ပေါ့

ပေါ့

See also: ပေါ်

Burmese

FWOTD – 25 April 2013

Pronunciation

• Phonetic respellings: ပေါ့, ဗော့
• IPA^(key): /pɔ̰/, /bɔ̰/
• Romanization: MLCTS: pau. • ALA-LC: poʹ • BGN/PCGN: paw./baw. • Okell: pó/pó

Usage notes

The voiceless variant /pɔ̰/ occurs after /ʔ/; the voiced variant /bɔ̰/ after vowels and /ɴ/.

Particle

ပေါ့ • (pau.)

1. (chiefly colloquial) like (mild intensifier; used to mean "to say" or "to think")
   • 2005, San San Hnin Tun, "Discourse particles in Burmese", in Justin Watkins (ed.), Studies in Burmese Linguistics, →ISBN, p. 193:

     ဒါရောင်းတာ မဟုတ်ဘူးပေါ့လေ။ (daraung:ta ma.hutbhu:pau.le||)

     He was, like, I'm not selling them, you know?

     အဲဒါနဲ့ လွင်မိုးကလည်း ဝမ်းသာအားရပေါ့နော်။ (ai:danai. lwangmui:ka.lany: wam:saa:ra.pau.nau||)

     So then Lwin Moe was, like, really delighted, you know.

2. (chiefly colloquial) say (let's say: used to mark an example, supposition, or hypothesis)
   • 2005, San San Hnin Tun, "Discourse particles in Burmese", in Justin Watkins (ed.), Studies in Burmese Linguistics, →ISBN, p. 193:

     အက်စီဒင့် ဖြစ်သွားတာပေါ့နော်။ (akcidang. hpracswa:tapau.nau||)

     So say there was an accident, right?

3. (chiefly colloquial) you know (used to confirm agreement or understanding at the end of a statement)
   • 2005, San San Hnin Tun, "Discourse particles in Burmese", in Justin Watkins (ed.), Studies in Burmese Linguistics, →ISBN, p. 193:

     ကလဲ့စားချေတဲ့ သဘောမျိုးနဲ့ပေါ့။ (ka.lai.ca:hkyetai. sa.bhau:myui:nai.pau.||)

     It was done as a way of getting even, you know.

References

• “ပေါ့” in Burmese/Myanmar Dictionary of Grammatical Forms (Routledge 2001, →ISBN), by John Okell and Anna Allott.