Overview of dependent particles
In Tibetan grammar, dependent particles (Tibetan: ཕྲད་གཞན་དབང་ཅན་, Wylie: phrad gzhan dbang can) are particles that take different forms depending on the last letter of the previous word.
A good analogy in English is the words “a” and “an”. We recognize that these are two different forms — or allomorphs, to use the linguistics term — of the same word:
- “a” is used before words starting with a consonant;
- “an” is used before words starting with a vowel.
The use of allomorphs makes a word easier to say. It is a general pattern across languages that speakers tend to be “lazy” and pronounce words using the least amount of effort possible. It is easier to say “a car” than “an car”, for instance.
The same basic phenomenon happens in Tibetan, except that Tibetan allomorphs depend on the previous word and not the following word. For example, here are some of the allomorphs of the སླར་བསྡུ་ <slar bsdu> particles:
- གོ་ <go> is used after words ending in ག་ <g>;
- ནོ་ <no> is used after words ending in ང་ <n>;
- རོ་ <ro> is used after words ending in ར་ <r>;
- etc.
Of course, this pattern only goes so far — not every particle in Tibetan does this.
There are 14 basic dependent particles in Tibetan, each with its own set of allomorphs:
- སླར་བསྡུ་ slar bsdu
- ལ་དོན་ la don
- ཨི་ལྡན་ i ldan (this is a category with two particles under it)
- རྒྱན་སྡུད་ rgyan sdud
- ལྷག་བཅས་ lhag bcas
- འབྱེད་སྡུད་ ‘byed sdud
- པ་བ་མ་ pa ba ma
- པོ་བོ་མོ་ po bo mo
- ཞིང་སོགས་ zhing sogs (this is a category with five particles under it)
- ཞིང་ zhing
- ཞེས་ zhes
- ཞེའོ་ zhe’o
- ཞེ་ན་ zhe na
- ཞིག་ zhig
Tibetan particles are traditionally taught in the order used above. This is the order used in the foundational Tibetan grammar text called the སུམ་ཅུ་པ་ <sum cu pa>, attributed to Thonmi Sambhota. Categories 7-9 are not explicitly taught in the སུམ་ཅུ་པ་ <sum cu pa>, but are presented in commentaries on it.