Tibetan verbs

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Identification of verbs in text

Verbal stem are also employed as nominal roots, but the following are sure signs of a verb form (although this may mean a nominal form of a verb root):

• the presence of relics of the conjugational system.
• being followed by the imperative particle *ཅིག་;
• being followed by the coordinating particle *ཅིང་
• being followed by the connecting particle *ཀྱིན་, which occurs before auxiliary verbs;

(The asterisks indicate that these forms may appear in a sandhi variant).

The four verb stems

Verbs have four stems—traditionally called the Present (P), Past (A), Future (F), and Imperative (I) and cited in this order—though not all need be distinct. Case of verbs with 1, 2, 3, and 4 distinct stems exist.

Intransitive verbs are usually said to have only the first two stems, P and A (distinct or identical). Transitive verbs have all four, distinct or identical.

One scheme (Hahn 2009) classifies the stems in this way:

Beyer (1992) also groups the P and A stems against the F and I stems (adding that F and I only occur in transitive stems), but he also notes that the P and F stems also form a natural groups in contrast with the A and I stems:

• Both P and F stems take the negative marker མི་, while the A and I stems employ མ་
• The A and I stems both paradigmatically take the -ས suffix, while the P and F stems do not.

As a result, he classifies the roots in terms of mood and aspect:

NB: Only transitive verbs have potential forms. Beyer concludes that "in Tibetan, the predictability of an event is connected with its occurring through an external agent—paradigmatically an animate actor"

The abbreviations (H) and (B) in what follows refer respectively to the nomenclatures of Hahn and Beyer.

Uses of the present verb stem

This stem is described as (H) imperfect indicative and (B) incomplete nonpotential. It is employed to express:

1. generic states ("water is wet")
2. present enduring states ("I am eating")
3. present referring to past events (praesens historicum)

Uses of the past verb stem

This stem is described as (H) perfective indicative and (B) complete nonpotential. It is used to express:

1. completed actions
2. prohibitions (negative orders)—these are sometimes formed with the past tense, usually without the imperative particle ཅིག་.
3. in subordinate adverbial clauses of (a) time, (b) reason, (c) condition, and (d) conciliation. These all involve a logically prior action—therefore a complete and effective one, if only theoretically—action in the adverbial clause:
   • (a) adverbial clauses of time: having escaped, the ox got lost གླང་སོང་ནས་སྟོར་ཏོ།
   • (b)adverbial clauses of reason: because I threw the stone, the horse died (literally, is dying) བདག་གིས་རྡོ་བ་འཕངས་པས་རྟ་གུམ་པོ།
   • (c) adverbial conditional clauses: if one tried... བརྩོན་པར་བྱས་ན་
   • (d) adverbial conciliatory clauses: although I searched, I found no silver བརྟལ་ཀྱང་དངུལ་པ་བརྙེས་སོ།

NB: The independence of the past stem from "past time" can be seen in, e.g. བསྐྱབས་པར་འགྱུར་རོ། = zostaną ochronieni = they will be(come) protected (?=they will have been protected

Uses of the future stem

This stem is described as (H) voluntary & necessative and (B) incomplete potential. It is used to express

1. an action that must occur: knowledge must be learned, even if you are to die tomorrow རིག་པ་ནང་པར་འཆི་ཡང་བསླབ་
2. a voluntary necessity (i.e. a desire): I desire to kill the enemy, I will kill the enemy: བདག་གིས་དགྲ་བོ་དསད་དོ།

NB: The name of the action is often formed from the future stem: སྟོན་ learn, future stem བསྟན་ -> learning བསྟན་པ་

Uses of the imperative stem

This stem is described as (H) commanding or optative and (B) complete potential.

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