Tibetan Grammar - 'la don' particles

The la don particles

Case	Particles
Second Case: Objective Case, ལས་སུ་བྱ་བའི་སྒྲ་	སུ་, རུ་, ཏུ་, དུ་, ན་, ར་, ལ་
Fourth Case: Purposive Case, དགོས་ཆེད་ཀྱི་སྒྲ་	སུ་, རུ་, ཏུ་, དུ་, ན་, ར་, ལ་
Seventh Case: Locative Case, རྟེན་གནས་ཀྱི་སྒྲ་	སུ་, རུ་, ཏུ་, དུ་, ན་, ར་, ལ་

Each of these three Tibetan cases refer to the same set of seven particles. These are the la don particles ལ་, ན་, སུ་, རུ་, ཏུ་, དུ་, ར་. The la don particles are in essence three particles ལ་, ན་ and སུ་རུ་ཏུ་དུ་ར་¹ which have overlapping usages within these three cases.

Note: There is no connection between the fact that there are three particles and three cases. The three cases come from Sanskrit grammar which was used to describe Tibetan grammar. It is a coincidence that the three Tibetan particles—combined as the la don—express functions found in the three Sanskrit cases. The three different particles of the la don are not identical in their usage. And though Tibetan grammarians generally try to establish an at least nominal equivalence among them, practically this equivalence does not appear. Because of their overlapping usage and the Tibetan way of combining them as la don these three particles are treated together. An exclusive or predominate usage of the particles for a given function will be pointed out.

¹ སུ་རུ་ཏུ་དུ་ར་ are the different spellings of one particle

Independent of verb type

Location in space

Place of activity

(Tib. ལས་སུ་བྱ་བའི་སྒྲ་, Objective case)

སངས་རྒྱས་ཀྱིས་རྒྱ་གར་ལ་ཆོས་བསྟན།

Buddha          India      Dharma taught

The Buddha taught the Dharma in India.

Direction

ཞིང་ལ་ཆུ་འདྲེན།

field water irrigate

to irrigate the field

Location in time

Locative case

དེའི་ཚེ་ན་

that time

at that time

ཁོ་ཡུན་རིང་དུ་ལྷ་སར་བསྡད།

he time long Lhasa stayed

He stayed a long time in Lhasa.

དུས་དང་གནས་སྐབས་ཐམས་ཅད་དུ་འཆི་བ་ཁོ་ན་སྒོམས།

time     circumstance   all            death   only meditate

At all times and circumstances meditate only on death.

Adverb of time with ན་

from སྔ་མ་: "in the past, before, past time, earlier"

སྔ་ན earlier, previously

སྔ་ན་མེད་པ་ previously nonexistent

དུས་སྔ་མ་ནས་ད་ལྟའི་བར་

time former now until

from former times to now

Note: also སྔར་ "in the past, preceding, former, before", with a frozen la don (see: "frozen particles")

སྔར་ནས་འདྲིས་པའི་གྲོགས་པོ་

past  to be acquainted  friend

the friend [one] is acquainted with from the past

Purpose

ཞིང་པ་རྣམས་ཀྱིས་ལོ་ཏོག་སྨིན་པ་ལ་ཆུ་འདྲེན།

farmer pl.        the crop  ripen     water irrigate

The farmers irrigate for the ripening of the crop.

Referential qualifier (ལ་)

མོ་ལ་བུ་ཞིག་སྐྱེས།

she child a born

A child was born to her.

ང་ལ་ཁྱོད་ཀྱི་སྡིག་པའི་ལས་མི་ཆུང་ངོ།།

I     you      evil     deeds not small

For me your evil deeds are not small.

སེམས་ཅན་ཆེན་པོ་ཐམས་ཅད་ལ་བུ་གཅིག་པ་དང་འདྲ།

Mahasattva          all             son   same    similar, like

Mahasattva was for everyone like their son.

གཟུགས་བརྙན་གྱི་བུད་མེད་ལ་བུད་མེད་དོ་སྙམ་

image, reflection  woman   woman    to think

to think in regard to an image of a woman [that it is] a woman