Lesson Four75 — ༧༥
i̅ Thi s i nki ng sentence tells som ethi ng about the subject, "the el dest son" (བུ་རྒན་པ་) .
The li nki ng verb i n thi s sentence, རེ་ ད་ , li nk s the subject with an attri bute"twe nty y ears
old" (ལོ་ཉི་ ཤུ་) , maki ng the sentence m ean "thei̅el dest son was twenty years ol d." Note th at
this use of a li nki ng verb to convey age is arbitraury------a matter dictated by Tibetan
semantics. From our poi nt of view an existential construction would have been just as
logical.

7.. The next segment consists of two clauses l . བུ་དེས་རྒྱལ་པོའི་སྲས་མོར་ ་སྙིང་ནས་བརྩེ་གི་ཡོད་པ་དང་། 2.
རྒྱལ་པོའི་ སྲས་མོས་ཀྱང་ཁོ་པར་ སྙིང་ན་ ས་ བརྩེ་གི་ཡོད།་
i̅i̅ i̅Clause one begi ns with a subj ect i n the i nstrum ental ("by that son"------བུ་དེ་ ས་) , thi s
i ndicati ng that either all or part of this segm ent is an active verb construction. The subject
(the son) i s mark ed by "that" + the i nstrumentali̅case (དེ་ + ་ ས་) . T ་ he object, "the i̅
pri ncess, " is marked by thei̅dative-locative particle which is suffixed to the last syllable i n
"pri ncess" (པོ་ + ར་) , becomi ng "to that princess." The verb phrase i n this construction i̅
centers on the 4 -stem verb བརྩེ་ ("love") wi th the present-future stern bei ng used here. Thi s verb
verb is modified by thei̅phurase "from the heart" (སྙིང་ནས་) , which acts as an adverb —
convey i ng the manneri n which the verbal action occurred. Thus, the overall active verb
sentence conveys the usua╱ mode-—་ the son loved the pri ncess deeply."
།Although this coul d be a complete sentence if it had a fi nal verb complement (for
example བུ་དེས་རྒྱལ་པོའི་སྲས་མོ་ར་ ་སྙིང་ནས་བརྩེ་གི་ཡོད་) , it does not. Insteadit ends with the clause
connectiv e པ་དང་ which i ndicates a simpl e conjuncti on of the action i n two clauses------"he
loved her deeply and. . . ."
i̅The second clause conveys that "the pri ncess also loved him deeply." A s i n the
previous clause, the subject, "the pri ncess, " i s mark ed by the i nstrum ental case (the —ས་)
in རྒྱལ་པོའི་སྲས་མོ་ས་ It is followed by the word ཀྱང་ ("also, even") , and then the object in the
dative—་ locative (he + ་ to = ་ him [ཁོ་པ་ + ་ ར་]) , conveying that the love is goi ng fironn her to
him.
8 The next segment consists of four clauses l . སྐབས་གཅིག་ལ་རྔོན་པ་དང་བུ་གཉིས་ཀས་རི་ལ་རི་དྭགས་
རྒྱབ་བཞིན་པར་ 2. དུད་འགྲོ་དཀར་པོ་ཞིག་ལ་རྙི་རྒྱབ་རྗེས་ 3 པ་ཕས་བུར་ ་འདི་དུད་འགྲོ་དངོས་གནས་རེད་དམ་ཞེས་དྲིས་པའི་
རྗེས་སྲུ་ 4. ལམ་སེང་དུད་འགྲོ་དེས་རྔོན་པར་ང་དུད་འགྲོ་མི་ན་ང་ལྷ་མོ་ཡིན་ཞེས་ལན་བཏབ་པ་རེད།་
This clause starts with a time—slot word, "at (ལ་) one (གཅིག་) time (སྐབས་) ." It is
followedi̅by a joi nt subject------the hunter andthe son ((རྔོན་པ་དང་བུ་) . With joi nt subjects such
as this it i s customary to add the phrase " both" or "the two together" (གཉིས་ཀ་) . The
i nstrumental particle is added to this, making it གཉིས་ཀས་ ("by the two together") .
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