Dzongkha and English/Lexical Selection

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dzo → eng

Case I

མཐུ་ → bewitchment/black magic, power

Example sentences:

Dzongkha Sentence English Translation
ཁོ་གི་མཐུ་རྐྱབ་འོང་ He might do black magic.
སྨན་གྱི་མཐུ The power of medicine.
  • Generalization rule: མཐུ་/black magic is usually followed by closely related words like casting(do), spell, witchcraft. If a word that is closely related to this meaning is near མཐུ་, it will be realized as black magic. Else, by default it would be realized as power.

Case II

ཕྱག་ → honorific of hand, prostrate

Example sentences:

Dzongkha Sentence English Translation
ཕྱག་འཚལ་གེ་ Let (us) prostrate.
ཕྱག་ལས་གནང་ Bestowed from (their) hand.
  • Generalization rule: ཕྱག་/hand belongs to the the subcategory <hn> in <n>, so it is only realized when a word that falls in the "honorific" category is within 2 cohorts of ཕྱག་. Else, it will be realized as ཕྱག་/prostrate.

Case III

འཐེན་ → verbal message, pull

Example sentences:

Dzongkha Sentence English Translation
ཞབས་ཁྲ་འཐེན་ནི་ (We) will sing.
ཐགཔ་འཐེན་ནི་ (We) will pull the rope.
  • Generalization rule: འཐེན་/pull is realized their exists an object of the sentence and falls in the "pull-able" category. འཐེན་/sing is realized otherwise.