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

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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

The categories of verbs according to their grammar

The three categories of 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