Tibetan Grammar - verbs

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

31.Jan.12 The approach to explain Tibetan verbs will be changed to that of the "three thematic relations: Theme, Location, and Agent"

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

[...]

Verbs བྱ་ཚིག་

Note: བྱ་ཚིག་ "action word" is translated as "verb". Even though in English a verb is a word that describes an action or state of being Tibetan grammarians do not classify words describing a mere state of being or existence as བྱ་ཚིག་.

Intransitive and transitive verbs

All important example sentences are taken from either བོད་རྒྱ་ཚིག་མཛོད་ཆེན་མོ་, བུདྡྷ་པཱ་ལི་ཏ་མཱུ་ལ་མ་དྷྱ་མ་ཀ་བྲྀཏྟི་, མཁན་པོ་གཞན་དགའི་སྤྱོད་འཇུག་གི་མཆད་འགྲེལ་, དྭགས་པོའི་ཐར་རྒྱན་, འཇམ་མགོན་ཀོང་སྤྲུལ་གྱི་ཤེས་བྱ་ཀུན་ཁྱབ་མཛོད་, མཁན་པོ་ཀུན་དཔལ་གྱི་སྤྱོད་འཇུག་གི་ཚིག་འགྲེལ་, or འཇམ་མགོན་མི་ཕམ་རྒྱ་མཚོའི་མཁས་འཇུག་.

Introduction to intransitive and transitive verbs

English language

• 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.

English
Intransitive verbs:	No direct object, might have qualifier, no passive voice: e.g. I go.; I go to the market.; The bird died.
Transitive verbs:	Can have a direct object, can form passive voice: e.g. I buy bread.; The bird was killed by the cat.

There are verbs that can have two objects. These are called ditransitive verbs. In "Douglas gave a vase to him." "vase" is the direct object and "him" is the indirect object.

In English there are verbs that can function as both transitive and intransitive verbs, e.g. "I broke the vase." and "The vase broke." In the second example "broke" can not have an object.

Note: With the help of a prepositional phrase, intransitive verbs can also be used in the passive voice, e.g. "The houses were lived in by hundreds of people."

Tibetan language

In Tibetan the grammar for intransitive and transitive verbs is generally as follows:

Tibetan
Intransitive verbs:	theme / subject: ming tsam (no particle)	qualifier: la don
Transitive verbs:	agent / subject: agentive particle	theme / object: ming tsam

Theme is used here as a convenient term for both the subject of an intransitive verb and the object of a transitive verb - both are in ming tsam. The term will be stretched (beyonds its definition from thematic relations) as far as necessary; (e.g. it will also include patient - undergoes the action and changes its state ). See: Note

Intransitive verbs

བྱིའུ་ཤི། small bird died The small bird died.

to die v.i. ཐ་མི་དད་པ་ ཤི་བ།  འཆི་བ།  འཆི་བ།  past pres. fut. imp.

Transitive verbs

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

to teach v.t. ཐ་དད་པ་ བསྟན་པ།  སྟོན་པ།  བསྟན་པ།  སྟོན། past pres. fut. imp.

Verbs with related intransitive and transitive form

འཁོར་ལོ་འཁོར། wheel   turn/spin The wheel turns.

to turn v.i. ཐ་མི་དད་པ་ འཁོར་བ།  འཁོར་བ།  འཁོར་བ།  past pres. fut. imp.

བདག་གིས་འཁོར་ལོ་སྐོར། I              wheel    turn I turn the wheel.

to turn v.t. ཐ་དད་པ་ བསྐོར་བ།  སྐོར་བ།  བསྐོར་བ།  སྐོར། past pres. fut. imp.

The syntactic verb categories

Beside being an explanation of syntactic verb categories in Tibetan us such, this section is chiefly aimed to be an background for the syntactic categories referred to in the main section which is "Classification of verbs according to semantic and syntactic groups".

The three categories of agentive transitive, agentive directed and ming tsam intransitive

agentive transitive, agentive directed and ming tsam intransitive

The descriptions of verbs types in here will be in sometimes different form the descriptions found in other grammar compilations. The verb types used in here are introduced to mainly deal with three difficulties found with Tibetan verbs:

• There are verbs that have a participant marked with the agentive particle but have no participant in ming tsam.
• There are verbs that are not transitive but have a participant marked with the agentive particle.
• ཐ་དད་པ་ and ཐ་མི་དད་པ་ do not correspond to the devision into transitive and intransitive.

The categories used in here will be referred to as "ming tsam intransitive", "agentive transitive" and "agentive directed". These categories are so named with respect to the existence of a participant marked with the agentive particle, the presence or absence of a theme in ming tsam and the nature of the verb.

ming tsam intransitive	no agent	theme in ming tsam
agentive transitive	agent with the agentive particle	theme in ming tsam
agentive directed	agent with the agentive particle	no theme in ming tsam

The category that sticks out is that of "agentive directed" verbs. The verbs of the agentive transitive and ming tsam intransitive categories are respectively either transitive or intransitive. They are easily classified by the possibility of a given verb to either take an agent (marked with the agentive particle) together with its theme (in ming tsam) or not. In contrast to that the verbs of the agentive directed category include verbs that are intransitive, transitive and "indirect ditransitive". They have in common that they have two participants, one marked with the agentive particle and one with a la don, but no theme in ming tsam.

The subcategories of the agentive transitive, agentive directed and ming tsam intransitive verbs

The categories ming tsam intransitive, agentive transitive and agentive directed can be further divided into:

syntactic categorie	syntactic subcategorie	example
ming tsam intransitive	stative copula	linking verbs: theme in ming tsam, (no agent); ཡིན་པ་ "to be, are"
	stative non-volitional	unintentional intransitive verbs that describe a state of being and adjectives: theme in ming tsam, (no agent); ངལ་བ་ "to be tired", བཟང་ "[to be] good, excellent"
	dynamic non-volitional	unintentional intransitive describing an action or change: theme in ""ming tsam"", (no agent); འཆི་བ། "to die"
	dynamic directed	verbs of motion: theme in ming tsam, qualifier with la don; (no agent); འགྲོ་བ་ "to go"
	stative located	verbs of existence, possession; verbs of living; verbs of necessity: theme in ming tsam, qualifier: la don, (no agent); ཡོད་པ་ "to exist", "to have", དགོས་པ་ "to be needed"
	stative affective	attitude verbs: theme in ming tsam, qualifier: la don, (no agent); དགའ་བ་ "to like"
	stative directed	verbs of dependence: theme in ming tsam, qualifier: la don, (no agent); རྟེན་པ་ "to rely, depend"
	agentive	These are the intransitive aspects of the "verbs of absence and presence": theme in ming tsam, qualifier with the agentive particle, (no agent); སྟོང་པ་ "to be empty"
	associative	intransitive "verbs of interrelation": conjunctive and disjunctive verbs, verbs of agreement, comparison, possession II: theme in ming tsam, qualifier: associative particle དང་, (no agent);
	originative	intransitive verbs of separation; theme in ming tsam, qualifier with the originative particle, (no agent);
	stative irregular	evaluative verbs: theme in ming tsam or with la don or agentive particle; རུང་བ་ "suitable", འཐུས་པ་ "to be sufficient"
agentive transitive	effective	simple transitive verbs where the agent acts upon an theme (object): agent with agentive particle, theme in ming tsam; འཐུང་བ་ "to drink"
	fruitional	transitive verbs where the theme (object) is not acted upon and the agent is passive, perceiving or obtaining the theme (object); these are fruitional and unintentional verbs: agent with agentive particle, theme in ming tsam; རྙེད་པ་ "to find", མཐོང་བ་ "to see"
	ditransitive	ditransitive verbs where the action upon the theme (object) by the agent is directed towards a recipient (indirect object); these are verbs expressing any transfer of goods, information or action and verbs expressing to produce something for somebody: agent with agent with agentive particle, theme in ming tsam, recipient with la don; སྦྱིན་པ་ "to give"
	agentive	the transitive dynamic verbs of the semantic group of the verbs of presence: agent with agentive particle, theme in ming tsam, qualifier-the material used for the action wtih agentive particle; འགེངས་པ་ "to fill with"
	associative	transitive verbs of interrelation - conjunctive or disjunctive verbs, verbs of agreement, comparison: theme in ming tsam, qualifier with associative particle: Examples with a stated agent are very difficult to find for this type of verb. If there were to be an example with a stated agent then this agent would be marked with the agentive particle.
	originative	transitive verbs of separation; theme in ming tsam, qualifier with originative particle; Examples with a stated agent are very difficult to find for this type of verb. If there were to be an example with a stated agent then this agent would be marked with the agentive particle.
agentive directed	intransitive dynamic directed	some intentional verbs of perception: perceiver with agentive particle, direction with la don; ལྟ་བ་ "to look" verbs expressing "to make effort, to engage in": the one who makes the effort with agentive particle, that what the effort is towards with la don; འབད་པ་ "to make effort"
	stative directed	ཁྱབ་པ་ "to pervade, permeate, be present throughout" (see below)
	indirect ditransitive	verbs of harm and benefit; that what effects the harm with agentive particle, the recipient-the one or that what is harmed-with la don; གནོས་པ་ "to harm"
	transitive verbs with directed grammar	These are: verbs of mental activity when the "object of interest" is actively engaged in. They then have the theme with la don. དཔྱོད་པ་ "to examine" verbs with referential la don ལ་: verbs expressing identity and equivalence can have their theme with la don ལ་ and the qualifier with la don སུ་ etc.; འཛིན་པ་ "to apprehend (something as something)"

Examples for the categories

This section is an expansion of "1.2.1.2 The subcategories of the agentive transitive, agentive directed and ming tsam intransitive verbs" in order to give example sentences for the different categories. The semantic verb categories that are given as example for each category are not necessarily exhaustive.
(For cross reference between semantic and syntactic categories see the main section "Classification of verbs according to semantic and syntactic groups".)

ming tsam intransitive

stative copula - linking verb

linking verbs; ཡིན་པ་ "to be, are"

theme (subject): ming tsam, complement: ming tsam, strict "theme - complement" word order

དམར་པོ་ནི་ཁ་དོག་ཡིན།

red           colour   is

Red is [a] colour.

stative non-volitional intransitive verbs

unintentional intransitive verbs; ངལ་བ་ "to be tired"

theme (subject): ming tsam

སེམས་ངལ་བ། mind   tired mind is tired

to be tired v.i. ཐ་མི་དད་པ་ ངལ་བ།  ངལ་བ།  ངལ་བ།  past pres. fut. imp.

stative non-volitional - adjectives

Adjectives can function like stative verbs.; བཟང་ "[to be] good, excellent"
When adjectives are used in this way they lose their second syllable.
E.g.:ངན་པ་ ("bad, inferior") only ངན་ and བཟང་པོ་ ("excellent, good") only བཟང་.

theme (subject): ming tsam

མི་ ང་རང་ ངན་ ཏེ་ བླ་མ་བཟང་།

མི་ང་རང་ངན་ཏེ་བླ་མ་བཟང་།

person myself bad lama good

Even though I[' m] bad, [my] Lama [is] good.

dynamic non-volitional

unintentional verbs; འཆི་བ་ "to die", འཆར་བ་ "to arise"

theme (subject): ming tsam, qualifier: direction: la don, origin: originative

ཉི་མ་ཤར། sun arose The sun arose.

to arise v.i. ཐ་མི་དད་པ་ ཤར་བ།  འཆར་བ།  འཆར་བ།  past pres. fut. imp.

dynamic directed

verbs of motion; འགྲོ་བ་ "to go", མཆོང་བ་ "to jump"

theme (subject): ming tsam, qualifier: direction: la don, origin: originative

ཁོ་ལྷ་སར་ཕྱིན། he Lhasa   went He went to Lhasa.

to go v.i. ཐ་མི་དད་པ་ ཕྱིན་པ་, སོང་བ།  འགྲོ་བ།  འགྲོ་བ།  སོང། past pres. fut. imp.

stative located verbs of existence, possession and verbs of living

verbs of existence and possession; ཡོད་པ་ "to exist" or "to have"

theme (subject): ming tsam, qualifier: the place of existence or the one who has something: la don

བོད་ལ་གཡག་ཡོད།

Tibet bos grunniens exist

There are yaks in Tibet.

stative located verbs of necessity

Verbs of necessity like དགོས་པ་ "to be needed" are closest in grammar to verbs of possession. The need itself is not directed but what is needed is "directed" towards a "location", it is needed at that "location". This is like in the example of the verbs of possession where the person who possess things is the location at which these things exist.

theme (subject): ming tsam, qualifier, for whom or what it is needed: la don

མྱུ་གུ་ལ་ཆུ་དགོས། sprouts water need Sprouts need water.

to need, to be needed v.i. ཐ་མི་དད་པ་ དགོས་པ།  དགོས་པ།  དགོས་པ།  past pres. fut. imp.

stative affective

verbs of emotion and attitude; དགའ་བ་ "to like"
Note: Some verbs within the "verbs of emotion and attitude" category, e.g. like གུས་པ་ "to respect" can be placed with either stative affective or stative directed verbs.

theme (subject): ming tsam, qualifier, what the attitude is towards: la don

ཞི་བདེར་དགའ་བ། peace happy like to like peace / wellbeing

to like v.i. ཐ་མི་དད་པ་ དགའ་བ།  དགའ་བ།  དགའ་བ།  past pres. fut. imp.