Mizo grammar

Mizo grammar is the grammar of the Mizo language, a Tibeto-Burman language spoken by about a million people in Mizoram, Manipur, Tripura, Burma and Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh. It is a highly inflected language, with fairly complex noun phrase structure and word modifications. Nouns and pronouns are declined, and phrasal nouns also undergo an analogous declension.

Word order

Mizo's default declarative word order is subject–object–verb. Chhangte demonstrates this with the following example:
More elaborately, the general sentence order is subject–instrumental–locative–indirect object–direct object–verb.
However, an object that is the focus of the sentence can appear before the subject in the front of the sentence to create an apparent object–subject–verb order.

Nouns

There is no grammatical gender in Mizo language, although some animals, birds etc. have names which contain one of the suffixes -nu, which means female, or -pa which means male. Examples include chingpirinu, kawrnu, thangfènpa.

Non-derived nouns

Mizo is an agglutinative language in which it is rare to find morphologically simple, non-derived nouns. However, common everyday objects and domestic animals tend to fall in this category, that is, the category of morphologically simple, non-derived nouns. For example,

Derived nouns

The most common form of noun is that of derived, morphologically complex, poly-syllabic nouns. Most abstract nouns belong to this category, and so do wild animals and other less common objects. Examples include

Pluralisation

Nouns are pluralised by the addition of one of the suffixes -te, -ho, -teho and -hote. However, a non-pluralised noun can have the sense of a pluralised noun, and common nouns are usually not pluralised, as in:
Here sava is not pluralised to savate or savaho; rather, sava functions as a plural.

Declension of nouns

Nouns are declined into cases as follows :

Nominative	Genitive	Accusative	Ergative	Instrumental
nụlá the/a girl	nụla the/a girl's	nụlá the/a girl	nụláịn the/a girl	nụláin using/with a girl
tǔi water	tǔi	tǔi	tuiịn	tuiin
Thangạ	Thanga	Thangạ	Thangȧ'n	Thangạ-in/Thangạ hmangin

Nominalisation

s and adjectives are nominalised by suffixing -na, and adjectives can also be nominalised by suffixing -zia. For example:

Verb	Adjective	Nominalisation by -na	Nominalisation by -zia
kal		kạlna
	süal	sùalna
	süal		sùalzìa
vùa		vûakna

When -na is suffixed to a transitive verb then the resulting noun means either the instrument with which the action described by the verb is achieved, or the object/sufferer of the action or the point of action of the verb. For example, vùa means to beat/strike with a stick, and vûakna means a whip, an object with which one can beat, or a point or place where the beating takes place, a point where something is beaten.
When -na is suffixed to an intransitive verb, then the resulting noun means a place etc. through which the action can take place. For example, kal means to go, kalna means where something/someone goes or can go, way, path. For example:
When -zia is suffixed to an adjective, the resulting noun means the condition of having the quality described by the adjective. For example, süal means evil, sùalzìa means sinfulness, evilness.

Agentiviser

The suffix -tu in Mizo ṭawng is equivalent to the suffix -er or -or in English, as in:

Pronouns

Forms

All Mizo pronouns occur in two forms, namely in free form and clitic form and are declined into cases.

	nominative	genitive	accusative	ergative
clitic forms
clitic forms
clitic forms
clitic forms
clitic forms
clitic forms
free forms
free forms
free forms
free forms
free forms
free forms

The free form is mostly used for emphasis, and has to be used in conjunction with either the clitic form or an appropriate pronominal particle, as shown in the following examples:

Kei ka lo tel ve kher a ngai em?. This is a somewhat emphatic way of saying Ka lo tel ve kher a ngai em?
Nangni in zo tawh em? This is a somewhat emphatic way of saying Nangni in zo tawh em?
Ani a kal ve chuan a ṭha lo vang.

The clitic form is also used as a genitive form of the pronoun.

Adjectives

Attributive

Mizo adjectives, when used attributively, follow the nouns they describe, as follows:

Predicative

When used predicatively, Mizo adjectives are syntactically verbs, being usually preceded by the subject pronoun clitics, as in:
In these two sentences, a is the subject pronoun clitic, and the adjectives fel and ṭha function as verbs.

Adjective sequences

When adjectives follow each other, the preferred order is the following:

color
quality or opinion
size
shape

as in

Quantifiers

The most common quantifiers in Mizo ṭawng are zawng zawng, ṭhenkhat, väi, zà. Some examples are given below:

Verbs

Occurrence

Verbs and verb phrases occur last in a sentence. Since adjectives can function as verbs, it is common in sentences to have no true verb, as in:
In these two sentences, the adjectives fel and dik function syntactically as verbs, and there are no other verbs in either of them.

Tense

Mizo verbs are not conjugated by changing the desinence. The tense is clarified by the aspect and the addition of conjugating particles, such as

ang,
tawh,
mék,
dáwn,
dáwn mék,

etc.

Adverbs

Occurrence

Adverbs usually follow the verbs or adjectives they describe.