Tibetan Grammar - verbs
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.
Other articles from the Tibetan Grammar series:
[Tibetan Grammar - Introduction] [Tibetan Grammar - 'la don' particles] [Tibetan Grammar - 'la don' particles - Notes] [Tibetan Grammar - verbs]
by Stefan J. E.
Verbs
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. In Tibetan words describing a mere state of being or existence are not seen as verbs (by Tibetan grammarians).
Transitive and intransitive 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 transitive and intransitive 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 which can have two objects 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 general their grammar is:
| Tibetan | ||
| Intransitive verbs: | patient / subject: ming tsam (no particle) | qualifier: la don |
| Transitive verbs: | agent / subject: agentive particle | patient / object: ming tsam or la don |
"Patient" is used here as a convenient term for subject (intransitive verb) and object (transitive verb)—both are mostly in ming tsam. It will be stretched beyonds its definition from thematic relations as far as is necessary; (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" will be used with static verbs as well. See: "5 Note, patient / subject-object / valency : advantages and problems".
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