Question particle, differentiating and including particle, འབྱེད་སྡུད་

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Articles on Tibetan Grammar

1. Introduction

2. Formation of the Tibetan Syllable

3. Formation of the Tibetan Word

4. First case: ming tsam

5. La don particles

6. La don particles—Notes

7. Originative case

8. Verbs

9. Verbs—Notes

10. Syntactic particles

by Stefan J. E.

• Chapter overview: Tibetan Grammar - Syntactic particles

Question particle, differentiating and including particle, འབྱེད་སྡུད་

This particle after a clause can mark a question or mean "or" or "and".

Spelling

The final letter of the last word is duplicated and placed as an extra syllable with an added མ་.

• E.g. རྟག་གམ།, བྱུང་ངམ།, ཡོད་དམ།, ཡིན་ནམ།, ཁྱབ་བམ།, སྒོམ་མམ།, ཕྱིར་རམ།, འབྲལ་ལམ།, བྱས་སམ།, གྱུརད་ཏམ།.

In the case of the final letter འ་ the མ་ is added to the འ་ of the word without a duplicated letter.

• E.g. འདའ་ and འམ་ becomes འདའམ།.

In the case of no postfix letter, མཐའ་མེད་, an འམ་ is added to the word or added separately.

• E.g. བྱ་ and འམ་ becomes བྱའམ། or བྱ་འམ།.

Note: ནམ་ when coming before the verb can also be the temporal qualifier or interrogative "when" or "When?".

Question

མི་དེ་དགྲ་ཡིན་ནམ།

person that enemy is "?"

Is that person [an] enemy?

"or" or "and"

ཟག་བཅས་ཀྱི་ལས་དགེ་བའམ་མི་དགེ་བ་

defiled      karma  virtues   non-virtues

defiled karma, either virtues or non-virtues,... defiled karma, be it virtues or non-virtues...

བདེ་བའམ་སྡུག་བསྔལ་ལམ་བཏང་སྙོམས་སུ་མྱོང་བའི་ཚོར་བ་འབྱུང་སྟེ།

happiness   suffering            neutral       experience sensation arise

The sensation of the experience of well-being or the experience of suffering or a neutral experience will arise.