Dzongkha and English/Lexical Selection

From LING073
Revision as of 21:53, 14 May 2021 by Tdorji1 (talk | contribs) (Case I)

Jump to: navigation, search

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.