Dzongkha and English/Lexical Selection
From LING073
Contents
dzo → eng
Case I
མཐུ་ → bewitchment/witchcraft, power
Example sentences:
Dzongkha Sentence | English Translation |
---|---|
ཁོ་གི་མཐུ་རྐྱབ་འོང་ | He might do witchcraft. |
སྨན་གྱི་མཐུ་ | The power of medicine. |
- Generalization rule: མཐུ་/black magic is usually followed by closely related words like casting(do), spell, dark magic. If a word that is closely related to this meaning is near མཐུ་, it will be realized as witchcraft. 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 near 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 if it is preceded by a noun that falls in the "pull-able" category. འཐེན་/sing is realized otherwise.