Burmese is an agglutinative language. It has a subject-object-verb word order and is head-final. Particles are heavily utilized to convey syntactic functions, with wide divergence between literary and colloquial forms. Burmese has distinct colloquial and literary varieties differing in the forms of grammatical function words and some lexical differences.

In Burmese, words do not always clearly fall into a part of speech. Generally, words are split into nominals, verbs, adverbs and affixes.

Verbs in Burmese are heavily affixed to convey meaning, such as modality. Burmese has simple verbs as well as compound verbs. For example, the verbs ဆုံး [sʰóʊɰ̃] meaning 'to end' and ဖြတ် [pʰjeʔ] to mean 'to cut off' combine to be ဆုံးဖြတ် [sʰóʊɰ̃.pʰjeʔ] meaning 'to decide'.

Burmese verbs often have inherent temporality that can be specified with markers for tense, aspect and mood. However, the inherent temporality can also be implied by modifying the noun phrase. For example, the word စား [sɑ́] meaning 'to eat' implies continuous tense in the expression ထမင်းစား [tʰə.mɪ́ɰ̃.sɑ́] ('eat rice') while it implies an endpoint in the expression ထမင်းတစ်ပွဲစား [tʰə.mɪ́ɰ̃ də.bwɛ́ sɑ́] ('eat one serving of rice'). Verbs are further modified to specify tense, aspect and mood with particles. Adding the verbal marker တယ် (dɛ́) in the example phrase (ထမင်းတစ်ပွဲစားတယ်) would specify that the serving of rice is being eaten right now.

Burmese also has several subclasses of verbs. Auxiliary verbs occur as secondary elements in predicates and include words like modal verbs. These verbs follow the main verb, except for the verbs ပြန် [pjàɰ̃] ('to do again') and ဆက် [sʰɛʔ] ('to continue to'). In literary Burmese, some auxiliary verbs function like particles such as the archaic verb 'စဉ်'[sɛ̀] ('to command') being used for the imperative mood. Burmese verbs are also differentiated by transitivity. For example, intransitive verbs' resultive states are expressed with the auxiliary verb နေ [nè] ('to stay') while transitive verbs' resultive states are expressed with the auxiliary verb ထား [tʰɑ̀] ('to keep').

Property verbs are a subcategory of Burmese verbs that describe attributes of an event, situation or noun. When translating to English, these verbs often carry out the function of adjectives. For example, a noun performing the verb ကောင်း [kàuɰ̃] ('to be good') is semantically equivalent to an adjective modifying that noun. Burmese has no clear class of adjectives.

Unlike adjectives, property verbs function grammatically like verbs, being negated and marked for aspect and status in the same way as verbs. Property verbs are different from other verbs primarily in that they can be reduplicated to when following a noun in an adjective form or before another verb in an adverb form. For example, အိမ်ကောင်းကောင်း [ʔèɪɰ̃.kàuɰ̃.kàuɰ̃] meaning "a good house" and ကောင်ကောင်းသွား [kàuɰ̃.kàuɰ̃.θwá] meaning "to go well".

Property verbs are reduplicated to intensify the meaning.^{[citation needed]}