Revision as of 16:55, 11 February 2018

Standard Tibetan Conventions

Each consonant in Standard Tibetan implicitly carries a vowel along with it. By convention, each consonant carries an «a» with it. To add an «e», «i» or «o» after a consonant, one simply adds an accent over a consonant; to add a «u» after a consonant, one adds an accent below the consonant. The Tibetan consonants are shown below.

On this page, I have given examples of Tibetan morphology. In general, Morphology is concerned with how words are formed in a language.

Tibetan Gender

Many nouns in Tibetan have masculine and feminine cases. In general, this is indicated by variation in a servile participle. However, such an affix does not always mean that a noun is gendered. For example, many substantive terms contain the suffix «mo», which is often but not always used to indicate that a noun is feminine. For example, each of the following nouns use the «mo» suffix to indicate a feminine noun.

• པུ་ཙ་ (Pu-tsa)<n><f> ↔ པུ་མོ (Pu-mo) ("boy" → "girl")
• ཁྱོ་པོ (Khyo-po)<n><f> ↔ ཁྱོ་མོ (Khyo-mo) ("husband" → "wife")
• ཇཔ (Jha-pa)<n><f> ↔ ཇམོ (Jha-mo) ("cock" → "hen")
• གུཔོ (Gü-po)<n><f> ↔ གུམོ (Gü-mo) ("father-in-law" → "mother-in-law")
• ན་ཝོ (Na-wo)<n><f> ↔ ན་མོ (Na-mo) ("host" → "hostess")

Interestingly, male nouns can take on a range of suffixes, whereas female nouns consistently use the «mo» suffix.

Verbs

Infinitives

Verb tenses are expressed in two ways: either the verb root or spelling is modified or additional syllables are added to convey a different meaning. This later case can use affixes or parts of other verbs to convey the desired meaning. In English, the simplest form of a verb is its infinitive; this is not the case in Tibetan. To create an infinitive, an affix must usually be added to a given verb. In general, this participle is almost always «pa» or «wa». The suffix «pa» is added when the final letter of the root is any consonant except for «r» or «l». On the other hand, the suffix «pa» is used if the verb root ends in «r», «l» or any vowel. Some examples of this pattern are shown here:

• ལོཀ་པ (Lok-pa)<v> ↔ དོ་ཝ (Do-wa) ("to read" → "to go")
• ཉེན་པ (Nyen-pa)<v> ↔ ཇལ་ཝ (Jal-wa) ("to hear" → "to measure")
• ཛིང་པ (Dzing-pa)<v> ↔ ས་ཝ (Sa-wa) ("to fight" → "to eat")

Note how the roots of Lok-pa, Nyen-pa and Dzing-pa all end in consonants that are not «r» or «l», and so they are followed with the «pa» suffix to produce the infinitive. In the same way, the roots of Do-wa, Jal-wa and Sa-wa all end either in vowels or in «r» or «l», and so they use the suffix «wa» to produce the infinitive.

Tense

The pronoun generally indicates the tense of a verb. This structure is similar to English. The pronoun determines the "doer" of the verb, while the verb does not change.

Definite Present Tense

In the following example, observe that the verb དུང་གྷི་ཡོ (dung-ghi-yo - "beating") remains mostly unchanged, where the pronouns at the beginning of the phrases change more dramatically. This indicates a change the "doer" of the verb.

• ངརང་གྷི་དུང་གྷི་ཡོ (Ngarang-ghi dung-ghi-yo)<v><pl> ↔ ངཙོ་གྷི་དུང་གྷི་ཡོ (Ngats'o-ghi dung-ghi-yo)
  • "I am beating" → "We are beating"
• ཁྱོརང་གྷི་དུང་གྷི་དུ (Khorang-ghi dung-ghi-du)<v><pl> ↔ ཁྱོཙོ་གྷི་དུང་གྷི་དུ (Khyots'o-ghi dung-ghi-du
  • "Thou art beating" → "You are beating"
• ཁོརང་གྷི་དུང་གྷི་དུ (Khorang-ghi dung-ghi-du)<v><pl> ↔ ཁོཔཻ་དུང་གྷི་དུ (Khopai dung-ghi-du)
  • "He is beating" → "They are beating"

Present Imminent Tense

We now consider the present imminent tense with the verb གང་ཡིན (Gang-yin), which first-person, and གང་རེ (Gang-re), which is second and third-person.

• ང་དོ་ཝཻ་གང་ཡིན (Nga do-wai gang yin)<v><pl> ↔ ང་ཙོ་ཝཻ་གང་ཡིན (Nga-ts'o do-wai gang yin)
  • "I am just going" → "We are just going"
• ཁྱོ་ཙོ་ཝཻ་གང་རེ (Khyo do-wai gang re)<v><pl> ↔ ཁྱོཙོ་ཙོ་ཝཻ་གང་རེ (Khyo'ts'o do-wai gang re)
  • "Thou art just going" → "Ye are just going"
• ཁོ་དོ་ཝཻ་གང་རེ(Kho do-wai gang re)<v><pl> ↔ ཁོ་པ་དོ་ཝཻ་གང་རེ (Kho-pa do-wai gang re)
  • "He is just going" → "They are just going"

Nouns

Genitive Case

The genitive case marks possession and is translated as "of." In Tibetan, the last sound of the noun determines the genitive suffix. The following rules determine the appropriate suffixes:

• Last sound: འ་ «'a» or any vowel → suffix: འི་ «'i»
• Last sound: ག་ «'g» or ང་ «-ng» → suffix: གི་ «gi»
• Last sound: ན་ «-n», མ་ «-m», ར་ «-r» or ལ་ «-l» or any other secondary suffix (i.e. འོ «'o») → suffix: ཀྱི་ «kyi»
• Last sound: ན་ «-n», མ་ «-m», ར་ «-r» or ལ་ «-l» → suffix: གྱི་ «gyi»

Consider the following examples of the genitive case.

• ཆོས (Chos) and འཁོར་ལོ (Khro-lo) <n><gen> ↔ ཆོས་ཀྱི་འཁོར་ལོ (Chos-kyi khor-lo)
  • "Dharma" and "wheel" → "Wheel of dharma"
• ལུག (Lug) and པགས་པ (Pags-pa) <n><gen> ↔ ལུག་གི་པགས་པ (Lug-gi pags-pa)
  • "Sheep" and "skin" → "Skin of sheep" or "sheepskin"
• པི་ལིང་ཙོ (P'i-ling-ts'o) <n><gen> ↔ པི་ལིང་ཙོཨི (P'i-ling-t'soi)
  • "Englishmen" → "Of the Englishmen"

Agentive Case

The agentive is built on top of the genitive case. It is generally translated as "by." In Tibetan, the difference is represented in a suffix. The rules for which suffix to use are as follows;

• Last sound: འ་ «'a» or any vowel → suffix: ས་་ «-s»
• Last sound: ག་ «'g» or ང་ «-ng» → suffix: གིས་ «gis»
• Last sound: ན་ «-n», མ་ «-m», ར་ «-r» or ལ་ «-l» or any other secondary suffix (i.e. འོ «'o») → suffix: ཀྱིས་ «kyis»
• Last sound: ན་ «-n», མ་ «-m», ར་ «-r» or ལ་ «-l» → suffix: གྱིས་ «gyis»

Consider the following examples of the agentive case.

• ཀྱེརྨེན་ཆི (Kyermen chi)<n> ↔ ཀྱེརྨེན་ཀྱི (Kyermen kyis) ("A wife"→"By a wife")
• མབཇཧ་ཡི (Mabjha shi)<n> ↔ མབཇཧ་ཡི (Mabjha yis) ("A peacock"→"By a peacock")

Pronouns

There are three numbers for pronouns: one, two and many. Pronouns in the second and third person can also vary in a number of classes. In particular, the second person can be in one of three classes: ordinary, honorific or pejorative. On the other hand, the third person can take on three forms: ordinary, familiar (male) and familiar (female). These are enumerated below.

For example, Tibetan has the following correspondences:

• ང (Nga) <prn><pers><pl> ↔ ངན་ཚོ(Ngan-tso) ("I" → "We")
• ཁྱེ་རང (Khye-rang) <prn><pers><pl> ↔ ཐེ་རང་ཚོ (Khe-rang-tsho) ("You" → "You all")
• ཁོང (Khong) <prn><pers><pl> ↔ ཁོང་ཚོ (Khong-tsho) ("He/She" → "They")

Note that «tsho» and «tso» are sometimes interchangeable as suffixes for plural pronouns. Thus we could write ངན་ཚོ (Ngan-tsho) or ངན་ཙོ (Ngan-tso) for "we." Also, the third-person singular pronoun ཁོང (Khong) means either he or she. If one wants to refer to someone by their gender, one can use ཁོ (Kho) or ཁོ་རང (Kho-rang) for a male and མོ (Mo) or མོ་རང (Mo-rang) for a female.