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.
Independent of verb type
Location in space
place of activity
Objective case
| སངས་རྒྱས་ཀྱིས་རྒྱ་གར་ལ་ཆོས་བསྟན། |
| Buddha India Dharma taught |
| The Buddha taught the Dharma in India. |
1.1.2 direction
ཞིང་ལ་ཆུ་འདྲེན།
field water irrigate
to irrigate the field
References
- ↑ སུ་རུ་ཏུ་དུ་ར་ are the different spellings of one particle.