub-types, and describes rates of reduction by tone.

2. Burmese phonology

2.1 Major syllables The consonant inventory of Burmese is given in Table 1.

Table 1: Burmese consonant inventory

Obstruents Labial Interdental Alveolar Alveolar Palatal Velar Glottal Aspirated pʰ tʰ sʰ tɕʰ kʰ

Plain p θ t s tɕ k h, (ʔ) Voiced b (ð) d z dʑ ɡ

Sonorants Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar

Nasal Voiced m n ɲ ŋ Voiceless ʰm ʰn ʰɲ ʰŋ

Non-Nasal Voiced l, (r) j w Voiceless ʰl ʃ (ʰw)

Burmese is remarkable for its voiceless sonorants, but these won’t play much role in this paper. /r/ and

/ʰw/ are rare. /θ/ is often produced like an affricate, [tθ], and a small number of words begin with a voiced /ð/ (e.g., /ðobemɛ/ ‘however’). Of the sonorants, both /j/ and /ʰl/ are often produced with frication (though /j/ is not fricated in /Cj/ clusters), and /ʃ/ is always a fricative. (I call them sonorants because they pattern together phonologically.)

Though glottal stops often occur phonetically in onsets, whether they have status as phonemes in this position is unclear. Equally often, they aren’t pronounced, even after open major syllables, or they can’t be distinguished from glottalization in the preceding tone.

Different vowels occur in open and closed syllables. Closed syllables end with either a glottal stop or a placeless nasal, transcribed as N, though for some speakers especially in casual speech these syllables may be pronounced with only nasalization on the vowel and no full nasal stop. The complete set of rhymes is as in Table 2.

2 Speakers vary as to pronunciation of this word. Most say it with a minor syllable, /əma/, but some produce a

spelling pronunciation of /ɪʔma/. Some even produce a sort of intermediate syllable, with very short duration and centralization of the first vowel but retaining distinct glottalization, [əma] or [əʔma], but in more careful speech this resolves to either a minor syllable or a full major syllable. Regardless of the pronunciation of this word, the compound never shows reduction in /wʊNkwɛ/.

3 The reduction of /kwɛ/ to /wə/ rather than /kə/ is interesting, since usually it’s the first part of an onset cluster that’s preserved in reduction to a minor syllable (e.g., /θwà+je/ → /θəje/, tooth + juice → saliva). When this compound is reduced, the velar place of the /k/ is instead preserved in the preceding nasal: [wʊŋwəɲima].


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Table 2: Burmese vowel inventory

i u ɪN ʊN ɪʔ ʊʔ e o eɪN oʊN eɪʔ oʊʔ ɛ ɔ ɛʔ .

a aN aʔ aɪN aʊN aɪʔ aʊʔ

x3 tones: high, level, creaky

x3 tones: high, level, creaky

checked tone

There is some variation in vowel pronunciations across speakers and dialects, 4 but these as the

underlying sounds are standard in the literature. Tone is realized as a combination of pitch, phonation, and duration cues. There are four tones in

Burmese, which have gone by various names and spellings in the literature. I adopt the system in Table 3.

Table 3: Features of Burmese tones

Name Spelling Phonetic properties High à very long, high, loud, sometimes with a final fall Level a long, low or mid, final rise when phrase-final, often breathy

Creaky a short, high or high falling, often glottalized Checked aʔ short, high and sharply falling, often glottalized or full glottal stop

High tone is marked by the grave accent, creaky by the tilde, checked by the glottal stop, and level is

unmarked. (I will only show onset glottal stops after open syllables, in parentheses to avoid confusability with checked tone.) Length differences between the tones have been noted previously, but length isn’t usually explicitly indicated in phonemic transcription or taken to be phonologically relevant. Though I will conclude that it is relevant, I refrain from marking it in transcriptions here.

“High” tone might be better called “high-falling,” since it is not a level high tone as in languages like Mandarin. I use “high” primarily because it was the most familiar English name for the tone among my consultants, but its Burmese names, /θaNlè/ or /tɕaðaN/, mean “slow sound” or “falling sound.”

Creaky and checked tones are very similar phonetically but are distinct in that checked and not creaky tone blocks the voicing sandhi described below. They can also be distinguished by their vowels: the vowels of open and closed syllables are qualitatively different (/aC/ is slightly raised relative to open /a/, and /ɛC/ is slightly back and lowered relative to open /ɛ/), and within closed syllables, the presence of nasalization or a full nasal stop on creaky tones reliably differentiates them from checked tone.

Finally, Burmese has a noteworthy process of voicing sandhi, whereby plain and aspirated obstruents become voiced between two vowels or between a final nasal and a vowel. Voicing sandhi is blocked by the checked tone. Some examples of voicing sandhi are given in (6a–b), and (6c) shows the checked tone blocking it. (6) a. မလာဘး mə-la-pʰù → məlabù NEG come NEG → (she/he) didn’t come b. မြပငဘး mə-pjɪN-pʰù → məpjɪNbù NEG fix NEG → (she/he) didn’t fix (it) c. မချကဘး mə-tɕʰɛʔ-pʰù → mətɕʰɛʔpʰù NEG cook NEG → (she/he) didn’t cook (it) Voicing sandhi does not apply to voiceless sonorants.

2.2 Minor syllables Burmese also features minor syllables, which are phonologically limited to the form /Cə/. They cannot have clusters in onset; they cannot bear tone or contain full vowels; and they cannot have codas (or any secondary

4 In particular, my Karen speakers had more open back vowels in closed syllables, [oʊ] and [ɔʊ] rather than [ʊ] and

[oʊ], and one of them produced /eɪʔ/ as [ʌɪʔ]; and some Yangon speakers had raised or fronted pronunciations of /a/ in closed syllables, [ʌ] or [æ].


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features on the /ə/). Additionally, minor syllables are subminimal, and must attach to the left of a major syllable. Examples of minor syllables include /tʰəmɪN/ ‘(cooked) rice’ and /sʰəja/ ‘teacher.’

Minor syllables don’t trigger voicing sandhi as consistently as major syllables, usually voicing plain but not aspirated obstruents. (Voicing of /θ/ after minor syllables is highly variable.) Nishi (1998) posits that variability in voicing sandhi is due to variability in the historical timing of three distinct sandhi rules and the reduction (“atonicization”) described in this paper, particularly since reduction was optional and may have occurred relatively late in some words.

Butler (2014) examines sesquisyllables in many Southeast Asian languages and characterizes them as iambic minimal words. Burmese sesquisyllables depart from this kind of classic interpretation, however, in two respects. One is fairly common, that a sesquisyllable is not the minimal word; major syllables can stand alone. The other is more unusual: Burmese allows two minor syllables to occur consecutively, as in /jədəna/ ‘treasure’ and /θəməda/ ‘president.’

Sesquisyllables can be either monomorphemic, as in /tʰəmɪN/ ‘rice,’ or can occur across word boundaries in compounds and phrases, as in /tɪʔ+kʰṵ/ → /təkʰṵ/ ‘one thing.’ When two minor syllables occur together, they can be monomorphemic as in /jədəna/ ‘treasure’ and /θəməda/ ‘president,’ or derived in compounds such as /tʰəmɪN+je/ → /tʰəməje/ ‘rice water.’

Reduction of major syllables to minor happens in a handful of environments. The most predictable is that the numbers ‘one,’ ‘two,’ and ‘seven,’ /tɪʔ/, /ʰnɪʔ/, and /kʰʊNnɪʔ/, reduce before classifiers and higher round numbers. ‘Eight’ /ʃɪʔ/ can be similarly reduced but often isn’t. This likely began as a reduction of the low numbers (‘one,’ ‘two’) and was later generalized to the /-ɪʔ/ rhyme. (7) a. အေဒါတစေယာက ədɔ+tɪʔ+jaʊʔ → ədɔtəjaʊʔ aunt + one + CL → an (older) woman b. �စ�စ ʰnɪʔ+ʰnɪʔ → ʰnəʰnɪʔ two + year → two years c. ခ�စဆယ kʰʊNnɪʔ+sʰɛ → kʰʊNnəsʰɛ seven + ten → seventy d. �စေသာငး ʃɪʔ+θàʊN → ʃəθàʊN eight + ten thousand → eighty thousand

Reduction in compounding is less predictable. When two words join into a compound, the last syllable of the first word may or may not be reduced to a minor syllable. Some examples of compound reduction were given in (1), repeated here as (8). (8) a. �ကမးပး tɕàN+pò → tɕəbò, dʑəbò floor + insect/germ → bug, bedbug b. ငါးချဉ ŋà+tcɪN → ŋətɕɪN, ŋədʑɪN fish + sour → pickled fish c. ထမငးေရ tʰəmɪN+je → tʰəməje rice + water → rice water

This paper lends more detailed attention to the matter of reduction than previous descriptions, and in so doing, uncovers previously unnoticed patterns. To make these patterns clear, the different types of compounds will be discussed in some depth, beginning with verbal compounds.

3 Verbal Compounds Verbal compounds can be both noun-verb and verb-verb in shape. In more formal speech especially, speakers have a preference against using bare single verbs. Many monosyllabic colloquial verbs have disyllabic formal counterparts, “full verbs,” which may or may not be decomposable. Additionally, many verbs have semantically empty default objects used when no specific object is included, and sometimes even alongside a specific object. I generally include these as compounds in my considerations, unless there is reason not to (such as non-decomposability).

3.1 Verb-verb compounds Okell (1969) divides verb-verb compounds, separating out “pre-verbs” and auxiliaries. What Okell calls “pre-verb compounds,” I don’t interpret as compounds at all, but rather as serial verbs. Okell’s defining feature for these is that the first verb can optionally be separated from the second by /pì/, which is a conjunction for verbs and verb phrases. Pre-verb compounds are also distinguished from true compounds by


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the fact that the negative marker /mə/ follows rather than precedes the first verb, and questions containing pre-verbs can be answered with only the main (second) verb.

I also don’t consider auxiliary phrases to be compounds. Auxiliaries follow the main verb and have adverbial or modal meanings, such as /θɪN/ ‘should,’ /ja/ ‘may, must,’ tɕʰɪN/ ‘want to,’ and /naɪN/ ‘be able to.’ Unlike main verbs, most auxiliaries undergo voicing sandhi. Their presence or absence has no phonological consequence for the main verbs that precede them.

For these reasons, I exclude pre-verbs and auxiliaries from the compounds I consider. I know of no case of reduction in a pre-verb or in a main verb followed by an auxiliary.

However, there are a handful of words on which speakers differ as to whether they can separate the verbs with /pì/ or otherwise distinguish them from true compounds. I do include some ambiguous cases like this. My impression is that this is primarily a generational difference, with older speakers more willing to separate the verbs and younger speakers more likely to interpret them as inseparable compounds, but I have not systematically investigated this.

This leaves me with compounds like those in (9). (9) verb-verb compounds a. ေနထင ne+tʰaɪN → netʰaɪN stay + sit → reside b. ေစာင�ကည saʊN+tɕḭ → saʊNtɕḭ wait + look at → watch c. ချကြပတ tɕʰɛʔ+pjoʊʔ → tɕʰɛʔpjoʊʔ cook + boil → cook d. တညေဆာက ti+sʰaʊʔ → tisʰaʊʔ build + build → build

Further subdivisions of verb-verb compounds are not fruitful for my purposes, as these compounds simply never reduce. They usually don’t even undergo voicing sandhi.

3.2 Verbal noun-verb compounds The objects of verbs in Burmese are optionally marked with /ko/, shown in (10). The specific uses and connotations of this marker are not relevant to this paper, but it has a useful prosodic property: it is always followed by a prosodic break (Ozerov 2015), serving to sever objects from the verb complex. Objects not marked with /ko/ fit tightly with the verb in a single prosodic phrase, so that it isn’t always clear what should be regarded as a true noun-verb compound. (10) စာအပ(က) ဝယတယ။ sa(ʔ)oʊʔ (-ko ||) wɛ-tɛ. book OBJ buy-NONFUT (I/you/she/etc.) bought a book.

There are, however, two kinds of noun-verb sequences which I consider to be proper compounds. One type is when a verb has an obligatory, semantically empty default object that cannot be separated from it by /ko/ or a prosodic break, at least not without changing the meaning (triggering the object’s semantics). Examples are given in (11) and (12), where inserting /ko/ is infelicitous, demonstrating that the compound can’t behave as an ordinary sequence of object and verb. (11) စာ(*က)သငတယ။ sa (*-ko ||) θɪN-tɛ. text OBJ study-NONFUT (I/you/she/etc.) studied. (*I/you/she/etc. studied a text.) (12) တစခါတစေလ လမး(*က)ေလ�ာကတယ။ təkʰatəle làN (*-ko ||) ʃaʊʔ-tɛ. sometimes road OBJ walk-NONFUT Sometimes (I/you/she/etc.) walk(s). (*Sometimes I/you/she/etc. walk on the road.)


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The other type are noun-verb sequences that have opaque or noncompositional meanings, and that

again, cannot be separated by /ko/ or a prosodic break. Okell (1969) calls these both “verbs with tied nouns” or “tied-noun verbs.”

Unlike the members of verb-verb compounds, however, the members of noun-verb compounds are not completely inseparable. Two morphemes can occur within a noun-verb compound: the negative marker /mə/ and a morpheme /lɛ/ meaning ‘also.’ The interpretation of /lɛ/ here is telling.

When /lɛ/ follows an ordinary noun, its meaning applies to that noun. In order for the meaning to apply to an ordinary verb, that verb must be reduplicated, and /lɛ/ is inserted after the first copy. Examples (13a) and (13b) show /lɛ/ on an ordinary noun and verb respectively; (13a) is only felicitous after a statement such as “I bought a bag,” with the same verb and a different object, while (13b) requires a preceding statement with a different verb. Example (13c) shows /lɛ/ in a noun-verb compound, where it occurs after the noun but its meaning applies to the verb as if the verb were reduplicated; that is, (13c) must, like (13b), be preceded by a different verb. This shows again that these compounds don’t behave as a verb with an object, but simply as a verb. (13) a. I bought a bag… (*I read a book…) စာအပ(က)လညး ဝယတယ။ sa(ʔ)oʊʔ-(ko)-lɛ wɛ-tɛ. book-(OBJ)-also buy-NONFUT I also bought a book. b. I read a book… (*I bought a bag…) စာအပ(က) ဝယလညးဝယတယ။ sa(ʔ)oʊʔ-(ko) wɛ-lɛ-wɛ-tɛ. book-(OBJ) REDUP-also-buy-NONFUT I also bought the book. c. I run… လမးလညးေလ�ာကတယ။ làN-lɛ-ʃaʊʔ-tɛ. road-also-walk-NONFUT I also walk.

Examples of both kinds of tied-noun compounds are given in (14) and (15). (14) noun-verb compounds with default objects a. စာသင sa+θɪN → saθɪN text + learn/study → learn/study b. လမးေလ�ာက làN+ʃaʊʔ → làNʃaʊʔ road + walk → walk c. ေရကး je+kù → jekù water + swim → swim d. ဗကဆာ baɪʔ+sʰa → baɪʔsʰa belly + be hungry → be hungry (15) noncompositional noun-verb compounds a. နားေထာင nà+tʰaʊN → nàtʰaʊN ear + set on end → listen b. ေခါငးမာ ɡaʊN+ma → ɡaʊNma head + be hard → be stubborn c. စတပ seɪʔ+pu → seɪʔpu mind + be hot → be anxious, crazy d. လကခ lɛʔ+kʰaN → lɛʔkʰaN hand + undergo → accept

As these examples show, neither type of verbal noun-verb compound can reduce. Thus I conclude that verbal compounds, in general, do not reduce.


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4 Nominal Compounds All the reduction is in nominal compounds, but not all nominal compounds are reduced.

4.1 Non-reducible nominal compounds There are several types of nominal compounds that don’t reduce. Perhaps the least surprising are those compounds composed of a verb member followed by a noun member. (16) nominal verb-noun compounds a. ြပတက pja+taɪʔ → pjadaɪʔ show (V) + building → museum b. ကပ ka+pwɛ → kabwɛ dance (V) + festival → dance show c. လယအတ lwɛ+eɪʔ → lwɛ(ʔ)eɪʔ easy (V) + bag → a Burmese style of bag d. လပဇာတ loʊʔ+zaʔ → loʊʔzaʔ do/make + drama → tall tale

Since verbs never reduce in verbal compounds, it is unsurprising that they don’t reduce in nominal compounds, either.

It should be noted that Green (2005) offers one apparent counterexample (example 63c), given here as (17). (17) ြပတငးေပါက pja+tìN+paʊʔ → bədɪNbaʊʔ show (V) + tighten + opening → window

I’ve consulted with native speakers on this, and to most, it isn’t transparent or decomposable as a compound. One insisted that despite being spelled like ‘show + tighten + opening,’ it can’t be interpreted that way; rather, that /bədɪN/ itself is monomorphemic and means ‘window,’ and the difference between /bədɪN/ and /bədɪNbaʊʔ/ is analogous to the difference between ‘door’ and ‘doorway.’ A reviewer confirmed that this word is a Mon loan with a hypercorrect spelling, and /bədɪN/ has always been monomorphemic.

In embedded compounds, verbs can reduce only if they first belong (unreduced) to a nominal compound; that is, in [NV]N compounds, if the [NV] compound is nominal, it can reduce. (18) ဝမးက wʊN+kwɛ → wʊNkwɛ womb + split → cousin, N+V ဝမးကညမ wʊNkwɛ+ɲima → wʊNwəɲima cousin + sister → female cousin, [NV]N+N

There is a more common style of NVN compound of which the initial NV component does not occur as an independent compound. Unlike (18) above, these never show reduction. Some examples are given in (19).

(19) a. စာ�ကညတက sa+tɕḭ+taɪʔ → satɕḭdaɪʔ text + look at + building → library b. စာေြခာက�ပ sa+tɕʰaʊʔ+joʊʔ → sadʑaʊʔjoʊʔ sparrow + frighten + doll → scarecrow c. ေဆးထး�ပန sʰè+tʰò+pjʊN → sʰètʰòbjʊN medicine + poke + tube/pipe → syringe d. �းပတရက jòʊN+peɪʔ+jɛʔ → jòʊNpeɪʔjɛʔ office + close + day → holiday

So, reduction only occurs in noun-noun and noun-verb compounds; that is, only nouns, not verbs, can be reduced when compounded.

Even among nominal noun-noun and noun-verb compounds, however, there are subtypes that never show reduction. One of these is coordinate compounds, whose members are of equal status with a meaning that collectivizes the members or generalizes to the category the members belong to. Okell (1969: §3.7) listed several compounds of this sort, some of which (20e–f below) were repeated in Green’s (2005: examples 58g–h) consideration of compounds. As shown below, these vary in tightness; some display voicing sandhi and some do not. More coordinate compounds can be found in the Appendix.


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(20) coordinate compounds a. ထမငးဟငး tʰəmɪN+hɪN → tʰemɪNhɪN (cooked) rice + curry → food b. လယယာ lɛ+ja → lɛja (wet) field + (dry) field → agricultural land c. သားသမး θà+θəmì → θàðəmì son + daughter → children d. ဆဆနဆား sʰi+sʰaN+sʰà → sʰisʰaNsʰà oil + (uncooked) rice + salt → oil, rice, and salt e. ေကာကပသး� kaʊʔ+pɛ+əθì+ʔəʰnaN → kaʊʔpɛθìʰnaN paddy + peas + fruit + grain → crops f. အးအငခကေယာက ò+ɪN+kʰwɛʔ+jaʊʔ → ò(ʔ)ɪNkʰwɛʔjaʊʔ pot + bowl + cup + ladle → household goods

Coordinate (or “generalizing”) compounds like these can be found in other Southeast Asian languages, such as Vietnamese (Thompson 1965) and Thai (Smyth 1954). I’m not aware of any Southeast Asian languages that mirror Burmese in having a phonological compounding process that characteristically doesn’t occur in coordinate compounds, but this phenomenon can be found somewhat further afield in Korean and Japanese (Cho & Whitman 2019). Cho and Whitman (2019) describe a process in Korean known as sai-sios wherein compounds may show post-obstruent tensification in the onset of the second member, and note that this process applies only in sub-compounding, not co-compounding. They also make note of Japanese compounding processes that likewise don’t occur in coordinate (or dvandva) compounds. These processes have variable productivity and are not applied to all non-coordinate compounds, in the same way that reduction does not occur in all non-coordinate Burmese compounds.

There is also a certain class of nouns that preclude reduction, whether they occur as the first or second member of a compound. These are nouns that have the formative prefix /ə/. This prefix can be attached to both nouns and verbs, and always yields a noun. When attached to a verb, it often yields a meaning like ‘[verb]ing,’ or, for more stative verbs, ‘thing that is [verb]’ or ‘the quality of [verb]ness.’ When attached to a noun, it sometimes has the effect of generalizing, and sometimes has no apparent semantic effect. (21) a. အလပ /əloʊʔ/ FORM + do/make → work (N) b. အပျက /əpjɛʔ/ FORM + be ruined → ruins c. အဝါ /əwa/ FORM + bright/yellow (V) → brightness d. အရည /əje/ FORM + liquid → liquid e. အခနး /əkʰàN/ FORM + room → room

Formative nouns are often used in compounds. When they are the second member, the formative prefix is usually dropped. When both members are formatives, the prefixes appear either on both or on neither; in a few cases, the compound may be used both with and without the prefixes. (22a–c) show compounds where the second member is formative; (22d–f) have a formative as the first member; and (22g–i) have formatives as both members. More formative compounds can be found in the Appendix.


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(22) a. လပခ loʊʔ+əkʰa → loʊʔkʰa work (V) + charge (N) → wage, charge b. ေဖျာရည pʰjɔ+əje → pʰjɔje dissolve + liquid → prepared drink c. ေဈးသည zè+əθɛ → zèðɛ price + person → vender d. အခနဝန əkʰʊN+wʊN →əkʰʊNwʊN revenue + official → revenue officer e. အေစာငစစသား əsaʊN+sɪʔθà → əsaʊNsɪʔθà guard + soldier → sentry f. အမ�ထမး əʰmṵ+tʰàN → əʰmṵdàN business + carry out → official (N) g. သကြပငး əθɛʔ+əpjɪN → θɛʔpjɪN breath + heavy → sigh h. အရညအချငး əje+ətɕʰɪN → əje(ʔ)ətɕʰɪN qualification + quality → standard i. အသားအလာ əθwà+əla → əθwà(ʔ)əla going + coming → travelling, traffic j. အသားမ əθà+mɛ → əθəmɛ skin + be dark → one whose skin is dark (Onset glottal stops are indicated after open syllables and shown in parentheses to avoid confusability with checked tone.)

With only one unambiguous exception, compounds with formative members never show reduction to minor syllables. The exception is (22j), and I suspect /əθà/ meaning ‘skin’ has come to be interpreted as a separate word from the more strictly formative /ə+θà/ meaning ‘meat (in general).’

Formatives create a complication for any analysis of Burmese compounds: many compounds have ambiguous decompositions, with or without a formative for the second member. Example (23a), for instance, might be decomposed either as /pʰjɔ+əje/ or as /pʰjɔ+je/. Examples (23b-d) are similarly ambiguous. (23) a. ေဖျာရည pʰjɔ+je/əje → pʰjɔje dissolve + liquid → prepared drink b. ေ� � ပငး ʃḛ+pàɪN/əpàɪN → ʃḛbàɪN front + part → forepart c. ဝငေပါက wɪN+paʊʔ/əpaʊʔ → wɪNbaʊʔ enter + opening → opening for entry d. တခါးေပါက dəɡà+paʊʔ/əpaʊʔ → dəɡəbaʊʔ door + opening → doorway

Since there is only the one questionable instance of reduction in a compound that unambiguously contains a formative, I tentatively take reduction in compounds like (23d) as an indicator that the correct decomposition is without the formative prefix on the second member, i.e., /dəɡà+paʊʔ/ in this case. In non-reducing compounds like (23a–c), however, there is no clear indication of the correct decomposition. Speaker intuition varies.

There are paradigms showing that often, the formative prefix is only used precisely when the root is alone, and never appears when the root is part of a compound. Some examples are given (24) and (25) below. (24) rooms a. အခနး əkʰàN *kʰàN FORM + room → room (in general) b. အပခနး *eɪʔəkʰàN eɪʔkʰàN sleep + room → bedroom c. ေရချးခနး *jetɕò(ʔ)əkʰàN jetɕòɡàN shower + room → bathroom, shower stall d. ထမငးစာခနး *tʰəmɪNsà(ʔ)əkʰàN tʰəmɪNsàɡàN rice + eat + room → dining room e. စာ�ကညခနး *satɕḭ(ʔ)əkʰàN satɕḭɡàN text + look at + room → study room f. ဘရားခနး *pʰəjà(ʔ)əkʰàN pʰəjàɡàN Buddha + room → altar room g. တကခနး *taɪʔəkʰàN taɪʔkʰàN building + room → apartment/flat h. �းခနး *jòʊNəkʰàN jòʊNɡàN office + room → office i. ေဆးခနး *sʰè(ʔ)əkʰàN sʰèɡàN medicine + room → clinic


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(25) fruits a. အသး əθì *θì FORM + fruit → fruit b. အနးသး *όʊNəθì òʊNðì coconut + fruit → coconut c. ကမးသး *kʊNəθì kʊNðì betel + fruit → betel nut d. သရကသး *θəjɛʔəθì θəjɛʔθì mango + fruit → mango e. ပ��သး *pèɪNnɛ(ʔ)əθì pèɪNnɛðì jackfruit + fruit → jackfruit f. ပနးသး *pàNəθì pàNðì flower + fruit → apple g. ငကေပျာသ *ʰŋəpjɔ(ʔ)əθì ʰŋəpjɔðì banana + fruit → banana h. စပျစသ *zəbjɪʔəθì zəbjɪʔθì vine + fruit → grape

Similar paradigms exist for /əjaʊN/ ‘color,’ /əna/ ‘disease’ (from /na/ ‘to hurt’), the words for various plant parts (root, flower, tree, seed), etc.

It could be, as Okell and others describe, that the compounds in these paradigms are made with the formative and the prefix is dropped. It could also be that the compounds are formed with the bare noun (or verb), and the prefix is attached to the noun only when it stands alone.

Each analysis has benefits and shortcomings. In the former, the underlying presence of the formative prefix offers a ready explanation for why none of these compounds show reduction to minor syllables: the prefix disallows it. The latter, however, resonates well with the fact that the same prefix obligatorily appears on classifiers when they aren’t immediately preceded by numbers or the counting wh- word, /bɛʰnə/ ‘how many;’ both numbers and /bɛʰnə/ attach closely to the following word, so much so that /bɛʰnə/ is always realized with a final minor syllable. Example (26) shows some classifiers both with (26b, d) and without (26a, c) this prefix. (26) a. အကၚျ ငါးထည ɪNtɕi ŋà-dɛ shirt five-CL five shirts b. အထည �စဆယ ədɛ ʰnəsʰɛ CL twenty twenty (shirts) c. ဘယ�ထပမာ �လ။ bɛʰnə-tʰaʔ-ʰma ʃḭ-lɛ? how.many-level-at have-Q Which floor is it on? d. ဘယ အထပမာလ။ bɛ-ətʰaʔ-ʰma-lɛ? which-level-at-Q Which floor is it?

Since the formative prefix is semantically empty when applied to classifiers and often when applied to nouns, it may be motivated in part by phonological/prosodic preferences, i.e. a preference for sesquisyllables over monosyllables, all else being equal.

Regardless, since this prefix interferes with reduction, I generally exclude ambiguous compounds from my analysis of reducible compounds in the next section. (I include a small number that could technically be analyzed as containing formatives, but wherein for one reason or another, that analysis seems unlikely.)


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4.2 Reducible nominal compounds With verb-noun, coordinate, and formative compounds excluded, there are no more apparent typological generalizations to draw about nominal compounds, but reduction is still not guaranteed. A few examples of noun-noun and noun-verb, reducing and non-reducing compounds are given below. (27) noun-noun compounds: reducing a. ထမငးေရ tʰəmɪN+je → tʰəməje rice + water → rice water b. �ကမးပး tɕàN+pò → tɕəbò, dʑəbò floor + insect → bug, germ, etc. c. သားေရ θwà+je → θəje tooth + juice → saliva d. မနးမဝတ mèɪNma+wʊʔ → mèɪNməwʊʔ woman + clothing → women’s clothing (28) noun-noun compounds: non-reducing a. �ကကဥ tɕɛʔ+ṵ → tɕɛʔṵ chicken + egg → chicken egg b. ဇာတလမး zaʔ+làN → zaʔlàN drama + road → plot, story c. အနး� òʊN+no → òʊNno coconut + milk → coconut milk d. နညးလမး nì+làN → nìlàN way + road → method (29) nominal noun-verb compounds: reducing a. တရားခ təjà+kʰaN → təjəɡaN law + undergo → defendant b. ဘရားပျက pʰəjà+pjɛʔ → pʰəjəbjɛʔ pagoda + be ruined → pagoda ruins c. ငါးချဉ ŋà+tcɪN → ŋətɕɪN, ŋədʑɪN fish + sour → pickled fish d. ဆထး sʰaN+tʰò → sʰədò hair + insert → hair pin (30) nominal noun-verb compounds: non-reducing a. လကစပ lɛʔ+sʊʔ → lɛʔsʊʔ hand/finger + thread over → ring b. �ကကေလ�ာက tɕwɛʔ+ʃaʊʔ→tɕwɛʔʃaʊʔ mouse + walk → batten, ledge c. ခဖျက kʰɛ+pʰjɛʔ → kʰɛbjɛʔ lead (N) + break/destroy → eraser d. မးြခစ mì+tɕʰɪʔ → mìdʑɪʔ fire + scratch → cigarette lighter

A small number of nominal compounds (such as /wʊNkwɛ+ɲima/) seem to be in free variation, with some speakers reducing some of the time. I count these as reducing. Some compounds also vary systematically by dialect, with reduction being more common in Upper Myanmar (Okell 1969); I count these as reducing as well, as the more reduction-heavy dialects offer better sample sizes for my purpose here.

With no typological differences remaining to distinguish compounds that reduce from those that do not, phonological differences must be considered.

In the Appendix, I’ve compiled 476 noun-initial non-coordinate non-formative nominal compounds, i.e. reducible compounds. Of these, 347 are disyllabic, and 64 of those (18%) actually show reduction. Table 1 shows the distribution of reduction in disyllabic compounds with regard to the tones of the syllables.


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Table 1: Rates of reduction in disyllabic reducible compounds, by tone.

σ2 high level creaky checked total high 30%

(13/43) 31%

(11/35) 62%

(8/13) 60%

(12/20) 40%

(44/111) level 20%

(13/65) 10%

(4/39) 0%

(0/7) 10%

(3/30) 14%

(20/141)

σ1 creaky 0% (0/2)

0% (0/8)

— (0/0)

0% (0/1)

0% (0/11)

checked 0% (0/26)

0% (0/27)

0% (0/8)

0% (0/23)

0% (0/84)

total 19% (26/136)

14% (15/109)

29% (8/28)

20% (15/74)

18% (64/347)

Some combinations of tone are not well represented in the sample. This is likely an echo of the

frequencies of each tone in content words in the language as a whole. Regardless, some striking patterns become visible.

Creaky and checked tone syllables do not reduce; only level and high tones do. High tones reduce most often and seem to be sensitive to the following tone as well, reducing twice as often before creaky and checked tones as before high and level tones. Reduction is less frequent and more erratic in level tone syllables, averaging to about 1 in 8, as opposed to 2 in 5 on average for high tone. This difference may be influenced by the fact that my compound set contains several sets of compounds that all begin with the same word, which may have a preference for reduction or not. (For example, /ŋà/ ‘fish’ frequently reduces, while /lu/ ‘person’ never does.)

The differing reduction rates of the tones, and apparent sensitivity to the following tone, may be due to differences of phonological weight. High and level tones are both long (though high is longer), while creaky and checked tones are both short. Combining the tones according to length leaves stronger patterns in reduction rates, as shown in Table 2, where μμ represents the longer tones and μ represents the shorter.

This paper will not delve further into the issue of weight, which I address elsewhere (Burgdorf manuscript), but for convenience, I will use μμ to refer collectively to high and level tone syllables and μ to refer collectively to creaky and checked tone syllables.

Table 2: Rates of reduction in disyllabic reducible compounds, with tones grouped by length.

σ2 μμ μ total

μμ 22% (41/182)

33% (23/70)

25% (64/252)

σ1 μ 0% (0/63)

0% (0/32)

0% (0/95)

total 17% (41/245)

23% (23/102)

18% (64/347)

The absence of reducing creaky and checked tones in disyllabic compounds cannot immediately be

taken to mean that these syllables never reduce. In my sample of 476 reducible compounds, there is not one instance of a checked tone reducing, but there are a few examples for creaky tone, given below as (31). This is despite checked tone being better represented than creaky. (31) a. ပတမတး paʔ+ma+tì → paʔmədì [drum + main] + play → big drum player b. လမးမေတာ làN+ma+tɔ → làNmədɔ [road + main] + honorific → main road c. မနးမဝတ mèɪNma+wʊʔ → mèɪNməwʊʔ woman + clothing → women’s clothing d. မနးမလျာ mèɪNma+ʃa → mèɪNməʃa woman + earmark → man with woman’s spirit, effeminate man, gay man


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It’s interesting to note that all four of these are, in fact, the same syllable, /ma/, as either a morpheme

indicating primacy or one indicating femininity. My impression is that this morpheme only ever surfaces as a major syllable word-finally. There may be a case to be made that the compounds in (31) are not examples of a creaky syllable reducing, but rather, that this morpheme is underlyingly a minor syllable, which is elevated to a major syllable with tone and vowel quality only when prosodically necessary.

Besides the disyllabic compounds, the only other input shape of which I have a good number of examples is ə.μμ+μμ (where ə represents an entire non-formative minor syllable, including onset). I have 45 compounds of this shape, of which 18 (40%) reduce (e.g., /tʰəmɪN+je/ → /tʰəməje/ ‘rice water’). All of those 18, and 23 of the 27 that don’t reduce, have a high tone syllable in the reducible position. Reduction is equally common in ə.μμ+μ compounds (4 out of 10; all but one are high tone, and that one does not reduce). Of 13 compounds where the second member begins with a (non-formative) minor syllable, only one reduces.

5 Conclusion This paper has examined Burmese compounds, dividing them by type and uncovering patterns in their reduction, which has previously been described as unpredictable. Reduction is only possible in non-coordinate, non-formative nominal compounds whose first member is a noun. Rates of reduction in such compounds are significantly affected by tone, with high and level tone syllables reducing while creaky and checked tone syllables do not. Questions about the phonological differences between the tones that cause this remain to be addressed.

References Bridges, James E. 1915. Burmese Grammar. Yangon, British Burma Press. Burgdorf, Dan Cameron. Manuscript. Burmese Moraic Structure. Butler, Becky Ann. 2014. Deconstructing the Southeast Asian Sesquisyllable: A Gestural Account. Ithaca,

NY: Cornell University. Doctoral dissertation. Cho, Sungdai and John Whitman. 2019. Korean: A Linguistic Introduction. Cambridge University Press. Cunningham, Nance and Aung Soe Min. 2009. Burmese-English English-Burmese Dictionary. Bangkok,

Paiboon Publishing. Green, Anthony. 1995. The Prosodic Structure of Burmese: A Constraint-Based Approach. Working Papers

of the Cornell Phonetics Laboratory 10:67–96. Green, Anthony. 2005. Word, Foot, and Syllable Structure in Burmese. Studies in Burmese Linguistics

570:1–24. Nishi, Yoshio. 1998. The Development of Voicing Rules in Standard Burmese. Bulletin of the National

Museum of Ethnology 23:253–260. Okell, John. 1969. A Reference Grammar of Colloquial Burmese. London, Oxford University Press. Ozerov, Pavel. 2015. Information structure without topic and focus: Differential object marking in Burmese.

Studies in Language 39.2:386–423. SEAlang Library. 2006. Burmese Dictionary. (http://sealang.net/burmese/) SEAlang Library. 2006. Burmese Text Corpus. (http://sealang.net/burmese/corpus.htm) Smyth, David. 1954. Thai: An Essential Grammar. New York City, Routledge. Thompson, Laurence C. 1965. A Vietnamese Grammar. Seattle, University of Washington Press. Watkins, Justin W. 2001. Burmese. Journal of the International Phonetic Alphabet 31.2:291–295. Reviewed: Received 15 January 2020, revised text accepted 5 March 2020, published 10 May 2020 Editors: Editor-In-Chief Dr Mark Alves | Managing Eds. Dr Paul Sidwell, Dr Nathan Hill, Dr Sigrid Lew


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Appendix: Compound sample Nominal compounds: Coordinate �က�ား tɕwɛ+nwà tɕwɛnwà buffalo + cow cattle

ေကာကပသး� kaʊʔ+pɛ+əθì+ əʰnaN kaʊʔpɛθìʰnaN paddy + pulse +

fruit + grain crops

ြခညပး�ငလန tɕʰi+pò+naɪNlʊN tɕʰipònaɪNlʊN cotton + silk + nylon cotton, silk, and nylon

စာေပ sa+pe sape text + palm leaf (manuscript) literature

ဆဆနဆား sʰi+sʰan+sʰà sʰisʰansʰà oil + rice + salt oil, rice, and salt

ညအကေမာင�မ

ɲi+əko+maʊN+ʰnəma

ɲi(ʔ)əkomaʊNʰnəma

brother + brother + brother + sister siblings

ထမငးဟငး tʰəmɪN+hɪN tʰəmɪNhɪN (cooked) rice + curry food

ဘရားတရား သဃာ

pʰəjà+təjà+θaNɡa pʰəjàtəjàθaNɡa Buddha + Law + Order

the Buddha, the Law, and the Order of monks

မျက�ာ mjɛʔ+ʰna mjɛʔʰna eye + nose face

မဘ əmḭ+əpʰa mḭba mother + father parents

မသား(စ) əmḭ+θà+(sṵ) mḭθà(zṵ) mother + son (+ set) family

ေမာင�မ maʊN+ʰnəma maʊNʰnəma brother + sister siblings

လယယာ lɛ+ja lɛja (wet) field + (dry) field agricultural land

သားသမး θà+θəmì θàðəmì son + daughter children

အချနအခါး ətɕʰeɪN+əkʰa ətɕʰeɪNəkʰa time + time time

အမျးအစား əmjò+əsà əmjò(ʔ)əsà kind + kind kind, sort

အေရာငအဝါး əjaʊN+əwa əjaʊNəwa color + brightness color, brightness

အးအငခက

ေယာက ò+ɪN+kʰwɛʔ+jaʊʔ ò(ʔ)ɪNkʰwɛʔjaʊʔ pot + bowl + cup +

ladle household goods

Nominal compounds: Formatives (and ambiguous cases) ကနသည koʊN+əθɛ koʊNðɛ goods + trader trader ေကာကပသး� kaʊʔ+pɛ+əθì+əʰnaN kaʊʔpɛθìʰnaN paddy + pulse + fruit + grain crops ေဆမျး əsʰwe+əmjò sʰwemjò kinsman + type relative ေဆးခနး sʰè+əkʰàN sʰèɡàN medicine + room clinic ေဈးသည zè+əθɛ zèðɛ price + person vender ပနးနာ pàN+əna pàNna be tired + disease asthma ပနးေရာင pàN+əjaʊN pàNjaʊN flower + color pink ေဖျာရည pʰjɔ+əje pʰjɔje dissolve + liquid prepared drink ဖကထပ pʰɛʔ+ətʰoʊʔ pʰɛʔtʰoʊʔ leaf + bundle potsticker


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ဖထပ pʰɛ+ətʰoʊʔ pʰɛdoʊʔ cards + bundle/pack deck of cards မဘ əmḭ+əpʰa mḭba mother + father parents မသား(စ) əmḭ+θà+sṵ mḭθà(zṵ) mother + son (+ set) family မးသး mì+əθì mìðì light + fruit lightbulb ယားနာ jà+əna jàna itch/tickle + disease skin disease ေရးရာ əjè+əja jèja matter + thing affair ေ�� ပင ʃḛ+(ə)pàɪN ʃḛpàɪN front + part forepart လပအခ loʊʔ+əkʰa loʊʔkʰa work (V) + charge (N) wage, charge for work

လပျနာ lubjo+əna lubjona bachelor / young man + disease STI

ဝငေပါက wɪN+əpaʊʔ wɪNbaʊʔ enter + opening opening for entry သကြပငး əθɛʔ+əpjɪN θɛʔpjɪN breath + heavy sigh (N) သကသ θɛʔ+əθaN θɛʔθaN breath + sound creaky tone သားအဖ θà+əpʰa θà(ʔ)əpʰa son + father father and son

အခနဝန əkʰʊN+wʊN əkʰʊNwʊN tax/revenue + responsible/official revenue official

အချနအခါး ətɕʰeɪN+əkʰa ətɕʰeɪNəkʰa time + time time

အေြခအေန ətɕʰe+əne ətɕʰe(ʔ)əne basis + status situation, circumstance

အစအဆး əsa+əsʰoʊN əsa(ʔ)əsʰoʊN beginning + ending beginning and ending အေစာငစစသား əsaʊN+sɪʔθà əsaʊNsɪʔθà guard + soldier sentry အဆကအသယ əsʰɛʔ+əθwɛ əsʰɛʔəθwɛ connection + threadinɡ connection, contact အမျးအစား əmjò+əsà əmjò(ʔ)əsà kind + kind kind, sort အမ�ထမး əʰmṵ+tʰàN əʰmṵdàN business + carry out official (N) အမသား əmɛ+θà əmɛðà beef + meat beef အရညအချငး əje+ətɕʰɪN əje(ʔ)ətɕʰɪN qualification + quality standard အရာ� əja+ʃḭ əjaʃḭ issue + have official (N) အေရာငးအဝယ əjàʊN+əwɛ əjàʊNəwɛ sellinɡ + buyinɡ trade အေရာငအဝါး əjaʊN+əwa əjaʊNəwa color + brightness color, brightness အသားအလာ əθwà+əla əθwà(ʔ)əla going + coming travelling, traffic အသချ�စက əθaN+tɕʰḛ+sɛʔ əθaNtɕʰḛzɛʔ sound + make loud + machine loudspeaker အပခနး eɪʔ+əkʰàN eɪʔkʰàN sleep + room bedroom Nominal compounds: NN & NV, μ+μ & μ+μμ ေကျာကချဉ tɕaʊʔ+tɕʰɪN tɕaʊʔtɕʰɪN stone + sour alum crystal ေကျာကဂမး tɕaʊʔ+ɡʊN tɕaʊʔɡʊN stone + cotton asbestos


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ေကျာကစာ tɕaʊʔ+sa tɕaʊʔsa stone + text stone inscription ေကျာကစမး tɕaʊʔ+sèɪN tɕaʊʔsèɪN stone + green jade ေကျာကဆး tɕaʊʔ+sʰù tɕaʊʔsʰù stone + thorn anchor ေကျာကပင tɕaʊʔ+pwɪN tɕaʊʔpwɪN stone + flower snow fungus ေကျာကြဖး tɕaʊʔ+pʰjù tɕaʊʔpʰjù stone + white alabaster, chickenpox �ကကဆင tɕɛʔ+sʰɪN tɕɛʔsʰɪN fowl + elephant turkey �ကကေတာ tɕɛʔ+tɔ tɕɛʔtɔ fowl + jungle parakeet �ကကပ tɕɛʔ+pwɛ tɕɛʔpwɛ fowl + festival cockfight �ကကဥ tɕɛʔ+ṵ tɕɛʔṵ chicken + egg chicken egg �ကက� tɕwɛʔ+no tɕwɛʔno mouse + milk/breast wart �ကကေလ�ာက tɕwɛʔ+ʃaʊʔ tɕwɛʔʃaʊʔ mouse + walk batten, ledge ချက�ကး tɕʰɛʔ+tɕò tɕʰɛʔtɕò navel + cord umbilical cord ချစသ tɕʰɪʔ+θu tɕʰɪʔθu love + person boyfriend, girlfriend စကြပင sɛʔ+pjɪN sɛʔpjɪN machine + repair mechanic စစြပန sɪʔ+pjaN sɪʔpjaN war + return veteran စစသား sɪʔ+θà sɪʔθà war + son soldier စတထား seɪʔ+tʰà seɪʔtʰà mind + put attitude, temperment စတထား seɪʔ+tʰà seɪʔtʰà mind + set/put attitude, temperament စတသင seɪʔ+tʰɪN seɪʔtʰɪN mind + think opinion ဇပပ zaʔ+pwɛ zaʔpwɛ drama + festival (theater) play ဇာတပျက zaʔ+pjɛʔ zaʔpjɛʔ drama + be broken black sheep ဇာတပ zaʔ+pwɛ zaʔpwɛ drama + festival dramatic performance ဇာတလမး zaʔ+làN zaʔlàN drama + road plot, story ညစာ ɲa+sa ɲaza night/evening + food dinner ညေန ɲa+ne ɲane evening + day afternoon �နေပါငး ɲʊN+pàʊN ɲʊNbàʊN apex + add coalition, anthology တကအမ taɪʔ+eɪN taɪʔeɪN brick building + house brick house �ဆ no+sʰi nozi milk + oil sweetened condensed milk �ဘး no+bù nobù milk + bottle baby bottle ေနလည nḛ+lɛ nḛlɛ day + middle? afternoon ဖတစာ pʰaʔ+sa pʰaʔsa read + text reader (school-book) မျကခး mjɛʔ+kʰòʊN mjɛʔkʰòʊN eye/face + be arched eyebrow မျကမန mjɛʔ+ʰmaN mjɛʔʰmaN eye + correct eye glasses


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မျကရည mjɛʔ+je mjɛʔje eye/face + liquid tear မျကလး mjɛʔ+lòʊN mjɛʔlòʊN eye + round eyeball မ�စချဉ ʰmjɪʔ+tɕʰɪN ʰmjɪʔtɕʰɪN bamboo shoots + sour pickled bamboo shoots ြမကခငး mjɛʔ+kʰɪN mjɛʔkʰɪN grass + spread/lay lawn ြမစကမး mjɪʔ+kàN mjɪʔkàN river + bank riverbank ြမစဆပ mjɪʔ+sʰeɪʔ mjɪʔsʰeɪʔ river + port/terminal/dock landing ြမစဆ mjɪʔ+sʰaN mjɪʔsʰaN river + junction confluence ြမစေရ mjɪʔ+je mjɪʔje river + water river water �မ�ေတာ mjo+tɔ mjodɔ city + main capital �မ�နယ mjo+nɛ mjonɛ city + territory township ရကြခာ jɛʔ+tɕʰa jɛʔtɕʰa day + interval every other day ရကြခား jɛʔ+tɕʰà jɛʔtɕʰà day + be separated every other day ရကဆက jɛʔ+sʰɛʔ jɛʔsʰɛʔ day + keep/continue day afte day, days in a row ရကတ jɛʔ+to jɛʔto day + short only a few days, a short period of time ရက�ည jɛʔ+ʃe jɛʔʃe day + long a long time ရပကက jaʔ+kwɛʔ jaʔkwɛʔ community + plot (N) neighborhood ရကေလ jwɛʔ+ʰle jwɛʔʰle leaf/sail + boat sailboat ေ��ဆက ʃḛ+sʰɛʔ ʃḛzɛʔ front + continue/connect near future ေ��ေဆာင ʃḛ+sʰaʊN ʃḛzaʊN front + lead leader ေ��တနး ʃḛ+tàN ʃḛdàN front + row frontline ေ��ေန ʃḛ+ne ʃḛne front + stay lawyer, advocate ေ�ာကရက ʃaʊʔ+jwɛʔ ʃaʊʔjwɛʔ lemon, kaffir + leaf kaffir lime leaf ရပသာ jeɪʔ+θa jeɪʔθa refuge + pleasant haven, retreat �ပထ joʊʔ+tʰṵ joʊʔtʰṵ form/figure + carve statue, sculpture လကကင lɛʔ+kaɪN lɛʔkaɪN hand + hold handle, handgrip လကေကာက lɛʔ+kaʊʔ lɛʔkaʊʔ hand/arm + curved bracelet လကခတ lɛʔ+kʰaʔ lɛʔkʰaʔ hand + strike xylophone stick လကေြခာငး lɛʔ+tɕʰàʊN lɛʔtɕʰàʊN hand + stick CL finger လကေခါက lɛʔ+kʰaʊʔ lɛʔkʰaʊʔ hand + fold knuckles လကစပ lɛʔ+sʊʔ lɛʔsʊʔ hand/finger + thread over ring လကဆစ lɛʔ+sʰɪʔ lɛʔsʰɪʔ hand + joint wrist, knuckle လကဆပ lɛʔ+sʰoʊʔ lɛʔsʰoʊʔ hand + grip clenched hand လကေဆာင lɛʔ+sʰaʊN lɛʔsʰaʊN hand + carry present, gift


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လကဆ lɛʔ+sʰwɛ lɛʔsʰwɛ hand + drag/pull portable လကေတ� lɛʔ+twḛ lɛʔ+twḛ hand + see/meet practice, personal experience လကတ lɛʔ+to lɛʔ+to hand/arm + short short-sleeved shirt လကထတ lɛʔ+tʰeɪʔ lɛʔ+tʰeɪʔ hand + shackles handcuffs လကထပ lɛʔ+tʰeɪʔ lɛʔ+tʰeɪʔ hand + top fingertip လကေထာက lɛʔ+tʰaʊʔ lɛʔ+tʰaʊʔ hand + support/aid assistant လကြပတ lɛʔ+pjaʔ lɛʔpjaʔ hand/arm + cut off sleeveless shirt; arm amputee လကဖ� lɛʔ+pʰwɛ lɛʔpʰwɛ hand/arm + bind amulet, charm

လကေဗ lɛʔ+bwe lɛʔbwe hand + whorl (in skin or hair) fingerprint

လကမ lɛʔ+ma lɛʔma hand + main thumb; inch; claw, pincher လကမတ lɛʔ+ʰmaʔ lɛʔʰmaʔ hand + note/mark ticket လကေမာင lɛʔ+màʊN lɛʔmàʊN hand + lever upper arm, biceps လကရာ lɛʔ+ja lɛʔja hand + mark, imprint handprint, fingerprint, handiwork လကေရး lɛʔ+jè lɛʔjè hand + write handwriting လကေရး lɛʔ+jè lɛʔjè hand + write handwriting လကအတ lɛʔ+eɪʔ lɛʔeɪʔ hand + bag glove, mitten လပေကျာက leɪʔ+tɕaʊʔ leɪʔtɕaʊʔ turtle + stone ray, skate လပခ leɪʔ+kʰʊN leɪʔkʰʊN turtle + shell turtle shell ဝကအ wɛʔ+ṵ wɛʔṵ pig + intestines pig intestine ဝတစ wʊʔ+soʊN wʊʔsoʊN clothing + set school clothes, uniform သစကငး θɪʔ+kàɪN θɪʔkàɪN wood + branch branch, tree limb သစေခါက θɪʔ+kʰaʊʔ θɪʔkʰaʊʔ wood + fold tree bark သစေတာက θɪʔ+taʊʔ θɪʔtaʊʔ wood + flick woodpecker သစပင θɪʔ+pɪN θɪʔpɪN wood + plant tree အပေခါငး aʔ+ɡàʊN aʔɡàʊN needle + head head of a pin, needle of a record player အတကပ eɪʔ+kaʔ eɪʔkaʔ bag + close pocket အတ�ကပ oʊʔ+tɕʊʔ oʊʔtɕʊʔ brick + brittle tile အတ�း oʊʔ+jò oʊʔjò brick + wall brick wall Nominoal compounds: NN & NV, μμ+μ & μμ+μμ, non-reducing ကငးစင kɪN+sɪN kɪNzɪN guard (N) + stage watch tower ကမးေြခ kàN+tɕʰe kàNdʑe bank/shore + foot coast, beach ကမးနား kàN+nà kàNnà bank/shore + ear (rest?) waterfront


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ေကျာငးသ tɕàʊN+θu tɕàʊNðu school + person student (F) ေကျာငသား tɕàʊN+θà tɕàʊNðà school + son student (M) �ကရည tɕaN+je tɕaNje sugarcane + liquid cane juice �ကယငါး tɕɛ+ŋà tɕɛŋà star + fish starfish �ကယစ tɕɛ+sṵ tɕɛzṵ star + group constellation ေ�ကာငလ�ာ tɕaʊN+ʃa tɕaʊNʃa cat + tongue Indian trumpet (plant)

ေ�ကာငအမ tɕaʊN+eɪN tɕaʊNeɪN cat + house cat box (a kind of storage cupboard)

ကားဂတ kà+ɡeɪʔ kàɡeɪʔ car + gate bus station ကန�ကမး koʊN+tɕàN koʊNdʑàN goods + rough/coarse raw materials ကနေချာ koʊN+tɕʰɔ koʊNdʑɔ goods + smooth/finish manufactured goods ကနစမး koʊN+sèɪN koʊNzèɪN goods + green perishable fruits/vegetables ကနမာ koʊN+ma koʊNma goods + hard durable goods ြခထက tɕʰaN+tʰwɛʔ tɕʰaNdwɛʔ garden + exit produce from one's garden ြခငေဆး tɕʰɪN+sʰè tɕʰɪNzè mosquito + medicine mosquito repellent ေြခေချာငး tɕʰe+tɕʰàʊN tɕʰedʑàʊN foot/leg + stick CL toe ေြခနငး tɕʰe+nɪN tɕʰenɪN leg/foot + tread footrest, pedal ေြခရာ tɕʰi+ja tɕʰija leg/foot + place footprint ေြခအတ tɕʰi+eɪʔ tɕʰi(ʔ)eɪʔ foot + bag sock, stocking ေခါငးေဆာင ɡàʊN+sʰaʊN ɡàʊNzaʊN head + lead leader ေခါငးတင ɡàʊN+taɪN ɡàʊNdaɪN head + column chimney ခဖျက kʰɛ+pʰjɛʔ kʰɛbjɛʔ lead (N) + break/destroy eraser ေငတ ŋwe+tṵ ŋwedṵ money/silver + imitate counterfeit money စာ�ကမး sa+tɕàN sadʑàN text + coarse draft (of a paper) စာေ�ကာငး sa+tɕàʊN sadʑàʊN text + route line of text စာကး sa+kù sakù text + copy (V) copy (N) စာချပ sa+tɕʰoʊʔ sadʑoʊʔ text + control/bind/sign contract စာေချာ sa+tɕʰɔ sadʑɔ text + smooth/finish final draft စာေခါငး sa+ɡàʊN saɡàʊN text + head title စာဆ sa+sʰo sazo text + say poet စာတနး sa+tàN sadàN text + row line of text, essay စာတနး sa+tàN sadàN text + survey thesis စာတက sa+taɪʔ sadaɪʔ text + building post office


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စာပ sa+po sabo text + send mail train စာပဒ sa+paɪʔ sabaɪʔ text + passage paragraph စာရက sa+jwɛʔ sajwɛʔ text + leaf piece of paper စာအတ sa+eɪʔ sa(ʔ)eɪʔ text + bag envelope

ဆနမ�န sʰaN+ʰmoʊN sʰaNʰmoʊN (uncooked) rice + powder/flour rice flour

ဆချက sʰi+tɕʰɛʔ sʰidʑɛʔ oil + cook (rice noodles with) cooked oil ဆစက sʰi+sɛʔ sʰizɛʔ oil + machine/mill oil mill ဆေဆး sʰi+sʰè sʰizè oil + paint oil paint ဆး�ကး sʰù+tɕò sʰùdʑò thorn + cord barbed wire ဆးပနး sʰù+pàN sʰùbàN thorn + flower safflower ေဆး�ကမး sʰè+tɕàN sʰèdʑàN medicine + coarse drug with harsh side effects ေဆးခင sʰè+kʰwɪN sʰèkʰwɪN medicine + permit medical leave ေဆးစာ sʰè+sa sʰèza medicine + text prescription ေဆးဆး sʰè+sʰò sʰèsʰò medicine + dye dye ေဆးဆင sʰè+sʰaɪN sʰèzaɪN medicine + shop pharmacy ေဆး��နး sʰè+ʰɲʊN sʰèʰɲʊN medicine + refer directions for use of medicine ေဆးတပ sʰè+taʔ sʰèdaʔ medicine + troops medical corps ေဆး� sʰè+joʊN sʰèjoʊN medicine + office hospital ေတာေ�ကာင tɔ+tɕaʊN tɔdʑaʊN jungle + cat wildcat; bandit ေတာင�ကား taʊN+tɕà taʊNdʑà mountain + interval valley ေတာငေ�ကာ taʊN+tɕɔ taʊNdʑɔ mountain + back ridge ေတာငေစာငး taʊN+sàʊN taʊNzàʊN mountain + side/slope hillside ေတာငတနး taʊN+tàN taʊNdàN mountain + row range of hills or mountains ေတာငယာ taʊN+ja taʊNja mountain + (dry) field hillside farming ေတာငလ taʊN+lɛ taʊNlɛ mountain + change (hillside) collapse နားစည nà+si nàzi ear + drum eardrum ပနးတင pàN+taɪN pàNdaɪN flower + post winning post; goal, destination ြပာခက pja+kʰwɛʔ pjaɡwɛʔ ash + cup/bowl ashtray ေပစာ pe+sa peza palm + text palm leaf manuscript ဖနစပ pʰoʊN+soʊʔ pʰoʊNsoʊʔ dust + suck vacuum cleaner ဗလ�ကး bo+tɕì bodʑì lieutenant + big captain ဗလချပ bo+tɕʰoʊʔ bodʑoʊʔ lieutenant + prime major general


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ဗလမ�း bo+ʰmù boʰmù lieutenant + captain major ဘနးစား bèɪN+sà bèɪNzà opium + eat addict ဘနးြဖ bèɪN+pʰjù bèɪNbjù opium + white heroin ဘနး�ကး pʰòʊN+tɕì pʰòʊNtɕì merit + be great monk ဘဥ bɛ+ṵ bɛ(ʔ)ṵ duck + egg duck egg မငးဆက mɪN+sʰɛʔ mɪNzɛʔ king + connect dynasty မငးသား mɪN+θà mɪNðà king + son prince, actor မျဉးေစာငး mjɪN+sàʊN mjɪNzàʊN line + slope diagonal line, slash, stroke ြမငးကျား mjɪN+tɕà mjɪNdʑà horse + tiger/striped zebra ြမငးပ mjɪN+pwɛ mjɪNbwɛ horse + festival horserace ြမငးလညး mjɪN+ʰlɛ mjɪNʰlɛ horse + cart/carriage horse carriage ေ�မစမး mwe+sèɪN mwezèɪN snake + green green viper ေ�မဆပ mwe+sʰeɪʔ mwesʰeɪʔ snake + poison venom ေ�မပါ mwe+pa mweba snake + hold mongoose ေြမေခး mje+kʰwè mjeɡwè earth + dog fox ေြမေစး mje+sè mjezè earth + sticky clay ေြမပ mje+poʊN mjeboʊN earth + image map ေြမပ mje+pɛ mjebɛ earth + bean peanut ေြမြဖ mje+pʰju mjebju earth + white chalk မး�ကး mò+tɕò mòdʑò rain + cord lightning မးကာ mò+ka mòɡa rain + block tarpaulin မးေရ mò+je mòje rain + water rainwater မး�ကး mì+tɕò mìdʑò electricity + cord electric wire/cable မးြခစ mì+tɕʰɪʔ mìdʑɪʔ fire + scratch cigarette lighter မးေခါငး mì+ɡàʊN mìɡàʊN light + head light socket မးစက mì+sɛʔ mìzɛʔ electricity + machine generator မးတင mì+taɪN mìdaɪN light + post lamppost, streetlight မးေတာင mì+taʊN mìdaʊN fire + mountain volcano မးပနး mì+pàN mìbàN fire + flower firework မးလး mì+lòʊN mìlòʊN light + round lightbulb မးအမ mì+eɪN mì(ʔ)eɪN light + home lantern ေမးခနး mè+kʰʊN mèɡʊN ask + speech question ယာဉေမာငး jɪN+màʊN jɪNmàʊN vehicle + drive driver


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ယာဉရပ jɪN+jaʔ jɪNjaʔ vehicle + stop parking lot ရငထး jɪN+tʰò jɪNdò chest + poke brooch ရန�င း jaN+ʰɲò jaNʰɲò conflict + bear a grudge grudge, spite, resentment ရနသ jaN+θu jaNθu conflict + person enemy ေရ�ငါး ʃwe+ŋà ʃweŋà gold + fish goldfish ရာသား jwa+θà jwaðà village + son villager (M) ရာသ jwa+θu jwaðu village + person villager (F) ရာစ ja+sṵ jazṵ hundred + set century �းတနး jò+tàN jòdàN wall + row wall �းချနး jòʊN+tɕʰèɪN jòʊNdʑèɪN office/court + time office hours, court date ေရေ�ကာငး je+tɕàʊN jedʑàʊN water + route water route, passage ေရချ je+tɕʰo jedʑo water + sweet fresh water ေရခက je+kʰwɛʔ jeɡwɛʔ water + cup glass, tumbler ေရခ je+kʰɛ jeɡɛ water + freeze ice ေရငန je+ŋaN jeŋaN water + salt saltwater ေရစစ je+sɪʔ jezɪʔ water + filter strainer, water filter ေရေဆး je+sʰè jezè water + paint watercolors ေရတပ je+taʔ jedaʔ water + military navy ေရတငး je+twɪN jedwɪN water + pit well ေရတမ je+teɪN jedeɪN water + clouds shallows ေရပနး je+pàN jebàN water + flower fountain, sprinkler, showerhead ေရေ�မ je+mwe jemwe water + snake water snake ေရေမ �း je+ʰmwè jeʰmwè water + sweet/fragrant perfume ေရာငြခည jaʊN+tɕʰi jaʊNdʑi color/glow + rays rays, beams of light ေရာငြပန jaʊN+pjaN jaʊNbjaN color + return reflection ေရာငေြပး jaʊN+pjè jaʊNbjè color + be iridescent iridescence, shimmer လမးက làN+kwɛ làNɡwɛ road + split fork (in the road) လမးဆ làN+sʰoʊN làNzoʊN road + meet/join intersection လမးလ� làN+ʰlwɛ làNʰlwɛ road + divert detour လ�ငးတ ʰlàɪN+to ʰlàɪNdo wave + short short wave (radio wave) လ�ငးလတ ʰlàɪN+laʔ ʰlàɪNlaʔ wave + medium medium wave (radio wave) လးေချာ lòʊN+tɕʰɔ lòʊNdʑɔ whole round object + smooth cabochon, gem without facets လ�ကမး lu+tɕàN ludʑàN person + coarse rowdy person, villain


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လ�ကး lu+tɕì ludʑì person + big adult, elder, leader လငယ lu+ŋɛ luŋɛ person + young young adult လစတ lu+seɪʔ luzeɪʔ human + mind humanity, humane-ness လစမး lu+sèɪN luzèɪN person + green/strange stranger လဆး lu+sʰò luzò person + bad criminal, delinquent လထ lu+tʰṵ ludṵ person + mass the masses လနာ lu+na luna person + hurt patient လြပက lu+pjɛʔ lubjɛʔ person + jest comedian လမျး lu+mjò lumjò person + type ethnic group, nation လမက lu+maɪʔ lumaɪʔ person + stupid fool, henchman လယ lu+joʊN lujoʊN person + trust confidant လလတ lu+laʔ lulaʔ person + middle middle-aged person လသား lu+θà luðà person + son humankind ေလးေထာင lè+tʰaʊN lèdaʊN four + corner rectangle ေလယာဉ le+jɪN lejɪN air/wind + vehicle airplane

ေလေ�ကာငး le+tɕàʊN ledʑàʊN air/wind + route flight path, airways, aviation company

ေလကယ le+kwɛ lekwɛ wind + be secret lee, wind shelter ေလစမး le+sèɪN lezèɪN wind + green draught, draft ေလဆပ le+sʰeɪʔ lezeɪʔ air/wind + port/terminal airport ေလတပ le+taʔ ledaʔ air/wind + military air force ေလေပ le+pwe lebwe air/wind + whirling whirlwind ေလပ le+pu lebu air/wind + hot heartburn ဝန�ကး wʊN+tɕì wʊNdʑì responsibility + great minister ဝမးက wʊN+kwɛ wʊNkwɛ womb + split cousin ဝမးေရး wʊN+jè wʊNjè womb + water livelihood, sustenance သစ θaN+so θaNso iron, nail + chisel, pin cold chisel, iron peg သည�ပ θaN+ʰɲaʔ θaNʰɲaʔ iron + clamp mouse trap သတ θaN+to θaNdo sound + short creaky tone သပနး θaN+pàN θaNpàN iron + flower decorative metal grille သြဖ θaN+pʰju θaNbju iron + white tin (metal) သရပ θaN+jaʔ θaNjaʔ sound + stop glottal stop သ�ည θaN+ʃe θaNʃe sound + long low/level tone


153

သလင θaN+lwɪN θaNlwɪN sound + distinct low/level tone သလက θaN+laɪʔ θaNlaɪʔ iron + follow magnet သေလး θaN+lè θaNlè sound + heavy high tone သားတ θwà+tṵ θwàdṵ tooth + imitate dentures, false teeth သားပ θwà+poʊN θwàpoʊN tooth + image dentures, false teeth ေသးေ�ကာ θwè+tɕɔ θwèdʑɔ blood + line/streak vein, blood vessel ေသးေစး θwè+sè θwèzè blood + sticky clotted blood သနာ θu+na θuna person + hurt patient ဟငး�စ hɪN+ʰnɪʔ hɪNʰnɪʔ curry + dip thick sauce or gravy ဟငးရည hɪN+je hɪNje curry + liquid broth အဆ aN+sʰwɛ aNzwɛ tray + pull drawer အငအား ɪN+à ɪNà strength + strength strength, force အားေဆး à+sʰè àzè strength + medicine vitamins, supplements အမ�ကက eɪN+tɕɛʔ eɪNtɕɛʔ house + fowl domestic fowl အမစာ eɪN+sa eɪNza home + text homework အမေထာင eɪN+tʰaʊN eɪNdaʊN house + prison marriage အမေြမ�ာင eɪN+ʰmjaʊN eɪNʰmjaʊN house + lean, be alongside gecko အမသာ eɪN+θa eɪNða home + pleasant toilet, restroom အနးခ òʊN+kʰʊN òʊNkʰʊN coconut + shell coconut husk အနးဆ òʊN+sʰaN òʊNzaN coconut + hair coconut fiber အနး� òʊN+no òʊNno coconut + milk coconut milk အနးရည òʊN+je òʊNje coconut + liquid coconut milk from a green coconut အနးလက òʊN+lɛʔ òʊNlɛʔ coconut + hand coconut frond Nominal compounds: NN & NV, μμ+μ & μμ+μμ, reducing ကနစနး kaN+sʊN ɡəzʊN lake + be stained water convolvulus ကမးပါး kàN+pà kəbà (river) bank + vicinity bank, cliff ကျားသစ tɕà+θɪʔ tɕəθɪʔ tiger + new leopard �ကပး tɕaN+pò dʑəbò sugarcane + insect kind of beetle that infests sugarcane �ကမးပး tɕàN+pò dʑəbò floor + insect/germ bedbug ခါးပတ kʰà+paʔ ɡəbaʔ waist + encircle belt ေခါငးတး ɡàʊN+tòʊN ɡədòʊN head + shave shaven head ငါးချဉ ŋà+tcɪN ŋətɕɪN, ŋədʑɪN fish + sour pickled fish


154

ငါးေြခာက ŋà+tɕaʊʔ ŋətɕaʊʔ fish + dry dried fish ငါးစမး ŋà+sèɪN ŋəzèɪN fish + fresh fresh fish ငါးပ ŋà+pḭ ŋəpḭ fish + be pressed fish paste ငါးမန ŋà+moʊN ŋəmoʊN fish + snack fish-flavored rice crackers ငါး�ဉ ŋà+ʃɪN ŋəʃɪN fish + squirrel eel ငါးဝန ŋà+wʊN ŋəwʊN fish + load/burden whale ငါးဥ ŋà+ṵ ŋə(ʔ)ṵ fish + egg fish spawn စားပ sà+pwɛ zəbwɛ eat + occasion table စာရငး sa+jɪN səjɪN text + source list စာေရး sa+je səje text + write writer, clerk စာလး sa+lòʊN səlòʊN text + round letter (of the alphabet) ဆနခါ sʰaN+kʰa zəɡa (uncooked) rice + empty/shake sieve, filter ဆည�ပ sʰaN+ʰɲaʔ sʰəʰɲaʔ hair + clamp/cut hair pin ဆထး sʰaN+tʰò sʰədò hair + insert/poke hair pin တခန taN+kʰʊN dəɡʊN rod + strength/duty pennant တဆပ taN+sʰeɪʔ dəzeɪʔ rod + rank badge; stamp, seal; brand, trademark တေထး taN+tʰwè dədwè liquid + spit (V) spit, saliva ထနးမျစ tʰàN+mjɪʔ tʰəmjɪʔ toddy palm + root toddy palm root ထနးရညး tʰàN+je tʰəje toddy palm + liquid toddy palm sap ထနးရက tʰàN+jwɛʔ tʰəjwɛʔ toddy palm + leaf toddy palm leaf ထနးလက tʰàN+lɛʔ tʰəlɛʔ toddy palm + hand toddy palm frond/leaf

ထနးလျက tʰàN+jɛʔ tʰəɲɛʔ toddy palm + medicinal powder jaggery

ထမးပး tʰàN+pò tʰəbò shoulder load CL + reinforce shoulder pole/yoke �ားထး nwà+tʰì nətʰì cow + MASC bull �ား� nwà+no nəno cow + milk/breast/udder (cow's) milk �ားမ nwà+ma nəma cow + FEM female cow �ားေသ nwà+θe nəðe cow + dead dead cow �ာေခါငး ʰna+kʰàʊN ʰnəkʰàʊN nose + hollow nose, nostril �ာေမာငး ʰna+màʊN ʰnəmàʊN nose + lever trunk (of an elephant) နားကပ nà+kaʔ nəɡaʔ ear + affix (V) stud earring နား�ကပ nà+tɕaʔ nətɕaʔ ear + clamp earphone နားကငး nà+kwɪN nəɡwɪN ear + ring/circle hoop earring


155

နားဆ nà+sʰwɛ nəsʰwɛ ear + hang drop earrings နားပန nà+paN nəbaN ear + wear earring, earlobe နားပင nà+pwɪN nəbwɪN ear + flower rosette earring, head of a pin နားရက nà+jwɛʔ nəjwɛʔ ear + leaf outer part of ear ပနးချ pàN+tɕʰi bədʑi design/art + hold painting ပနးထမ pàN+tʰeɪN bədeɪN design/art + smith goldsmith ပျားတ pjà+tu bədu bee + resemble hornet ပါးချင pà+tɕʰaɪN pətɕʰaɪN cheek + valley dimple ပါးစပ pà+saʔ pəzaʔ cheek + join mouth ဝါးခတ wà+kaʔ wəkaʔ bamboo + woven sheeting bamboo matting ဝါးပင wà+pɪN wəbɪN bamboo + plant bamboo ဝါး� wà+joʊN wəjoʊN bamboo + clump clump of bamboo ဝါးလး wà+lòʊN wəlòʊN bamboo + round thing bamboo pole သားေချး θwà+tɕʰì θətɕʰì tooth + rust plaque သားဖး θwà+pʰòʊN θəpʰòʊN tooth + cover gum သားေရ θwà+je θəje tooth + juice saliva သားအမ θà+eɪN θə(ʔ)eɪN son + home womb/uterus သ�ကး θu+tɕì θədʑì person + great headman သခး θu+kʰò θəkʰò person + steal thief သငယ θu+ŋɛ θəŋɛ person + young young person, child သစမး θu+sèɪN dəzèɪN person + green/strange stranger သေဌး θu+tʰè θətʰè person + be rich/wealthy wealthy person, boss သပန θu+poʊN ðəboʊN person + be hiding insurgent, rebel ေသနတ θe+naʔ θənaʔ death + spirit gun Nominal compounds: Other shapes ကေလးထနး kəlè+tʰèɪN kəlèdèɪN child + control nanny

ကလားထင kəlà+tʰaɪN kələtʰaɪN foreigner (SA) + sit chair

ကလားြပည kəlà+pji kələbji foreigner (SA) + country India

ကလားပ kəlà+pɛ kələbɛ foreigner (SA) + bean lentils, dhal

ကလားသး kəlà+θòʊN kələðòʊN foreigner (SA) + use Indian usage

ခရမးချဉ kʰəjàN+tɕʰɪN kʰəjàNdʑɪN eggplant + sour tomato

ခရးသည kʰəjì+θe kʰəjìðe trip + person tourist, passenger


156

ငရမး ŋəjɛ+mì ŋəjɛmì hell + fire hell fire; strong acid

ငါးမနးေတာင ŋəmàN+taʊN ŋəmàNdaʊN shark + hill/mountain shark fin, propeller

စကားချ zəɡà+tɕʰi zəɡətɕʰi word/phrase + begin introduction

စကားဆး zəɡà+sʰòʊN zəɡàsʰòʊN word/phrase + most all that is to be said

စကားနငး zəɡà+nɪN zəɡànɪN word/phrase + tread imply

စကားနာ zəɡà+na zəɡəna word/phrase + hurt blame

စကား�င zəɡà+naɪN zəɡənaɪN word + win, prevail the last word

စကားြပန zəɡà+pjaN zəɡəbjaN word/phrase + return interpreter

စကားပ zəɡà+poʊN zəɡəboʊN word/phrase + picture saying, proverb

စကားလမ zəɡà+leɪN zəɡəleɪN word/phrase + twist a word game

စကားဝင zəɡà+waɪN zəɡəwaɪN word + together, surround discussion group

စပါး�ကး zəbà+tɕì zəbədʑì rice plant + big python

စပါးခငး zəbà+kʰɪN zəbàɡɪN rice plant + spread rice paddies

စပါးဒင zəbà+daɪN zəbàdaɪN rice plant + trade center rice buying center

စပါး� zəbà+ʰnaN zəbəʰnaN rice plant + ear ear of rice

စပါးလင zəbà+lɪN zəbəlɪN rice plant + husband lemongrass

စားပထး zəbwɛ+tʰò zəbwɛdò table + hit/mark/pick waiter

စာရငးကင səjɪN+kaɪN səjɪNkaɪN list + hold accountant

စာလးေပါငး səlòʊN+pàʊN səlòʊNbàʊN letter + altogether spelling

ဆရာ�ကး sʰəja+tɕì sʰəjatɕì teacher + biɡ headmaster, principal, etc.

တရားခ təjà+kʰaN təjəɡaN law + undergo defendant

တရား�း təjà+jòʊN təjàjòʊN law, justice + office court

တရားလ təjà+lo təjəlo law + require plaintiff

ထမငး�ကမး tʰəmɪN+tɕàN tʰəmɪNdʑàN rice + rough leftover rice

ထမငးေ�ကာ tʰəmɪN+tɕɔ tʰəmɪNdʑɔ rice + fry fried rice

ထမငးချဉ tʰəmɪN+tɕʰɪN tʰəmɪNdʑɪN rice + sour a Shan dish

ထမငးချး tʰəmɪN+tɕʰò tʰəmɪNdʑʰò rice + crust crust of rice on bottom of the pot

ထမငးေရ tʰəmɪN+je tʰəməje rice + water rice water

ဖေယာငးတင pʰəjàʊN+taɪN pʰəjàʊNdaɪN wax + pillar candle

ဗလေကျာငး bəli+tɕàʊN bəlitɕàʊN mosque + school mosque

ဘရားစင pʰəjà+sɪN pʰəjàzɪN Buddha + platform shrine, altar

သ�ကားလး θədʑà+lòʊN θədʑàlòʊN sugar + round hard candy


157

သခားေမ �း θəkʰwà+ʰmwè θəkʰwàʰmwè cucumber + sweet honeydew melon, musk-melon

သတငးစာ θətɪN+sa ðədɪNza news + text newspaper

သေဘာထား θəbɔ+tʰà θəbɔdà trait, attitude + put opinion

သငယချငး θəŋɛ+tɕʰɪN θəŋɛdʑɪN younɡ person + want friend

သငယအမ θəŋɛ+eɪN θəŋɛ(ʔ)eɪN child + home pupil (of the eye)

အသားမ əθà+mɛ əθəmɛ skin + be dark one whose skin is dark

ကစနးဥ ɡəzʊN+ṵ ɡəzʊNṵ water convolvulus + egg sweet potato

ခေရပင kʰəje+pwɪN kʰəjebwɪN starflower + star asterisk

စကားချပ zəɡà+tɕʰaʔ zəɡətɕʰaʔ word/phrase + slices parenthesises

စကားေြခာက zəɡà+tɕʰaʊʔ zəɡàtcʰaʊʔ word/phrase + frighten threaten

စကားဆက zəɡà+sʰɛʔ zəɡàsʰɛʔ word + connect, contact context

စကားဝက zəɡà+ʰwɛʔ zəɡəʰwɛʔ word + hide/conceal password, code

တခါးေပါက dəɡà+paʊʔ təɡəpaʊʔ door + opening doorway

ထမငးချက tʰəmɪN+tɕʰɛʔ tʰəmɪNdʑɛʔ (cooked) rice + cook cook (N), one who cooks rice

ဘရားပျက pʰəjà+pjɛʔ pʰəjəbjɛʔ pagoda + ruins (N) ruined pagoda

သတငးေထာက θədɪN+tʰaʊʔ θədɪNdaʊʔ info/news + support investigative reporter

ေကျာပးအတ tɕɔbò+eɪʔ tɕɔbò(ʔ)eɪʔ back + bag backpack

ခါးပက��က kʰəbaɪʔ+ʰnaɪʔ kʰəbaɪʔʰnaɪʔ pocket + dip pick-pocket (N)

ကဏနးလကမ ɡənàN+lɛʔma ɡəńNlɛqma crab + thumb/claw crab's claw; wrench

�ကယတခန tɕɛ+dəɡʊN tɕɛdəɡʊN star + pennant comet

ကာမစတ kama+seɪʔ kamaseɪʔ pleasure + mind lust

ကာလသား kala+θà kalaðà time period + son bachelor

ကာလသားေရာဂါ kalaðà+jɔɡa kalaðàjɔɡa bachelor + disease STI

ေကာငးကငဘ kàʊNkɪN+boʊN kàʊNkɪNboʊN sky + realm heaven, paradise

ေြခမျကစ tɕʰi+mjɛʔsḭ tɕʰimjɛʔsḭ leg/foot + eye ankle

င�တေကာငး ŋəjoʊʔ+kàʊN ŋəjoʊʔkàʊN chili pepper + good (black or white) pepper

င�တဆ ŋəjoʊʔ+sʰoʊN ŋəjoʊʔsʰoʊN chili pepper + mortar mortar and pestle

ငါးတခန ŋà+dəɡʊN ŋədəɡʊN fish + pennant a type of fish

ငါးထနးရက ŋà+tʰəjwɛʔ ŋàtʰəjwɛʔ fish + toddy palm leaf a type of fish

ငါးြပတက ŋà+pjadaɪʔ ŋàpjadaɪʔ fish + museum aquarium

ငါးပရည ŋəpḭ+je ŋəpḭje fish paste + liquid fish paste sauce

ငါးမျကစ ŋà+mjɛʔsḭ ŋəmjɛʔsḭ fish + eye wart


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ငါးယျပတက ŋà+jaʔtaɪʔ ŋàjaʔtaɪʔ fish + smoke (V) smoked fish

ငါးလကထ ŋà+lɛʔ+tʰoʊN ŋəlɛʔtʰoʊN fish + hand + numbness stingray

ငါးလပေကျာက ŋà+leɪʔ+dʑaʊʔ ŋəleɪʔdʑaʊʔ fish + turtle + stone ray

ငါးေသတ� ာ ŋà+θɪʔta ŋàθɪʔta fish + box tinned fish, sardines

စာ�ကညတက sa+tɕḭ+taɪʔ satɕḭdaɪʔ text + look at + building library

စာေြခာက�ပ sa+tɕʰaʊʔ+joʊʔ sadʑaʊʔjoʊʔ sparrow + scare + doll scarecrow

စာဆေတာ sazo+tɔ sazodɔ poet + main poet

စာနာစတ sa+na+seɪʔ sanazeɪʔ sympathize + listen + mind consideration, sympathy

စာမျက�ာ sa+mjɛʔʰna samjɛʔʰna text + face page

စာေမးပ sa+mè+pwɛ samèbwɛ text + ask + festival test

စာေရးဆရာ sa+jè+sʰəja sajèsʰəja text + write + teacher author, writer

စးပားပျကကပ sìbwà+pjɛʔkaʔ sìbwàpjɛʔkaʔ economics + crisis depression (economics)

ဆနလးည sʰaN+lòʊN+ɲo sʰaNlòʊNɲo rice + round + brown brown rice, wholegrain rice

ဆထမငး sʰi+tʰəmɪN sʰitʰəmɪN oil + rice sticky rice with oil

ေဆးထး�ပန sʰè+tʰò+pjʊN sʰètʰòbyʊN medicine + stab + pipe syringe

ေဆးထးအပ sʰè+tʰò+aʔ sʰètʰò(ʔ)aʔ medicine + stab + needle (hypodermic) needle

ေတာင�ကားလမး taʊNdʑà+làN taʊNdʑàlàN valley + road pass

ေတာငြပနေလ taʊN+pjaN+le taʊNpjaNle mountain + return + wind

evening wind from the mountains

နဂါးေင�တနး nəɡà+ŋwḛdàN nəɡəŋwḛdàN Naga + steam cloud/trail Milky Way

ပတမတး paʔma+tì paʔmədì big drum + play (V) big drum player

ပကဆအတ paɪʔsʰaN+eɪʔ paɪʔsʰaNeɪʔ money + bag wallet

ဖငထငခ pʰɪN+tʰaɪN+kʰoʊN

pʰɪNtʰaɪNkʰoʊN backside + sit + bench low stool

ဖနပခ�တ pʰənaʔ+tɕʰʊʔ pʰənaʔtɕʰʊʔ shoe + remove threshold, place to take off shoes

ဘဥပ bɛ(ʔ)ṵ+poʊN bɛ(ʔ)ṵboʊN duck egg + image ellipse, oval

မငးသမး mɪN+θəmì mɪNðəmì king + daughter princess, actress

မျက�ာပနး mjɛʔʰna+pàN mjɛʔʰnəbàN face + design/art façade, appearance

မျက�ာပပ mjɛʔʰna+poʊʔ mjɛʔʰnəpoʊʔ face + rot frown, scowl

မျက�ာေပး mjɛʔʰna+pè mjɛʔʰnəbè face + give expression

မျက�ာေပါက mjɛʔʰna+paʊʔ mjɛʔʰnəbaʊʔ face + appear facial features

မျက�ာြဖ mjɛʔʰna+pʰju mjɛʔʰnəpʰju face + be white white (European) person

မျက�ာဖး mjɛʔʰna+pʰòʊN mjɛʔʰnəpʰòʊN face + cover (V) mask, veil; (book, etc.) cover


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မနးမလျာ mèɪNma+ʃa mèɪNməʃa woman + earmark, characteristic feature

man with a woman's spirit; effeminate man; gay man

မနးမဝတ mèɪNma+wʊʔ mèɪNməwʊʔ woman + clothing women’s clothing

ေယာကျားလျာ jaʊʔtɕà+ʃa jaʊʔtɕəʃa man/husband + assign woman with man's spirit; tomboy; lesbian

ေရ�ထမငး ʃwe+tʰəmɪN ʃwetʰəmɪN gold + rice sticky rice with palm sugar

ရသစာေပ jaθa+sape, raða+sape

jaθasape, raðasape

pleasure, feeling + literature

literature: poetry, descriptive essays, fiction

�းစာေရး jòʊN+səjè jòʊNsəjè office + clerk secretary

�းပတရက jòʊN+peɪʔ+jɛʔ jòʊNpeɪʔjɛʔ office + close + day holiday

ေရခမန jeɡɛ+moʊN jeɡɛmoʊN ice + snack ice cream

ေရခေသတ� ာ jeɡɛ+θɪʔta jeɡɛθɪʔta ice + box refrigerator

ေရတခန je+dəɡʊN jedəɡʊN water + pennant waterfall

ေရတခါး je+dəɡà jedəɡà water + door sluice gate, flood fate

ေရသရ je+θəjɛ jeθəjɛ water + ghost octopus

လကေဆးေရ lɛʔ+sʰè+je lɛʔsʰèje hand + wash + water hand-washing water

လကပတနာရ lɛʔ+paʔ+naji lɛʔpaʔnaji arm + encircle + clock wristwatch

လညပငးဖက lebɪN+pʰɛʔ lebɪNpʰɛʔ neck + embrace intimate friend

လမးခရး làN+kʰəjì làNkʰəjì road + journey journey

လမးမေတာ làN+ma+tɔ làNmətɔ road + main + great main road

လများစ lu+mjà+sṵ lumjàzṵ person + many + group majority

ဝကအလည wɛʔu+ʰlɛ wɛʔuʰlɛ screw + turn screwdriver

ဝမးကညမ wʊNkwɛ+ɲima wʊNwəɲima cousin + younger sister younger cousin

ဝမးကညေလ wʊNkwɛ+ɲile wʊNwəɲile cousin + younger brother younger cousin

ဝမးကအက wʊNkwɛ+əko wʊNkwɛ(ʔ)əko cousin + older brother older cousin

ဝမးကအစမ wʊNkwɛ+əma wʊNkwɛ(ʔ)əma cousin + older sister older cousin

သစ�ကပး θɪʔ+dʑəbò θɪʔdʑəbò wood + sugarcane beetle cinnamon

Documents

Reduction in Burmese Compounds - University of Hawaii · Level a long, low or mid, final rise when phrase -final, often breathy Creaky a̰ short, high or high falling, often glottalized