Page images
PDF
EPUB

English present: མཐོང་གིན་འདུག་ ,(I) am seeing་, འབྲི་གིན་

25′,(1) am writing (just now).

36. Preterit Tenses. 1. Simple Preterit, Perfect or Aorist Tense; this is the Perfect root: 55, at the close of the

sentence

བཏང་ངོ་། ,gave,
gave, have given, was given'; in one-

rooted verbs it has, of course, the same form as the present:

མཐོང་(ངོ་), , saw, have, or was, seen. This is the usual

narrative tense like the Greek Aorist or French Parfait

défini. 2. Compound Preterit Tenses.

-

a) The root with

སོང་, བཏང་སོང་ ,have given, gave, was given'་, མཐོང་སོང་ ,have seen, saw, was seen'; rarely met with in books, but in general use in the conversation of WT. In CT 5 jun

བྱུང་ jazzi ཁྱིས་རྨུག་བྱུང་ ,the dog has bit . —

is used in a similar way: ཁྱིས་རྨུག་བྱུང་

6) The root with (more in books), or

(more in

common language), the true Perfect as the tense of accomplished action:,,have given etc.‘,,the

action of giving is past',

',the man has already

left. — c) The Participle connected with

occurs more

frequently in the past sense than otherwise. Here, in the common talk of WT, is used, even in those cases where the books have,

yi-ge kál-pa yn, or, contracted, kál-pen, , the letter has been sent off', in

books:

(s. 11, Note), even གླ་བཏངས་པ་ཡིན་

la táns-pa yin, táns-pen,,the wages have been paid' i. o. བཏང་བ་ཡིན་. 55′′5′′. — d) Gerunds in 5′(WT) or 5′ (CT) with

5 or 25′ (the same as 35. 2. c); also (in Û Tsan and

ཡོད་

later books) the mere Perfect root with, the ог

ནས་ being dropped: སོང་ཡོད་ ,has gone་.

37. Future Tenses. 1. Simple Future. The Future-root, 5′),shall, ),shall, will give, be given. — 2. Compound Future. a) The auxiliary verb 25 (to grow, become) added to the Terminative case of the Infinitive:

འགྱུར་(རོ་) ,shall, will give, be given', མཐོང་བར་འགྱུར་(རོ་

,shall, will see, be seen'. This is the most common, and, together with the Simple Future and the Intensive (39.),

...

་ ་བར་བྱའོ་, the only one in use with the early classical

authors in all cases where a special Future-root is wanted, and even where this exists. It dissappears, however, gradually from the literature of the later period, and is replaced by the two following compositions. connected

[ocr errors]

3) རྒྱུ་ཡིན་
will see་, གཏོང་རྒྱུ་ཡིན་

with the root: Hà ̈ä ̈‚shall, will see', མཐོང་རྒྱུ་ཡིན་

,shall, will give etc. (is originally a substantive, mean

ing material, cause, occasion). c) the root with

[ocr errors]

or

,, will arrive, or, i. o. the root, the Term. Inf.,

སླེབ་པར་འོང་. —

Both 6) and c) are even now in common

use in CT, whereas in WT:

--

d) ཡིན་ connected with the

root is the general form: ton yin, vulg.: tónin

,shall, will see་, བཏང་ཡིན་ tdztiw,shall, will give', བཀལ་ཡིན་ kállin‚will send', so ča yin, ča'in, čän,will goʻ.

e) In books the Participle with curs sometimes also as Future.

(35.2.b, 36. 2 c) oc

38. Imperative mood. 1. This is usually the shortest possible form of the verb, which often loses its prefixed letters, though in some instances a final N is added. In many verbs with the vowel a, and in some with e these vowels are changed into o, besides other alterations of the consonants. Particularly often the surds or sonants of the other tense-roots are changed to their aspirates in the Imperative. Thus,‚give!', from ; Ld: Itos,

CT: ty ,look!', from ལྟ་བ་; ཐོབ་ ,throw!', from འདེབས་པ་.

In one-rooted verbs it is, of course, like the Present, but it can always be sufficiently distinguished by adding the

ཅིག་ (ཤིག་

particle or, according to 13.). This is used in the classical literature indiscriminately in addressing the highest and the lowest persons (or, in other words, as well to command, as to pray), but according to the modern custom of CT only when addressing servants and inferior people. 2. In forbidding, the Present-root is used with

[ocr errors]

the negative particle ',,do not give!',

Jäschke, Tibetan Grammar.

4

ar,do

not look!,,do not throw!" 3. In praying or wishing (Precative or Optative) either the same forms as under 1. are used, or the Imperatives of to ར་བ་

come' or

འགྱུར་བ་

,to come' (the latter,, of a quite diffe

rent root) are connected with the Termin. Infin.

གྱུར་ཅིག་ or ཤོག་ཅིག་ ,may (l, you, he etc.) see!

4. In

none of the three a person is indicated, but it is natural that in commanding and forbidding the subject will be the second, sometimes the third person; in the precative also the first person can be understood.

Note. The common language of WT, acknowledging only the Perfect-root, changes nothing but the vowel:

བཏོང་ ,give!‘ from བཏང་ཅེས་; ལྟོས་ ,look!་ from ལྟ་ཅེས་; བཏོབ་ ,throw!‘ from བཏབ་ཅེས་ (Perf. ofའདེབས་པ་). Instead

of, which is not much used,

(give!) is often

added to the roots of other verbs (s. 39), thus,

55

ton ton,take out! from (54). Or the Imབཏོན་ཅེས་ (འདོན་པ་).

perative is paraphrased by 5 gos (Ld). gō, goi‚must“,

བསད་དགོས་ ,must be killed.

added to the root of the verb: must be killed'.

In CT the changing of the vowel seems to be usually omitted, but the is more used. Here, also, the Perfect root is not so exclusively preferred.

39. Intensive verbs. 1. Very frequent in books is the

39. Intensives. 40. Subst. Verbs.

51

connection of the four-rooted verb ' (Pf. JN', Fut. J', Imp. བྱོས་) ,to do', elegantly བགྱིད་པ་ (Pf. བགྱིས་, Fut. བགྱི་, Imp. གྱིས་), respectfally མཛད་པ་ (Imp. མཛོད་) with

the Term. Inf. of another verb, to intensify the action of the latter. By this means not only one-rooted verbs can be made to participate in the advantages of the four-rooted,

as

མཐོང་བར་བྱེད་ ,see་, མཐོང་བར་བྱས་ ,saw་, མཐོང་བར་བྱ་

‚shall, will see', '‚see!', but also several other periphrastical phrases are gained for speaking more precisely than otherwise would be possible. The Future tense

བྱ(འོ་ serves, besides its proper notion of futurity, par

ticularly to express the English auxiliaries, must, ought etc.“: thus,

must not be uttered, ought not

to be uttered', sometimes it may be translated by the Imperative mood. The spoken language, at least of WT, is devoid of this convenience, and possesses nothing of the kind except the above mentioned intensive form of the Imperative, formed by 5 (s. 38., Note). · 2. Another

class of intensive verbs are formed by connecting two È,to be afraid', literally,to

synonymes, as

be fear-frightened', and other similar ones.

40. Substantive and Auxiliary Verbs. 1. To be a) wo

♫, in elegant and respectful speech

lag-pa,

Ü:

la-pa (the latter word never used in WT) is the mere means

« PreviousContinue »