Dzongkha/Grammar

Parts of Speech

Noun (མིང་)

Nouns in Dzongkha will use the tag <n>.

Common Noun

Common nouns in Dzongkha will use the tag <cl1>. Nothing remarkable, just the good'ol simple nouns.

• ཁྱིམ<n><cl1> ("house")
• མེ་ཏོག<n><cl1> ("flower")

Gendered Noun

Gendered nouns in Dzongkha have different forms for male and female. These will use the tag <cl2>, with <f> and <m> added to denote gender. The default neutral noun is male.

• གཡག <n><cl2><f> ↔ འབྱི ("Yak")
• བ <n><cl2><f> ↔ གླང ("Ox")

Honorific Noun

Honorific nouns in Dzongkha are used when the original form is deemed unappropriate in terms of politeness in a certain conversation. These will use the tag <cl3>.

• ལུས་ <n><cl3> ↔ སྐུ ("Body")
• མགུ་ཏོ <n><cl3> ↔ དབུ ("Head")

Verb (བྱ་ཚིག་)

Standard, or "lexical" verbs in Dzongkha will use the tag <v>, which is shortened from <vblex>. The bare stem of any verb, by itself, is a steady state present tense, using the tag <stpr>. There exist two unique verb classes of interest, which are listed below.

Modal Verb

Modal verbs in Dzongkha will use the tag <vbmod>.

"To be" Verb

"To be" verbs in Dzongkha will use the tag <vbser>.

Auxiliary Verb

Auxiliary verbs in Dzongkha will use the tag <vaux>.

Adjective (ཁྱད་ཚིག་)

Adjectives in Dzongkha will use the tag <adj>.

Adverb

Adverbs in Dzongkha will use the tag <adv>.

Pronouns

Pronouns in Dzongkha will use the tag <prn>.

Postposition

Postpositions in Dzongkha will use the tag <post>.

Numeral

Numerals in Dzongkha will use the tag <num>.

Determiner

Determiners in Dzongkha will use the tag <det>.