words. Should there be any doubt about the categoriality of the complex word forms— whether, for instance, verb-headed nominals are not nominal, there are a number of empirical
tests of nominality. These are tests that only nouns can accept—deixis, possession, enumeration, co-occurrence with postpositional particles that also occur with nominals, and
distribution within clause-like predications.
The Nominal or Noun here corresponds notionally to Thing, perceptible by speakers as possessing the properties of thingness, dimensions such as locations in space, volume,
surface features, mobility or movability, materiality, resistance, qualities of boundedness or expanded center without a fixed external limit. Particles operating on nominals select the
features of nominality which they Relate or map onto higher levels.
3.7.1 Complex Noun
The complex noun classified and illustrated in section 3.3.2 and extensively in section 3.4.5 displays the structure of N + N, where the final N functions as a head, and the initial N is
either a modifier or, in rare cases, coordinate. The initial position may be filled by a noun form or a number of types of constructions.
Initial Nominal Final
Nominal Transliteration Gloss Structure
1
Olh tdrf
su. im
3p Pos house his
house [ N + N ]
N
2
opfom: tdrf
[sac sa:] im
wood offspring house wooden
house [[ N + N]
N
+ N]
N
3
\zLaom tdrf
[hpru sau:] im
white AttN house white
house [[ V + P]
N
+ N]
N
4
vljuD: tdrf
[[lu kri:] e. ] im
person big Pos house head-
man’s house
[[ N + V]
N
+ P]
N
+ N]
N
5
tdyfaysmaeonfh tdrf
[[[ip pyau:] ne ] sany.] im
sleep enjoy be AttN sleeping
house [[[[ V + V]
V
+ V]
V
+ P]
N
+ N]
N
Table 25. Modifier position of nominal compounds The examples in table 25 demonstrate both the role of the modifier by word-order
position in relation to the head nominal and the fact that various types of constructions— nouns, pronouns, phrases, clauses—may all occur in the modifier position.
The whole nominalized construction as a modifier refers to a higher order nominal, an ontological nominal, in relation to the head nominal. The resulting form is an abstract
nominal compound N + N. The rules of construction table 22 assume a complex process of nominalization shown in the last column of table 25.
3.7.2 Complex Verb
Although the task at hand is not to describe the verb, yet for the sake of demonstrating parallelism regarding the structure of nominalization and the role of some basic underlying
patterns present not only in nominal units and constructions but also in the verbal portion of
the grammar, a basic outline of the verb and its modifier constructions is presented— particularly to contrast it to the linear structure of the verb phrase. It should be pointed out
that while some low-level vertical structuring has been analyzed for nominals Okell 1994d:235, nothing has been proposed for verbal constructions. Myint Soe’s categories are
used to discuss the verb phrase structure. No attempt is made to subclassify verb types, least of all the semantics of the verbs. Just as in the case of nominals, so there is also a head in
verbal compounds. Headedness in verb compounds displays different semantics from their nominal counterparts. Some types of actions, processes, or process-action sequences can be
taken as a trajectory between the initial and the final verb in compounds, such as in
us a|muf
kya. rauk fall + arrive ‘came to’ or ‘came under’ ND4
12
to describe the experience of coming under the power of someone else. Other verbs manifest something similar to a
coordinate structure, particularly with doublets as in
zd Sdyf csyf csf
hpi. hnip hkyap hkyai
press + press + restrict + rhyming ‘oppress and restrict’ ND 5 These verbs function in pairs of [V + V]
v
+ [V + V]
v
so that while it is common to have two verbs in any one expression, a variant of the pattern is to double the doublet. This pattern produces a sense of
completeness—phonologically in the rocking rhythm of the syllables, semantically in expanding the action or “scene” created with the verbs, and grammatically by employing the
preferred underlying process of compounding and twice performing it. This type of structure is widespread in Asian languages under the name of
FOUR
-
SYLLABLE ELABORATE EXPRESSION
. Semantic repetition is preferable as in
pDpOf
ci cany line up + line up ‘arrange’,
but exact repetition is also common, especially in the modifier position, which others label as an adverbial word form, as in
aysmfaysmfaeaocJ
pyau pyau ne se hkai: enjoy + enjoy + be +
die + hard ‘If one lives happily, he dies hard’. In this case, the relation between the verbs is three verbs followed by a set of two. The reduplicated set forms the modifier to the head verb
‘be’. The rhythm of this set also produces the phonological rhythm of a conditional clause. The final two verbs are a result pair to the first verb set of three. These two are themselves in
a condition-result relationship internally with the result expressed in the final verb. The structure of this proverb is [ [[ V + V]
v
V]
v
+ [V + V]
v
]
v
. Verb chaining is also common in Burmese. An example reported by Pe Maung Tin
1956:195 fully characterizes the action between verbs. The circumstance of this verb chain was an instruction from the compiler of the University Burmese Dictionary to that author on
work to be done. He wrote:
67
junfh |SK` avh vm ? yf Skwf ? \znfh pGuf ? \yK \yif
krany. hru le.
la pai hnut hprany. swak pru prang.
look search study come reject
word fill
up drag do beautify
‘look though’ ‘think over’
‘put away faults’
fill in
touch up
The relation between the chain of verbs is one of a trajectory of action and refers to a null object the manuscript, uses a null mood imperative or suggestive to the null subject.
Returning to Myint Soe’s verb phrase categories and looking at the “Pre-Head Auxiliaries” of table 15, the analysis here considers this category as the modifier in relation to
12
ND4 refers to National Day text, sentence number 4 found in the appendices.
the compound verb. The construction as a whole compounded unit of two parts, consists of a Modifier + Head relations within the compound verb.
“Post-Head Auxiliaries” are analyzed as a different level of constituency from the modifier-head verb construction. The successive movement toward the end of the sentence is
manifest by a series of stacked particles, each of which is the head of a different nominal, the scope of which is usually the entire contents of the preceding part of the sentence. Many
particles occur after the verb and are not part of the verb phrase, but relate to the whole utterance, the whole sentence.
The type of tree structure best suited to represent the highly complex structure of successive levels of constituency is seen in figure 21 and appendix D. The following display
of the final portion of a much longer sentence ND 16.2 shows how the sentence final particles are not analyzed linearly, but as particle operators at successively higher levels.
Figure 21. Constituency of verb final particles
The “Independent Clause” particles displayed in table 16 are likewise treated as constituents of previously constituted nominals of the sentence. The particular role of the
particles is not directly relevant to this approach toward nominalization and its role in structuring text.
In summary, some of the generalizations regarding the complex nominal appear to be true of the complex verbal: a modifiers precede their heads, b there is a preference for
pairwise compounding, c what appear to be post-head modifiers are heads belonging to a different level of construction, d conceptual blending occurs in a different way than with
nominals, being something much closer to the original model of conceptual blending framed by Fauconnier and Turner 2002 with each verb setting up a separate Input Space discussed
in section 1.3.
This discussion fails to capture the semantic elegance of the verb and all its fascinating accompaniments in Burmese, but it does serve to focus on the role of
nominalization in structuring the grammatical skeleton upon which the lexicon and other functions are built. The complex verb is classified as part of the Word level of construction. It
serves as the counterpart of the complex nominal.
3.8 Expression
