Tibetan Grammar - verbs - notes

WORK IN PROGRESS: the grammar articles are being edited for wiki publication. During editing, the content might be incomplete, out of sequence or even misleading.

Articles on Tibetan Grammar

1. Introduction

2. Formation of the Tibetan Syllable

3. Formation of the Tibetan Word

4. First case: ming tsam

5. agentive particle

6. Connective Particle

7. La don particles

8. La don particles—Notes

9. Originative case

10. Verbs

11. Verbs—Notes

12. Syntactic particles

by Stefan J. E.

Verbs—Notes

How the categories of 'transitive' and 'intransitive' are used here

In order to categorize Tibetan verbs according to their grammar the categories of 'transitive' and 'intransitive' will be used. The way it will be determined if a verb should be labeled 'transitive' or 'intransitive' will not entirely match the general rule for these categories.

Generally:

• Intransitive: Not passing over to an object; expressing an action or state that is limited to the agent or subject.
• Transitive: Passing over to an object; expressing an action which is not limited to the agent or subject.

The categorization will be in regard to the presence of an agent in the agentive case. In a number of cases this will lead to differences in regard to their English counterparts.

	For instance the English word "love" is transitive. There is 'somebody / thing' that is loved. In Tibetan "love" is an unintentional verb and has no agent marked with the agentive case (it is classified in as ཐ་མི་དད་པ་). Having these characteristics it will be categorized as an intransitive verb, in the category "verbs of emotion / attitude verbs" and its grammar described as:
	Patient (subject): ming tsam, and qualifier—that which the attitude is towards: la don.
	ལུག་རྫི་ལུག་ལ་བྱམས། shepherd sheep   kind, loving The shepherd is loving to the sheep.

In most cases this way of dealing with Tibetan verbs leads to a straight forward way of categorizing them. Yet it does lead to problems with some 'transitive verbs with la don' (see below) and can obscure the fact that divalent intransitive verbs are simply the unintentional counterpart of intentional transitive (divalent) 'verbs with la don' (see below).

Classification as Patient, subject-object, and valency: advantages and problems

Patient

• Patient here is used as a convenient term for the

1. subject of an intransitive verb and the
2. object of a transitive verb.

These two are mostly in the ming tsam case—marked by no particle—'just the word'. The term Patient is stretched beyonds its definition from thematic relations; e.g. it will also include theme—undergoes the action but does not change its state, and experiencer—the entity that receives sensory or emotional input. Patient is also used with static verbs.

In general the patient is that which experiences the action. In many cases it is equal to the object of a transitive verb. The difference between it and an object is that patient is based explicitly on its relationship to the verb, whereas the object is defined primarily through its relationship to the subject.

In Tibetan where the type of verb governs the usage of the respective particles for their agent, patient and particular qualifiers it can be fitting to use these verb dependent categories (of patient and agent) in order to describe the grammar of verbs.

Moreover it is much easier to explain Tibetan using a single term that covers the subject of an intransitive verb and the object a transitive verb. In Tibetan the patient is in 90+% of all cases in ming tsam, which makes the use of "patient" an advantage for beginners. It is easy to keep in mind that one needs to look for 'something' in ming tsam in order to find the patient of the clause / sentence. (Whereas looking for the subject of a transitive verb could be quite disheartening, given that it is so often omitted.)

In the most part it is straight forward to classify the grammar of verbs using the cases in which their patient, qualifier and agent, if present, are in. It is also easy to describe verb-verb relations in terms of a verb with either a patient (complement) or a qualifier.

However some verbs are problematic when using 'patient'. In order to see where these problems come from there will be an overview of Tibetan verbs with an attempt to use valency as a way of ordering them.

Tibetan verbs in a valency matrix

Valency

The term valency or valence refers to the property of a word 'to bind' other words to it, 'to demand' complements. The study of valency structures can be quite detailed.

The concern here is the obligatory complements. Obligatory complements are complements which have to be expressed in a grammatical sentence to enable the use of the predicator (verb), the verb requires all of the arguments (complements) in a well-formed sentence. However verbs sometimes undergo valency reduction or expansion.

Types of valency

1. Monovalent verb takes one argument, e.g. "He sleeps."
2. Divalent verb takes two, e.g. "He hit the king."
3. Trivalent verb takes three, e.g. "He gave her a ring."

• Zero valency: When a complement status is not attributed to "it" (even though that it is certainly to be regarded as a property of the governing verb that it takes "it" as its subject) then one needs to add zero valency, the avalent verb that take no arguments, e.g. "It rains.", with the explanation that "it" is only a dummy subject and a syntactic placeholder—"it" has no true meaning. No other subject can replace it.

Valency and Tibetan

Valency comes from the study of languages that generaly don't have the ability to omit the same amount of components of a sentence as Tibetan does. In Tibetan a sentence does not become ungrammatical or poorly formed by omitting parts that are to be understood from context, even if it is the subject or object of the sentence. It could even be bad style to state them.

For that reason the way valency will be used here is to look at the number of obligatory complements of a sentence without omissions. When counting obligatory complements there might be some debate with questions like "What can't be left out?" and "What needs to be always assumed?". For instance with the verb "to look" is it assumed that there is always something which is looked at? If it is, with verbs of living is it assumed that there is always a place where one stays?

The valency model is used here as merely an aid to illustrate the main differences between Tibetan verbs, with the 'divalent verbs with la don' as the main topic. In this context the verbs of perception are treated as divalent whereas verbs of living and motion as monovalent.

Note: The category of zero valency (see above) which is used in the great work "Lhasa Verbs" will not be used. Compound verbs like ཆར་པ་འབབ་ "to rain" will be treated as the monovalent verb འབབ་ "to fall" with the noun ཆར་པ་ "rain".

Tibetan verb valency-particle-volition matrix

This section is in particular about transitive verbs with their patient / object marked by la don. For that reason other divalent verbs like verbs of separation that have a qualifier-what one is separated from-are excluded.

The examples:

ཉི་མ་ཤར། sun   arose The sun arose.

ཁོ་ཚོ་སོང་། they went They went.

ལུག་རྫི་ལུག་ལ་བྱམས། shepherd sheep   kind, loving The shepherd is loving to the sheep.

བདུད་རྩི་ལྟ་བུའི་ཆོས་ཤིག་བདག་གིས་རྙེད། nectar  like Dharma a/one  I   found I have found this nectar like Dharma.

སངས་རྒྱས་ཀྱིས་ཆོས་བསྟན། Buddha      Dharma taught The Buddha taught the Dharma.

ཁོས་དཔེ་དེབ་ལ་བལྟས། he     book(s)  looked He looked at books.

བདག་གིས་གཞན་ལ་ཕན་པར་བྱ། I          other  benefit  will (aux) I will benefit others.

སྨན་པས་ནད་པ་ལ་སྨན་སྟེར། doctor  the ill  medicine give The doctor gives medicine to the ill.

སྙིང་ནས་གྲོལ་བ་དོན་དུ་གཉེར་བའི་གང་ཟག་གིས། བདག་མེད་པའི་ལྟ་བ་རྣམ་པར་དག་པ་ཁོང་དུ་ཆུད་པའི་ཐབས་ལ་འབད་དགོས།

heart  liberation    seek             persons        selflessness    view completely pure  understand  means  effort  need

Persons who from the depths of their hearts seek liberation must work at the means of understanding the correct view of selflessness.

valency	type of verb	agentive case	ming tsam	lad don	verb example
monovalent	unintentional, intransitive		patient / subject ཉི་མ་		intransitive verbs ཤར་ (ཐ་མི་དད་པ་)
	intentional, intransitive		patient / subject ཁོ་ཚོ་		verbs of motion སོང་ (ཐ་མི་དད་པ་)
divalent	unintentional, intransitive		patient / subject ལུག་རྫི་	qualifier ལུག་ལ་	attitude verbs བྱམས་ (ཐ་མི་དད་པ་)
	unintentional, transitive	agent / subject བདག་གིས	patient / object ཆོས་		"fruitional" verbs རྙེད་ (ཐ་མི་དད་པ་)
	intentional, transitive	agent / subject སངས་རྒྱས་ཀྱིས་	patient / object ཆོས་		transitive verbs བསྟན་ (ཐ་དད་པ་)
	intentional, transitive	agent / subject ཁོས་ agent / subject བདག་གིས་		patient / object དཔེ་དེབ་ལ་ patient / object གཞན་ལ་	transitive verbs བལྟས་ (ཐ་དད་པ་) verbs of benefit ཕན་ (ཐ་མི་དད་པ་)
	intentional, "?"	agent / subject གང་ཟག་གིས		qualifier ཐབས་ལ་	verbs expressing "to make effort" འབད་ (ཐ་དད་པ་)
trivalent	intentional, transitive	agent / subject སྨན་པས་	patient / object སྨན་	recipient / indirect object ནད་པ་ལ	ditransitive verbs སྟེར (ཐ་དད་པ་)

When looking at which particle marks what, the agentive case always marks an agent, and ming tsam always a patient, so why do the la don seem to be 'multitasking', marking qualifier for unintentional and patient for intentional verbs? Or, is there even a real difference between what they are marking for unintentional and intentional divalent verbs?