Tibetan Grammar - verbs - notes
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.
| 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 |
by Stefan J. E.
Verbs—Notes
Patient, subject-object, valency: advantages and problems
"Patient" here is used as a convenient term for subject (intransitive verb) and object (transitive verb) (mostly in the ming tsam case—marked by no particle—'just the word')[1] and is stretched beyonds its definition from thematic relations; (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)—it is used with static verbs as well.
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In general the patient is that which experiences the action. In many cases[2] it is equal to the object of a transitive verb. The difference is that 'patient' is based explicitly on its relationship to the verb, whereas object is based primarily on its relationship to the subject.
In Tibetan where the type of verb governs the usage of the respective particles for their agent, patient and particular qualifiers it can be seen as fitting to use these verb dependent categories (of patient and agent).[3] Moreover it is much easier to explain Tibetan when having a single term that covers the subject of an intransitive verb and the object a transitive verb.
In Tibetan the patient is in roughly 90% of all cases in the ming tsam, which makes at an advantage for beginners to use "patient". It is easy for them to understand that they need to look for 'something' in ming tsam in order to find the patient of the clause / sentence, particularly given the fact that the agent of a transitive verb is often omitted.
It is also quite straight forward to classify the grammar of (almost all) verbs using the cases in which their patient and qualifier are in. Later again it is easy to describe verb-verb relations in terms of a verb coming together with either a patient or a qualifier.
However this also comes with problems. These come as a side effect of the strong distinction Tibetan makes between voluntary and involuntary verbs. For instance the voluntary "verbs of perception" and "verbs of benefit and harm" have their agent (subject) in the agentive case and their patient (object) marked with the la don. It might not be that 'nice' to have some patients with the la don, but nevertheless, with for instance "to look" "that what is looked at" can still easily be processed as the patient.
Yet la don are generally used for marking qualifier and reference. So these verbs look somewhat more like verbs that have their subject marked with the agentive case—because the action is voluntary with a clearly defined agent—and the patient is more a 'direction' that the action is directed towards.
Now, from this group of verbs that have the subject marked with the agentive case and the "direction"s of their action marked with the la don comes one type of verb where "patient" just does not work anymore—the Verbs expressing "to make effort, to engage" (3.1.3.3).
These verbs, like "to strive", are intransitive in English but in Tibetan their categorization is ཐ་དད་པ་ (there is an example given a verb lexicon with the subject marked with the agentive case[4]) and their is no great reason to believe that this should not be the norm for these verbs. They are intentionally, have a clear agent and are not quite "verbs of motion or living". The trouble is that they do not have an object but only a direction which the effort etc. is towards. The only one experiencing or undergoing the action is the subject, as in the case of an intransitive verb. So what we are left with is an intransitive verb that has the grammar of a transitive verb but without an object. The agent substitutes the patient in this case.
Why that long explanation? Firstly, it is a further explanation for the Verbs expressing "to make effort, to engage" and secondly to show that in the case of these verbs an explanation with subject and qualifier would have been far easier. Yet it is the belief of the compiler and writer that the (agent)-patient-qualifier approach has the greater overall advantages.
Endnotes
- ↑ S. V. Beyer: The Classical Tibetan Language, p.259-260: "Intransitive verbs occur with a patient; transitive verbs occur with both a patient and an agency. [...] Tibetan—syntactically identify the intransitive and transitive patients. In Tibetan they are both given the patient role particle
- ↑ For instance in English it is not the case passive constructions. For example, in the phrase "The snow leopard bites the dog", the dog is both the patient and the direct object. By contrast, in the phrase "The dog is bitten by the snow leopard", the dog is still the patient, but now stands as the phrase's subject; while the snow leopard is only the agent.
- ↑ This is much less useful, if at all, for spoken Tibetan where the subject is the ruling factor for the auxiliary verbs and with the occurrence of a fluid-S Split ergative in regard to the degree of volition.
- ↑ see above.