The grammaticalization of clausal nominalizers in Burmese

This paper is concerned with the grammaticalization of clausal nominalizers in two different but closely-related forms of Burmese, Colloquial Burmese and Literary Burmese. A contrastive overview of the morphosyntactic properties of the nominalizersthii and mii of Literary Burmese and their Colloquial Burmese counterpartste and me, together with the application of a number of tests for the identification of nominalized constructions, reveal that grammaticalization is more advanced in the colloquial language than in the literary variety: te and me have lost their nominal specifications and been reanalysed as grammatical elements of a different categorial type, instantiating verb-related mood and realis–irrealis distinctions. The comparison of the system of nominalization in the two complementary varieties of Burmese allows for insights into the evolution, spread and reinterpretation of nominalization structures within a language.