Page:Judson Burmese Grammar.djvu/17

Rh. 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&#8203;ပြည်&#8203;တို့ (with the plural affix), many or all countries; and for အမျိုး, a race, အမျိုး&#8203;မျိုး&#8203;တို့ many or all races.

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

. 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&#8203;သေ&#8203;တတ်&#8203;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&#8203;များ&#8203;တို့, men.

. 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.

. The relations of nouns expressed in most languages by prepositions or inflections, are in the Burmese language expressed