དུས་གསུམ་བྱེ་བྲག་པ་ dus gsum bye brag pa

English name: particular conjugation

A system of verb classes was introduced into Tibetan by the Tibetan scholar ཁམས་སྤྲུལ་ནོར་བུ་བསྟན་འཛིན་ <khams sprul nor bu bstan ‘dzin>. In his system, verbs were categorized into three basic classes:

• དུས་གསུམ་སྤྱིར་བཏང་བ་ dus gsum spyir btang ba (“generic conjugation”)
• དུས་གསུམ་བྱེ་བྲག་པ་ dus gsum bye brag pa (“particular conjugation”)
• དུས་གསུམ་ཐོར་བུ་བ་ dus gsum thor bu ba (“miscellaneous conjugation”)

The བྱེ་བྲག་པ་ <bye brag pa> “particular” is defined as follows:

There are different ways of analyzing the subtypes of the verb classes. The source I am using here is the བརྡ་སྤྲོད་གཞུང་ལ་ལེགས་པར་འཇུག་པའི་ལམ་སྟོན། <brda sprod gzhung la legs par ‘jug pa’i lam ston> by འཇམ་དཔལ་ཡེ་ཤེས་རྒྱལ་མཚན་ <‘jam dpal ye shes rgyal mtshan>. In this presentation, the དུས་གསུམ་བྱེ་བྲག་པ་ <dus gsum bye brag pa> can be divided into four subtypes:

1. བརྩེགས་པའི་བྱེད་ཚིག་འཕུལ་མེད་
   <brtsegs pa’i byed tshig ‘phul med>
   “Stacked verbs with no prefix letter”
   • This seems to mean no prefix letter in the present tense specifically.
2. རྐྱང་པའི་བྱེད་ཚིག་འཕུལ་མེད་
   <rkyang pa’i byed tshig ‘phul med>
   “Unstacked verbs with no prefix letter”
   • This seems to mean no prefix letter in the present tense specifically.
3. བྱེད་ཚིག་ལ་མོ་འ་ཡིག་ལྡན་པ་
   <byed tshig la mo ‘a yig ldan pa>
   “Verbs with the female letter འ་ <‘a>”
   • This seems to mean the letter འ་ <‘a> as a prefix letter in the present tense specifically.
4. འདས་སྒྲ་ས་མཐས་འཐུས་པའི་བྱེད་ཚིག་འཕུལ་མེད་
   <‘das sgra sa mthas ‘thus pa’i byed tshig ‘phul med>
   “Verbs with no prefix letter that have the past-tense ending <sa>”
   • This seems to mean no prefix letter in the present tense specifically.

“Stacked” in this context means having superscript or subscript letters.

Examples

Stacked verbs with no prefix letter:

Future tense	Present tense	Past tense	Imperative
བཀླག་ bklag	ཀློག་ klog	བཀླགས་ bklags	ཀློགས་ klogs
བརྐྱང་ brkyang	རྐྱོང་ rkyong	བརྐྱངས་ brkyangs	རྐྱོངས་ rkyongs
བརྩམ་ brtsam	རྩོམ་ rtsom	བརྩམས་ brtsams	རྩོམས་ rtsoms

Unstacked verbs with no prefix letter:

Future tense	Present tense	Past tense	Imperative
བཤད་ bshad	ཤོད་ shod	བཤད་ bshad	ཤོད་ shod
བཤིག་ bshig	ཤིག་ shig	བཤིགས་ bshigs	ཤིགས་ shigs
བསུབ་ bsub	སུབ་ sub	བསུབས་ bsubs	སུབས་ subs

Verbs with a female letter <‘a>:

Future	Present	Past	Imperative
བཀལ་ bkal	འཁལ་ ‘khal	བཀལད་ bkald	ཁོལད་ khold
བཏག་ btag	འཐག་ ‘thag	བཏགས་ btags	འཐོགས་ ‘thogs
བཏུང་ btung	འཐུང་ ‘thungs	བཏུངས་ btung	འཐུངས་ ‘thungs

Verbs with no prefix letter that have the past-tense ending <sa>:

Future	Present	Past	Imperative
བརྐོ་ brko	རྐོ་ rko	བརྐོས་ brkos	རྐོས་ rkos
བསྐོ་ bsko	སྐོ་ sko	བསྐོས་ bskos	སྐོས་ skos
བརྐུ་ brku	རྐུ་ rku	བརྐུས་ rkus	རྐུས་ rkus

Note: I am not sure what the difference is supposed to be between the first and fourth subclasses here. The source I am using says that the fourth is identified by its use of ས་ <sa> in the past tense, but this is very common in the first subclass too, so it is not clear to me which category such verbs would fall under. The only difference that seems to hold across the examples is that the first subclass is composed entirely of verbs whose roots end in a consonant, whereas the fourth subclass is composed entirely of verbs whose roots end in a vowel. But, this alone does not seem like motivation enough to create a separate subclass.

Sources:

བོད་ཀྱི་བརྡ་སྤྲོད་ཕྱོགས་བསྒྲིགས། <bod kyi brda sprod phyogs bsgrigs> in 25 volumes (open access) – vol. 11, p. 278-281.