Tibetan Grammar - 'la don' particles - Notes
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[Tibetan Grammar - Introduction] [Tibetan Grammar - 'la don' particles] [Tibetan Grammar - 'la don' particles - Notes]
by Stefan J. E.
The la don particles—Notes
These notes are note merely on la don particles alone. Some of the topics here could be moved to the verb section or be a section on their own. Yet as the grammatical structures covered all have a la don (though omitted at times), it is included in this chapter for now.
Note on classifications for Verbs with la don
See: Verbs with la don
Introduction
This is about the classifications in chapter Verbs with la don, where a verb or adjective has a verb or clause directly preceding it. The main topic of concern is the subcategories in Modal relation.
A verb-verb structure is placed in Direct verb-verb relation or Modal relation when the patient of the verb is replaced by a verb complement (see below).
Even though an auxiliary verb can be clearly viewed as a verb with its patient replaced by a verb complement,[1] auxiliary verbs are singled out Verb and auxiliary verb[2]
"Modal auxiliary verbs" will not be used as a category as such, for the reason that the verbs used as a second verb in Modal relation express some kind of modal relation, while grammatically they function in different ways. In Adverbial / simultaneity (of verb-verb) the verb / clause is an adverbial qualifier that works in the same way for both transitive and intransitive verbs and can be seen as a form of Adverbial / simultaneity.
Because adjectives connected with verbs can have the same structure and grammar as "verb-verb" relations with intransitive verbs, and considering the character of Tibetan adjectives in general, here it is reasonable to treat verbs and adjectives together. "Verbs with adjectives" are part of Expressing a quality and Expressing a feature. E.g., ཐོས་པར་སྙན་ "pleasant to hear"[3] belongs to Expressing a feature.
The difference in structures, which is the topic here, is in terms of the relation between the first and the second verb. That is, looking at whether the first verb / clause is a qualifier, patient[4] or complement[5] of the second verb.[6] These differences are more complex when the second verb is an intransitive verb and they will be covered first, looking at the structure, function and meaning expressed.
Intransitive verbs
First we will look at whether the first verb is a qualifier, patient or complement.
If the two verbs have a coreferential participant—the agent or patient of the first verb is also the patient of the second verb—then the first verb can not be the patient of the second verb.
In བརྒལ་བར་མི་ནུས། "not able to cross (over)" or "not being able in terms of crossing (over)" བརྒལ་བ་ is qualifying ནུས་, both verbs have a coreferential participant—the patient for both verbs—this means there is not one person who is "unable", and another (non-coreferential) performing the action "to cross (over)".
Whereas in གསུངས་པར་མངོན་པ་ "[it is] apparent [that the Buddha] taught..." the verb གསུངས་པ་ the fact that "[the Buddha] taught" is what is "apparent" while "the Buddha" did the action "taught" but did not "apparent" nor is here "the Buddha" "apparent".
Notes
- ↑ S.V. Beyer: The Classical Tibetan Language, p.339.
- ↑ Auxiliary verbs form a periphrastic construction. As function words they add information like future tense, completion etc. to a content word but have no meaning on their own (in that structure). E.g., in སྐྱེས་སུ་ཟིན་ "[the child] was born" the auxiliary verb ཟིན་པ་ (which otherwise means "to grasp, hold" ) expresses that the birth is completed. One needs to know the function of the auxiliary verb in order to know the expressed meaning. On the other hand, in ཞི་བར་སྣུས་ "able to pacify" the verb སྣུས་པ་ "to be able" expresses the ability to do the action. The expressed meaning is clear from knowing the verbs themselves.
- ↑ Note: A. Csoma de Koros and M. Hahn describe these verb-adjective relations as the equivalent to the Latin supine, like: mirabile dictu, "wonderful to say", "wonderful in terms of saying (it)". In this case "to say, to relate" qualifies "wonderful". (In Latin supines in the ablative are used with certain adjectives to show respect or specification.)
- ↑ "Patient" will not follow the definition where it has to undergo a change to be the "patient". It will also include "theme" (undergoes the action but does not change its state). In general: with intransitive verbs, linking verbs and verbs of existence the patient is what is otherwise called the "subject" of these verbs; with transitive it is the "object".
- ↑ In general: a complement is a word, phrase or clause that is needed to complete the meaning of a sentence. A verb complement is different in nature from a verb object (patient); an object (patient) is the recipient of the action expressed by the verb, but a complement serves to describe or explain the action expressed by the verb. S.V. Beyer:“ In a verb complement construction, a nominalized proposition adverbially modifies a verb head."
- ↑ This is inspired by and based on S.V. Beyer 's approach. However it might look different as he describes it by the requirement of coreferential participants with intransitive and transitive "verb heads". see: The Classical Tibetan Language, pg.338 et sqq.