Tibetan Grammar
Date: 2022-10-22T00:00:00+00:00
Keywords: Tibetan language -- Grammar

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Title: Tibetan Grammar

Author: H. A. Jäschke

Editor: H. Wenzel

Release date: October 22, 2022 [eBook #69207]
Most recently updated: October 19, 2024

Language: English

Original publication: United Kingdom: Trübner and Co, 1883

Credits: Jeroen Hellingman and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net/ for Project Gutenberg (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK TIBETAN GRAMMAR ***

[Contents]

Transcriber’s Note.

This book contains text in Tibetan (བོད་སྐད་), Devanagari (देवनागरी), Arabic (عَرَبِيّ‎), Urdu (اُردُو‎) and Greek (Ελληνικά). You may need to install additional fonts to properly render those languages. I suggest to use the following freely available fonts:

Tibetan: | Yagpo Tibetan Uni | link.
Devanagari: | Sanskrit 2003 | link.
Arabic: | Scheherazade | link.
Urdu: | Awami Nastaliq | link.

On some devices, fonts may not render correctly, or font sizes may be mismatched. When using the Firefox browser, you can adjust the default font settings per script. To do so, open the “Settings” page; select the “General” tab; in the “Fonts and Colors” section, click the “Advanced” button, and adjust the settings as desired.

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[Contents]

TRÜBNER’S COLLECTION
OF
SIMPLIFIED GRAMMARS
OF THE PRINCIPAL
ASIATIC AND EUROPEAN LANGUAGES.

EDITED BY
REINHOLD ROST, LL.D., Ph.D.

VII.

TIBETAN.

BY H. A. JÄSCHKE.

[Contents]

TRÜBNER’S COLLECTION OF SIMPLIFIED GRAMMARS OF THE PRINCIPAL ASIATIC AND EUROPEAN LANGUAGES.

EDITED BY REINHOLD ROST, LL.D., Ph.D.

I.
HINDUSTANI, PERSIAN, AND ARABIC.
By the late E. H. Palmer, M.A.
Price 5s.

II.
HUNGARIAN.
By I. Singer.
Price 4s. 6d.

III.
BASQUE.
By W. Van Eys.
Price 3s. 6d.

IV.
MALAGASY.
By G. W. Parker.
Price 5s.

V.
MODERN GREEK.
By E. M. Geldart, M.A.
Price 2s. 6d.

VI.
ROUMANIAN.
By R. Torceanu.

VII.
TIBETAN.
By H. A. Jäschke.

Grammars of the following are in preparation:—

Albanese, Anglo-Saxon, Assyrian, Bohemian, Bulgarian, Burmese, Chinese, Cymric and Gaelic, Danish, Finnish, Hebrew, Malay, Pali, Polish, Russian, Sanskrit, Serbian, Siamese, Singhalese, Swedish, Turkish.

London: TRÜBNER & CO., Ludgate Hill.

[Contents]

TIBETAN GRAMMAR

BY
H. A. JÄSCHKE
MORAVIAN MISSIONARY.
SECOND EDITION
PREPARED BY
Dr. H. WENZEL.

LONDON:
TRÜBNER & CO., 57 & 59, LUDGATE HILL.
1883.
[All rights reserved.]

[V]

[Contents]

Preface.

The present new edition of Mr. Jäschke’s Tibetan Grammar scarcely needs a word of apology. As the first edition which was lithographed at Kyelaṅ in 1865 in a limited number of copies has long been out of print, Dr. Rost urged the author to revise his grammar for the purpose of bringing it out in an improved form. The latter, prevented by ill-health from undertaking the task, placed the matter in my hands, and had the goodness to make over to me his own manuscript notes and additions to the original work. Without his personal cooperation, however, I was unable to make any but a very sparing use of these, adding only a few remarks from Gyalrabs and Milaraspa, with some further remarks on the local vernacular of Western Tibet. Indeed, special attention has been paid throughout to this dialect; it is the one with which the author during his long residence at Kyelaṅ had become most familiar, and with which the English in India are most likely to be brought into direct contact.

Besides the above mentioned additions, I have taken a number of examples from the Dzaṅlun, to make clearer some of the rules, and, with the same view, I have altered, here and there, the wording of the lithographed edition. [VI]The order of the paragraphs has been retained throughout, and only one (23.) has been added for completeness’ sake.

The system of transliteration is nearly the same as in the Dictionary, only for ny, ñ is used, and instead of e̱, ä (respectively ā̤) has been thought to be a clearer representation of the sound intended. For the niceties of pronunciation the reader is referred to the Dictionary, as in this Grammar only the general rules have been given.

Finally I must express my warmest thanks to Dr. Rost, to whose exertions not only the printing of this Grammar is solely due, but who also rendered me much help in the correcting of the work.

Mayence, May 1883.

H. Wenzel.

[Contents]

Abbreviations.

- act. = active.

- C or CT = Central Tibet, especially the provinces of Ü and Tsaṅ.

- cf. = confer, compare.

- Dzl. = Dzaṅlun.

- e.g. = exempli gratia, for instance.

- ET = East Tibet.

- fut. = future.

- imp. = imperative.

- inf. = infinitive.

- i.o. = instead of.

- Köpp. = Köppen.

- Kun. = Kunawur, province under English protection.

- Ld. = Ladak, province.

- Mil. = Milaraspa.

- neutr. = neuter verb.

- perf. or pf. = perfect.

- pres. = present.

- s. = see.

- term. = terminative case.

- Thgy. = Thar-gyan, scientific treatises.

- v. = vide, see.

- vulg. = vulgar expression.

- W or WT = Western Tibet.

[VII]

[Contents]

Contents.

I. | Phonology. |
| | Page
| 1. | Alphabet | 1
| 2. | Remarks | 3
| 3. | Vowels | 3
| 4. | Syllables | 4
| 5. | Final Consonants | 5
| 6. | Diphthongs | 6
| 7. | Compound Consonants | 7
| 8. | Prefixed Letters | 11
| 9. | Word; Accent; Quantity | 12
| 10. | Punctuation | 14
II. | Etymology. |
| I. | Article. |
| 11. | Peculiarities of the Tibetan Article | 17
| 12. | Difference of the Articles | 18
| 13. | The Indefinite Article | 19
| II. | Substantive. |
| 14. | Number | 20
| 15. | Declension | 21
| III. | Adjective. |
| 16. | Relation to the Substantive | 25
| 17. | Comparison | 26
| IV. | Numerals. [VIII] |
| 18. | Cardinal numerals | 28
| 19. | Ordinal numerals | 31
| 20. | Remarks | 31
| 21. | Distributive numerals | 33
| 22. | Adverbial numerals | 33
| 23. | Fractional numerals | 33
| V. | Pronouns. |
| 24. | Personal pronouns | 34
| 25. | Possessive pronouns | 36
| 26. | Reflective pronouns | 37
| 27. | Demonstrative pronouns | 37
| 28. | Interrogative pronouns | 38
| 29. | Relative pronouns | 38
| VI. | Verb. |
| 30. | Introduction | 40
| 31. | Inflection | 41
| 32. | Infinitive | 42
| 33. | Participle | 43
| 34. | Finite Verb | 45
| 35. | Present | 46
| 36. | Preterit | 47
| 37. | Future | 48
| 38. | Imperative | 49
| 39. | Intensive | 50
| 40. | Substantive Verbs | 51
| 41. | Gerunds and Supines | 54
| 42. | VII. Adverb | 65
| 43. | VIII. Postposition | 67
| 44. | IX. Conjunction | 74
| 45. | X. Interjection | 76
| | XI. Derivation: |
| 46. | Derivation of Substantives | 77
| 47. | Derivation of Adjectives | 78
III. | Syntax. |
| 48. | Arrangement of Words | 80
| 49. | Use of the Cases | 81
| 50. | Simple Sentences | 82
| 51. | Compound Sentences | 83
| Appendix. |
| | Phrases | 86
| | Reading Exercise | 92
| | Verbs | 99

[Contents]

Errata.

The corrections listed below have been applied to the text.

Page | 3, | line | 13 | read | at instead of in.
Page,, | 4, | line,, | 2 | read,, | respectively.
Page,, | 4, | line,, | 7 | read,, | which instead of whom.
Page,, | 4, | line,, | 9 | read,, | under particular.
Page,, | 4, | line,, | 14 | read,, | همزة‎ instead of همرنة‎.
Page,, | 4, | line,, | 20 | read,, | exertion.
Page,, | 4, | line,, | 21 | dele | to.
Page,, | 5, | line,, | 5 | dele | down.
Page,, | 7, | line,, | 4 | read | succession instead of conjunction.
Page,, | 7, | line,, | 5 | read,, | each instead of either.
Page,, | 7, | line,, | 11 | read,, | subscribed instead of subjoined.
Page,, | 8, | line,, | 11 | read,, | foot for food.
Page,, | 8, | line,, | 12 | read,, | subscribed for subjoined.
Page,, | 8, | line,, | 16 | read,, | homonyms.
Page,, | 8, | line,, | 19 | read,, | language.
Page,, | 8, | line,, | 23 | read,, | over instead of above.
Page,, | 8, | line,, | 24 | read,, | consonants.
Page,, | 9, | line,, | 10 | read,, | case.
Page,, | 10, | line,, | 4 | read,, | judgment.
Page,, | 11, | line,, | 9 | read,, | except.
Page,, | 12, | line,, | 21 | read,, | it instead of is.
Page,, | 13, | line,, | 1 | read,, | which serve to denote.
Page,, | 13, | line,, | 7 | read,, | preceding.
Page,, | 14, | line,, | 6 | read,, | exclamation.
Page,, | 20, | line,, | 3 | read,, | indiscriminately.
Page,, | 20, | line,, | 5 | read,, | superseded.
Page,, | 20, | line,, | 19 | read,, | But.
Page,, | 21, | line,, | 5 | read,, | adds.
Page,, | 23, | line,, | 1 | read,, | motion.
Page,, | 26, | line,, | 13 | read,, | terminations.
Page,, | 26, | line,, | 20 | read,, | precedes.
Page,, | 27, | line,, | 3 | read,, | higher than.
Page,, | 33, | line,, | 6 | read,, | to denote.
Page,, | 34, | line,, | 14 | read,, | letter-writing.
Page,, | 36, | line,, | 1 | read,, | The terms most &c.
Page,, | 36, | line,, | 16 | read,, | high person speaking of himself.
Page,, | 38, | line,, | 11 | read,, | ghaṅ.
Page,, | 39, | line,, | 14 | read,, | you may.
Page,, | 40, | line,, | 7 | read,, | verbs.
Page,, | 40, | line,, | 21 | read,, | an Accusative.
Page,, | 40, | line,, | 25 | read,, | neuter.
Page,, | 41, | line,, | 10 | read,, | form instead of shape.
Page,, | 41, | line,, | 11 | read,, | forms instead of shapes.
Page,, | 41, | line,, | 22 | read,, | the Perfect prefers.
Page,, | 42, | line,, | 1 | read,, | Perfect.
Page,, | 42, | line,, | 16 | read,, | recognises instead of acknowledges.
Page,, | 43, | line,, | 20 | read,, | idea instead of notion.
Page,, | 45, | line,, | 14 | read,, | with the exception.
Page,, | 46, | line,, | 6 | read,, | which will always be.
Page,, | 46, | line,, | 10 | read,, | to one.
Page,, | 52, | line,, | 15 | read,, | it expresses.
Page,, | 53, | line,, | 11 | read,, | found.
Page,, | 53, | line,, | 24 | read,, | passive sense, opposed to &c.
Page,, | 55, | line,, | 7 | read,, | affixes.
Page,, | 58, | line,, | 12 | read,, | that it.
Page,, | 61, | line,, | 12 | read,, | king’s.
Page,, | 64, | line,, | 8 | read,, | intended.
Page,, | 66, | line,, | 15 | read,, | རབ་ཏུ་ ‘principally, very’;

[1]

Part I.

Phonology.

1. The Alphabet. The Tibetan Alphabet was adapted from the Lañc̀ʽa (ལཱཉ་ཚ) form of the Indian letters by Tʽon-mi-sam-bho-ta (ཐོན་མི་སམ་བྷོ་ཏ) minister of king Sroṅ-tsan-gam-po (སྲོང་བཙན་སྒམ་པོ་) about the year 632 (s. Köpp. II, 56). The Indian letters out of which the single Tibetan characters were formed are given in the following table in their Nāgari shape.

| surd. | aspir. | sonant. | nasal.
gutturals. | ཀ་ | क | ka | ཁ་ | ख | kʽa | ག་ | ग | ga | ང་ | ङ | ṅa
palatals. | ཅ་ | च | c̀a | ཆ་ | छ | c̀ʽa | ཇ་ | ज | j̀a | ཉ་ | ञ | ña
dentals. | ཏ་ | त | ta | ཐ་ | थ | tʽa | ད་ | द | da | ན་ | न | na
labials. | པ་ | प | pa | ཕ་ | फ | pʽa | བ་ | ब | ba | མ་ | म | ma
palatal sibilants. | ཙ་ | | tsa | ཚ་ | | tʽsa | ཛ་ | | dsa | | |
semivowels | ཝ་ | व | wa | ཞ་ | | z̀a | ཟ་ | | za | འ་ | | ˱a
ཡ་ | य | ya | ར་ | र | ra | ལ་ | ल | la | | |
ཤ་ | श | s̀a | ས་ | स | sa | ཧ་ | ह | ha | ཨ་ | | ’a

[2]

It is seen from this table that several signs have been added to express sounds that are unknown in Sanscrit. The sibilants ཙ་ ཚ་ ཛ་ evidently were differentiated from the palatals. But as in transcribing Sanscrit words the Tibetans substitute their sibilants for the palatals of the original (as ཙི་ན་ for चीन), we must suppose that the sibilisation of those consonants, common at present among the Hindus on the Southern slopes of the Himālaya (who say tsār for चार, four etc.), was in general use with those Indians from whom the Tib. Alphabet was taken (cf. also the Afghan څ‎ and ڂ‎ likewise sprung from چ‎ and ج‎). ཝ་ is differentiated from བ་, which itself often is pronounced v, as shewn in the sequel; in transcribing Sanscrit, ब and व both are given, generally, by བ only. ཞ་ seems to be formed out of ཤ་ to which it is related in sound. ཟ་ evidently is only the inverted ཇ་. ཨ་ corresponds with Sanscrit अ. འ་ is newly invented; for its functions see the following §§.—The letters which are peculiar to Sanscrit are expressed, in transcribing, in the following manner. a) The linguals, simply by inverting the signs of the dentals: thus, ཊ་ ट, ཋ་ ठ, ཌ་ ड, ཎ་ ण. b) The sonant aspirates, by putting ཧ་ under the sonants: thus, གྷ་ घ, ཛྷ་ झ, ཊྷ་ ढ, དྷ་ ध, བྷ་ भ.1 [3]

2. Remarks. 1. Regarding the pronunciation of the single letters, as given above, it is to be born in mind, that surds ཀ་ ཏ་ པ་ are uttered without the least admixture of an aspiration, viz. as k, t, p are pronounced in the words skate, stale, spear; the aspirates ཁ་ ཐ་ ཕ་ forcibly, rather harder than the same in Kate, tale, peer; the sonants ག་ ད་ བ་ like g, d, b in gate, dale, beer. 2. The same difference of hardness is to be observed in ཅ་ ཆ་ ཇ་ or c̀, c̀ʽ, j̀ (c̀ʽ occurs in church; c̀, the same without aspiration; j̀ in judge) and in ཙ་ ཚ་ ཛ་ or ts, tʽs, ds. 3. ཞ་ is the soft modification of s̀ or the s in leisure (French j in jamais, but more palatal). 4. ང་ is the English ng in sing, but occurs in Tibetan often at the commencement of a syllable. 5. ཉ་ ñ is the Hindi न्य, or the initial sound in the word new, which would be spelled ཉུ་ ñu. 6. In the dialects of Eastern or Chinese-Tibet, however, the soft consonants ག་ ད་ བ་ ཇ་ ཛ་, when occurring as initials, are pronounced with an aspiration, similar to the Hindi घ, ध, भ, झ, or indeed so that they often scarcely differ from the common English k, t, p, ch; also ཞ་ and ཟ་ are more difficult to distinguish from ཤ་ and ས་ than in the Western provinces (Exceptions s. §§ 7. 8).

3. Vowels. 1. Since every consonant sign implies, like its Sanscrit prototype, a following a, unless some other vowel sign is attached to it, no particular sign is wanted to denote this vowel, except in some cases specified in the [4]following §§. The special vowel signs are   ེ,   ི,   ོ,   ུ, pronounced respectively as e, i, o, u are in German, Italian and most other European languages, viz.   ེ like ay in say, or e in ten;   ི like i in machine, tin;   ོ like o in so, on;   ུ like u in rule, pull. It ought to be specially remarked that all vowels, including e and o (unlike the Sanscrit vowels from which they have taken their signs) are short, since no long vowels at all occur in the Tibetan language, except under particular circumstances, mentioned below (s. § 9. 5, 6 ). 2. When vowels are initial, ཨ is used as their base, as is ا‎ in Urdu, e.g. ཨ་མ་ ama, ‘mother’. 3. འ is originally different from ཨ་, as the latter denotes the opening of the previously closed throat for pronouncing a vowel with that slight explosive sound which the Arabs mean by أ‎ (همزة‎), as the a in the words: the lily, an endogen, which would be in Tibetan characters ལི་ལི་ཨན་; འ་ on the contrary is the mere vowel without that audible opening of the throat (as Arabic ا‎ without ء‎), as in Lilian, ལི་ལི་འན་. In Eastern Tibet this difference is strictly observed; and if the vowel is o or u the intentional exertion for avoiding the sound of ཨ་ makes it resemble wo and wu: འོ་མ་ ‘the milk’, almost like wo-ma, འུག་པ་ ‘the owl’ = wug-pa. In western Tibet this has been obliterated, and འ་ is there spoken just like ཨ་.

4. Syllables. The Tibetan language is monosyllabic, that is to say all its words consist of one syllable only, which indeed may be variously composed, though the [5]component parts cannot, in every case, be recognised in their individuality. The mark for the end of such a syllable is a dot, called ཚེག་ tʽseg, put at the right side of the upper part of the closing letter, such as ཀ་ the syllable ka. This tʽseg must invariably be put at the end of each written syllable, except before a s̀ad (§ 10), in which case only ང་ ṅa retains its tʽseg. If therefore such a dot is found after two or more consonants, this will indicate that all of them, some way or other, form one syllable with only one vowel in it: ཀ་ར་ ka-ra, ཀར་ kar (cf. §§ 5. 8 ).

5. Final consonants. 1. Only the following ten: ག་ ང་ ཏ་ ན་ བ་ མ་ འ་ ར་ ལ་ ས་ (and the four with affixed ས, v. 5) occur at the end of a syllable. 2. It must be observed, that ག་ ད་ བ་ as finals are never pronounced like the English g, d, b in leg, bad, cab, but are transformed differently in the different provinces. In Ladak they sound like k, t, p e.g. སོག་ = sock, གོད་ = got, ཐོབ་ = top. 3. In all Central Tibet, moreover, final ད་ and ན་, sometimes even ལ་, modify the sound of a preceding vowel: a to ä (similar to the English a in hare, man), o into o̤ (French eu in jeu), u into ṳ (French u in mur). In most of the other provinces ག་ and ད་ are uttered so indistinctly as to be scarcely audible, so that སོག་, གོད་ become sŏʼ, gŏʼ. In Tsang even final ལ་ is scarcely perceptible, and final ག་, particularly after o, is almost dissolved into a vowel sound = a: སོལ་བ་ so-wa, [6]དཀོན་མཆོག་ kon-choa.2 4. Final ས་ is sounded as s only in Northern Ladak; elsewhere it changes into i or disappears entirely, prolonging, or even modifying at the same time the preceding vowel. Thus the following words: ནས་ ‘barley’, ཤེས་ ‘know’, རིས་ ‘figure’, ཆོས་ ‘religion’, ལུས་ ‘body’, are pronounced in Northern Ladak: năs, s̀ĕs, ris, c̀ʽos, lŭs; in Lahoul: nai, shei, rī, c̀ʽō, lū; in Lhasa, and consequently by everyone who wishes to speak elegantly: nā̤, s̀ē, rī, c̀ʽō̤, lṳ̄. 5. In some words final ས་ occurs as a second closing letter (affix), after ག་ ང་ བ་ མ་, as in ནགས་ ‘forest’, གངས་ ‘glacier-ice’, ཐབས་ ‘means’, རམས་ ‘indigo’; these are pronounced in N. Ladak: nacks, gaṅs, tʽaps, rams, elsewhere nack (in Ü: nā), gaṅ (ET ghang), tʽap, ram. 6. ན་ before པ་ and མ་ is especially in ET very often pronounced m, e.g. ཉན་པ་ ñäm-pa, ཉོན་པ་ ñöm-pa, སྙེན་པ་ ñem-pa.

6. Diphthongs. 1. They occur in Tibetan writing only where one of the vowels i, o, u have to be added to a word ending with an other vowel (s. §§ 15. 1; 33. 1; 45. 2 ). These additional vowels are then always written འི་, འོ་, འུ་, never ཨི་ etc. (cf. § 3. 3); and the combinations ai, oi, ui (as in བཀའི་, མགོའི་, བུའི་) are pronounced very much like ā̤, ō̤, ṳ̄, so that the syllables ནའི་, ཤེའི་, རིའི་, ཆོའི་, [7]ལུའི་ can only in some vulgar dialects be distinguished from those mentioned in § 5. 4. 2. The others ao, eo, io, oo, uo, au, eu, iu (བཀའོ་, སྐྱེའོ་, བགྱིའོ་, འགྲོའོ་, འདུའོ་, གའུ་, བྱེའུ་, ཁྱིའུ་) are pronounced in rapid succession, but each vowel is distinctly audible. In prosody they are generally regarded as one syllable, but if the verse should require it they may be counted as two.

7. Compound consonants. 1. They are expressed in writing by putting one below the other, in which case several change their original figure.

Subscribed consonants. 2. The letter y subjoined to another is represented by the figure  ྱ, and occurs in connection with the three gutturals and labials, and with m, thus ཀྱ་ ཁྱ་ གྱ་ པྱ་ ཕྱ་ བྱ་ མྱ་. The former three have preserved, in most cases, their original pronunciation kya, kʽya, gya (the latter in ET: ghya s. § 2. 6). In the Mongol pronunciation of Tibetan words, however, they have been corrupted into c̀, c̀ʽ, j̀ respectively, a well known instance of which is the common pronunciation Kanj̀ur i.o. kangyur, or eleg. ka-gyur (བཀའ་འགྱུར་). པྱ་, ཕྱ་, བྱ་ are almost everywhere spoken without any difference from ཅ, ཆ, ཇ (except in the Western dialect before e and i, where the y is dropped and པ, ཕ, བ alone are pronounced). མྱ is spoken ny = ཉ. 3. r occurs at the foot of the gutturals, dentals, labials, of ན, མ, ས, and ཧ, in the shape of  ྲ. In some parts of the country, as in Purig, these combinations [8]are pronounced literally, like kra, khra etc., but by far the most general custom is to sound them like the Indian cerebrals, viz. ཀྲ, ཏྲ, པྲ indiscriminately = ट ṭ; ཁྲ, ཐྲ, ཕྲ = ठ ṭh; གྲ, དྲ, བྲ = ड ḍ (in CT: ḍh); only in the case of བྲ the literal pronunciation br is not uncommon. In ནྲ and མྲ both letters are distinctly heard; ཧྲ sounds like shr in shrub, and so does སྲ generally. In Ü this r is dropped nearly in all cases: thus, ཕྲ pʽa, སྲ sa etc. 4. Six letters are often found with an ལ beneath: ཀླ་ གླ་ བླ་ ཟླ་ རླ་ སླ་; in these the ལ alone is pronounced, except in ཟླ་, which sounds da. 5. The figure  ྭ, sometimes found at the foot of a letter is used in Sanscrit words to express the subscribed व, as in སྭཱ་ཧཱ་ (cf. § 9. 6 ) for स्वाहा; and is now pronounced by Tibetans = ō: sōhā; in words originally Tibetan it now exists merely as an orthographical mark, to distinguish homonyms in writing, as ཚ་ tʽsa, ‘hot’ and ཚྭ་ tʽsa, ‘salt’; but, as it is spoken, in some words at least, in Balti (e.g. རྩྭ་ rtswa ‘grass’), it must be supposed that, in the primitive form of the language, it was generally heard.—Note. Of such compounds, indeed, as ཕྱྭ་ ‘lot’ it is difficult to understand, how they can have been pronounced literally, if the v was not, perhaps, pronounced before the y.

Superadded consonants. 6. r over another consonant is written ⸆, and 11 consonants have this sign: རྐ་ རྒ་ རྔ་ རྟ་ རྡ་ རྣ་ རྦ་ རྨ་ རྩ་ རྫ་, above ཉ་ it preserves [9]its full shape, as better adapted to the form of that letter: thus, རྙ་. In speaking it is seldom heard except provincially, and in some instances in compound words after a vowel thus, ཨུ་རྒྱན་ Urgyán, Urgyén, ancient name of the country of Lahore; རྡོ་རྗེ་ dórje ‘vaj̀ra’. Ladakees often pronounce it = s: རྟ་ sta ‘horse’ elsewhere ta. 7. Similar is the usage in those with a superadded ལ (namely: the surds and sonants of the first four classes, the guttural nasal, and ཧ), which latter is often softly heard in WT, but entirely dropped elsewhere, except in the case of ལྷ, which is spoken = ལ in WT, but with a distinct aspiration = hla or lha in ET. 8. ས is superadded to the gutturals, dentals and labials with exception of the aspiratae, then ཉ་ and ཙ་. It is, in many cases, distinctly pronounced in Ladak, but dropped elsewhere3. 9. ག་ ད་ བ་ ཇ་ ཛ་ with any superadded letter lose the aspiration mentioned in § 2. 6 and sound = g, d, b, j̀, ds. 10. རྗ་ རྩ་ རྫ་ often lose even the inherent t-sound in pronunciation and are spoken like j̀, s, z.

1 A very clear exposition of the ramification of Indian alphabets by Dr. Haas is to be found in the Publications of the Palaeographical Society Oriental Series IV, pl. XLIV. ↑

2 This is the form in which the word, chosen by the missionaries to express the Christian “God” (cf. dict.), has found its way into several popular works. ↑

3 This will be indicated in the following examples by including the s in parentheses, as (s)kom. ↑

[Contents][Contents]

Examples.

- ཀྱིར་ཀྱིར་ kyir-kyir, round, circular.

- ཁྱི་ kʽyi, dog.

- གྱེན་ལ་ gyen-la, upwards.

- ཕྱུགས་ c̀ʽug(s), Ü: c̀ʽū, cattle.

- ཀྱུ་ kyu, hook.

- ཁྱོད་ kʽyod, C: kʽyöʼ, you.

- ཕྱུག་པོ་ c̀ʽug-po, rich.

- ཕྱེད་ W: pʽed, C: c̀ʽĕʼ, half. [10]

- བྱ་མོ་ W: j̀á-mo, C: j̀ʽa-mo, hen.

- མྱ་ངན་ W: ña-ṅán, C: -ṅän, misery.

- ཀྲམ་ ṭam, cabbage.

- ཁྲིམས་ ṭʽim(s), judgment.

- གྲང་མོ་ W: ḍaṅ-mo, C: ḍʽ°-, cold.

- ཕྲུག་གུ་ ṭʽug-gu, child.

- སྲན་མ་ s̀ran-ma, srän-ma, pea.

- གླ་ la, wages.

- རླུང་(པོ་) luṅ(-po), wind.

- ཟླ་བ་ da-wa (s. § 11 note), moon.

- རྣོན་པོ་ nón-po, C: no̤m-po, sharp.

- ལྗང་ཁུ་ jaṅ-kʽu (Ld. lj°), green.

- སྐོམ་ (s)kom, thirst.

- སྒོ་ (s)go, door.

- སྒྱུར་བ་ (s)gyúr-wa, to alter, turn.

- སྤྱིན་ W: (s)pin, C: c̀ʽin, glue.

- སྤྲེའུ་ ṭe-u, Ld: s̀re-u, monkey.

- སྨན་ W: (s)man, C: män, medicine.

- བྱེ་མ་ W: bé-ma, C: j̀ʽe-ma, sand.

- མྱུར་དུ་ ñur-du, quickly.

- ཁྲལ་ ṭʽal, tax.

- གྲི་ W: ḍi, ḍʽi (Pur: gri), knife.

- དྲང་པོ་ W: ḍaṅ-po, C: ḍʽ°, straight.

- བྲག་ ḍag, ḍʽag (brag), rock.

- ཧྲུལ་པོ་ s̀rul-po, ragged.

- བླ་མ་ lá-ma, priest.

- སླ་མོ་ lá-mo, easy.

- རྐང་པ་ kaṅ-pa, foot.

- རྫུན་ W: zun, C: dsṳn, lie, untruth.

- ལྟད་མོ་ tad-mo (Ld. lt°), C: täʼ-mo, spectacle.

- སྐྲ་ W: s̀ra1, C: ṭa, hair.

- སྒྲ་ ḍa (vulg.: ra), sound, voice.

- སྤུ་ (s)pu, small hair.

- སྤྱོད་པ་ W: (s)c̀od-pa, C: c̀öʼ-pa, to behave.

- སྦྲུལ་ W: (sb)rul, C: ḍul, snake.

- སྨྱོན་པ་ W: ñon-pa, C: ño̤n-pa, mad.

[11]

8. Prefixed letters. 1. The five letters ག་ ད་ བ་ མ་ འ་ frequently occur before the real, radical initials of other words, but are seldom pronounced, except in similar cases as § 7. 6. ག་ occurs before ཅ་ ཉ་ ཏ་ ད་ ན་ ཙ་ ཞ་ ཟ་ ཡ་ ཤ་ ས་; ད before the gutturals and labials with exception of the aspiratae; བ་ before ཀ་ ག་, the palatals, dentals and palatal sibilants with the same exception as under ད, then ཞ་ ཟ་ ར་ ཤ་ ས་; མ་ before the gutturals, palatals, dentals and palatal sibilants, except the surds; འ before the aspiratae and sonants of the five classes. In CT, to pronounce them in any case, is considered vulgar. 2. The ambiguity which would arise in case of the prefix standing before one of the 10 final consonants, as single radical, the vowel being the unwritten a,—e.g. in the syllable དག་, which, if ད is radical, has to be pronounced dag, if prefixed gā,—is avoided by adding an འ་ in the latter case: thus, དགའ་. Other examples are: གད་ gad (gʽäʼ) and གདའ་ dā; བས་ bas (bā̤, bʽā̤) and བསའ་ sā; མད་ mad (mäʼ) and མདའ་ dā; འགའ་ gā. This འ་ is added, though the radical be not one of the mentioned letters; as, བཀའ་ kā. 3. ད་ as a prefix and བ་ as first radical annul each other, so that only the following sound is heard, as will be seen in the [12]following examples (དབང་ etc.). 4. Another irregularity is the nasal pronunciation of the prefixed འ་ in compounds after a vowel, which is often heard e.g. དགེ་འདུན་ pronounced gen-dún, gen-dṳ́n, but eleg.: ge-dṳ́n, ‘clergy’; བཀའ་འབུམ་ kam-bum, eleg. ka-búm, ‘the 100 000 precepts’ (title of a book).—Note. With regard to the aspiration of the soft consonants in ET the prefixed letters have the same influence as the superadded ones § 7. 9.

[Contents]

Examples.

- གཡག་ yag, bos grunniens.

- དཔེ་ཆ་ pé-c̀ʽa (Ld.: spe-c̀ʽa), book.

- བཟང་པོ་ záṅ-po, good.

- འབབ་པ་ bab-pa, to descend.

- དབང་ waṅ, vulg. C: aṅ, power.

- དབུས་ Ṳ̄, name of the Lhasa district.

- དབེན་པ་ en-pa, solitude.

- དབྱིབས་ yib(s), ib, figure.

- དཀར་པོ་ kár-po, white.

- དགྲ་བོ་ ḍá-wo, enemy.

- མངར་མོ་ ṅár-mo, sweet.

- བཅུ་བཞི་ c̀ub-z̀i, eleg. c̀u-z̀i, fourteen.

- དབུ་ u, resp. head.

- དབུགས་ ug(s), C: ug, ū, breath.

- དབྱར་ཀ་ yar-ka, summer.

- དབྱེ་བ་ ye-wa, e-wa, difference.

9. Word; Accent; Quantity. 1. The peculiarity of the Tibetan mode of writing in distinctly marking the word-syllables, but not the words (cf. § 4) composed of two or more of these, sometimes renders it doubtful what is to be regarded as one word. 2. There exist a great number of [13]small monosyllables, which serve to denote different shades of notions, grammatical relations etc., and are postponed to the word in question; but never alter its original shape, though their own initials are not seldom influenced by its final consonant (cf. § 15). 3. Such monosyllables may conveniently be regarded as terminations, forming one word together with the preceding nominal or verbal root. 4. The accent is, in such cases, most naturally given to the root, or, in compounds, generally to the latter part of the composition, as: མིག་ mig, ‘eye’, མིག་གི་ míg-gi, ‘of the eye’; ལག་ lag, ‘hand’, ལག་ཤུབས་ lag-s̀ub(s), ‘hand-covering, glove’.—5. Equally natural is, in WT, the quantity of the vowels: accentuated vowels, when closing the syllable, are comparatively long (though never so long as in the English words bee, stay, or Hindi راجا‎ etc.), otherwise short, as མི་ mī ‘man’, མི་ལ་ mī-lă ‘to the man’, but མར་ măr, ‘butter’.—In CT, however, even accentuated and closing vowels are uttered very shortly: mĭ, mĭ-lă etc., and long ones occur there only in the case of § 5, 4. 5. and 8, 2., as ལས་ lā̤ ‘work’; ཆོས་ c̀ʽō̤ ‘religion’; མདའ་ dā ‘arrow’; གཟའ་ zā ‘planet’; and in Lhasa especially: ནགས་ nā ‘forest’; ལེགས་པ་ lē-pa ‘good’; རིགས་ rī ‘class, sort’; ལོགས་ lō ‘side’; ལུགས་ lū ‘manner’.—In Sanscrit words the long vowels are marked by an འ་ beneath the consonant, as: ནཱ་མ་ (नाम) ‘called’, མཱུ་ལ་ (मूल) ‘root’ (s. § 3). [14]

10. Punctuation. For separating the members of a longer period, a vertical stroke: །, called ཤད་ s̀ad (s̀äʼ), is used, which corresponds at once to our comma, semicolon and colon; after the closing of a sentence the same is doubled; after a longer piece, e.g. a chapter, four s̀ads are put. No marks of interrogation or exclamation exist in punctuation.—2. In metrical compositions, the double s̀ad is used for separating the single verses; in that case the logical partition of the sentence is not marked (cf. § 4).

[Contents]

A list of a few useful words.

- ཀ་ར་ or ཁ་ར་ ká-ra, kʽá-ra, sugar.

- ཁང་པ་ kʽaṅ-pa, house.

- གང་ W: gaṅ, C: gʽaṅ, which?

- གུར་ W: gur, C: gʽur, tent.

- ངལ་ ṅal, fatigue.

- ཅི་ c̀i, what?

- ཆད་པ་ W: c̀ʽad-pa, C: c̀ʽăʼ-pa, punishment.

- ཆུང་བ་ c̀ʽuṅ-wa, little.

- ཇ་ W: j̀a, C: j̀ʽa, tea.

- ཉི་མ་ ñí-ma, sun; day.

- ཉུང་མ་ ñúṅ-ma, turnip.

- ཏིབ་རིལ་ tíb-ril, tea-pot, kettle.

- ཀུན་ W: kun, C: kün, all.

- ཁུང་ kʽuṅ, hole.

- ག་རུ་ or གར་ W: ga-ru, gar, C: gʽ°, where?

- ངན་པ་ ṅan-pa, C: ṅam-pa, bad.

- ཆང་, c̀ʽaṅ, beer.

- ཆར་པ་ c̀ʽár-pa, rain.

- ཆེན་པོ་ c̀ʽen-po, great.

- ཉ་ ña, fish.

- ཉུང་བ་ ñuṅ-wa, little, few.

- ཉེ་མོ་ ñe-mo, near.

- ཏོག་ཙེ་ tóg-tse (W), hoe. [15]

- ཐག་པ་ tʽag-pa, rope.

- ཐོད་པ་ W: tʽód-pa, C: tʽöʼ-pa, skull.

- དང་ daṅ, dʽaṅ, and; with.

- ནག་པོ nag-po, black.

- ནོར་ nor, wealth, property.

- ཕན་པ་ pʽan-pa, pʽäm-pa, use, benefit.

- བ་ ba, bʽa, cow.

- བུ་ bu, bʽu, son.

- མེ་ me, fire.

- མེད་ med, mĕʼ, there is not.

- ཚང་མ་ tʽsaṅ-ma, whole.

- ཞོ་ z̀o, s̀ŏ, curdled milk.

- འོད་ od, wöʼ, light, shine.

- ཡི་གེ་ yí-ge, letter.

- ཡོད་ yod, yöʼ, am, is, are.

- རི་ ri, hill, mountain.

- ལ་ la, mountain-pass.

- ལུག་ lug, sheep.

- ཐང་ tʽáṅ, the plain.

- ད་ W: da, C: dʽa, now.

- དུད་པ་ dud-pa, dʽüʼ-pa, smoke.

- ནད་ nad, näʼ, disease.

- པར་མ་ pár-ma, a printed book.

- ཕུག་རོན་ pʽug-rón, -ró̤n, dove.

- བལ་ bal, bʽal, wool.

- བུ་མོ་ bu-mo, bʽ°, daughter.

- མིང་ miṅ, name.

- ཙམ་ tsam, how much?

- ཞག་ z̀ag, C: s̀ag, day.

- འོ་མ་ o-ma, wo-ma, milk.

- ཡང་ yaṅ, also.

- ཡིན་ yin, am, is, are (cf. § 39).

- ར་མ་ ra-ma, goat.

- རིན་ rin, price.

- ལམ་ lam, road.

- ཤ་ s̀a, flesh, meat. [16]

- ཤིང་ s̀iṅ, tree, wood.

- སུ་ su, who?

- ཨ་ཕ་ a-pʽa, (vulg.) father.

- རས་ (Ld: ras) rā̤, cotton cloth.

- གོས་ (Ld: gos) gō̤, gʽō̤, clothing.

- སེམས་ sem, soul.

- ཁྲག་ ṭʽag, blood.

- སླེབ་པ་ leb-pa, to arrive.

- རྩྭ་ W: sa, C: tsa, grass.

- སྔོན་པོ་ ṅon-po, ṅo̤m-po, blue.

- གཞུ་ z̀u, bow (for shooting).

- དགུན་ཀ་ gun-ka, gṳn-ka, winter.

- མཚོ་ tʽso, lake.

- འདྲི་བ་ ḍi-wa, to ask.

- ས་ sa, earth.

- སོ་མ་ só-ma, new.

- ཨ་མ་ a-ma, (vulg.) mother.

- དུས་ (Ld.: dus) dṳ̄, dʽṳ̄, time.

- ཐབས་ tʽab(s), means.

- བག་ཕྱེ་ W: bag-pʽe, C: bʽag-c̀ʽe, flour.

- གྲོ་ ḍo, ḍʽŏ, wheat.

- རྒད་པོ་ gad-po, gʽäʼ-po, old.

- སྐྱེ་བ་ (s)kye-wa, to be born, grow.

- སྙིང་ ñiṅ, heart.

- གཟིག་ zig, leopard.

- མགྱོགས་པ་ gyog(s)-pa (Ü: gyō-pa), fast, quick.

- འབྲི་བ་ ḍi-wa (bri-wa), to write.

[17]

1 The concurrence of superadded ས་ with a consonant already [11]compound produces in WT some irregularities, which cannot all be specified here (see the diction.). The custom of CT, according to which the ས་ is entirely neglected is in this instance easier to be followed. ↑

Part II.

Etymology.

[Contents]

Chapter I.

The Article.

11. Peculiarities of the Tibetan article. 1. What have been called Articles by Csoma and Schmidt, are a number of little affixes: པ་ བ་ མ་ པོ་ བོ་ མོ་, and some similar ones, which might perhaps be more adequately termed denominators, since their principal object is undoubtedly to represent a given root as a noun, substantive or adjective, as is most clearly perceptible in the instance of the roots of verbs, to which པ་ or བ་ impart the notion of the Infinitive and Participle, or the nearest abstract and nearest concrete nouns that can possibly be formed from the idea of a verb. These affixes are not, however,—except in this case—essential to a noun, as many substantives and adjectives and most of the pronouns are never accompanied by them, and even those which usually appear connected with them, will drop them upon the slightest occasion. 2. Almost the only case in which a syntactical use of them, like that of the English definite Article, is perceptible, is that mentioned § 20. 3; a formal one, that of distinguishing the Gender, occurs in a limited number of words, where མོ་ denotes the female, པོ་ the masculine. Thus: རྒྱལ་པོ་ gyál-po ‘king’, རྒྱལ་མོ་ gyál-mo ‘queen’. Or, [18]if the word in the masculine (or rather common) gender has no article, མོ་ is added: སེང་གེ་ séṅ-ge ‘lion’, སེང་གེ་མོ་ ‘lioness’. 3. In most instances, by far, their only use is to distinguish different meanings of homonymous roots, e.g. སྟོན་པ་ (s)tón-pa (tó̤n-pa), ‘teacher’; སྟོན་མོ་ (s)tón-mo (tó̤n-mo) ‘feast’; སྟོན་ཁ་ (s)tón-kʽa (tó̤n-kʽa) ‘autumn’. Even this advantage, however, is given up, as soon as a composition takes place, and then the meaning can only be inferred from the context, or known from usage: མིང་སྟོན་ (from སྟོན་མོ་) ‘name feast’ (given on the occasion of naming or christening an infant); སྟོན་ཟླ་ (from སྟོན་ཁ་) ‘autumnal month’. In some instances the putting or omitting of these articles is optional; more frequently the usage varies in different provinces. 4. The peculiar nature of these affixes is most clearly shown by the manner in which they are connected with the indefinite article § 13.

Note. The affixes བ་ བོ་ are after vowels and after the consonants ང་ ར་ ལ་ always pronounced wa and wo, instead of ba and bo; thus, དཀའ་བ་ ka-wa ‘difficult’; རེ་བ་ re-wa ‘hope’; གང་བ་ gaṅ-wa (gh°) ‘full’; ཟེར་བ་ zer-wa (ser-wa) ‘to say’; མྱལ་བ་ nyal-wa ‘hell’; ཇོ་བོ་ jo-wo (jho-wo) ‘lord, master’.

12. Difference of the Articles among each other. 1. The usage of པ་ བ་ མ་ is the most general and widest of all, [19]as they occur with all sorts of substantives and other nouns. པ་ is particularly used for denoting a man who is in a certain way connected with a certain thing (something like والا‎ and دار‎ in Hindustāni and Persian): གྲྭ་ ḍa ‘school’, གྲྭ་པ་ (literally: scholar) ‘disciple, novice’; ཆུ་ c̀ʽu ‘water’, ཆུ་པ་ ‘water-carrier’ (پانى والا‎); རྟ་ ‘horse’, རྟ་པ་ ‘horseman’; དབུས་ ‘the province of Ṳ̄’, དབུས་པ་ ‘a man from Ṳ̄’, ཁྱེའུ་ kʽyëu ‘boy’, ལོ་ lo ‘year’, གཉིས་ ñi(s) ‘two’, hence: ཁྱེའུ་ལོ་གཉིས་པ་ ‘a two years’ boy’. If the feminine is required མ་ is either added to, or—more commonly—used instead of, the former: དབུས་མ་ ‘a woman from Ṳ̄’; བུ་མོ་ལོ་གཉིས་མ་ ‘a two years’ girl’. The performer of an action is more frequently denoted by པོ་ (or, in more solemn language, པ་པོ་), though, in conversation at least, མཁན་ kʽan (kʽe̱n), is preferred; བྱེད་པ་ j̀ed-pa ‘to do, make; doing, making’: བྱེད་པོ་, བྱེད་པ་པོ་, བྱེད་མཁན་ ‘the doer, maker’. 2. The appendices ཀ་ ཁ་ ག་ occur with a limited number of nouns only, especially the names of the seasons, with numerals, and some pronouns. (ཀོ་ seems to be a vulgar form of pronunciation for ཀ་).

13. The indefinite Article. This is the numeral one (§ 13), only deprived of its prefix, viz.: ཅིག་, which form it retains, if the preceding word ends with ག་ ད་ བ་, as: ཁབ་ཅིག་ [20]kʽab-c̀ig, a needle; it is changed to ཤིག་ after ས་, རས་ཤིག་ ras-s̀ig, rä-s̀ig, a cloth; to ཞིག་ z̀ig (s̀ig) in all other cases. Some authors use ཅིག་ after any termination indiscriminately. It is, of course, always without accent. The articles པ་ བ་ etc. are not superseded by the indefinite article e.g. སྟོན་པ་ ‘teacher, the teacher’, སྟོན་པ་ཞིག་ ‘a teacher’. It is used even after a plurality: thus, ཆུ་མིག་བཞི་ཞིག་དེ་རུ་ཡོད་ ‘there were some four wells’, and even: མང་ཞིག་གདའ་སྟེ་ ‘there being a multitude of them’ (from Mil.). Very often it is placed after the interrogative pronouns (v. 27), and sometimes its original meaning is obscured so much that it occurs even after known and definite subjects, where one would expect the demonstrative (see f.i. Dzl. 25, 1. 28, 6. 128, 14).

[Contents]

Chapter II.

The Substantive.

14. The Number. The Plural is denoted by adding the word རྣམས་ nam, or, more rarely, དག་ dag (dʽag), ཚོ་, or a few other words, which originally were nouns with the common notion of plurality. But this mark of the Plural is usually omitted, when the plurality of the thing in question may be known from other circumstances, e.g. when a numeral is added: thus, མི་ ‘man’, མི་རྣམས་ ‘men’, མི་གསུམ་ ‘three men’. When a substantive is connected with an adjective, the plural sign is added only once, viz. after the [21]last of the connected words: མི་བཟང་པོ་རྣམས་ ‘the good men’.

Note. The conversational language uses the words རྣམས་ etc. seldom, in WT scarcely ever (an exception s. 24. Remarks), but adds, when necessary, such words as: all, many, some; two, three, seven, eight, or other suitable numerals (cf. § 20, 5.).

15. Declension. The regular addition of the different particles or single sounds by which the cases are formed is the same for all nouns, whether substantives or adjectives, pronouns or participles. Only in some cases, in the Dative and Instrumental, the noun itself is changed, when, ending in a vowel, it admits of a closer connection with the corrupted case-sign. We may reckon in Tibetan seven cases, expressive of all the relations, for which cases are used in other languages, viz: nominative and accusative, genitive, instrumental, dative, locative, ablative, terminative and vocative. 1. The unaltered form of the noun has some of the functions of our Nominative and those of the Accusative and Vocative. 2. The sign of the Genitive is ཀྱི་ after words with the finals ད་ བ་ ས་; གྱི་ after ན་ མ་ ར་ ལ་, གི་ after ག་ and ང་; after vowels i is simply added by means of an འ་ thus: འི་, which then will form a diphthong with the vowel of the noun (cf. § 6), or if, in versification, two syllables are required, i appears supported by an ཡ་ forming a distinct word. 3. The Instrumental or Agent is expressed by the particles ཀྱིས་, གྱིས་ or གིས་ after the respective [22]consonants as specified above; after vowels simply ས་ is added, or, in verse, sometimes ཡིས་.

Note. The instrumental is, in modern pronunciation, except in Northern Ladak, scarcely discernible from the genitive, and there are but few if any, even among lamas, who are not liable to confound both cases in writing.

In the language of common life, in WT, the different forms of the particle of the genitive and instrumental, after consonants, ཀྱི་ གྱི་ etc. are never heard, but everywhere the final consonant is doubled and the vowel i added to it, thus: ལུས་, G. lus-si (Ld.), lṳ̄-i; ལམ་, G. lam-mi; གསེར་ (gold), G. ser-ri etc; or, in other words, all nouns ending in consonants are formed like those ending with ག་ (see the example མིག་). In those ending with a vowel no irregularity takes place.

4. The Dative adds indiscriminately the postposition ལ་ la, denoting the relation of space in the widest sense, expressed by the English prepositions in, into, at, on, to. 5. The Locative is formed by the postposition ན་ na ‘in’. 6. The Ablative by ནས་ nā̤ or ལས་ lā̤ ‘from’ (the latter especially with the meaning: from among), all three likewise without any discriminating regard to the ending of the noun. 7. The Terminative is expressed by the postpositions རུ་ or ར་ after vowels; ཏུ་ after final ག་ and བ་ and, in certain words, ད་ ར་ ལ་; སུ་ after ས་; དུ་ generally after ན་ ར་ ལ་ and the other final consonants. All these [23]postpositions denote the motion to or into. 8. The Vocative is not different from the Nominative (as stated above), if not distinguished by the interjection ཀྱེ་ oh!, and can only be known from the context.

Examples of declension. As example of the declension of consonantal nouns we may take 1. for those in s (respectively d, b), ལུས་ lus, lṳ̄, ‘body’; 2. for those in m (n, r, l), ལམ་ lam ‘way’; 3. for those in g (ṅ), མིག་ mig ‘eye’,—of that of vocalic nouns: 4. ཁ་ kʽa or kʽa-wa ‘snow’.

Singular.

| 1. | 2.
N. Acc. | ལུས་ lus, lṳ̄ | ལམ་ lam
Gen. | ལུས་ཀྱི་ lus-kyi, lṳ̄-kyi; lus-si, lṳ̄i | ལམ་གྱི་ lam-gyi; lam-mi
Inst. | ལུས་ཀྱིས་ lus-kyis, lṳ̄-kyī; lus-sī, lṳ̄ī | ལམ་གྱིས་ lam-gyis, -gyī; lam-mī
Dat. | ལུས་ལ་ lus-la, lṳ̄-la | ལམ་ལ་ lam-la
Loc. | ལུས་ན་ lus-na | ལམ་ན་ lam-na
Abl. | ལུས་ནས་ lus-nā̤ | ལམ་ནས་ lam-nā̤
Term. | ལུས་སུ་ lus-su | ལམ་དུ་ lam-du
| 3. | 4.
N. Acc. | མིག་ mig | ཁ་ kʽa; ཁ་བ་ kʽa-wa
Gen. | མིག་གི་ mig-gi | ཁའི་ kʽai; ཁ་བའི་ kʽa-wai [24]
Inst. | མིག་གིས་ mig-gis, -gī | ཁས་ kʽā̤; ཁ་བས་ kʽa-wā̤
Dat. | མིག་ལ་ mig-la | ཁ་ལ་ kʽa-la; ཁ་བ་ལ་ kʽa-wa-la
Loc. | མིག་ན་ mig-na | ཁ་ན་ kʽa-na; ཁ་བ་ན་ kʽa-wa-na
Abl. | མིག་ནས་ mig-nā̤ | ཁ་ནས་ kʽa-nā̤; ཁ་བ་ནས་ kʽa-wa-nā̤
Term. | མིག་ཏུ་ mig-tu | ཁ་རུ་, ཁར་ kʽa-ru, kʽar; ཁ་བ་རུ་, ཁ་བར་ kʽa-wa-ru, kʽa-war.

Plural.

As the plural signs are simply added to the nouns, without affecting their form, we here only give examples of declension with the two most frequent plural particles. As example for དག་ the plural of the pron. དེ་ ‘that’ has been chosen.

N. Acc. | ལུས་རྣམས་ lus(lṳ̄-)-nam(s) | དེ་དག་ de-dag
Gen. | ལུས་རྣམས་ཀྱི་ lus-nam(s)-kyi | དེ་དག་གི་ de-dag-gi
Inst. | ལུས་རྣམས་ཀྱིས་ lus-nam(s)-kyis | དེ་དག་གིས་ de-dag-gis
Dat. | ལུས་རྣམས་ལ་ lus-nam(s)-la | དེ་དག་ལ་ de-dag-la
Loc. | ལུས་རྣམས་ན་ lus-nam(s)-na | དེ་དག་ན་ de-dag-na
Abl. | ལུས་རྣམས་ནས་ lus-nam(s)-nā̤ | དེ་དག་ནས་ de-dag-nā̤
Term. | ལུས་རྣམས་སུ་ lus-nam(s)-su | དེ་དག་ཏུ་ de-dag-tu

[25]

[Contents]

Chapter III.

The Adjective.

16. In the Tibetan language the Adjective is not formally distinguished from the Substantive, so that many nouns may be used one or the other way just as circumstances require.1 The declension, likewise, follows the same rules as that of substantives. Only two remarks may be added here. 1. The particles པ་ མ་ པོ་ མོ་ are not very strictly used for distinguishing the gender, since even in the case of human beings པ་ and པོ་ are not seldom found connected with feminines, e.g.: བུ་མོ་མཛེས་པ་ just as well as བུ་མོ་མཛེས་མ་ ‘a fine girl’. 2. The Adjective stands after the Substantive to which it belongs: thus, རི་མཐོན་པོ་ ri-tʽón-po, C: ri-tʽo̤n-po, ‘the high hill’, when, of course, the case-signs [26]are joined to the Adjective: རི་མཐོན་པོའི་ ‘of the high hill’, རི་མཐོན་པོ་རྣམས་ ‘the high hills’ etc.

Or the Adjective may be put in the Gen. before the Substantive: མཐོན་པོའི་རི་, and then the latter only is declined: མཐོན་པོའི་རིའི་, མཐོན་པོའི་རི་རྣམས་. In the vulgar speech both of C and WT the adjective sometimes preserves, even in this position, its simple form (Nominative). A third way of expression, when both are joined together, without any article, as སྐམ་ས་ instead of ས་སྐམ་པོ་ ‘the dry land’, is rather a compound substantive, with the same difference of meaning as ‘highland’ and ‘a high land’ in English.

17. Comparison. 1. Special terminations, expressive of the different degrees of comparison, as in the Aryan languages, do not exist in Tibetan. There are two particles, however, corresponding to the English than: བས་, after the final consonants ང་ ར་ ལ་ and after vowels (པས་, after ག་ ད་ ན་ བ་ མ་ ས་2), and ལས་; these particles follow the word with which another is compared (like the Hind. سے‎) and this then precedes the compared one, finally follows the adjective in the positive: རྟ་བས་ (or ལས་) ཁྱི་ཆུང་བ་ཡིན་ ‘horse—than dog small is’, just as in Hindūstāni: گھوڑى سے كتّا چھوٹا ھَى‎. But also the position usual in [27]our European languages occurs, thus: རབ་ཏུ་འབྱུང་བའི་བསོད་ནམས་རི་རབ་ལྷུན་པོ་བས་འཕངས་མཐོའོ་ ‘the merit of becoming a priest is relatively higher than mount Meru’; བོད་གྱི་རྒྱལ་པོ་གཞན་ལས་ཆེ་བ་ཡིན་ནོ་ ‘the king of Tibet is greater than the other ones’. The particle བས་ (པས་) may be put, in the same manner, after adverbs. Thus, སྔར་བས་གསལ་བར་མཐོང་བར་གྱུར་ཏོ་ ‘(their eyes) became more keen-sighted than before’. Or, after infinitives, གཞན་སོང་བ་བས་ནུ་བོས་སོང་ན་ཕན་ ‘it is better (for him) that his younger brother should go (with him) than another’. ལས་ for itself has the meaning of ‘more than’, with the negative: ‘not more than’, ‘only’; thus: ང་ལ་སྲང་གཉིས་ལས་ནི་མི་དགོས་ ‘more than two ounces I do not want’ (cf. vulg. WT: གསུམ་མན་ན་མེད་ ‘there are not more than (only) three’); or ‘nothing but’, ‘only’, རི་དྭགས་ཤོར་བ་ལས་དགའ་བ་མེད་ ‘there is no pleasure (for us) but hunting, h. is our only pl.’.

2. An Adverb which augments the notion of the adjective itself, is ལྷག་པར་ ‘more’; this can be added ad libitum: རྟ་བས་ཁྱི་ལྷག་པར་ཆུང་བ་ཡིན་.

3. Another adverb, ཇེ་ means: ‘more and more’, ‘gradually more’, e.g. ཇེ་ཉེ་ཇེ་ཉེ་སོང་སྟེ་ ‘going nearer and nearer’. 4. ‘The elder—the younger’ e.g. of two brothers, is [28]simply expressed by: ‘the great—the little’. 5. The Superlative is paraphrased by the same means: ཀུན་ལས་ཆེན་པོ་ or ཐམས་ཅད་པས་ཆེན་པོ་ ‘greater than all’. Or it is expressed in the following manner: ཡུལ་གྱི་རྒྱལ་པོའི་ནང་ན་རྒྱལ་པོ་གང་ཆེ་ ‘of (among) the kings of the country which one is the greatest (prop. great)?’. Adverbs for expressing high degrees are: ཤིན་ཏུ་ or རབ་ཏུ་ ‘very’, ཀུན་ཏུ་ ‘all’, ཡོངས་སུ་ ‘quite’, མཆོག་ཏུ་ ‘exceedingly’ etc.

Note. The colloquial language of WT uses སང་ instead of བས་ or ལས་, and མཱ་ (mā, always with a strong emphasis, perhaps a mutilated form of མངས་ ‘much’) or མང་པོ་ instead of ཤིན་ཏུ་, whereas that of CT employs ལས་ in the former case, but repeats the adjective in the latter, so that ‘very large’ is expressed in books by ཤིན་ཏུ་ཆེན་པོ་, in speaking, in WT by mā́ c̀ʽén-po, in CT by c̀ʽem-po c̀ʽem-po.

1 But the vulgar language has a predilection for certain forms of Adjectives 1. those with the gerundial particle ཏེ་, as: ཚན་ཏེ་ for the more classical ཚན་ ‘warm’; these seem to be particularly in use in Tsaṅ: མཛའ་སྟེ་ ‘friendly’, less so in Ü. 2. compound adjectives either by simple reiteration of the root: རིལ་རིལ་ for རིལ་པོ་ ‘round’, or changing the vowel at the same time: ཁྲག་ཁྲུག་ ‘complicate’, གཙང་གཙོང་ ‘awry’ etc. Often they are quadrisyllables after this form: མལ་ལ་མུལ་ལེ་ ‘lukewarm’, ཆག་ག་ཆོག་གེ་ ‘medley’. ↑

2 Some Mscr. and wood-prints, however, prefer, even after these consonants, the form བས་. ↑

[Contents]

Chapter IV.

The Numerals.

18. Cardinals:

1 | ༡ | གཅིག་ c̀ig
2 | ༢ | གཉིས་ ñi(s)
3 | ༣ | གསུམ་ sum [29]
4 | ༤ | བཞི་ z̀i
5 | ༥ | ལྔ་ ṅa
6 | ༦ | དྲུག་ W: ḍug, C: ḍhug
7 | ༧ | བདུན་ W: dun, C: dhṳn
8 | ༨ | བརྒྱད་ W: gyad, C: gyäʼ
9 | ༩ | དགུ་ gu
10 | ༡༠ | བཅུ་ c̀u, or བཅུ་ཐམ་པ་ c̀u-tʽam-pa
11 | ༡༡ | བཅུ་གཅིག་ c̀u-c̀ig
12 | ༡༢ | བཅུ་གཉིས་ c̀u-ñí, vulg: c̀ug-ñí(s)
13 | ༡༣ | བཅུ་གསུམ་ c̀u-súm, vulg: c̀ug-súm
14 | ༡༤ | བཅུ་བཞི་ c̀u-z̀í, vulg: c̀ub-z̀í
15 | ༡༥ | བཅོ་ལྔ་ c̀o-ṅá
16 | ༡༦ | བཅུ་དྲུག་ c̀u-ḍúg, C: -ḍhúg
17 | ༡༧ | བཅུ་བདུན་ c̀u-dún, C: -dṳ́n, vulg: c̀ub-d°
18 | ༡༨ | བཅོ་བརྒྱད་ c̀o-gyád, C: -gyäʼ, vulg: c̀ob-g°
19 | ༡༩ | བཅུ་དགུ་ c̀u-gú
20 | ༢༠ | ཉི་ཤུ་ ñi-s̀u
21 | ༢༡ | ཉི་ཤུ་རྩ་གཅིག་ ñi-s̀u-sa-c̀íg, or ཉེར་གཅིག་ ñer-c̀íg [30]
30 | ༣༠ | སུམ་ཅུ་ súm-c̀u
31 | ༣༡ | སུམ་ཅུ་རྩ་གཅིག་ sum-c̀u-sa-c̀íg, སོ་གཅིག་ so-c̀ig
40 | ༤༠ | བཞི་བཅུ་ z̀i-c̀u, vulg: z̀ib-c̀u
41 | ༤༡ | བཞི་བཅུ་རྩ་གཅིག་ z̀i-c̀u-sa-c̀íg, ཞེ་གཅིག་ z̀e-c̀íg
50 | ༥༠ | ལྔ་བཅུ་ ṅa-c̀u, vulg: ṅab-c̀u
51 | ༥༡ | ལྔ་བཅུ་རྩ་གཅིག་ ṅa-c̀u-sa-c̀íg, ང་གཅིག་ ṅa-c̀ig
60 | ༦༠ | དྲུག་ཅུ་ ḍug-c̀u, C: ḍhug-c̀u
61 | ༦༡ | དྲུག་ཅུ་རྩ་གཅིག་ ḍug-c̀u-sa-c̀íg, རེ་གཅིག་ re-c̀íg
70 | ༧༠ | བདུན་ཅུ་ dun-c̀u, C: dṳn-c̀u
71 | ༧༡ | བདུན་ཅུ་རྩ་གཅིག་ dun-c̀u-sa-c̀íg, དོན་གཅིག་ don-c̀íg
80 | ༨༠ | བརྒྱད་ཅུ་ gyád-c̀u, C: gyäʼ-c̀u
81 | ༨༡ | བརྒྱད་ཅུ་རྩ་གཅིག་ gyad-c̀u-sa-c̀íg, གྱ་གཅིག་ gya-c̀íg
90 | ༩༠ | དགུ་བཅུ་ gú-c̀u, vulg: gúb-c̀u
91 | ༩༡ | དགུ་བཅུ་རྩ་གཅིག་ gu-c̀u-sa-c̀ig, གོ་གཅིག་ go-c̀íg (C: gʽo-c̀íg)
100 | ༡༠༠ | བརྒྱ་(ཐམ་པ་) gya (tʽám-pa)
101 | ༡༠༡ | བརྒྱ་དང་གཅིག་ or བརྒྱ་རྩ་གཅིག་ gya daṅ (or sa) c̀íg
200 | ༢༠༠ | ཉི་བརྒྱ་ ñi-gya, vulg: ñib-gya
300 | ༣༠༠ | སུམ་བརྒྱ་ sum-gya [31]
400 | ༤༠༠ | བཞི་བརྒྱ་ z̀i-gya, vulg: z̀ib-gya etc.
1000 | ༡༠༠༠ | སྟོང་ (s)toṅ
10 000 | ༡༠ ༠༠༠ | ཁྲི་ ṭʽi
100 000 | ༡༠༠ ༠༠༠ | འབུམ་ bum
1 000 000 | ༡ ༠༠༠ ༠༠༠ | ས་ཡ་ sa-ya
10 000 000 | ༡༠ ༠༠༠ ༠༠༠ | བྱེ་བ་ j̀e-wa

There are, as in Sanscrit, names for many more powers of 10, but they are seldom used.

19. Ordinals. དང་པོ་ W: daṅ-po, C: dʽ° ‘the first’, the rest are simply formed by adding པ་ to the cardinals, as: གཉིས་པ་, ‘the second’ etc.; the 21st is ཉི་ཤུ་རྩ་གཅིག་པ་ ‘the twenty-oneth’, not, as in English, ‘the twenty first’.

20. Remarks. 1. The smaller number postponed indicates, as is seen in § 18, addition, the reverse—multiplication: བཅུ་གསུམ་ 13, སུམ་ཅུ་ 30; but in the latter case the three first numerals are changed to ཆིག་, ཉི་, སུམ་; and བཅུ་, as the second part of a compound after consonants, is spelled ཅུ་. 2. The words ཐམ་པ་ (after full tens up to one hundred), ཕྲག་ (after hundreds and thousands1), [32]ཚོ་ (with still greater numbers), are optional but frequent additions. རྩ་ is common instead of དང་ ‘and’, to connect units with tens (s. § 18), but it occurs also with hundreds and thousands, and not seldom together with དང་, e.g. སྟོང་དང་རྩ་གཉིས་, 1002. It is used also instead of ཐམ་པ་, as: བཅུ་རྩ་ ten, ཉི་ཤུ་རྩ་ twenty; often it is standing alone for ཉི་ཤུ་རྩ་, as རྩ་གཉིས་, twenty two. This latter custom may have caused the belief, common even among educated readers in C and WT, that རྩ་ must mean twenty, even when connecting a hundred or thousand to a unit, as they will usually understand the above mentioned number in the sense of 1022 instead of 1002; but the authority of printed books, wherever the exact number can be verified from other circumstances, does not confirm this, which would indeed be a sadly ambiguous phraseology. 3. ཀ་ added to a cardinal number means conjunction: གཉིས་ཀ་, the two together, both; གསུམ་ཀ་, the three together, all three etc. པོ་ means either the same, or represents the definite article, indicating that the number has been already mentioned, e.g. མི་ལྔ༌༌༌༌ བཏང་ངོ༌།   །མི་ལྔ་པོ་བསླེབ་སྟེ༌༌༌༌, five men were sent.… The five men arriving etc. 4. པ་ is used, besides [33]forming Ordinals, to express the notion of ‘containing’, e.g. ཡི་གེ་དྲུག་པ་ ‘that containing six letters’, viz. the famous formula: ཨོཾ་མ་ཎི་པ་དྨེ་ཧཱུཾ་ om maṇi padme hum; སུམ་ཅུ་པ་ ‘that containing thirty (letters)’, the Tibetan alphabet. 5. Such combinations as གཉིས་གསུམ་ etc. are frequently used in common life, to denote a number approximately, ‘two or three or so’ (cf. § 14 Note).

21. Distributive numerals. They are expressed by repetition as in Hind.: དྲུག་དྲུག་ each time six, six for each etc. In composed numerals only the last member is repeated, thus སུམ་ཅུ་རྩ་གཉིས་གཉིས་ each time thirty two.

22. Adverbial numerals. 1. Firstly, secondly etc. are formed from the ordinals as every Adverb is from an Adjective, viz. by adding the letter ར་, དང་པོར་, གཉིས་པར་ etc. (s. § 41). 2. Multiplicative adverbs, ‘once’, ‘twice’ etc., are expressed by putting ལན་ ‘times’ before the cardinal: ལན་གཅིག་, ལན་གཉིས་, W: lan-c̀ig, lan-ñi(s), C: län-c̀ig, län-ñī ‘once, twice’ etc.: seldom ཚེར་, ཚར་, ཐེངས་ with the same meaning as ལན་.

23. Fractional numerals are formed by adding ཆ་ ‘part’: thus, བརྒྱའི་ཆ་ ‘a hundredth part’ etc., but also: བང་མཛོད་གསུམ་ཆ་ཞིག་ ‘one third of the treasury’. [34]

1 ཕྲག་ is used especially if the number counting the hundreds, [32]thousands etc. follows: thus, སྟོང་ཕྲག་ཉི་ཤུ་ ‘of thousands: twenty, 20 000’; ཁྲི་ཕྲག་དུ་མ་ ‘many ten-thousands’. ↑

[Contents]

Chapter V.

Pronouns.

24. Personal Pronouns. First person: ང་ ṅa; ངེད་ ṅed, ṅĕʼ; ངོས་ ṅos (Ld.); ཁོ་བོ་ kʽo-wo, masc., and ཁོ་མོ་ kʽo-mo, fem.; བདག་ dag ‘self’—‘I’; Second person: ཁྱོད་ kʽyod (kʽyöʼ), ཁྱེད་ kʽyed (kʽyĕʼ) ‘thou, you’; Third person: ཁོ་ kʽo, ཁོང་ kʽoṅ—‘he, she, it’.

The plural is formed by adding ཅག་, རྣམས་, ཅག་རྣམས་ or ཚོ་, but very often, if circumstances show the meaning with sufficient certainty, the sign of the plural is altogether omitted. The declension is the same as that of the substantives.

Remarks: ང་ is the most common and can be used by every body; ངེད་ seems to be preferred in elegant speech (s. Note); ངོས་ is very common in modern letter-writing, at least in WT; བདག་ ‘self’, when speaking to superior persons occurs very often in books, but has disappeared from common speech, except in the province of Tsaṅ (Ṭas̀ilhunpo) as also the following; ཁོ་བོ་, ཁོ་མོ་ in easy conversation with persons of equal rank, or to inferiors.

2. person. ཁྱོད་ is used in books in addressing even the highest persons, but in modern conversation only among equals or to inferiors; ཁྱེད་ is elegant and respectful, especially in books.— [35]

3. person. ཁོ་ seldom occurs in books, where the demonstr. pron. དེ་ (§ 26) is generally used instead; ཁོང་ is common to both the written and the spoken language, and used, at least in the latter, as respectful. But it must be remarked that the pronoun of the third person is in most cases entirely omitted, even when there is a change of subject.—Instead of ང་ཅག་ and ཁྱོད་ཅག་ the people of WT use ང་ཞ་ and ཁྱོ་ཞ་; the vulgar plural of ཁོ་ is ཁོ་པ་.—

To each of these pronouns may be added: རང་ raṅ or ཉིད་ ñid, ñĭʼ ‘self’, and in conversational language ང་རང་, ཁྱོད་རང་, ཁོ་རང་ are, perhaps, even more frequently used than the simple forms, without any difference in the meaning. ཉིད་ is more prevalent in books, except the compound ཉིད་རང་ ñi-raṅ, which is in modern speech the usual respectful pronoun of address, like ‘Sie’ in German.

Note. The predilection of Eastern Asiatics for a system of ceremonials in the language is met with also in Tibetan. There is one separate class of words, which must be used in reference to the honoured person, when spoken to as well as when spoken of. To this class belong, besides the pronouns ཉིད་རང་, ཁྱེད་, ཁོང་, all the respectful terms by which the body or soul, or parts of the same, and all things or persons pertaining to such a person, and [36]even his actions, must be called. The terms, most frequently occurring, have special expressions, as སྐུ་ (s)ku, instead of ལུས་ lus, lṳ̄, ‘body’; དབུ་ u, i.o. མགོ་ go ‘head’; ཐུགས་ tʽug(s) (Ü: tʽū), i.o. སེམས་ sem(s) ‘soul’, or ཡིད་ yid, yĭʼ, ‘mind’; ཡབ་ yab, i.o. ཕ་ (vulg: ཨ་ཕ་), ‘father’; ན་བཟའ་ na-za, i.o. གོས་ gos, gō̤, ‘coat’, ‘dress’; ཆིབས་ c̀ʽib(s), i.o. རྟ་ (r)ta, sta ‘horse’; བཞུགས་པ་ z̀ug(s)-pa (Ü: z̀ū-pa), i.o. སྡོད་པ་ dod-pa, döʼ-pa ‘to sit’; མཛད་པ་ dzad-pa, dzäʼ-pa i.o. བྱེད་པ་ j̀ed-pa, j̀hĕʼ-pa ‘to make’ and many others. If there is no such special word, any substantive may be rendered respectful by adding སྐུ་ or ཐུགས་ respectively (so, སྐུ་ཚེ་ i.o. ཚེ་ ‘lifetime’; ཐུགས་ཁྲོ་བ་ i.o. ཁྲོ་བ་ ‘anger’) and any verb by adding མཛན་པ་, according to 39, 1. Another class of what might be called elegant terms are to be used when conversing with an honoured person (or also by a high person speaking of himself), such as བགྱིད་པ་ gyid-pa, gyĭʼ-pa ‘to do’; མཆིས་པ་ c̀ʽī-pa ‘to be’; སླད་དུ་ lad-du, läʼ-du i.o. ཕྱིར་དུ་ ‘for the sake of’, without reference to the said person himself. Even uneducated people know, and make use of, most of the ‘respectful’ terms, but the merely ‘elegant’ ones are, at least in WT, seldom or never heard in conversation.

25. Possessive pronouns. The Possessive is simply [37]expressed by the Genitive of the Personal, ངའི་, ཁྱོད་ཀྱི་ etc. ‘His’, ‘her’, ‘its’, when referring to the acting subject (suus), must be expressed by རང་གི་ or ཉིད་ཀྱི་ ‘his own’; otherwise (ejus) by ཁོའི་, ཁོང་གི་, དེའི་. In C, in the latter case, ང་ཅན་, ཁྱོད་ཅན་, ཁོ་ཅན་ are used.

26. Reflective and Reciprocal pronouns. 1. The Reflective pronoun, ‘myself’, ‘yourself’ etc. is expressed by རང་, ཉིད་, also བདག་. But in the case of the same person being the subject and object of an action, it must be paraphrased, so for ‘he precipitated himself from the rock’ must be said ‘he precipitated his own body etc.’ རང་གི་ལུས་; for ‘he rebuked himself’—‘he rebuked his own soul’ རང་གི་སེམས་.—2. The reciprocal pronoun ‘each other’ or ‘one another’ is rendered by ‘one—one’, as གཅིག་གིས་གཅིག་བསད་ ‘by one one was killed’, ‘they killed one another’; གཅིག་ལ་གཅིག་ན་རེ་ ‘to one one said’, ‘they said to each other’.

27. Demonstrative pronouns. 1. འདི་ di, ‘this’; དེ་ de, dhe ‘that’ are those most frequently used, both in books and speaking. The Plural is generally formed by དག་, but also by རྣམས་ and ཚོ་. More emphatical are འདི་ཀ་, འདི་ག་, འདི་ཀོ་, འདི་གོ་, ‘just this’, ‘this same’; དེ་ཀ་ etc. ‘that same’.—The vulgar dialect also uses ཧ་གྱི་ hắ-gyi [38]and ཕ་གྱི་ pʽắ-gyi for ‘that’, ‘yonder’, and, in WT, ཨི་, ཨི་པོ་ for ‘this’ and ཨ་ for ‘that’; ཕ་གྱི་ occurs even in books.—2. It is worth remarking that the distinction of the nearer and remoter relation is, even in common language, scrupulously observed. If reference is made to an object already mentioned, དེ་ is used; if to something following, འདི་; e.g. དེ་སྐད་ཅེས་སྨྲས་སོ་ ‘that speech he said’, ‘thus he said’; འདི་སྐད་ཅེས་སྨྲས་པ་ ‘this speech he said’, ‘he said thus, spoke the following words’.

28. Interrogative pronouns. They are སུ་ su ‘who?’; གང་ gaṅ, ghaṅ ‘which?’; ཅི་ c̀i ‘what?’; to these the indefinite article ཞིག་ is often added, སུ་ཞིག་ etc. The two former can also assume the plural termination དག་, སུ་དག, གང་དག་.—In CT གང་ is frequently used instead of ཅི་.

29. Relative pronouns. These are almost entirely wanting in the Tibetan language, and our subordinate relative clauses must be expressed by Participles and Gerunds, or a new independent sentence must be begun. The participle, in such a case, is treated quite as an adjective, being put either in the Genitive before the substantive, or, in the Nominative, after: འགྲོ་བའི་ཚོང་པ་རྣམས་ ‘the merchants who would go (with him)’; ཉག་ཐག་གཡུ་བརྒུས་པ་ ‘the cord on which turquoises are strung’; འཁྱོས་མ་མང་པོ་ཡོང་བ་ཞིག་ [39]‘one who gets (unto whom come) many presents’. Cf. also 33. Only those indefinite sentences which in English are introduced by ‘he who’, ‘who ever’, ‘that which’, ‘what’ etc. can be adequately expressed in Tibetan, by using the interrogative pronouns with the participle (seldom the naked root) of the verb, or adding ན་ (‘if—’ v. 41, A. 4.) to the latter. Instead of ཅི་ in this case ཇི་ is written more correctly. Thus: སུ་ལ་དམ་པའི་ཆོས་མཆིས་པ་བདག་ལ་སྟོན་པར་གྱུར་ན་ ‘if anybody who possesses the good faith teach it me’; ཁྱོད་སུ་འགྲོ་བ་དག་ཀྱང་འགྲོགས་ཏེ་ ‘when those of you who wish to go are assembled’; ནོར་བུ་རིན་པོ་ཆེ་འདི་ཇི་འདོད་པ་ཐམས་ཅད་ཆར་བཞིན་དུ་འབེབས་སོ་ ‘this jewel (cintāmaṇi) will make come down like rain whatever is wished for’; ཁྱོད་ཅི་ཟེར་ཁྱོད་ཇི་སྨྲས་པ་བཞིན་དུ་བྱའོ་ ‘whatever you may say and ask of me according to that I will act, or I will grant you whatever you ask’. བདག་གིས་མཐུ་ཇི་ཡོད་པས་རྒྱ་མཚོའི་ཆུ་བཅུས་ཏེ་ ‘having scooped the water of the sea with what force I have’; རིན་པོ་ཆེ་ཇི་ལྟ་བུ་ཞིག་རྙེད་པ་བདག་ལ་བསྟན་དུ་གསོལ་ ‘I beg you to show me what sort of jewel you have found (got)’; རྒང་གྱེ་རྗེས་གང་རིགས་པར་གསེར་གྱི་བྱེ་མར་གྱུར་ཏོ་ ‘his footprints, in what place soever they fell (v. lex. s. v. རིགས་), became gold-sand’. [40]

But the participle is treated as if no relative was preceding, thus སྔར་ཇི་སྐད་སྨྲས་པ་ལས་མ་ཟློགས་སོ་ ‘he did not recede from (recall) the word he had spoken before’; vulg., WT, ང་གང་བསྡད་པའི་ཁང་མིག་ ‘the room where I sat’.

[Contents]

Chapter VI.

The Verb.

30. Introductory remarks. The Tibetan verbs must be regarded as denoting, not an action, or suffering, or condition of any subject, but merely a coming to pass, or, in other words, they are all impersonal verbs, like taedet, miseret etc. in Latin, or it suits etc. in English. Therefore they are destitute of what is called in our own languages the active and passive voice, as well as of the discrimination of persons, and show nothing beyond a rather poor capability of expressing the most indispensable distinctions of tense and mood. From the same reason the acting subject of a transitive verb must regularly appear in the Instrumental case, as the case of the subject of a neuter verb,—which, in European languages, is the Nominative—, ought to be regarded, from a Tibetan point of view, as an Accusative expressing the object of an impersonal verb, just as ‘poenitet me’ is translated by ‘I repent’. But it will perhaps be easier to say: The subject of a transitive verb, in Tibetan, assumes regularly the form of the instrumental, of a neuter verb that of the nominative which is the same as the accusative. Thus, ངས་ཁྱོད་རྡུང་ is properly: [41]རྡུང་ a beating happens, ཁྱོད་ regarding you, ངས་ by me = I beat you. In common life the object has often the form of the dative, ཁྱོད་ལ་, to facilitate the comprehension. But often, in modern talk as well as in the classical literature, the acting subject, if known as such from the context, retains its Nominative form. Especially the verba loquendi are apt to admit this slight irregularity.

31. Inflection of verbs. This is done in three different ways:

a) by changing the form of the root. Such different forms are, at most, four in number, which may be called, according to the tenses of our own grammar to which they correspond, the Present-, Perfect-, Future-, and Imperative-roots; e.g. of the Present-root གཏོང་བ་ ‘to give’ the Perfect root is བཏང་, the Future-root གཏང་, the Imperative root ཐོང་; of འཚག་པ་ ‘to filter, bolt’ respectively: བཙགས་ tsag(s) (Ü: tsā), བཙག་ tsag, ཚོག་ tʽsog. The Present root, which implies duration, is also occasionally used for the Imperfect (in the sense of the Latin and Greek languages) and Future tenses. It is obvious, from the above mentioned instances, that the inflection of the root consists partly in alterations of the prefixed letters (so, if the Perfect prefers the prefixed བ, the Future will have ག or retain the བ), partly in adding a final ས་ (to the Perfect and Imperative), partly in changing the vowel (particularly in the Imperative). But also the consonants of the root itself are changed [42]sometimes: so the aspirates are often converted in the Perfect and Future into their surds, besides other more irregular changes. Only a limited number of verbs, however, are possessed of all the four roots, some cannot assume more than three, some two, and a great many have only one. To make up in some measure for this deficiency:

b) some auxiliary verbs have been made available: for the Present tense ཡིན་, འདུག་, ལགས་ and others, all of which mean ‘to be’ (§ 39); for the Perfect ཚར་, ཟིན་, སོང་; for the Future འགྱུར་, འོང་, and the substantive རྒྱུ་.

c) By adding various monosyllabic affixes, the Infinitive, Participles, and Gerunds are formed. These affixes as well as the auxiliary verbs are connected partly with the root, partly with the Infinitive, resp. its terminative, partly with the Participle.

Note. The spoken language, at least in WT, recognises even in four-rooted verbs seldom more than the Perfect root.

32. The Infinitive mood. The syllables པ་ pa or, after the final consonants ང་ ར་ ལ་ and vowels, བ་ wa are added to the root, whereby it assumes all the qualities and powers of a noun. In verbs of more roots than one, each of them can, of course, in this way be converted into a substantive, or, in other words, each tense has its Infinitive, except the Imperative. From one-rooted verbs the different Infinitives may be formed by the above mentioned auxiliaries: thus, the Inf. Perf., by adding ཡིན་པ་ to the Infinitive of [43]the verb in question, or ཚར་བ་, ཟིན་པ་, སོང་བ་ to the root, and the Inf. Fut. by adding འགྱུར་བ་ to the Supine (terminative of the infinitive, 41. B) thus, མཐོང་བར་འགྱུར་བ་ visurum esse, visum iri.

Note. The spoken language uses, in WT almost exclusively, a termination pronounced c̀as in Turig and Balti, c̀es, c̀e in Ladak, c̀e in Lahoul etc., j̀a in Kunawar, s̀e in Tsaṅ etc., the etymology of which is doubtful, as it is not to be found in any printed book. Lamas in Ladak and Lahoul spell it ཅེས་.

33. The Participle. 1. This is in the written language entirely like the Infinitive ཡིན་པ་ ‘being’, གཏོང་བ་ ‘giving’, བཏང་བ་ ‘having given’.—2. Whether the meaning is active or passive, however, can only be inferred from the context, e.g. བཏང་བའི་དངུལ་ is of course ‘the money given’, but དངུལ་བཏང་བའི་མི་ ‘the man having given, or, that has given, the money’; the Tibetan participle means nothing but that the action or condition is connected in some way with a person or thing. But it is natural that in the present participle the active idea should be the more frequent one, as well as in the preterit the passive.—3. In the instance of Intensive verbs (formed with བྱེད་པ་ 38.1) the usage of scientific authors has strictly connected the active sense with those formed with བྱེད་, as གཏོང་བྱེད་ toṅ-j̀ed, toṅ-j̀ʽĕʼ, instead of གཏོང་བར་བྱེད་པ་, ‘doing give, giving, [44]giver’, and the passive to those with བྱ་, as གཏོང་བྱ་ toṅ j̀a, toṅ j̀ʽa i.o. གཏོང་བར་བྱ་བ་ ‘to be given’ (dandus), བྱ་བ་དང་བྱ་བ་མ་ཡིན་པ་སྟོན་པ་ ‘to teach the things to be done and not to be done’ (Thgy.).—4. In certain cases, especially with verbs that mean: to say, ask etc., the Participle is used before the words of the speech, where we should use the Imperfect: རྒྱལ་པོས་སྨྲས་པ༌༌༌ ‘the king said.…’

Note. In the spoken language, of WT at least, the Participle is formed by མཁན་, in the active sense as well as the passive (whereas in books this syllable occurs only in the meaning of the performer of an action, s. 12. 1.): དངུལ་བཏང་མཁན་གྱི་མི་ ṅul taṅ kʽan-ni mi (s. 15, Note) ‘the man giving the money’, བཏང་མཁན་གྱི་དངུལ་ ‘the money given’. འདས་ཞག་གོན་ཆས་བཙོངས་མཁན་གྱི་བླ་མ་ ‘the lama who brought a coat for sale the other day’. བུ་མོ་རྗེ་བཙུན་ལ་སྒོ་ཁུང་སྟོན་མཁན་དེ་ ‘the girl who had shewn the door to his reverence’ (Mil.). The future participle is represented, just as in English, by the Infinitive (32, Note), so that ‘the sheep to be killed’, (in books གསོད་པར་བྱ་བའི་ལུག་ or གསོད་བྱའི་ལུག་) is expressed, in the most Western provinces, by: sád c̀as-si lug, Lad.: sád-c̀es-si lug, Lah. etc.: sád c̀eï lug, Tsaṅ: söʼ-s̀ē-kyi lug གསོད་ཤེས་ཀྱི་ལུག་, and, most like the classical language, in Kun.: sód j̀ā̤ lug. [45]

34. The finite verb. 1. The principal verb of a sentence, which always closes it (48.) receives in written Tibetan in most cases a certain mark, by which the end of a period may be known. This is, in affirmative sentences, the vowel o (called by the grammarians: སླར་སྡུ་བ་), in interrogative ones the syllable am. Before both the closing consonant of the verb is repeated, or, if it ends with a vowel, འོ་ and འམ་ are written. The Perfect of the verbs ending in ན་ ར་ ལ་, which formerly had a ད་ as second final—ད་དྲག་—, assume ཏོ་ and ཏམ་.—2. These additional syllables are omitted a) in imperative sentences, b) in the latter member of a double question, c) when the question is expressed already by an interrogative pronoun or adverb, d) in coordinate members of a period, with the exception of the last one, e) commonly, when the principal verb is the verb substantive ཡིན་, ཡོད་ etc. (40. 1.).

Examples. a) སོང་ ‘go!’, འདི་རུ་ཤོག་ ‘come here!’.—b) མཐོང་ངམ་མི་མཐོང་ ‘do you see or not?’—c) དེ་ན་སུ་ཡོད་ ‘who is there?’, ནམ་བསླེབ་ ‘when did (he, you etc.) arrive?’.—d) ཁང་པ་ཤིག །མི་བསད ། གྲོང་ཁྱེར་ཚང་མ་མེད་པར་བྱས་སོ། ‘the houses were destroyed, the men killed, the whole town annihilated’.—e) གཙང་པའི་བྱེ་མ་ལ་གསེར་ཡོད། ‘in the sand of the river is gold’.

Note. In conversation the o is generally omitted, and [46]the m of the interrogative termination dropped, so that merely the vowel a is heard, e.g. the question མཐོང་ངམ་ ‘do (you) see’ and the answer མཐོང་ངོ་ ‘(I) see’, are commonly spoken in WT: tʽoṅ-ṅa? tʽoṅ.

35. Present Tenses. 1. Simple Present Tense. This is the simple root of the verb, which will always be found in the dictionary; in WT, as mentioned above, of verbs with more than one root, only the Perfect root is in use; if, therefore, stress is laid on the Present signification, recourse must be had to one of the following compositions (s. 31. and Note). Thus, མཐོང་ ‘(I, thou, he etc.) see, seest etc.’, གཏོང་ ‘(I etc.) give’ through all persons; in the end of a sentence: མཐོང་ངོ༌། གཏོང་ངོ༌།.

2. Compound Present Tenses. a) འདུག་ (s. 40, 1) is added to the root: མཐོང་འདུག་ ‘(I) see’, བཏང་འདུག་ ‘(I) give’. This is common in the dialect of WT especially.—b) The Participle connected with ཡིན་, མཐོང་བ་ཡིན་ ‘I see’. In WT this, of course, is changed to མཐོང་མཁན་ཡིན་.—c) One of the Gerunds (41, A) with ཡོད་ or འདུག་, as མཐོང་སྟེ་ (or ནས་ or གི་ or ཞིང་), འདུག་ or ཡོད་ ‘(I) see, am seeing’; it must, however, be remarked that both ways of expression, b) and c), are not very frequent.—d) གིན་ཡོད་ or འདུག་ is the proper form for the compound [47]English present: མཐོང་གིན་འདུག་ ‘(I) am seeing’, འབྲི་གིན་འདུག་ ‘(I) am writing (just now)’.

36. Preterit Tenses. 1. Simple Preterit, Perfect or Aorist Tense; this is the Perfect root: བཏང་, at the close of the sentence བཏང་ངོ༌། ‘gave, have given, was given’; in one-rooted verbs it has, of course, the same form as the present: མཐོང་(ངོ་) ‘saw, have, or was, seen’. This is the usual narrative tense like the Greek Aorist or French Parfait défini.—2. Compound Preterit Tenses.—a) The root with སོང་, བཏང་སོང་ ‘have given, gave, was given’, མཐོང་སོང་ ‘have seen, saw, was seen’; rarely met with in books, but in general use in the conversation of WT. In CT བྱུང་ j̀ʽuṅ is used in a similar way: ཁྱིས་རྨུག་བྱུང་ ‘the dog has bitten’.—b) The root with ཟིན་ (more in books), or ཚར་ (more in common language), the true Perfect as the tense of accomplished action: བཏང་ཟིན་, བཏང་ཚར་ ‘have given etc.’, ‘the action of giving is past’, མི་སོང་ཚར་ ‘the man has already left’.—c) The Participle connected with ཡིན་ occurs more frequently in the past sense than otherwise. Here, in the common talk of WT, པ་ is used, even in those cases where the books have བ་, ཡི་གེ་བཀལ་པ་ཡིན་ yí-ge kál-pa yin, or, contracted, kál-pen, ‘the letter has been sent off’, in books: བཀལ་བ་ཡིན་ (s. 11, Note), even གླ་བཏངས་པ་ཡིན་ [48]la táṅs-pa yin, táṅs-pen, ‘the wages have been paid’ i.o. བཏང་བ་ཡིན་.—d) Gerunds in ཏེ་ (WT) or ནས་ (CT) with ཡོད་ or འདུག་ (the same as 35. 2. c); also (in Ü Tsaṅ and later books) the mere Perfect root with ཡོད་, the ཏེ་ or ནས་ being dropped: སོང་ཡོད་ ‘has gone’.

37. Future Tenses. 1. Simple Future. The Future-root, གཏོང་(ངོ་) ‘shall, will give, be given’.—2. Compound Future. a) The auxiliary verb འགྱུར་བ་ (to grow, become) added to the Terminative case of the Infinitive: གཏོང་བར་འགྱུར་(རོ་) ‘shall, will give, be given’, མཐོང་བར་འགྱུར་(རོ་) ‘shall, will see, be seen’. This is the most common, and, together with the Simple Future and the Intensive (39.), ༌༌༌བར་བྱའོ་, the only one in use with the early classical authors in all cases where a special Future-root is wanted, and even where this exists. It disappears, however, gradually from the literature of the later period, and is replaced by the two following compositions.—b) རྒྱུ་ཡིན་ connected with the root: མཐོང་རྒྱུ་ཡིན་ ‘shall, will see’, གཏོང་རྒྱུ་ཡིན་ ‘shall, will give’ etc. (རྒྱུ་ is originally a substantive, meaning material, cause, occasion).—c) the root with འོང་ or ཡོང་, སླེབ་ཡོང་ ‘will arrive’, or, i.o. the root, the Term. Inf., སླེབ་པར་འོང་.—Both b) and c) are even now in common [49]use in CT, whereas in WT:—d) ཡིན་ connected with the root is the general form: མཐོང་ཡིན་ tʽoṅ yin, vulg.: tʽóṅin ‘shall, will see’, བཏང་ཡིན་ táṅin, ‘shall, will give’, བཀལ་ཡིན་ kállin ‘will send’, ཚ་ཡིན་ c̀ʽa yin, c̀ʽa’in, c̀ʽän ‘will go’.—e) In books the Participle with ཡིན་ (35. 2. b, 36. 2 c) occurs sometimes also as Future.

38. Imperative mood. 1. This is usually the shortest possible form of the verb, which often loses its prefixed letters, though in some instances a final ས་ is added. In many verbs with the vowel a, and in some with e these vowels are changed into o, besides other alterations of the consonants. Particularly often the surds or sonants of the other tense-roots are changed to their aspirates in the Imperative. Thus, ཐོང་ ‘give!’, from གཏོང་བ་; ལྟོས་ Ld: ltos, CT: tō̤ ‘look!’, from ལྟ་བ་; ཐོབ་ ‘throw!’, from འདེབས་པ་. In one-rooted verbs it is, of course, like the Present, but it can always be sufficiently distinguished by adding the particle ཅིག་ (ཤིག་ or ཞིག་, according to 13.). This is used in the classical literature indiscriminately in addressing the highest and the lowest persons (or, in other words, as well to command, as to pray), but according to the modern custom of CT only when addressing servants and inferior people.—2. In forbidding, the Present-root is used with the negative particle མ་, མ་གཏོང་ ‘do not give!’, མ་ལྟ་ ‘do [50]not look!’, མ་འདེབས་ ‘do not throw!’—3. In praying or wishing (Precative or Optative) either the same forms as under 1. are used, or the Imperatives of འགྱུར་བ་ ‘to come’ or འོང་ ‘to come’ (the latter, ཤོག་, of a quite different root) are connected with the Termin. Infin. མཐོང་བར་གྱུར་ཅིག་ or ཤོག་ཅིག་ ‘may (I, you, he etc.) see!’—4. In none of the three a person is indicated, but it is natural that in commanding and forbidding the subject will be the second, sometimes the third person; in the precative also the first person can be understood.

Note. The common language of WT, acknowledging only the Perfect-root, changes nothing but the vowel: བཏོང་ ‘give!’ from བཏང་ཅེས་; ལྟོས་ ‘look!’ from ལྟ་ཅེས་; བཏོབ་ ‘throw!’ from བཏབ་ཅེས་ (Perf. of འདེབས་པ་). Instead of ཅིག་, which is not much used, བཏོང་ (‘give!’) is often added to the roots of other verbs (s. 39), thus, བཏོན་བཏོང་ ton toṅ ‘take out!’ from བཏོན་ཅེས་ (འདོན་པ་). Or the Imperative is paraphrased by དགོས་ gos (Ld.), gō̤, goi ‘must’, added to the root of the verb: བསད་དགོས་ ‘must be killed’.—In CT the changing of the vowel seems to be usually omitted, but the ཅིག་ is more used. Here, also, the Perfect root is not so exclusively preferred.

39. Intensive verbs. 1. Very frequent in books is the [51]connection of the four-rooted verb བྱེད་པ་ (Pf. བྱས་, Fut. བྱ་, Imp. བྱོས་) ‘to do’, elegantly བགྱིད་པ་ (Pf. བགྱིས་, Fut. བགྱི་, Imp. གྱིས་), respectfully མཛད་པ་ (Imp. མཛོད་) with the Term. Inf. of another verb, to intensify the action of the latter. By this means not only one-rooted verbs can be made to participate in the advantages of the four-rooted, as མཐོང་བར་བྱེད་ ‘see’, མཐོང་བར་བྱས་ ‘saw’, མཐོང་བར་བྱ་ ‘shall, will see’, མཐོང་བར་བྱོས་ ‘see!’, but also several other periphrastical phrases are gained for speaking more precisely than otherwise would be possible. The Future tense བྱ(འོ)༌ serves, besides its proper notion of futurity, particularly to express the English auxiliaries ‘must, ought etc.’: thus, བརྗོད་པར་མི་བྱའོ་ ‘must not be uttered, ought not to be uttered’, sometimes it may be translated by the Imperative mood. The spoken language, at least of WT, is devoid of this convenience, and possesses nothing of the kind except the above mentioned intensive form of the Imperative, formed by བཏོང་ (s. 38., Note).—2. Another class of intensive verbs are formed by connecting two synonyms, as འཇིགས་སྐྲག་པ་ ‘to be afraid’, literally ‘to be fear-frightened’, and other similar ones.

40. Substantive and Auxiliary Verbs. 1. To be a) ཡིན་པ་, in elegant and respectful speech ལགས་པ་ lag-pa, Ü: lā-pa (the latter word never used in WT) is the mere means [52]of connecting the attribute with its subject, as: མི་འདི་ལ་དྭགས་པ་ཡིན་ ‘this man is a Ladakee’, དེ་ཁྱེད་ལགས་སམ་ ‘is it you, Sir?’. Therefore the question སུ་ཡིན་ is to be understood ‘who are you’ or ‘who is he’ etc., the personal pronoun being often let to be guessed.—ཡིན་ itself is often omitted in daily life in WT as well as in poetry, e.g. ཨི་ཁུར་རུ་མཱ་ལྕིན་ཏེ་ ‘this load (is) very heavy’ WT. Negatively: མ་ཡིན་, མིན་ vulg. མན་, resp. མ་ལགས་.—b) ཡོད་པ་ yod-pa, yöʼ-pa, eleg. མཆིས་པ་ c̀ʽī-pa, resp. བཞུགས་པ་ z̀ug(s)-pa, Ü: z̀ū-pa, negat.: མེད་, མ་མཆིས་, མི་བཞུགས་ means ‘to exist’, or ‘to be present’, ‘to be found at a place’, therefore the question སུ་ཡོད་ is to be understood: ‘Who is here? Who is there?’—ཡོད་ and བཞུགས་པ་ are in general use, མཆིས་པ་ is seldom heard. When connected with the Dative of a substantive it expresses the English ‘to have, to have got’, as: ང་ལ་དངུལ་ཡོད་ ‘I have money’; ང་ལ་ཟུག་ཡོད་ ‘I have pain’. In this case the respectful term is not གཞུགས་པ་ but མངའ་བ་ ṅa-wa: རྒྱལ་པོ་ལ་སྙུན་མི་མངའ་འམ་ ‘has not the King an indisposition?’ i.e. ‘is Your Majesty ill?’.—c) འདུག་པ་ dug-pa (eleg. གདའ་བ་ is seldom heard), resp. བཞུགས་པ་, ‘to be present, stay, be found at a place’; negat. [53]མི་འདུག་. Both འདུག་པ་ and ཡོད་པ་ can be used instead of ཡིན་པ་, though not this instead of them.—d) རེད་པ་ rĕʼ-pa = འདུག་པ་, negat. མ་རེད་ in Spiti and CT, seldom in books.—e) མོད་པ་ mod-pa, möʼ-pa has a somewhat emphatical sense: ‘to be (something) in a high degree’, ‘to be (somehow) in plenty’. It occurs most frequently in the Gerund with ཀྱི་ (41.), when it frequently has the sense of ‘though’, but never with a negative.—f) སྣང་བ་ naṅ-wa, originally ‘to appear, to be visible, extant’, negat. མི་སྣང་. Sometimes in books, and common in certain districts.—g) In books the concluding o (34.) is, moreover, found to represent the verb ‘to be’ in all its meanings, and is capable of being connected with words of all classes besides verbs, e.g. དང་པོ་འོ་ ‘is the first’ = དང་པོ་ཡིན་. In a similar manner also the ཅིག་ of the Imperative (38.) implies the verb ‘to be’.—h) The Preterit root for all these verbs is སོང་ soṅ ‘was, has been’, and besides also ‘has gone, become’, which is its original meaning.—For the use of these verbs as auxiliaries s. 35. sq.

2. འགྱུར་བ་ originally ‘to be changed, turned into something’ then ‘to become, to grow’, auxiliary for the Future tense in the old classical language, as mentioned in 37. Since this can be considered as the intransitive or passive sense, opposed to བྱེད་པ་ ‘to make, render’, the connection [54]of འགྱུར་བ་ with the Term. Inf. of another verb must, in many cases, be rendered by the passive voice in our languages. In WT the verb ཆ་ཅེས་ c̀ʽa-c̀e ‘to go’ is used in the sense of ‘to become, to grow’. The Perfect root for both is སོང་ ‘(went), grew, became, has become, is’ (s. above).—In CT and later books འབྱུང་བ་ is used instead.

3. ‘must’ is expressed by དགོས་པ་ ‘to be necessary’ (s. 38. Note). In WT this is used in a very wide sense for any possible modification of the notion of necessity: ‘I must, should, want to, ought’ and even ‘I will, wish, beg (for something)’ is nothing but ང་ལ་དགོས་ ‘to me is necessary’ which may be, in the last mentioned case, rendered somewhat more politely by adding ཞུ་ z̀u ‘pray!’ ང་ལ་ཨ་ལུ་དགོས་ཞུ་ ‘I want potatoes, pray!’ is as much to say as ‘Will you kindly give me some potatoes’. In books and more refined language several other verbs are used in the same sense, viz. རིགས་པ་ ‘it is right to’ (usually with the Genit. Infin.), རུང་བ་ ‘it is meet, decent’, འདོད་པ་ ‘to wish, desire’, both with the Supine; དགའ་བ་ ‘to like’ with the Dat. Inf. The popular substitute of the last, especially in use in WT, is འཐད་པ་, of similar meaning, added to the root.

41. Gerunds and Supines. We retain these terms, employed by former grammarians, but observe that they do not refer to the form, but to the meaning, as well as that Gerund is not to be understood in the same signification [55]as in Latin, but as the Gérondif of some French grammarians, or what Shakespeare calls Past conjunctive participle in Hindi. These forms are of the greatest importance in Tibetan, being the only substitutes for most of those subordinate clauses which we are accustomed to introduce by conjunctions. They are formed by the two monosyllabic affixes ཏེ་ (so after the closing consonants ན་ ར་ ལ་ ས་); དེ་ after དེ་, སྟེ་ after ག་ ང་ བ་ མ་ and vowels and ཅིང་ (ཤིང་ or ཞིང་ according to the same rule as ཅིག་ 13.), both of which are added to the root, or by the terminations mentioned in 15. as composing the declension of nouns, which are added partly to the root, partly to the Infinitive or Participle.

A. Gerunds. All the following forms can be rendered by the English Participle ending in ing, but the more accurate distinctions must be expressed by various conjunctions.

1. ཏེ་ (དེ་ etc.), the most frequent of all these endings. It is added to the Present-root as well as to the Perfect-root: གཏོང་སྟེ་ ‘giving’, བཏོང་སྟེ་ ‘having given’, and stands for all clauses beginning with when, as, since, after etc. Also in the spoken language of WT it is used most frequently.—Examples: ཕྲུ་གུ་ཆུས་ཁྱེར་ཏེ་ཤིའོ་ ‘the child, having been carried away by the water, died’; རྒྱལ་པོ་ཤི་སྟེ་རྒྱལ་སྲས་ཀྱིས་རྒྱལ་ས་བཟུང་ངོ་ ‘the king having died, the prince occupied [56]the throne (king’s-place)’; ཆུ་ཆེན་པོ་ཞིག་དེ་རུ་ཡོད་དེ་འགྲུལ་མི་ཐུབ་བོ་ ‘as there is a great water, we cannot go’.

2. ཅིང་ (ཤིང་ etc.), of a similar sense, chiefly used for smaller clauses within a large one, མི་དགའ་ཞིང་ཁྲོས་ཏེ་ ‘when, being displeased, he became angry’, or ‘growing displeased and angry’. Often it denotes two actions going on at the same time, or two states of a thing existing together, and then can only be translated by ‘and’, thus, མཐའ་མེད་ཅིང་མུ་མེད་ ‘without end and boundary’; ཤ་ལ་ཟ་ཞིང་ཁྲག་ལ་འཐུང་བ་ ‘to eat flesh and drink blood’1. It stands also in a causal sense: ‘by doing etc.’, as: ཉ་བཤོར་ཞིང་འཚོའོ་ ‘(we) live by catching fish’. These two (1. and 2.) can also, like the closing o, as mentioned in 40. 1. g, be added to every class of words, in the sense of being: ཁྱོད་རིགས་ཆེ་ཞིང་མཐོ་བ་སྟེ་ ‘as you are high(-born), being of a great family’. In conversation, ཅིང་ is scarcely ever heard.

3. ནས་ (from, or after, doing something) in temporal clauses with ‘after, when, as’; practically it is very much like ཏེ་, and often alternating with it. In most cases, in speaking always, it is added to the root, seldom to the infinitive.[57]—Examples. ནམ་ལངས་ནས་སོང་ ‘when the night had risen (viz. at daybreak) he went’; ལང་ནས་སོང་ ‘after you will have risen, go!’ དེ་མཐོང་ནས་སྐད་ཕྱུང་སྟེ་ངུས་སོ་ ‘when I saw that, raising clamour, I wept’.

4. ན་ ‘in (doing something)’ again for clauses with ‘since, when, as’, but in most cases by far for ‘if’ and conditional ‘when’: འགྲོ་ན་ ‘if, or, when (I) go, or went’; ཤི་ཚར་ན་ ‘when, after (he) has died’, ‘if he is already dead’; ཤི་ན་ ‘if (he) die, should die’, ‘if (he) died’, ‘when (he) dies’; བྱེད་ན་ ‘if … do, did’; བྱ་ན་ ‘if … were to do’. It is added to the root, seldom to the infinitive, and as common in talking as in books.

5. ལ་ is of more various use. When added to the root, it is very much like ཅིང་, which it replaces in the conversational language of CT (where the first example of 2. would be, མ་དགའ་ལ་ཁྲོས་ཏེ་), but does not occur so often except in imperative or precative sentences, when it is added to the Imperative root of the subordinate verb, just like other gerunds: སོང་ལ་ལྟོས་ ‘going look!’, ‘go and look!’ ལོང་ལ་སོང་ ‘rise and go!’. This particle, like the above-mentioned, implies the verb ‘to be’, especially when added to adjectives denoting a personal quality. མི་སྡུག་ལ་ཐུང་ངུ་ཡིན་ཏེ་ ‘being ugly and short’; དབྱིབས་ལེགས་ཤིང་ལྟ་ན་སྡུག་ལ་མཛེས་[58]པ་ ‘pretty, being of a good figure and nice to behold’. When added to the Infinitive, it denotes: a) of course, the real Dative, or the usual meanings of the postposition ལ་ with a substantive; thus, གསོད་པ་ལ་དགའ་བ་ ‘to rejoice at killing, be fond of killing’. b) nearly the same as ཏེ་ or ‘as’ in English, e.g. ལམ་གྱི་བར་དུ་ལྷ་རྟེན་ཞིག་ཡོད་པ་ལ་ཤིང་རྟ་ལས་བབ་བོ་ ‘as there was an idol-shrine in the middle of the way, (she) alighted from (her) chariot’; རྒྱལ་པོ་ཉིན་རེ་བཞིན་དུ་དེར་ཁྲུས་བྱེད་དུ་འགྲོ་བ་ལ་ ‘as the king went there daily to bathe’; འཇིག་རྟེན་གྱི་ནང་ན་མི་འོང་བ་ལ་འདི་རུ་འོང་བ་ཅི་ཡིན་ ‘as (it) does not occur in the (whole) world, what is (its) occurring here, or, how is it that it occurs here?’. Finally, in the language of common life ལ་ is added to the repeated root in order to express the English ‘while, whilst’: ངས་ཤ་གཏུབ་གཏུབ་ལ་ཁྱོད་ཀྱིས་ཤིང་ཁྱོང་ ṅā̤ s̀a tub-túb-la kʽyód-dī (15., Note) s̀iṅ kʽyoṅ WT, or ཁྱོད་ཀྱིས་ཤིང་བཀུར་ཤོག་ kʽyöʼ-kyī s̀iṅ kur-s̀og CT ‘while I am cutting the meat into pieces, bring you (some) wood’.

6. ལས་ added only to the Infinitive, literally ‘out of (the doing)’. This may mean a) ‘after’, ཉལ་བ་ལས་ལང་བ་ ‘to rise from lying, after having lain’; དུར་ན་ཞག་གསུམ་འདུག་པ་ལས་དུར་ནས་བྱུང་ ‘after having been three days in [59]the grave (I) came out of the grave’.—b) ‘while’, in which case the root of the verb may be repeated, as: སོང་སོང་བ་ལས་བྲམ་ཟེ་ཞིག་དང་ཕྲད་དོ་ ‘out of my walking i.e. when walking along, (I) met with a brahman’; ང་ཤ་གཏུབ་གཏུབ་པ་ལས་ཁྱོད་ཀྱིས་ཤིང་བཀུར་ཏེ་ཤོག་ (the above mentioned example (s. ལ་) translated into classical language); c) also the English ‘being about to’ is, in books, often expressed by this Gerund: ནང་དུ་སོང་བ་ལས་སྒོ་བཅད་དོ་ ‘when (I) was about to enter, the door was shut’; ཤི་བ་ལས་ཕྱིར་སོས་པར་གྱུར་ཏོ་ ‘when (I) was going to die, (I) was restored to life again’. Which of the three is the real meaning, will in most cases be clear from circumstances. This gerund is not used in talking, at least in WT.

7. ཀྱིས་ (གྱིས་ etc.) or ཀྱི་ (གྱི་ etc.), or the Instrumental and Genitive cases of the root, mean a) ‘by doing something’ or ‘because’, e.g. དགོས་ཀྱིས་འདོང་ངོ་ ‘we come (here), because it is necessary’. ཁོ་མོས་གྲོགས་བུ་ཡིས་སྙིང་མ་ཆུང་ཞིག་ ‘since I am resolved to help you, do not be depressed!’ This, originally, is a function of the Instrumental only, but in later times the other cases also are used in this meaning.—b) more frequently they are used adversatively, ‘though’, especially when connected with མོད་ (40. 1. e), ཅེས་སྨྲས་མོད་ཀྱིས་ཅིས་ཡིད་ཆེས་པར་འགྱུར་ ‘though (you) did [60]say so, by what shall (I) believe (it)?’ In other cases it may be left untranslated when the next sentence will commence with ‘but’: ཟས་བཟང་པོ་མི་འདོད་ཀྱིས་ཟས་ཐ་མལ་པ་ཟོས་སོ་ ‘not liking delicate food, he ate vulgar food’ or ‘he did not like d. f., but preferred v. f.’. This Gerund is scarcely used in talking, at least in WT.

8. པས་ (བས་), the Instrumental of the Infinitive, ‘by (doing something)’ is, of course, the proper expression for ‘because’, but also very often used indiscriminately for ཏེ་ or ནས་ only for the sake of varying the mode of speaking: ཤིན་ཏུ་དཀའ་བ་ཡིན་པས་ ‘because it is very difficult’; ལྟས་པས་ ‘when (he) looked’.

9. Also གིན་ the proper use of which has been shewn above (35. 2. d.) must be mentioned once more as it occurs in a similar sense to ཅིང་, སྨོན་ལམ་འདེབས་གིན་སོང་ཞིག་ ‘walk on praying (preces faciendo)!’; བྲང་བརྡུང་གིན་ངུས་པས་ ‘beating (her own) breast and weeping’.

B. Supines. They are expressed simply by the Terminative Case of the Infinitive or of the Root, མཐོང་བར་ or ཐོང་དུ་ ‘to see’. In many instances the use of either is optional, in others one is preferred. 1. Their use is: with adjectives like the Latin supine in u, e.g. བསླབ་ཏུ་དཀའ་བ་ ‘difficult to learn’; with verbs expressing ‘to go, to send’ etc., [61]also ‘to pray’ etc. like that in um: ལེན་ཏུ་སོང་ ‘go to fetch’, གནང་དུ་གསོལ་ ‘(I) beg (you) to permit,—for permission’. In these cases the root is most common, but the Inf. བསླབ་པར་, or གནང་བར་, ལེན་པར་ may also be used. 2. Another use of the Supine is a) with verbs of sensation and, less frequently, with those of declaration, where we use sentences with ‘that’ or the Participle or Infinitive: མ་འོང་བར་མཐོང་ནས་ ‘seeing (his) mother coming’ (instead of which, however, འོང་བ་ may be said as well); ༌༌༌བའི་དུས་ལ་བབ་པར་ཤེས་ནས་ ‘knowing that the time of … ing had arrived’ (lit: ‘that it had come down to the time’); རྒྱལ་པོའི་བུ་ཡིན་པར་དྲན་ནས་ ‘remembering him to be the king’s son’ or ‘that he was …’.—b) in an adverbial sense, when we say ‘so that’, especially in negative sentences, ‘so that not’, ‘without … ing’, སུས་ཀྱང་མ་ཚོར་བར་ ‘so that nobody may (did) perceive it’, or ‘without anybody perceiving it’.

Note 1. The modern language of WT uses in the first instance (B. 1.) either the simple Infinitive, བསླབ་ཅེས་ཁག་པོ་ (or དཀག་པོ་), or the same with ལ་, བསླབ་ཅེས་ལ་ཁག་པོ་, or with ཕྱི་ལ་ (for the ཕྱིར་ of the books s. 7. 2.), བསླབ་ཅེས་ཕྱི་ལ་ཁག་པོ་; in the second either the same forms, or a particular one, which consists in repeating the final consonant [62]of the root with the vowel a, to which also ལ་ may be added: thus, ལེན་ན་སོང་, ཁྱོད་རང་ལ་ཐུག་ག་ལ་ཡོངས་སོང་ ‘(I) have come to meet you’; in the third, the direct Imperative adding ཞུ་ for the sake of civility, དགོངས་ཞུ་ ‘pray permit!’

In the case of B. 2., instead of མ་འོང་བར་མཐོང་ནས་, the expression in common use will be ཨ་མ་ཡོང་ or ཡོང་ང་མཐོང་ནས་; instead of སུས་ཀྱང་མ་ཚོར་བར་, either the same form, མ་ཚོར་ར་, or the Gerund, མ་ཚོར་ཏེ་.—In CT those examples would respectively, stand thus, བསླབ་ཏུ་ or བསླབ་བ་ or བསླབ་པའི་དོན་དུ་དཀག་པོ་ láb-tu, láb-ba (sounding almost lă-wa), láb-pa̤ dʽo̤n-dʽu kag-po; in the third instance a peculiar word, ‘rog’, is used, which is said to be originally the same as གྲོགས་ (རོགས་) ‘friend, assistant’, and serves now as the respectful substitute of ཅིག་, Particle of the Imperative, གནང་རོག་ ‘pray permit!’, སྟེར་རོག་ ‘pray give!’ Instead of མ་ཚོར་ར་ etc. the most usual form in CT will be the simple Participle, མ་ཤེས་པ་.

Note 2. All the forms, of course, where པ་ or བ་ are met with might in certain cases belong to the Participle, and not to the Infinitive.

Note 3. The reader will have missed any mention of tenses of the class of Pluperfect, Past Future etc., and, [63]indeed, there exists no form of the kind, and they can only be rendered by a Gerund, e.g. ཡི་གེ་བྲིས་ཟིན་ནས་བཀལ་སོང་ ‘when (he) had written the letter, (he) sent (it) off’; ཡི་གེ་བྲིས་ཟིན་ནས་བཀལ་བར་འགྱུར་ (WT: བཀལ་ཡིན་, CT: བཀལ་རྒྱུ་ཡིན་) ‘when (he) shall have written the letter, (he) will send (it) off’. Neither have the Conditional or Subjunctive any special form. Thus, e.g., འདི་མ་བྱས་ན་མི་འཚོའོ་ ‘if we did not do that, we could not live’ (i.e. we cannot earn our sustenance in any other manner); ཅིའི་ཕྱེར་ཁྱོད་ཟེར་བ་ནི་མི་ཉན་ ‘why should not I hear (grant) what you say (your wish)?’; བརྡ་མ་བཀྲོལ་ཞིང་རྟགས་མ་མཐོང་ན་མི་རྟོགས་པར་འདུག་ ‘if (you) had not explained it, and (we) had not seen the signs, we would not have understood it’; མིས་མི་རྙེད་པས་སྤྲུལ་པ་ཅིག་བཏག་དགོས་ ‘as a man would not find it, I must send an emanation’; vulg., WT, ཨི་ཟུག་ཐག་རིང་མ་ཡིན་ན་ངའི་རྩར་འགྲོ་དུ་ཡོང་ཡིན་ ‘if the distance was not so great, they would come to me (visit me)’. Here may be added, that also the intention of, or attempt at, doing something is expressed by the simple verb: thus, བདག་གིས་བཀག་ཡང་མ་བཏུབ་ཀྱིས་ ‘though I did try to hinder him, I could not’; བདག་གི་ཉེ་གནས་ཆུར་མཆོངས་པ་མཐོང་ནས། ཆུར་མ་ཕྱིན་པར་རྫུ་འཕྲུལ་གྱི་མཐུས་བླངས་སོ་ ‘as he saw his own disciple [64]on the point of springing into the water (and that he had sprung off the bank), he held him back by the force of his magic, so that he did not touch the water’ (s. 41. B. 2. b.). Especially the gerunds in ལས་ (41. A. 6.) have often this meaning: བདག་སྲོག་དང་བྲལ་བ་ལས་སྲོག་གི་སྐྱབས་བྱས་སོ་ ‘when I was about to be parted from life, he saved it’; སྦྲུལ་ཁྲོས་ནས་གདུག་པ་ཕྱུང་པ་ལས་ཡང་འདི་སྙམས་བསམས་སོ་ ‘the snake, having become angry, though she intended (or: had at first int.) to let out her poison, reflected thus’. As will be seen from these examples, the action, in such cases, is thought to have begun in fact.

[Contents]

A Survey of the principal forms of the Finite Verb.

Present:

གཏོང་, | W | བཏང་འདུག་ give
མཐོང་བ་ཡིན་ | | མཐོང་མཁན་ཡིན་ I see intens. མཐོང་བར་བྱེད་
| C | མཐོང་སྟེ་འདུག་ (or ཡོད་)
| W | མཐོང་གིན་འདུག་ (or ཡོད་); C མཐོང་གི་འདུག་ I am seeing

Perfect:

བཏང་ | W | བཏང་སོང་ gave, have given
མཐོང་ | C | མཐོང་བྱུང་ saw, | W | སོང་སྟེ་ཡོད་ | C | སོང་ཡོད་
| | | | went | | went
བཏང་ཟིན་ | | བཏང་ཚར་ I have given, intens. མཐོང་བར་བྱས་
| | བཏངས་པ་ཡིན་ has been given

[65]

Future:

གཏང་ | W | བཏང་ཡིན་ shall, will give
མཐོང་བར་འགྱུར་ | C | མཐོང་རྒྱུ་ཡིན་ intens. མཐོང་བར་བྱ་
| | shall, will see
| | སླེབ་ཡོང་, སླེབ་པར་འོང་ will arrive

Imperative:

ཐོང་ | W | བཏོང་ give! བཏོན་བཏོང་ take out! བསད་དགོས་ kill!
| | མཐོང་ཅིག་ see! intens. མཐོང་བར་བྱོས་
negat. མ་གཏོང་མ་བཏང་ do not give! མཐོང་བར་མ་བྱེད་

1 The objects of ཟ་བ་ and འཐུང་བ་ often assume the dative-sign, cf. English ‘to feed on’. ↑

[Contents]

Chapter VII.

The Adverb.

42. We may distinguish three classes of adverbs: 1. Primitive adverbs. 2. Adverbs formed from Adjectives. 3. Adverbs formed from Substantives or Pronouns.

1. Very few Primitive Adverbs occur; the most usual are: ད་ ‘now’, ནམ་ ‘when’, སང་ (books and CT) or ཐོ་རེ་ (WT) ‘to morrow’, and a few similar ones; ཡང་ ‘again’, and the two negatives མི་ and མ་, the latter of which is used in prohibitive sentences, and with a past tense, as མི་གཏོང་ ‘(I) do not give’, མི་གཏང་ ‘(I) shall not give’, but: མ་བཏང་ ‘did not give’, མ་གཏོང་ (WT: མ་བཏང་) ‘do not [66]give!’ The verbs ཡིན་, ལགས་, མཆིས་, རེད་ have always མ་ instead of མི་ before them (40.). Another particle of this kind, of a merely formal value, is ནི་, which is added to any word or group of words in order to single it out and distinctly separate it from everything that follows. It is, therefore, often very useful in lessening the great indistinctness of the language, especially so when separating the subject from the attribute: མི་དེ་ནི་ལ་དྭགས་པ་ཡིན་ ‘that man is a Ladakee’. (There is scarcely an adequate word to be found in our modern languages, but the Greek γε, or μεν—δε—, are very similar.) In talking it is seldom heard, and, when used, in WT pronounced: ནིང་.

2. Adverbs may be formed from any Adjective by putting it in the Terminative case. བཟང་པོ་ ‘good’, བཟང་པོར་ ‘well’; རབ་ ‘principal’, རབ་ཏུ་ ‘principally, very’; དྲག་པོ་ ‘violent’, དྲག་པོར་ or དྲག་ཏུ་ ‘violently’.

3. Nearly all the local Adverbs are formed from Substantives or Pronouns with some local Postposition: གོང་ ‘the place (space) above, upper part’, གོང་ན་ ‘above’, གོང་ཏུ་ ‘upwards’, གོང་ནས་ ‘from above (downwards)’; འདི་ ‘this’, འདི་ན་ ‘in this, here’, འདི་རུ་, འདིར་ ‘hither, here’ (cf. 15.), འདི་ནས་ ‘hence’; དེ་ ‘that’, དེ་ན་ ‘there’, དེ་རུ, དེར་ ‘thither, there’, དེ་ནས་ ‘from there, thence, then, after that’. [67]

Note. In talking the simple adjective is used, mostly, instead of its adverb (2. class): མགྱོགས་པ་ for —པར་ ‘quickly, soon’.

[Contents]

Chapter VIII.

The Postposition.

43. There are two kinds of Postpositions: 1. Simple Postpositions. These are the same that we know already as forming the cases (15). 2. Compound Postpositions, formed in the manner of local Adverbs (42. 3), with which they are, indeed, with a few exceptions, identical.

1. Simple Postpositions. These are: ལ་ (the affix of the Dative), ན་ (Locative), ནས་ and ལས་ (Ablative), རུ་, ར་, སུ་, ཏུ་, དུ་ (Terminative).

Their use will be best seen in the following examples:

༎ ལ་ ༎

ཕན་དིལ་མེ་ལ་བོར་ WT, ཟངས་མེ་ལ་བཞག་ (inst. of ཞོག་ 38, Note) CT ‘put the degchi on the fire!’.

བོང་བུ་ས་ལ་འགྲེའོ་, vulg: འགྲེ་འདུག་, Tsang: བོང་གུ་ས་ལ་འགྲེ་གིས་ ‘the ass rolls himself on the ground’.

རྟ་ལ་ཞོན་ཏེ་ (or ནས་) འགྲོ་ ‘having mounted on the horse (he) goes’, or ‘(he) goes on horseback’.

བྱ་ནས་མཁའ་ལ་འཕུར་རོ་, vulg (WT): ཅི་པ་ (corrupted from [68]མཆིལ་པ་) ནམ་མཁའ་ལ་འཕུར་འདུག་, CT: བྱ་ནམ་མཁའ་ལ་འཕིར་གིས་འདུག་ ‘the bird flies in the sky’.

མཚན་ལ་ཆ་ཡིན་ WT, ནམ་ལ་འགྲོ་རྒྱུ་ཡིན་ CT ‘(we) shall set out at night’.

དེ་ལ་ཤིན་ཏུ་དགའ་སྟེ་ (books and CT), དེ་ལ་མང་པོ་འཐད་དེ་ WT ‘being very glad at this’.

སྨན་ལ་མཁས་པ་ ‘skilful in medicine’.

ཆང་ལ་བོས་སོ་, vulg: བོས་སོང་ ‘invited him to beer’.

མགོ་ལ་ཟུག་རག་ག་ WT, འདུག་གམ་ CT ‘is (there) ache in (your) head’, ‘have you head-ache?’

༎ ན་, དུ་ etc. ༎

ཁྱིམ་ན་ (or དུ་) ཡོད་, vulg: ཁང་པ་ལ་ (or རུ་) ཡོད་ ‘(he) is in the house, at home’.

ཁྱིམ་དུ་སོང་, vulg: ཁང་པ་རུ་ (or ལ་) སོང་ ‘go into the house, home!’.

དུས་ཅིག་ན་, vulg: ཞག་ཅིག་ ‘at a (certain) time, once’.

ད་སྟེ་ཞག་བདུན་ན་ (books) ‘from to-day in (after) seven days’.

མས་བུ་པང་པར་ཁྱེར་ཏོ་; WT: ཨ་མས་བུ་ཚ་པང་ལ་ཁུར་ཁྱེར་; CT: ཨ་མས་བུ་པང་ཀར་ཁུར་སོང་ ‘the mother carried the son in (her) arms’.

དེའི་དུས་སུ་, vulg: དེ་དུས་ ‘at that time’.

ལོ་བདུན་དུ་ (books, for vulg. see Compound adv.) ‘for seven years’. [69]

མི་དེ་རྒྱལ་པོར་བཅུག་གོ་ (or བསྐོས་སོ་), W: རྒྱལ་པོ་ལ་བཏག་ ‘(they) made (or selected, raised) that man to (be) king’.

ཡོ་བྱད་སྔས་སུ་བཅུག་གོ་, CT: འཁྱོ་བྱད་ (or ཆ་ལག་) སྔས་ལ་བཅུག་ ‘they made (their) luggage into a pillow, used it as a pillow’.

གང་དུ་ (or ག་རུ་) འགྲོ་, WT: ག་རུ་ཆ་མཁན་ (s. 35. 2. b, ཡིན་ omitted, 40. 1. a), CT: ག་ལ་འགྲོ་གིས་ཡིན་ (པ་ or པས་, provincial irregularities 35. 2. c) ‘where are (you) going?’

ང་ཏི་ནོར་ (or ཁོག་སར་ལ་) འགྲུལ་འདུག་ (vulg.) ‘I am going to Tino (or Kʽoksar)’.

༎ ནས་ ༎

ཟླ་བ་བརྒྱད་ནས་ ‘after eight months’.

ཟླ་བ་བརྒྱད་པ་ནས་ ‘from (after) the eighth month’.

ཐོག་མ་ནས་ (books and CT), WT: མགོ་མ་ནས་ ‘from the beginning’.

༎ ལས་ ༎

དཀར་ཁུང་ལས་ ‘from the window, through the window’.

འཁོར་བ་ལས་འགྲོལ་བ་, vulg: ༌༌༌ནས་བསྒྲལ་བ་ ‘to deliver from the circulation (transmigration)’.

པ་གུ་ལས་ཁང་པ་རྩིག་པ་, WT: ནས་, Tsang: པ་གུའི་ནང་རྩིག་པ་ ‘to build a house out of brick (Ts: a house of brick)’.

མདོ་ཟ་མ་ཏོག་ལས་ ‘from the sūtra Zamatog’. [70]

སློབ་མ་ལས་གཅིག་ (vulg: སློབ་མའི་ནང་ནས་གཅིག་) ‘one of (from among) the pupils’.

ཀུན་ལས་མཁས་པ་ (books and CT), WT: ཚང་མའི་སང་མཁས་པ་ ‘wiser than all, the wisest, most skilful of all’.

གཉིས་ལས་མ་ལུས་སོ་ ‘more than two are not left’.

ང་ལས་མི་འདུག་ ‘more than myself are not’.

Besides these དང་ ‘with’ is to be mentioned as Simple Postposition: thus, ཁྱེའུ་དང་སྨྲས་ཏེ་, WT: ཁྱོག་ཐོང་དང་ལབ་སྟེ་ ‘speaking (conversing) with the youth’; ང་དང་ ‘with me’, or, in fuller form, ང་དང་ལྷན་གཅིག་ཏུ་, ང་དང་བཅས་སུ་ vulg: ང་དང་མཉམ་པོ་ ‘together with me’. In WT it is even used for the instrumental when the real instrument (tool) of an action is meant, e.g. རྒྱལ་པོས་བློན་པོ་རལ་གྲིས་བསད་ so in books, but WT: རལ་གྲི་དང་བསད་ ‘the king killed the minister with the sword’. It is, moreover, added to many Adjectives and Verbs, when we use the Accusative or Dative or other Prepositions, e.g. དེ་དང་འདྲ་བ་ ‘like (with) that, similar to that’. With an Infinitive it denotes the synchronism of the action with another one, ཉི་མ་ཤར་བ་དང་ ‘with the sun rising, at sunrise’; གཉིད་སོང་བ་དང་ ‘with (on) their going to sleep, when they went to sleep’; ཅེས་སྨྲས་པ་དང་ཁྱིམ་དུ་སོང་ ‘(with) saying so he went home’ or also ‘he said so, and went home’. Often it is found with [71]an Imperative, without any perceptible signification, if it is not to be regarded as a substitute for ཅིག་ (38): ད་ཟོ་དང་ ‘now eat!’ For its use as a conjunction see the next chapter.

2. Compound Postpositions. These may conveniently be grouped in two classes: a) Local Compound Postpositions, which are virtually the same as the Local Adverbs specified in 42. 3.: thus, ནང་ན་ ‘in (the midst of)’, ནང་དུ་ ‘into’ also ‘in’, ནང་ནས་ ‘from, out of’. The most usual ones will be seen in the following examples:

རྫིང་གི་ནང་ན་ (or དུ་) ཁྲུས་བྱེད་པ་ ‘to bathe in a pond’.

ཆུའི་ནང་དུ་ཞུགས་ ‘he entered into the water’ (both in books and common talk).

ལྷའི་ནང་ན་གཙོ་བོ་ ‘the lord among the gods’.

ཁང་པའི་ནང་ནས་འཐོན་ (or འབྱུང་) vulg. ‘(he) comes (emerges) out of the house’.

སྒོའི་གོང་ཏུ་ (or ན་, or ལ་) ‘above the door’ (books and vulg., but more usual in WT: སྒོ་ལྟག་, CT སྒོ་ཐོད་).

ཡབ་ཀྱི་གོང་ཏུ་འདས་, vulg.: ཡབ་ཀྱི་སྔན་ལ་ (or ལྔུན་ལ་, CT also གདོང་ལ་ ‘he died before his father’.

པདྨའི་སྟེང་དུ་ (or ན་, or ཐོག་ཏུ་, or ཁ་རུ་) བཞུགས་པ་, vulg., in WT: ཁ་ཐོག་ལ་ (ཁ་ཐོད་ལ་), CT: དགེང་ལ་ ‘to sit on a lotus-flower’. [72]

སྒོའི་འགྲམ་དུ་ (or ལ་, or ན་) (books and talk) ‘beside, near the door’.

ཤིང་གི་དྲུང་དུ་, vulg.: མདུན་ལ་, རྩ་ན་, རྩར་ ‘under a tree’ (literally: ‘in front, by the side, of a tree’).

ཞལ་ཆེ་པའི་དྲུང་དུ་ (མདུན་དུ་) འཁྲིད་པ་ ‘to take before the judge’.

ཟླ་བ་བརྒྱད་ཀྱི་རྗེས་ལ་ CT, རྟིང་ལ་ WT ‘after eight months’.

ཟླ་བ་གཉིས་ཀྱི་སྔན་ལ་ (or སྔུན་ལ་) vulg. ‘before two months, two months ago’.

སའི་འོག་ཏུ་གཏེར་སྦེད་པ་ books and CT, WT: སའི་འོག་ལ་གཏེར་སྦ་བ་ ‘to hide a treasure below the ground’.

སའི་འོག་ནས་འབྱུང་བ་ CT, WT: སའི་ཡོག་ནས་འཐོན་པ་ ‘to emerge, come out, from below the ground’.

ཆུའི་ཕ་རོལ་ན་ books and CT, in CT also: ཕར་ཕྱོགས་པ་, WT: ཕར་ཁ་ལ་, ཕར་ངོས་ལ་ ‘beyond the water, river’.

ཆུའི་ཚུ་རོལ་ན་ books and CT, WT: ཚུར་ཁ་ལ་ ‘on this side of the water’.

ཞག་གསུམ་དུ་ (or ནས་) ཐང་དེའི་ཕ་རོལ་ཏུ་ཕྱིན་པར་འགྱུར་རོ་, CT: ཕ་རོལ་ཏུ་སླེབ་ཡོང་, WT: ཕར་ཁ་ལ་སླེབ་ཡིན་ ‘in (after) three days he will arrive beyond this plain, will have crossed it’.

ཁང་པའི་ཕྱོགས་བཞི་རུ་ ‘in the four regions of the house, roundabout’. [73]

ཡུལ་དེའི་ཕྱོགས་ལ་སོང་ ‘go in the direction of, towards, that village’.

ལོ་བདུན་གྱི་བར་དུ་, CT: ལོ་བདུན་ཐུག་(པ་), WT: ༌༌༌ཚུག་པ་ ‘for seven years’.

འདི་ནས་དེའི་བར་དུ་, CT: འདི་ནས་དེ་ཐུག་པ་, WT: ཨི་ནས་ཨ་ཚུག་པ་ ‘from this to that’.

ང་ཉུང་ཏི་རུ་ཆ་ཅེས་ཚུག་པ་ WT: ‘till I go to Kullu’.

b) General Compound Postpositions, expressive of the general relations of things and persons. They are formed in the same manner as the Local ones, from substantives, adjectives, and even verbs. Their use may be learned from the following examples:

ངའི་ཕྱིར་(དུ་) or དོན་དུ་ books and CT, WT: ངའི་ཕི་ལ་ ‘for me, in my behalf, for my sake, on my account’.

ནད་དེ་ནི་ཅིའི་ཕྱིར་བྱུང་, WT: ཅིའི་ཕི་ལ་ཡོངས་, CT: གང་གི་རོན་དུ་བྱུང་ ‘for what reason has that illness come? what is the cause of etc.?’.

སེམས་ཅན་ཐམས་ཅད་ཀྱི་དོན་དུ་ ‘in behalf of all living beings’.

ཤིང་གི་ཚབ་ལ་རྡོ་ (WT: རྡོ་བ་) བཏོང་ ‘give (apply) stone instead of wood’.

བཞིན་དུ་ ‘according to, like, as’—རྒྱལ་པོའི་བཀའ་བཞིན་དུ་བྱས་ཏེ་ ‘doing according to the word of the king’; དེ་[74]བཞིན་དུ་ ‘according to that, like that, thus, so’; སྔ་མ་བཞིན་དུ་ ‘as formerly, as before’; instead of it the dialect of WT uses ནང་ལྟར་, generally with the Genitive, thus the last example there would be: སྔན་མའི་ནང་ལྟར་.

ལྟར་ ‘like’, རི་ལྟར་ ‘like a hill’; འདི་ལྟར་, དེ་ལྟར་ ‘like this, like that, thus, so’, ཅི་ལྟར་, CT: གང་ལྟར་ ‘like what? how? in what manner?’.

In the dialect of WT མཚོགས་ or མཚོགས་སེ་ is used instead (which is a corruption of མཚོངས་, occurring in books with the same meaning): thus, རི་མཚོགས་སེ་ ‘like a hill’; འདི་མཚོགས་, དེ་མཚོགས་ ‘thus’; or ཟུག་ (properly ཙུག་), ཨི་ཟུག་, ཨ་ཟུག་ ‘thus’, ག་ཟུག་ ‘how?’.

[Contents]

Chapter IX.

The Conjunction.

44. The written language possesses very few, the spoken still fewer, Conjunctions, most of which are coordinative. The common word for ‘and’ is དང་ which we have seen above in the sense of ‘with’, གསེར་དང༌། དངུལ་དང༌། ལྕགས་ལ་སོགས་པ་ ‘gold and silver and iron and collection (i.e. and so on)’, though the position of the s̀ad (10.) after the word དང་ shows that it is always considered as belonging to the preceding member of the sentence, similar, in [75]this respect, to the Latin ‘que’; nor can it in any case begin a sentence. Very seldom, and only in later literature, it appears as combining two verbs, if not, indeed, the root ought to be regarded there as abbreviation for the infinitive. Further: ཡང་ ‘also, too’. When belonging to a single word or notion it is put after it in an enclitical way like ‘quoque’ in Latin. It is changed according to the termination of the preceding word, into ཀྱང་ after ག་ ད་ བ་ ས་1, into འང་ often after vowels (cf. 6). Thus: བུ་ཞིག་ཀྱང་ཁྲིད་དེ་ ‘taking also a son (with him)’. When repeated, it has the signification of Latin ‘et—et—’, མ་ཡང་ཤི། བུ་ཡང་ཤིའོ༎ ‘both mother and son died’. Often, especially in negative sentences, it means ‘even’, གཅིག་ཀྱང་མ་རྙེད་དོ་ ‘even one (they) did not find—not even one’. This is the only means for expressing ‘none, no, nothing’, མི་སུ་ (or གང་) ཡང་མ་འོངས་ (resp. ཡོངས་) ‘nobody came’; དེ་ན་ཅི་ཡང་ (ཅིའང་, or ཅང་) མེད་ ‘there is nothing’ (cf. 29). When combined with verbs, བཙལ་ཡང་མ་རྙེད་དོ་ ‘even searching (they) did not find’, it serves as another expression for ‘though’ or also ‘but’ (s. 41. A. 7. b): thus, ‘though they searched, they etc.’ or ‘they searched, but they etc.’. Standing [76]for itself (not leaning on the preceding word) it means ‘again, once more’ (when it is to be regarded as adverb), དེར་ཡང་འཁམས་ནས་ ‘there (I) fainting once more etc.’. In the beginning of a sentence it is ‘and, again, moreover’, and may occasionally be rendered by ‘however, but’. ཡང་ན་, ‘or’; repeated, ཡང་ན༌༌༌༌ ཡང་ན༌༌༌༌ ‘either—or—’.—‘Or’ is expressed also by the interrogative affix of the finite verb (34. 1.), འམ་ etc., གསེར་དངུལ་འམ། ཟངས་ཀྱི་བུམ་པོ་ ‘a bottle of gold, silver, or copper’.—འོན་ཀྱང་ ‘nevertheless, but’, vulg: ཡིན་ཀྱང་ occurs much less frequently in Tibetan than in the European languages.

The only Subordinate Conjunctions are: 1. གལ་ཏེ་ ‘if’, introducing conditional sentences ending in ན་ (41. A. 4). But, as the conditional force really rests on the closing ན་, the initial གལ་ཏེ་ may be put or omitted at pleasure; 2. ཅི་སྟེ་ ‘but if’; གལ་ཏེ་ནུས་ན༌༌༌༌ ‘if I can …’, ཅི་སྟེ་མི་ནུས་ན་ ‘but if not …’; this last is found only in books.

1 This is not very carefully observed even in good mscr. and prints, where ཡང་ will occur sometimes after ག་ etc., and ཀྱང་ after the other consonants and even after vowels. ↑

[Contents]

Chapter X.

The Interjection.

45. The most common Interjection is ཀྱེ་, or, repeated, ཀྱེ་ཀྱེ་ ‘oh!, alas!’ used also before the Vocative. The language of common life uses instead: ཝ་ wa, or ཝའི་ wä. [77]

[Contents]

Chapter XI.

Derivation.

46. Derivation of Substantives. As most of what belongs under this head has already been mentioned in 11. and 12. only the formation of abstract nouns remains to be spoken of. 1. The unaltered adjective may be used as an abstract noun, especially with the article བ་, as: གྲང་བ་དྲོ་བར་འགྱུར་ ‘the cold is changed into warmth’.—To this may be added the pronoun ཉིད་ (གྲང་བ་ཉིད་ ‘ipsum frigidum’); but this is used scarcely anywhere else than in metaphysical treatises, from whence a few expressions, such as སྟོང་པ་ཉིད་ ‘the vacuum, the absolute rest in deliverance from existence’ have become more generally known.—2. In the case of two correlative ideas existing, frequently the compound of both is used, esp. in common talk, ཆེ་ཆུང་ ‘size’ (lit. ‘large and small’), སྦོམ་ཕྲ་ ‘thickness’ (‘thick and thin’), e.g. ཆེ་ཆུང་ནི་ཡུངས་འབྲུ་ཙམ་ ‘the size as much as a mustard-seed’.—3. ཁྱད་ ‘difference’ (or, sometimes, ཚད་, ཚོད་ ‘measure’) is added, མཐོ་ཁྱད་ ‘height’, ཕྱུག་ཁྱད་ ‘wealth, riches’.—4. Mental qualities are in most cases paraphrased by སེམས་, or བློ་ with a genitive, བཟོད་པའི་སེམས་ ‘mind of suffering, enduring, i.e. patience’, མཁས་པའི་བློ་ ‘wise mind, wisdom, skill’; དགའ་བའི་སེམས་ ‘mind of rejoicing, [78]joy’ (vulg: སེམས་དགའ་མོ་), དད་པའི་སེམས་ ‘mind of belief (also ‘a believing mind’), faith’.—5. Diminutives are formed by adding the termination འུ་, often with an alteration of the preceding vowel: རྟ་ ‘horse’, རྟེའུ་ ‘little horse, foal’; མི་ ‘man’, མིའུ་ ‘little man, dwarf’; རྡོ་ ‘stone’, རྡེའུ་ ‘small stone, calculus’. If a word ends with a consonant, only u is added, and a new syllable formed: ལུག་ ‘sheep’, ལུ་གུ་ ‘lamb’.

47. Derivation of Adjectives. 1. Possessive adjectives are regularly expressed by adding the syllable ཅན་, or the phrase དང་ལྡན་པ་, abridged ལྡན་ to any substantive, མགོ་ཅན་ ‘having a head’; མི་མགོ་ཅན་ ‘having the head of a man’; སྐྲ་ཅན་ ‘having hair, (long-)haired’; རིག་པ་ཅན་, རིག་པ་དང་ལྡན་པ་ ‘possessing knowledge, learned, wise’; དང་ལྡན་པ་ is never heard in common talk in WT.—2. Adjectives of appurtenance are generally expressed by the genitive of the substantive, གསེར་གྱི་ ‘of gold, golden’; ཤའི་མིག་ ‘the eye of flesh, the carnal, bodily eye’, oppos.: ཤེས་རབ་ཀྱི་མིག་ ‘the eye of knowledge, spiritual eye’.—3. Negative, or privative adjectives are formed in several ways: a) by the simple negative མི་, མི་འོས་པ་ ‘unworthy’; མི་རུང་བ་ ‘unfit’; མི་ཐོས་པ་ ‘unheard of’. b) by adding མེད་ ‘without’, [79]མགོ་མེད་ ‘headless’; སྐྱོན་མེད་ ‘faultless’. c) by adding the verb བྲལ་(བ་) ‘separated from’, ལུས་དང་བྲལ་བ་, ལུས་བྲལ་ ‘separated from the body, bodiless’.—4. The English adjectives in -able, -ible are expressed by རུང་བ་ ‘to be fit’, added to the Supine, or to the simple Root, འཐང་དུ་རུང་བ་, འཐུང་རུང་ ‘fit for drinking, drinkable’, vulgo: འཐུང་ཉན་ (from ཉན་པ་ ‘to be able’), འཐུང་ཆོག་ (ཆོག་ ‘permitted, lawful’). [80]

Part III.

Syntax.

48. Arrangement of words. 1. The invariable rule is this: in a simple sentence all other words must precede the verb; in a compound one all the subordinate verbs in the form of gerunds or supines, and all the coordinate verbs in the form of the root, each closing its own respective clause, must precede the governing verb (examples s. below).—2. The order in which the different cases of substantives belonging to a verb are to be arranged, is rather optional, so that e.g. the agent may either precede or follow its object. Local and temporal adverbs or adverbial phrases are, if possible, put at the head of the sentence.—3. The order of words belonging to a substantive is this: 1. The Genitive, 2. the governing Substantive, 3. the Adjective (unless this is itself put, in the genitive, before; 16), 4. the Pronoun, 5. the Numeral, 6. the indefinite Article: thus, ངའི་བུ་མོ་ཆུང་ངུ་འདི་ ‘this my little daughter’; གོས་དམར་པོ་ཞིག་ ‘a red gown’; གོས་དམར་པོ་ or དམར་པོའི་གོས་ ‘the red gown’; རྒྱལ་ཁམས་ཆེན་པོ་འདི་གསུམ་ ‘these three great kingdoms’. Adverbs precede the word they belong to: ཤིན་ཏུ་ཆེན་པོ་ ‘very great’; ཤིན་ཏུ་མགྱོགས་པར་ཤོག་ ‘come very quickly’.—[81]4. In correlative sentences (cf. 29) the Relative precedes the Demonstrative: གང་ཡོད་པ་དེ་ཐོང་ཞིག་ ‘what there is, give!’ i.e. ‘give whatever you have’, and in comparative sentences the thing with which another is compared, ordinarily precedes this (cf. 17).

49. Use of the cases. As the necessary observations about the instrumental have been made in 30, about the other cases and postpositions partly in 15, partly in 43, it is only the Accusative, that requires a few words more, as it is very often used absolutely (as in Greek). a) Acc. temporalis: མཚན་མོ་ ‘at night’; གསོན་པོའི་ཚེ་ ‘during (his etc.) lifetime’; དེའི་ཚེ, དེ་དུས་ ‘at that time’; ཉི་མ་གཅིག་བསླབས་ནས་ ‘having studied for one day, after one day’s study’.—b) Acc. modalis: དབྱིབས་ཟླུམ་པ་ ‘regarding the size, round’; གཏིང་ཟབ་ཁྱད་ཁྲུ་བརྒྱད་པ་ ‘regarding the depth, eight cubits’ (cf. 12); ཁ་དོག་དུ་བ་ལྟ་བུར་ཡོད་པ་ ‘regarding colour, being like smoke’ (cf. 50, 1, a); རིགས་མཐུན་པ་ ‘with regard to (his) birth, equal’ i.e. ‘of equal birth’. Here ནི་ (42. 1) is very often employed: དབྱིབས་ནི་ཟླུམ་པ་ etc. Nearly in all cases, however, postpositions may be added, and in talking they are preferred to the simple Accusative: མཚན་མོ་ལ་, མཚན་ལ་, དེའི་ཚེ་ན་, དབྱིབས་ལ་ etc. [82]

50. Simple Sentences.—1. Affirmative sentences.—a) the attribute being a noun, the verb: to be, become, remain etc.; མི་འདི་ནི་མཁས་པ་ཡིན་ ‘this man is wise’; འདི་ནི་མི་མཁས་པ་ཞིག་ཡིན་ ‘this is a wise man’. When the verb is འགྱུར་བ་ (to become), གནས་པ་ (to remain) etc. the attribute must be put in the Terminative: སྐྲ་དཀར་པོར་གྱུར་ཏོ་ ‘(his) hair became white’; རྒྱལ་པོ་ཡི་དམ་ལ་བརྟན་པར་གནས་སོ་, vulg: བརྟན་པོ་གནས་པ་ཡིན་ ‘the king remained steadfast on his vow’; in some special cases this may take place, even if the verb is simply ‘to be’: ལུས་གཟུགས་ཐམས་ཅད་མི་འདྲ་སྟེ། རྐང་པ་འབའ་ཞིག་ཁྲ་བོར་འདུག་གོ་ ‘while his whole shape was like a man’s, his foot only was piebald’. b) the attribute being any other verb: རྒྱ་ནག་ཡུལ་གྱི་རྒྱལ་པོ་སྔ་མ་ཞིག་གིས་ཡུལ་དེའི་བྱང་ཕྱོགས་སུ་ལྕགས་རི་ཤིན་ཏུ་ཆེན་པོ་ཞིག་བརྩིགས་སོ་ ‘an ancient king of China built a very large wall in the north of that country’.

2. Interrogative sentences.—a) simple: ཁྱོད་ཀྱི་བུ་ཁང་པ་ལ་འདུག་གམ་ ‘is your son in the house?’; དེ་རུ་སུ་ཡོད་ ‘who is there?’; ཅི་ལ་ཡོང་ ‘what do you come for?’, ‘what do you want?’.—རིན་ཙམ་ W (རིན་ག་ཚོད་ C) ‘how much (is) the price?’.

Besides the affix am the later literature and the conversational [83]language of CT has the accentuated interrogative particle ཨེ་ ĕ́, immediately before the verb: ཐབས་ཨེ་ཡོད་ tʽab ĕ́ yöʼ ‘is there any means …?’; ལས་འདི་བྱེད་ཨེ་ནུས་ lā̤ di j̀ĕʼ ĕ́ nṳ̄ ‘can you do this work?’.

The form of a question is also used to express uncertain suppositions (likely to become realized), as: རྗེད་པ་སྲིད་དམ་ ‘is forgetting possible?’ for ‘he may possibly have forgotten it’; ཤི་བ་ཡིན་ནམ་ ‘won’t he die?’; འདི་བདུད་མ་ཡིན་ནམ་ ‘this (apparition) is not the devil, I hope?’.

b) double: ནང་ན་ཡོད་དམ་མེད་ ‘is (he) within or not?’; བདག་ལ་སྦྱིན་དུ་རུང་ངམ་མི་རུང་ ‘is it agreeable (to you i.e. do you consent) to give me (your son) or not?’; ང་འོངས་པ་མི་དགའ་འམ་ཅི་ཉེས་ ‘are you sorry at my arrival, or what (else) is the matter (with you—because you weep)?’.

3. Imperative and Optative or Precative sentences do not require any additional remarks besides what is said in 38.

51. Compound Sentences. After having examined in 41 the different gerunds as the constituent parts of compound sentences, a few examples will suffice for illustration.

1. Compound sentences, for the most part coordinative: རྒྱལ་པོས་ཁྲིམས་བཅའ་སྟེ1། བཟང་2ལ་བྱ་དགའ་སྟེར། ངན་པ་ལ་[84]ཆད་པ་གཅོད3། བྲེ་སྲང་གཏན་ལ་ཕབ4། མི་ལ་ཡི་གེ་བསླབས་སོ5༎ ‘The king having given a law, the good were given rewards, the bad punished, measures and weights arranged, and people taught letters (i.e. reading and writing)’.

2. subordinate sentences: དེར་6བུད་མེད་གཉིས་ཤིག་7བུ་གཅིག་ལ་རྩོད་དེ། རྒྱལ་པོ་བློ་8མཁས་པས་བརྟག་ནས་9འདི་སྐད་ཅེས་10བསྒོའོ། །ཁྱོད་གཉིས་ཀྱིས་བུའི་ལག་པ་རེ་རེ་ནས་བཟུང་སྟེ། དྲོངས་ལ་11གང་གིས་ཐོབ་པ་12བུ་ཁྱེར་ཞིག་13ཅེས་བསྒོ་བ་དང་14། བུའི་མ་མ་ཡིན་པ་དེས་ནི་15བུ་ལ་སྙིང་རྗེ་མེད་པས་16སྣད་ཀྱིས་17མི་དོགས་ཏེ། མཐུ་ཇེ་ཡོད་པར་18དྲངས་སོ། །བུའི་མ་གང་ཡིན་པ་དེ་ནི་བུ་ལ་བྱམས་པས་སྣད་ཀྱིས་དོགས་ཏེ། སྟོབས་ཀྱིས་ཐུབ་ཀྱང་19དྲག་ཏུ་20[85]མ་21དྲངས་སོ། །རྒྱལ་པོས་དྲག་ཏུ་དྲངས་པ་དེ་ལ། འདི་ནི་ཁྱོད་ཀྱི་བུ་མ་ཡིན་ཏེ། བུད་མེད་ཅིག་ཤོས་22ཀྱི་བུ་ཡིན་པས་ན23། དྲང་པོར་24སྨྲོས་ཤིག་25ཅེས་སྨྲས་པ་དང༌། དལ་གྱིས་དྲངས་པའི་བུ་ཡིན་པར་གྱུར་ཏེ་26བུ་ཁྱེར་རོ༎ ‘There being certain two women quarrelling about one boy, the king (being) wise of understanding having examined (the case) thus ordered: You two, having seized from each (side) a hand of the boy, pull, and who gets him, (she) may carry him off.—When he had so spoken, she who was not the boy’s mother, because she had no compassion for the boy, not fearing (she might) hurt (him), pulled with what force she had. She who (in truth) was the boy’s mother, because she had compassion with the boy, fearing (she might) hurt (him), though she was able by force, did not pull hard. The king said to her who had pulled hard: “Because this, not being your son, is the other woman’s son, say (it) outright”. When he had so spoken, as he had turned out to be the son of the gentle puller, (she) carried off the boy’. [86]

1 འཆའ་བ་, perf. བཅའ་ ‘to make’ esp. ‘institute, [84]arrange’; gerund. ↑

2 i.o. བཟང་པོ་ལ་. ↑

3 ‘to cut’, but ཆད་པ་ (or པས་) གཅོད་པ་ ‘to inflict a punishment’. ↑

4 གཏན་ལ་འབེབས་པ་ ‘to set in order, arrange’; perf. ཕབ་. ↑

5 སློབ་པ་, perf. བསླབས་ ‘to learn’. ↑

6 42. 3. ↑

7 indefin. art. after numerals s. 13. ↑

8 Accus. modal., 49. ↑

9 རྟོག་པ་, perf. བརྟག་. ↑

10 27. 2. ↑

11 འདྲེན་པ་, perf. དྲངས་, imp. དྲོངས་; cf. 41. 5 . ↑

12 29. ↑

13 འཁྱེར་བ་, perf. and imp. ཁྱེར་. ↑

14 43. 1. ↑

15 42. 1. ↑

16 41. 8 . ↑

17 the object of the fear usually in the instrumental. ↑

18 termin. of inf. used as adverb, 41. B. 2. b. ↑

19 44. ↑

20 42. 2. ↑

21 42. 1. ↑

22 ཤོས་ ‘other’, almost always with the indefin. article; 13. fin. ↑

23 ན་ is sometimes pleonastically added to པས་ (བས་), to strengthen its meaning. ↑

24 43.2. ↑

25 སྨྲ་བ་, perf. སྨྲས་, imp. སྨྲོས་. ↑

26 འགྱུར་བ་, perf. གྱུར་ properly ‘as he has come to be’. ↑

[Contents]

Appendix.

[Contents]

A collection of phrases from daily life, in the modern dialects, romanized.

WT | kʽyod gá-na̤ yoṅ, | Where do you come from?
CT | kʽyöʼ gʽá-na̤ yoṅ.
W | kʽyod su yin, C kʽyöʼ s. y. | Who are you?
W | kʽyod (C kʽyöʼ) sṳ̄1 yin.2 | Whose (man, servant) are you?
W | kʽyod ráṅi miṅ c̀i zer, | What is your name? (rule 34. 2. c is not always observed)
C | kʽyöʼ-kyi míṅ-la gʽaṅ zér-gi yöʼ-dʽam.
W | kʽyód-di kʽáṅ-pa gá-na yod, | Where is your house?
C | kʽyöʼ-kyi kʽaṅ-pa gʽá-na yöʼ(-pa).
W | kʽyod c̀i-la yoṅ, | Why do you come?
C | kʽyöʼ gʽaṅ-la yoṅ. | (What do you want?)
W | c̀i-la ’i-ru dug. | Why are you here?
W | ṅa s̀ruṅ-te dad. | I sit here to watch.
W | dī yúl-li miṅ c̀i zer, | What is the name of this village?
C | yul dī miṅ-la gʽaṅ zér-ra3 yim-pa. [87]
W | kʽyod-la ḍel-wa4 z̀ig yód-da, | Have you any errand (business)?
C | kʽyöʼ la dʽo̤n z̀ig yöʼ-dʽam.
W | c̀aṅ med; c̀ʽón-la yoṅ(s), | Not any; I have come to no purpose.
C | c̀aṅ mĕ́ʼ; dʽo̤n-mĕ́ʼ-la yoṅ.
W | da tʽug pa tʽuṅ-c̀e-la kaṅ-pa-la-soṅ. | Then go home to eat (drink) your soup.
W | yod: ṅá-la man5 z̀ig sal6, | Yes: please give me some medicine.
C | yöʼ: ṅá-la ma̤n z̀ig naṅ7-rog.
W | ṅá-la zug8 yod, Ts sug gyág9-gī, | I am ill (I have got, am befallen with, an illness).
Ü | ṅá-la ná-tʽsa toṅ10-gi dug.
W | zúr-mo rag, C - - dug. | I feel pain.
W | gá-na, C gʽá-na. | Where?
W | ḍód-pa11-la, C ḍʽöʼ-pa-la. | In the stomach.
W | gó-la zug rag, C - - - yöʼ. | I have headache.
W | ṅa-z̀a yaṅ-pa-la c̀ʽa-c̀e-la tʽsan-te rag. | We should have taken a walk, but it is too hot.
WC | di len. | Take this!
W | di kʽyer, C di kʽur soṅ. | Take this with (you)!
W | di kʽyoṅ, C di kʽur s̀og. | Bring this!
W | di gá-zug c̀o-c̀e, | How shall I do this?
C | di gʽán-ḍa̤12 j̀ĕʼ toṅ (or j̀ĕʼ gyu) yin (yim-pa).
W | dí-zug c̀o mi gos (goi, gō̤), | You must not do it in this way.
C | dí-ḍā̤ j̀ĕʼ mi gō̤. [88]
W | ṅá-la da-ruṅ ó-ma z̀ig gos, | I want some more milk.
C | ṅá-la dʽa-ruṅ wó-ma s̀ig gō̤.
W | i lág-mo c̀o, C di lég-mo j̀ā̤. | Clean this!
W | bé-ma daṅ ṭu13-c̀e, | Wash it with sand!
C | j̀é-mā̤ ṭʽṳ̄.
W | ṅa-la c̀ʽu c̀uṅ zad (C säʼ) c̀ig naṅ14 z̀ig (C s̀ig). | Give me some water, please!
W | lág-pa lág-mo yód-da, | Are (your) hands clean?
C | lág-pa lég-mo (lā-mo, or tsaṅ-wa) é yöʼ.
W | o-ma tʽsag-rā̤́-la tʽsag toṅ, | Filter the milk through the filtering cloth!
C | wo-ma - - - tʽsag s̀og.
W | tʽab c̀ʽuṅ-se dḗ c̀ʽog-la bor-toṅ, | Put the little stove there!
C | - - - dʽḗ c̀ʽog (c̀ʽö)-la z̀ag15-c̀ig.
W | pʽàn-dil sá-la pʽob16 (pʽab-toṅ), | Put the pot (degc̀i) down on the ground!
C | saṅ17 sá-la pʽáb-s̀ig.
W | zaṅ(-bu) me daṅ ñe-mo bor, | Put the pot near the fire!
C | saṅ me dʽaṅ ñe-mo z̀ag.
W | pʽog ton. | Take it off!
W | ñí-ma gás18-sa (gā̤-a) tsám-z̀ig-ga me pʽu19, | As soon as the sun sets, light a fire!
C | - - gā̤ tsam-s̀ig-la - -.
W | kar-yol kʽyoṅ-ṅa son. | Go to fetch the china!
| - - len-na s̀og. | Come to take away - -. [89]
W | c̀ʽu ḍáṅ-mo20 daṅ ṭú-na kar-yól21 mi dag (or kar-yol lag-mo mi c̀ʽa-yin); tʽsán-te z̀ig láṅ-te gyal-la ṭu gos (gō̤), | If you wash with cold water, the china does not become clean; wash it well with some hot (water)!
C | c̀ʽu dʽáṅ mō̤ tṳ̄ na kar-yól mi dag; tʽsám-mo s̀íg gī lég (lā̤)-pa-ṭṳ̄ s̀og.
W | lás (lā̤)-ka tʽsaṅ-ma tʽsar-na̤ mán-na ma c̀ʽa, | Unless all the work is done, don’t go! (or) you must not go.
C | - - - ma̤m-pa ḍo22 mi c̀ʽog.
W | sol-c̀óg23 ṭʽal-ḍig24 c̀o-a, | Shall I make the table ready?
C | - - - - j̀ĕʼ gyu yin-na(m).
W | o-ná; c̀og-tán tiṅ25 toṅ, | Yes; lay (spread) the cloth!
C | yā-ya; c̀og-tá̤n tíṅ-c̀ig.
W | tib-ríl li naṅ-na c̀ʽu máṅ-po yód-da ñúṅ-ṅu yód, | Is there much water in the teapot, or little?
C | - - gyi-naṅ-na c̀ʽu máṅ-po yöʼ-dʽam ñúṅ-ṅu yöʼ.
W | ñúṅ ṅu z̀ig yod (a-tʽsig man-na med), | (But) a little.
C | ñúṅ ṅu s̀ig yöʼ.
W | tib-ril c̀ʽu kaṅ26-te kʽyoṅ, | Fill the teapot with water, and bring it!
C | - - c̀ʽṳ̄ káṅ-nā̤ kʽur s̀og.
W | tib-ril dzag dug. | The kettle leaks.
W | kár-yā27 daṅ j̀ar28 gos (gō̤), | It must be soldered (fastened with pewter).
C | kár-yā̤ (or s̀a-kar-gyī) j̀ar gō̤.
W | gar-wa̤29 tsar30 kʽyer, | Take it to the blacksmith’s.
C | kʽur soṅ. [90]
W | s̀el-kor gas (gā̤) soṅ, | The tumbler (glass-cup) has got a crack.
C | s̀el-pʽor gā̤ soṅ.
W | ṅā̤ ma zer-na s̀iṅ ma kʽyoṅ, | Unless I tell you, do not bring wood!
C | - - ser-na - - kyal31.
W | sab mol-na kʽyoṅ yin, | When master commands, I shall bring.
C | sa-hib suṅ32-na kyal gyu yin.
W | sab gá-zug mol, | What did you say, sir (did the gentleman say)?
C | sa-hib gʽaṅ suṅ wa yin.
W | ma pʽaṅ33; bud ma c̀ug34, | Don’t cast it away! Do not let it slip!
C | ma bʽor-wa j̀ʽĕʼ; bʽüʼ ma c̀ug.
WC | rig-pa ḍim35, | Take care! Cautiously!
W | kʽa-dar c̀o.
W | nán36-c̀e man, | You must not press!
C | ná̤n gyu min.
W | ḍás37-si (ḍā̤́-i) lág-ma ṭí38-te bor, | Put by the remainder of the rice!
C | ḍā̤́-kyi lhág-ma tʽsag j̀ʽā̤.
W | lag-ma mi dug, c̀aṅ ma lus (lṳ̄). | There is no remainder; nothing is left.
W | o-ma lud ma c̀ug, | Do not let the milk run over!
C | wo-ma lüʼ ma c̀ug.
W | c̀ʽín-pa39 ma túb40-te són-te kʽyoṅ, | Not cutting the liver, bring it as a whole!
C | - - - - - tʽsáṅ-ma (or gʽáṅ-mo) kʽur-s̀og.
W | a-lu s̀u-te tub toṅ, | Peel the potatoes, and cut them in pieces!
C | kyi-u (or ḍo-ma41) s̀u-te tub-c̀ig.
| maṅ-po (or yun riṅ-mo) ma gor. | Don’t tarry much! [91]
W | gyog-pa (C gyog-po, gyō-po) s̀og. | Come soon!
W | ma j̀ed42, | 1. Do not forget! 2. (I) did not forget.
C | ma j̀ĕʼ.
W | yid-la zum43 tʽub-ba, | Can you remember it (bear it in mind)?
C | sem-la ṅē tʽub-ba.
W | yid-la zum gos (gō̤), | You must bear it in mind, (make it certain).
C | ṅē-pa j̀ʽĕʼ gō̤.
| naṅ-du soṅ; naṅ-du s̀og. | Go in! Come in!
W | naṅ-du kyod44, | Go (or come) in, sir!
C | naṅ-du pʽeb.
W | dod45, C däʼ. | Sit down!
| z̀ug46. | Please sit down, sir!

[92]

[Contents]

Reading Exercise.

The Story of Yug-pa-c̀an the Brahman47.

༄༅ ༎ཡུལ་ཞིག་48ན་49བྲམ་ཟེ་དབྱུག་པ་ཅན་ཞེས་བྱ་བ་50ཞིག༌འདུག་51སྟེ52། རབ་ཏུ་དབུལ་འཕོངས་པ་བཟའ་བ་དང༌། བགོ་བ་མེད་པ་53ཞིག་གོ54། དེས་ཁྱིམ་བདག་ཅིག་ལས་55བ་གླང་ཞིག་བརྙས་ཏེ། ཉིན་པར་སྤྱད་ནས་བ་གླང་དེ་ཁྲིད་དེ་ཁྱིམ་བདག་དེའི་ཁྱིམ་དུ་སོང་བ་དང༌། དེ་ན་56ཁྱིམ་བདག་ནི་ཟན་ཟ་སྟེ། དབྱུག་པ་ཅན་གྱིས་བ་གླང་དེ་ཁྱིམ་གྱི་ནང་དུ་བཏང་57བ་དང༌། བ་གླང་སྒོ་གཞན་དུ་སོང་ནས་སྟོར་རོ༎ ཁྱིམ་བདག་དེ་ཟན་དེ་ཟོས་ནས་ལངས་58པ་དང༌། དེ་ན་བ་གླང་མ་མཐོང་ནས་དེས་དབྱུག་པ་ཅན་ལ་གླང་ག་རེ་ཞེས་བྱས་པ་59དང༌། ཏེས་[93]སྨྲས་པ། ཁྱོད་ཀྱི་ཁྱིམ་དུ་བཏང་ངོ༌། །ཁྱོད་ཀྱིས་ངའི་གླང་བོར་གྱིས་60སློར་བྱིན་ཅིག་61ཅེས་སྨྲས་པ་དང༌། དེས་སྨྲས་པ། ངས་མ་བོར་རོ༎ དེ་ནས་དེ་གཉིས་འགྲོགས་ཏེ། རྒྱལ་པོའི་ཐད་དུ་འདོང་བ་དང༌། འུ་བུ་ཅག་གི་རིགས་པ་དང་མི་རིགས་པ་རྟོག་པར་འགྱུར་རོ་62ཞེས་སྨྲས་ནས་དེ་གཉིས་དོང་བ་དང༌། མི་གཞན་ཞིག་གི་རྟ་རྒོད་མ་ཞིག་བྲོས་ནས། དེས་དབྱུག་པ་ཅན་ལ་སྨྲས་པ། རྒོད་མ་མ་བཏང་63ཞེས་སྨྲས་པ་དང༌། དེས་རྡོ་ཞིག་བླངས་64ཏེ་འཕངས་65པ་དང་རྟའི་རྐང་པ་ལ་ཕོག་ནས་རྐང་པ་བཅག་66གོ །དེས་སྨྲས་པ། ཁྱོད་ཀྱིས་ངའི་རྟ་བསད་ཀྱིས་67ངའི་རྟ་བྱིན་ཅིག །ཅིའི་ཕྱིར་རྟ་སྦྱིན། དེས་སྨྲས་པ་ཚུར་ཤོག །རྒྱལ་པོའི་དྲུང་དུ་68འདོང་དང༌། འུ་བུ་ཅག་གི་ཞལ་ཆེ་གཅོད་དུ་འོང་ངོ་ཞེས་སྨྲས་ནས། དེ་དག་དེར་སོང་བ་དང༌། དབྱུག་པ་ཅན་དེས་འབྲོས་པར་བརྩམས་69ཏེ། དེས་70རྩིག་པ་ཞིག་གི་[94]སྟེང་ནས་71མཆོངས་པ་དང༌། དེའི་དྲུང་ན་ཐ་ག་པ་ཞིག་ཐགས་འཐག་ཅིང་འདུག་པ་དེའི་སྟེང་དུ་ལྷུང༌72ནས་ཐ་ག་པ་དེ་ཚེ་འཕོས་པ་དང༌། ཐ་ག་པའི་ཆུང་མས་དབྱུག་པ་ཅན་དེ་བཟུང༌73ནས། ཁྱོད་ཀྱིས་ངའི་ཁྱོ་བསད་ཀྱིས་ངའི་ཁྱོ་བྱིན་ཞིག་ཅེས་སྨྲས་པ་དང༌། ངས་ཁྱོད་ཀྱི་ཁྱོ་ཅི་ལྟར་74སྦྱིན་ཞེས་སྨྲས་ནས། ཚུར་ཤོག་རྒྱལ་པོའི་དྲུང་དུ་འདོང་ངོ༌༎ དེས་འུ་བུ་ཅག་གི་ཞལ་ཅེ་གཅད་དོ་ཞེས་དོང་བ་ལས།75 ལམ་གྱི་བར་ན་ཆུ་བོ་གཏིང་ཟབ་པོ་76ཞིག་ཡོད་དེ། ཆུ་དེའི་ནང་ནས་ཚུར་77ཤང་མཁན་78ཞིག་སྟེའུ་ཁ་ན་འཁྱེར་ཏེ་འོང་ངོ༌། །དེ་ལ་དབྱུག་པ་ཅན་གྱིས་ཆུའི་གཏིང་ཅི་ཙམ་ཞེས་དྲིས་79པ་དང༌། ཆུའི་གཏིང་ཟབ་བོ་80ཞེས་སྨྲས་པས་81སྟེའུ་ཆུར་ལྷུང་སྟེ། སྟེའུ་མ་རྙེད་པ་དང༌། དེས་དབྱུག་པ་ཅན་བཟུང་ནས། ཁྱོད་ཀྱིས་ངའི་སྟེའུ་ཆུར་བསྐྱུར་རོ82༎ དེས་སྨྲས་པ་ངས་མ་བསྐྱུར་ཏོ། །ཚུར་ཤོག་རྒྱལ་པོའི་དྲུང་དུ་འདོང་དང༌། དེས་འུ་བུ་ཅག་གི་ཞལ་ཆེ་གཅད་དོ་ཞེས་སྨྲས་ནས་དོང་[95]ངོ༌། །དེ་དག་སོང་བ་ལས་83 རྒྱལ་པོའི་དྲུང་དུ་ཕྱིན་པ་དང༌། དེ་དག་རྒྱལ་པོའི་རྐང་པ་ལ་མགོ་བོས་ཕྱག་འཚལ་ཏེ། ཕྱོགས་གཅིག་ཏུ་འདུག་གོ84 །དེ་ནས་རྒྱལ་པོས་དེ་དག་ལ་ཁྱོད་ཅི་ལ་འོངས་ཤེས་དྲིས་པ་དང༌། དེ་དག་གིས་དབྱུག་པ་ཅན་དང་ཁྱིམ་བདག་རྩོད་པ་85དེ་དག་ཐམས་ཅད་སྨྲས་སོ། །རྒྱལ་པོས་དབྱུག་པ་ཅན་ལ་སྨྲས་པ། ཁྱོད་ཀྱིས་གླང་བརྙས་སམ། །བརྙས་སོ། །འོ་ན་ཕྱིར་བྱིན་ནམ༎ བདག་གིས་མཐོང་བར་86བྱིན་ཏེ། ཁས་87ནི་མ་བཏང་ངོ༌། །རྒྱལ་པོས་སྨྲས་པ། དབྱུག་པ་ཅན་དེས་གླང་ཕྱིར་བྱིན་ཏེ་མ་སྨྲས་པས་ན88། ལྕེ་ཆོད་ཅིག །ཁྱིམ་བདག་ཀྱང་གླང་འོངས་པར་89མཐོང་ལ་90མ་བཏགས་91པས་ནི། མིག་ཕྱུང་92ཞིག་ཅེས་བརྗོད་དོ། །ཁྱིམ་བདག་གིས་སྨྲས་པ། དབྱུག་པ་ཅན་གྱིས་གཅིག་ཏུ་93ནི་བདག་གི་94གླང་[96]ཕྲོགས། གཉིས་སུ་95བདག་གི་མིག་ཕྱུང་བ་བས96 དབྱུག་པ་ཅན་རྒྱལ་བར་འགྱུར་ཡང་བླའོ97། མི་གཅིག་གིས་ལྷ98། དབྱུག་པ་ཅན་གྱིས་བདག་གི་རྟ་རྒོད་མ་བཀུམ་99མོ་ཞེས་སྨྲས་པ་དང༌། རྒྱལ་པོས་དབྱུག་པ་ཅན་ལ་ཁྱོད་ཀྱིས་རྟ་ཅི་ལྟར་བསད་ཅེས་དྲིས་ནས། །བདག་ལམ་དུ་ཞུགས་100ཏེ་མཆིས་པ་ལས། མི་འདིས་རྟ་མ་བཏང་ཞེས་མཆི་101བ་ལས། བདག་གིས་རྟོ་ཞིག་བླངས་ཏེ། འཕངས་པ་ལ་102རྟ་བཀུམ་མོ། །རྒྱལ་པོས་སྨྲས་པ། རྟ་བདག་གིས་རྟ་མ་བཏང་ཞེས་སྨྲས་པས་ལྕེ་ཆོད་ཅིག །དབྱུག་པ་ཅན་ནི་103རྡོ་འཕངས་པས་ལག་པ་ཆོད་ཅིག །མི་དེས་སྨྲས་པ། གཅིག་ཏུ་བདག་གི་རྟ་བསད། གཉིས་སུ་བདག་གི་ལྕེ་གཅད་པ་བས། དབྱུག་པ་ཅན་རྒྱལ་བར་འགྱུར་ཀྱང་བླའོ། །ཐ་ག་པའི་ཆུང་མས་སྨྲས་པ། དབྱུག་པ་ཅན་[97]གྱིས་བདག་གི་ཁྱོ་བཀུམ་མོ། །དབྱུག་པ་ཅན་གྱིས་སྨྲས་པ། བདག་ལ་དགྲ་མངས་པས་104འཇིགས་ཏེ་རྩིགས་པ་ལས་བརྒལ་ནས་བྲོས་པ་ལས། ཕག་ན་མི་ཡོད་པ་105མ་མཐོང་སྟེ་གུམ་མོ། །རྒྱལ་པོས་སྨྲས་པ། སོང་ལ་106འདི་ཉིད་107ཀྱི་ཁྱོ་གྱིས་108ཤིག །དེས་སྨྲས་པ། གཅིག་ཏུ་བདག་གི་ཁྱོ་བསད། གཉིས་སུ་འདི་ཁྱོ་བྱས་པ་བས109། དབྱུག་པ་ཅན་རྒྱལ་པར་འགྱུར་ཀྱང་བླའོ། །ཤིང་མཁན་གྱིས་སྨྲས་པ། དབྱུག་པ་ཅན་དེ་110བདག་ལ་ཆུའི་གཏིང་ཅེ་ཙམ་ཞེས་དྲིས་པས། ཁ་ནས་སྟེའུ་ཐོགས་པ་111ཆུར་ལྷུང་ངོ༌། །རྒྱལ་པོས་སྨྲས་པ། རྫ་ཇི་ཁྱེར་ཡང་ཕྲག་པ་ལ་བཀུར་བའི་རིགས་ཀྱི་112ཁ་ན་ཁྱེར་བས། ཤིང་མཁན་གྱི་མ་དུན་སོ་གཉིས་ཆོག་ཅིག །དབྱུག་པ་ཅན་ནི་ཆུའི་གཏིང་ཟབ་བམ་ཞེས་པས་113ལྕེ་ཆོད་ཅིག །ཤིང་མཁན་གྱིས་སྨྲས་པ། [98]གཅིག་ཏུ་བདག་གི་སྟེའུ་སྟོར། གཉིས་སུ་བདག་གི་སོ་བཅག་པ་བས། དབྱུག་པ་ཅན་རྒྱལ་བར་འགྱུར་ཀྱང་བླའོ། །དེ་དག་སོ་སོ་ནས་114ཞལ་ཆེ་བཅད་དེ། དབྱུག་པ་ཅན་ཉེས་པ་ཀུན་ལས་ཐར་རོ༎   ༎ [99] [Contents]

A list of the more frequent verbs115.

a) Four-rooted verbs.

Pres. | Perf. | Fut. | Imperv. | | WT
འགེགས་པ་ | བཀག་ | དགག་ | ཁོག་ | stop, hinder. | kag-c̀e
འགེངས་པ་ | བཀང་ | དགང་ | ཁོང་ | fill. | kaṅ-c̀e
འགེལ་བ་ | བཀལ་ | དགལ་ | ཁོལ་ | lade, put on … | kal-c̀e

གཅོད་པ་

བཅད་

གཅད་

ཆོད་

cut.

c̀ad-c̀e
imprv. c̀od

འཆིང་བ་ | བཅིངས་ | བཅིང་ | ཆིང་ | tie, bind. |

འཆོ་བ་

བཅོ(ས)༌

བཅོ་

ཆོས་

make.

c̀o-c̀e
pf. and imp. c̀os

འཆོས་པ་
འཇིག་པ་ | (བ)ཤིག་ | གཞིག་ | ཤིགས་ | destroy. | s̀ig-c̀e
འཇུག་པ་ | བཅུག་ | གཞུག་ | ཆུག་ | put in. | c̀ʽug-c̀e
འཇོག་པ་ | བཞག་ | གཞག་ | ཞོག་ | put, place. | (C: z̀ag-pa)
འཇོག་པ་ | བཞོགས་ | གཞོག་ | ཞོག་ | cut. | z̀og-c̀e

གཏོང་བ་

བཏང་

གཏང་

ཐོང་

give.

taṅ-c̀e
imp. toṅ

ལྟ་བ་ | བལྟས་ | བལྟ་ | ལྟོས་ | look. | (l)ta-c̀e [100]
འདེགས་པ་ | བཏེག་ | གདེགས་ | ཐེག་ | lift; weigh. | tag-c̀e imp. tog
འདེབས་པ་ | བཏབ་ | གདབ་ | ཐོབ་ | throw. | tab-c̀e imp. tob
འདོགས་པ་ | བཏགས་ | གདགས་ | ཐོགས་ | tie, bind. | tag-c̀e imp. tog, tag toṅ

འདོན་པ་

བཏོན་

གདོན་

ཐོན་

get, drive, out.

ton-c̀e
always for འབྱིན་པ་

འཕེན་པ་ | འཕངས་ | འཕང་ | ཕོང་ | throw, hurt. | pʽaṅ-c̀e
བྱེད་པ་ | བྱས་ | བྱ་ | བྱོས་ | do, make. | for it c̀o-c̀e
འབེབས་པ་ | ཕབ་ | དབབ་ | ཕོབ་ | bring, let, down. | pʽab-c̀e
འཚག་པ་ | | འཚགས་ | | བཙག་ | ཚོག་ | filter, sift. | tʽsag-c̀e
བཙགས་
འཚོང་བ་ | བཙོངས་ | བཙོང་ | ཚོང་ | sell. | tsoṅ-c̀e
འཛིན་པ་ | གཟུང་, ཟིན་ | གཟུང་ | ཟུང་ | seize. | zum-c̀e
ལེན་པ་ | བླངས་ | བླང་ | ལོང(ས)༌, ལོན་ | take. | len-c̀e, laṅ-c̀e
སློབ་པ་ | བསླབ(ས)༌ | བསླབ་ | སློབ་ | learn; teach. | lab-c̀e

b) Three-rooted verbs.

Pres. | Perf. | Fut. | Imperv. | | WT
འཁུར་བ་ | བཀུར་ | | ཁུར་ | carry. | kʽur-c̀e
འཁྱོང་བ་ | ཁྱོངས་ | | ཁྱོང་ | bring. | kʽyoṅ-c̀e for འཁྱེར་བ་ [101]
རྒྱབ་པ་ | བརྒྱབ་ | | རྒྱོབ་ | throw, cast. | gyab-c̀e imp. gyob for འདེབས་པ་
རྒྱུག་པ་ | (བ)རྒྱུག(ས)༌ | | རྒྱུག་ | run. | gyug-c̀e
གཅོག་པ་ | བཅག་ | | ཆོག་ | break. | c̀ag-c̀e, imp. c̀og
འཆད་པ་ | བཤད་ | | ཤོད་ | tell, explain. | s̀ad-c̀e
རྟེན་པ་ | བརྟེན་ | | རྟོན་ | hold. | ten-c̀e

འདྲེན་པ་

དྲང་

དྲོངས་

draw.

to lead: ran-c̀e
to remove: ḍeṅ-c̀e

འབབ་པ་ | བབ(ས)༌ | | བོབ(ས)༌ | descend. |
འབུད་པ་ | ཕུ(ས)༌ | དབུ་ | ཕུས་ | blow (act.). | pʽu-c̀e
འབུད་པ་ | ཕུད་ | དབུད་ | ཕུད་ | put off, drop (act.). | pʽud-c̀e
འབྱིན་པ་ | ཕྱུང་ | དབྱུང་ | ཕྱུང་ | take, pull out. | pʽin-c̀e
འབྱེད་པ་ | ཕྱེ(ས)༌ | དབྱེ་ | ཕྱེ(ས)༌ | open (act.). | pʽe-c̀e, imp. pʽe(s).
སྨྲ་བ་ | སྨྲས་ | | སྨྲོས་ | say. | s. ཟེར་བ་
ལང་བ་ | ལངས་ | | ལོང་ | rise. | laṅ-c̀e

c) Two-rooted verbs.

Pres. | Perf. | Imperv. | | WT
སྐྱེ་བ་ | སྐྱེས་ | | be born. | skye-c̀e
སྐྱེད་པ་ | བསྐྱེད་ | | bear, beget. | skye-c̀e
འཁྱེར་བ་ | ཁྱེར་ | ཁྱེར་ | carry. | kʽyer-c̀e [102]
འགྱུར་བ་ | གྱུར་ | གྱུར་ | become. | gyur-c̀e

འགྲོ་བ་

སོང་

སོང་

go; become.
[only in certain sentences.

ḍo-c̀e

སྒྱུར་བ་ | བསྒྱུར་ | སྒྱུར་ | alter. | gyur-c̀e
ངུ་བ་ | ངུས་ | | weep. | ṅu-c̀e
འཆི་བ་ | ཤི་ | | die. | s̀i-c̀e
འཆོར་བ་ | ཤོར་ | | flee. | s̀or-c̀e
འཇུག་པ་ | ཞུགས་ | ཞུགས་ | enter. | z̀ug-c̀e
ཉོ་བ་ | ཉོས་ | | buy. | ño-c̀e
སྡོད་པ་ | བསྡད་ | སྡོད་ | sit; stay. | dad-c̀e imp. dod
འཕེལ་བ་ | ཕེལ་ | | increase (neutr.) | pʽel-c̀e
བླུག་པ་ | བླུག(ས)༌ | བླུག(ས)༌ | pour. | lug-c̀e
འབུད་པ་ | བུད་ | | blow (neutr.) | pʽu-c̀e
འབོད་པ་ | བོས་ | བོས་ | call. | bo-c̀e, imp. bos (boi, bō̤).
འབྱུང་བ་ | བྱུང་ | | appear, originate. | j̀uṅ-c̀e
མྱོང་བ་ | མྱང་ | | enjoy. | ñaṅ-c̀e
རྩིག་པ་ | བརྩིགས་ | བརྩིགས་ | build up. | tsig-c̀e
ཞུ་བ་ | ཞུས་ | ཞུས་ | ask. | z̀u-c̀e (j̀u-c̀e)
སླེབ་པ་ | བསླེབས་ | | arrive. | leb-c̀e

[103]

d) One-rooted verbs.

| | | WT
དགའ་བ་ | be glad, to like. | Ld. | γa-c̀e, W besides འཐད་པ་
འགྲིལ་བ་ | fall, drop. | | ḍil-c̀e, also འདྲིལ་(བ་)
མཆོང་བ་, མཆོངས་པ་ | leap, jump. | | c̀ʽoṅ-c̀e
ཉལ་བ་ | lie down. | | ñal-c̀e
ཐུག་པ་ | meet. | | tʽug-c̀e
ཐུབ་པ་ | be able. | | tʽub-c̀e
ཐོབ་པ་ | find, get. | | tʽob-c̀e
ཐོས་པ་ | hear. | | (tʽsor-c̀e)
མཐོང་བ་ | see. | | tʽoṅ-c̀e
འཐད་པ་ | be glad, to like. | | tʽad-c̀e, nearly always for དགའ་བ་ and འདོད་པ་
འཐོན་པ་ | come out, go out. | | tʽon-c̀e, usual for འབྱུང་བ་
འདོད་པ་ | wish, like, desire. | | rare.
ནུས་པ་ | be able. | s. | ཐུབ་པ་
གནས་པ་ | stay, dwell, remain. | | nas (nai, nā̤)-c̀e, but usually: dad-c̀e
འབར་བ་ | burn. | | bar-c̀e
ཚོར་བ་ | perceive. | | tʽsor-c̀e, and usual for ཐོས་པ་
མཛད་པ་ | do, make (resp.). | | dzad-c̀e, imp. dzod. [104]
ཟེར་བ་ | say. | | zer-c̀e, usual for སྨྲ་བ་
ལུས་པ་ | remain, be left. | | lus-c̀e
ལོག་པ་ | turn back, return. | | log-c̀e
ཤེས་པ་ | know. | | s̀es (s̀ē)-c̀e
(ཧ་)གོ་བ་ | understand. | | há-go-c̀e

1 སུའི་ ↑

2 The numbers refer to the notes at the end of the collection, exhibiting the spelling of some of the words that are most disfigured in pronunciation. ↑

3 vulgar supine 41, Note 1. ↑

4 བྲེལ་བ་ ↑

5 སྨན་ ↑

6 སྩལ་ ↑

7 གནང་ ↑

8 གཟུག་ ↑

9 རྒྱག་ ↑

10 གཏོང་ ↑

11 གྲོད་ ↑

12 ག་འདྲས་ ↑

13 འཁྲུ་ ↑

14 གནང་ ↑

15 བཞག་ ↑

16 འབེབས་པ་ iprv. ↑

17 ཟངས་ ↑

18 རྒས་ ↑

19 འབུད་པ་ iprv. ↑

20 གྲང་མོ་ ↑

21 དཀར་ཡོལ་ ↑

22 འགྲོ་ ↑

23 གསོལ་ལྕོག་ ↑

24 འཕྲལ་འགྲིག་ ↑

25 བཏིང་ prf. of འདིང་བ་ ↑

26 བཀང་ prf. of འགེངས་པ་ ↑

27 དཀར་གཡའ་ ↑

28 སྦྱར་ prf. of སྦྱོར་བ་ ↑

29 མགར་བའི་ ↑

30 རྩར་ ↑

31 བསྐྱལ་ prf. of སྐྱེལ་བ་ ↑

32 གསུང་ ↑

33 འཕང་ iprv. of འཕེན་པ་ ↑

34 བཅུག་ prf. of འཇུག་པ་ ↑

35 འགྲིམ་ ↑

36 གནན་ ↑

37 འབྲས་ ↑

38 དཀྲི་ ↑

39 མཆིན་པ་ ↑

40 བཏུབ་ prf. of འཐུབ་པ་ ↑

41 གྲོ་མ་ ↑

42 རྗེད་ ↑

43 ཟུམ་ i.o. བཟུང་ from འཛིན་པ་ ↑

44 སྐྱོད་ ↑

45 སྡོད་ ↑

46 བཞུགས་ ↑

47 From the Dzaṅ-lun (མཛངས་བླུན་). ↑

48 13. ↑

49 15, 5. ↑

50 བྱེད་པ་, perf. བྱས་, fut. བྱ་, iv. བྱོས་ ‘to make, do’, in some cases: ‘to say, call’, ཞེས་བྱ་བ་ ‘so to be called, so called’.—དབྱུག་པ་ཅན་ is a translation of the Sanscrit name दण्डिन्‌. ↑

51 40. 1. c. ↑

52 41. A. 1. ↑

53 40. 1. b and 47. 3. b. ↑

54 34. 1. and 40. 1. g. ↑

55 15. 5. ↑

56 42. 3. ↑

57 perf. of གཏོང་བ་ ‘to give; to send, let go’. ↑

58 perf. of ལང་བ་ ‘to rise’. ↑

59 s. 50). ↑

60 41. A. 7. ↑

61 imp. of སྦྱིན་པ་ ‘to give’, སླར༌༌༌ ‘to return’. ↑

62 37. 2. ↑

63 གཏོང་བ་ s. 57); ‘don’t let pass’; 38. 2. ↑

64 perf. of ལེན་པ་ ‘take, seize’. ↑

65 perf. of འཕེན་པ་ ‘to throw, fling’. ↑

66 perf. of གཅོག་པ་ ‘to break’. ↑

67 s. 60). ↑

68 43. 2. ↑

69 perf. of རྩོམ་པ་ ‘to prepare, purpose’. ↑

70 rule 30. is not always strictly observed. ↑

71 43. 2. ↑

72 perf. of ལྟུང་བ་ ‘to fall’. ↑

73 perf. of འཛིན་པ་ ‘to seize’. ↑

74 43. 2. b. ↑

75 41. A. 6. b; ཞེས་ = ཞེས་སྨྲས་ནས་. ↑

76 49. ↑

77 ‘from the inner (i.e. other) to this’, ‘across’. ↑

78 carpenter (lit. ‘lakṛiwālā’, cf. 12. 1.). ↑

79 perf. of འདྲི་བ་ ‘to ask’. ↑

80 40. 1. g. ↑

81 41. A. 8. ↑

82 perf. of སྐྱུར་བ་ ‘to throw down’. ↑

83 s. 75). ↑

84 ‘sat down’. ↑

85 if the verb is in the infv., the subject is usually put in the accus., when we use the genitive. ↑

86 ‘returning it so that the owner saw it’; 41. B. 2. b. ↑

87 ‘I did not return it with the mouth i.e. by saying anything’. ↑

88 ‘because (41. A. 8) that Yugp. did not say it (viz: I give back)’. ↑

89 41. B. 2. a. ↑

90 41. A. 5. ↑

91 perf. of འདོགས་པ་ ‘to tie, fasten’. ↑

92 impv. of འབྱིན་པ་ ‘to take out, pull out’ etc. ↑

93 ‘firstly’, less frequent and somewhat different from དང་པོར་ (22). ↑

94 ‘my’ (24). ↑

95 ‘secondly’. ↑

96 17. 1. ↑

97 ‘it is better that Y. should be the winner, than that besides having been robbed of my ox, I should lose my eyes into the bargain’. ↑

98 ‘another said: O god! etc.’ (ལྷ་ used in addressing a king like Sanscr. देव). ↑

99 perf. of འགུམ་པ་ ‘to kill’; འགུམ་པ་ ‘to die’ has perf. གུམ་; an elegant word (24, Note). ↑

100 perf. of འཇུག་པ་ ‘to enter’. ↑

101 མཆི་བ་, perf. མཆིས་ ‘to go, walk’; eleg. ‘to say’. ↑

102 41. A. 5. b. ↑

103 Nomin. for Instrum., s. 30 fin. ↑

104 perf. of མང་བ་ ‘to be much, many; to become m.’. ↑

105 partic., ‘that a man was concealed (behind it)’. ↑

106 41. A. 5. ↑

107 27. 1. ↑

108 imper. of བགྱིད་པ་ eleg. for བྱེད་པ་; ‘go and make the husband of this same (woman)’. ↑

109 ‘than that he should be (my) husband’. ↑

110 s. 103). ↑

111 partic., ‘the axe which I held from (i.e. with) my mouth’. ↑

112 40. 3 ‘whatever things be carried, it being right to carry them on the shoulder’. ↑

113 for ཞེས་སྨྲས་པས། s. 75). ↑

114 ༌༌སོ་སོ་ ‘different, several’, ༌༌ནས་—‘separately, each for himself’. ↑

115 They are here arranged according to the number of the roots, though these are in many instances, not so strictly observed, even in printed books, as they ought to be. It should especially be remarked that the mute ས་ in the perf. and imp. is in most cases either put or omitted very arbitrarily. ↑

Colophon

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Metadata

Title: | Tibetan Grammar |
Author: | Heinrich August Jäschke (1817–1883) | Info https://viaf.org/viaf/61583153/
Editor: | Heinrich Wenzel (1855–1893) | Info https://viaf.org/viaf/34630954/
File generation date: | 2022-10-22 21:02:37 UTC |
Language: | English |
Original publication date: | 1883 |

Revision History

- 2021-09-25 Started.

External References

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Page | URL
N.A. | http://www.buddism.ru/YagpoFont/
N.A. | https://omkarananda-ashram.org/Sanskrit/itranslator2003.htm#dls
N.A. | https://software.sil.org/awami/
N.A. | https://software.sil.org/scheherazade/

Corrections

The following corrections have been applied to the text:

Page | Source | Correction | Edit distance
N.A. | 24 | 20 | 1
N.A. | 26 | 27 | 1
N.A. | 27 | 3 | 2
N.A. | neutre | neuter | 2
1 | S̀ron-tsan-gam-po | Sroṅ-tsan-gam-po | 2 / 0
2 | speak | say | 3
Passim. | [Not in source] | . | 1
3 | in | at | 2
4 | respectivily | respectively | 1
4 | whom | which | 3
4 | [Not in source] | under | 6
4 | همرنة | همزة | 2
4 | exercion | exertion | 1
4 | to | [Deleted] | 3
5 | componend | component | 1
5 | down | [Deleted] | 5
5, 13 | preceeding | preceding | 1
6, 48 | dissappears | disappears | 1
6 | སྙེམ་པ་ | སྙེན་པ་ | 1
6 | Dipthongs | Diphthongs | 1
7 | conjunction | succession | 8
7 | either | each | 4
7 | Subjoined | Subscribed | 4
7 | བྱ | བྱ་ | 1
8 | food | foot | 1
8 | subjoined | subscribed | 4
8 | homonymes | homonyms | 1
8, 19, 55, 75 | [Not in source] | ) | 1
8 | lauguage | language | 1
8 | above | over | 3
8 | contonants | consonants | 1
9 | ease | case | 1
10 | judgement | judgment | 1
10, 16, 21, 22, 44, 44, 61, 78, 92, 96 | [Not in source] | , | 1
10 | ḍan-po | ḍaṅ-po | 1 / 0
11 | W.T | WT | 1
11 | | .) | 2
11, 11 | C.T. | CT | 2
11 | [Not in source] | 1. | 3
11 | excepted | except | 2
12, 58 | is | it | 1
13 | for denoting | to denote | 5
13 | ལག ཤུབས་ | ལག་ཤུབས་ | 1
13 | W.T. | WT | 2
14 | exlamation | exclamation | 1
14 | , | . | 1
16 | [Not in source] | པ་ | 2
18 | སེང་གེ་མོ | སེང་གེ་མོ་ | 1
18, 19, 33, 36, 46 | , | [Deleted] | 1
20 | indisriminately | indiscriminately | 1
20 | thrown out | superseded | 10
20 | Bus | But | 1
21 | add | adds | 1
21 | an | a | 1
23 | movement | motion | 5
23 | consonontal | consonantal | 1
23, 90 | lū | lṳ̄ | 2 / 0
25 | Tsan | Tsaṅ | 1 / 0
25, 26, 31, 43, 50 | [Not in source] | ‘ | 1
25, 26, 31, 44, 47, 50, 63, 74, 96 | [Not in source] | ’ | 1
26 | endings | terminations | 8
26 | preceeds | precedes | 2
26 | سى | سے | 1
27 | that | than | 1
30 | go c̀íg | go-c̀íg | 1
31 | 21. | 21st | 2
32 | སྟོང་ཕྲག་ཉི་ཤུ | སྟོང་ཕྲག་ཉི་ཤུ་ | 1
33 | so | to | 1
34 | letter writing | letter-writing | 1
36 | notions | terms | 5
36 | [Not in source] | and | 4
36 | himself in his own speech | speaking of himself | 19
38 | gh. | ghaṅ | 2
38 | und | and | 1
39 | way | may | 1
40, 103 | verb | verbs | 1
40, 40 | neutral | neuter | 3
40 | [Not in source] | an | 3
41 | shape | form | 5
41 | shapes | forms | 5
41 | likes | prefers | 5
42 | Perfet | Perfect | 1
42 | acknowledges | recognises | 9
43 | and | or | 3
43 | notion | idea | 6
45 | [Not in source] | the | 4
46 | always will | will always | 10
46 | te | to | 1
47 | bit | bitten | 3
50 | . | , | 1
51 | synonymes | synonyms | 1
52 | replaces | expresses | 6
53 | fouud | found | 1
53 | notion, opposite | sense, opposed | 9
55 | appendices | affixes | 6
55 | ས | ས་ | 1
55 | དེ | དེ་ | 1
55 | མ | མ་ | 1
56 | kings-place | king’s-place | 1
60 | [Not in source] | 1. | 2
61 | kings | king’s | 1
61 | .’ | ’. | 2
62 | ; | , | 1
63 | sent | send | 1
64 | intented | intended | 1
66 | principal | principally | 2
73 | , | : | 1
76 | 40. 1. A. 4 | 41. A. 4 | 3
85 | [Not in source] | “ | 1
85 | ’ | ” | 1
86 | gʽan | gʽaṅ | 1 / 0
92, 100 | [Not in source] | ༌ | 1
94 | 41. 6. b | 41. A. 6. b | 3

Abbreviations

Overview of abbreviations used.

Abbreviation | Expansion
f.i. | for instance
i.o. | instead of

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Table of Contents

- Transcriber’s Note.

- TRÜBNER’S COLLECTION OF SIMPLIFIED GRAMMARS OF THE PRINCIPAL ASIATIC AND EUROPEAN LANGUAGES.

- Preface.

- Abbreviations.

- Contents.

- Errata.

- Part I. Phonology.

- Examples.

- Examples.

- A list of a few useful words.

- Part II. Etymology.

- Chapter I. The Article.

- Chapter II. The Substantive.

- Chapter III. The Adjective.

- Chapter IV. The Numerals.

- Chapter V. Pronouns.

- Chapter VI. The Verb.

- A Survey of the principal forms of the Finite Verb.

- Chapter VII. The Adverb.

- Chapter VIII. The Postposition.

- Chapter IX. The Conjunction.

- Chapter X. The Interjection.

- Chapter XI. Derivation.

- Part III. Syntax.

- Appendix.

- A collection of phrases from daily life, in the modern dialects, romanized.

- Reading Exercise.

- A list of the more frequent verbs115.

- Colophon

- Availability
- Metadata
- Revision History
- External References
- Corrections
- Abbreviations

- THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE