Chapter VI.
The Verb.
30. Introductory remarks. The Tibetan verbs must be regarded as denoting, not an action, or suffering, or condition of any subject, but merely a coming to pass, or, in other words, they are all impersonal verbs, like taedet, miseret etc. in Latin, or it suits etc. in English. Therefore they are destitute of what is called in our own languages the active and passive voice, as well as of the discrimination of persons, and show nothing beyond a rather poor capability of expressing the most indispensable distinctions of tense and mood. From the same reason the acting subject of a transitive verb must regularly appear in the Instrumental case, as the case of the subject of a neuter verb,—which, in European languages, is the Nominative—, ought to be regarded, from a Tibetan point of view, as an Accusative expressing the object of an impersonal verb, just as ‘poenitet me’ is translated by ‘I repent’. But it will perhaps be easier to say: The subject of a transitive verb, in Tibetan, assumes regularly the form of the instrumental, of a neuter verb that of the nominative which is the same as the accusative. Thus, ངས་ is properly: [[41]]རྡུང་ a beating happens, ཁྱོད་ regarding you, ངས་ by me = I beat you. In common life the object has often the form of the dative, ཁྱོད་, to facilitate the comprehension. But often, in modern talk as well as in the classical literature, the acting subject, if known as such from the context, retains its Nominative form. Especially the verba loquendi are apt to admit this slight irregularity.
31. Inflection of verbs. This is done in three different ways:
a) by changing the form of the root. Such different forms are, at most, four in number, which may be called, according to the tenses of our own grammar to which they correspond, the Present-, Perfect-, Future-, and Imperative-roots; e.g. of the Present-root གཏོང་ ‘to give’ the Perfect root is བཏང་, the Future-root གཏང་, the Imperative root ཐོང་; of འཚག་ ‘to filter, bolt’ respectively: བཙགས་ tsag(s) (Ü: tsā), བཙག་ tsag, ཚོག་ tʽsog. The Present root, which implies duration, is also occasionally used for the Imperfect (in the sense of the Latin and Greek languages) and Future tenses. It is obvious, from the above mentioned instances, that the inflection of the root consists partly in alterations of the prefixed letters (so, if the Perfect prefers the prefixed བ, the Future will have ག or retain the བ), partly in adding a final ས་ (to the Perfect and Imperative), partly in changing the vowel (particularly in the Imperative). But also the consonants of the root itself are changed [[42]]sometimes: so the aspirates are often converted in the Perfect and Future into their surds, besides other more irregular changes. Only a limited number of verbs, however, are possessed of all the four roots, some cannot assume more than three, some two, and a great many have only one. To make up in some measure for this deficiency:
b) some auxiliary verbs have been made available: for the Present tense ཡིན་, འདུག་, ལགས་ and others, all of which mean ‘to be’ (§ [39]); for the Perfect ཚར་, ཟིན་, སོང་; for the Future འགྱུར་, འོང་, and the substantive རྒྱུ་.
c) By adding various monosyllabic affixes, the Infinitive, Participles, and Gerunds are formed. These affixes as well as the auxiliary verbs are connected partly with the root, partly with the Infinitive, resp. its terminative, partly with the Participle.
Note. The spoken language, at least in WT, recognises even in four-rooted verbs seldom more than the Perfect root.
32. The Infinitive mood. The syllables པ་ pa or, after the final consonants ང་ ར་ ལ་ and vowels, བ་ wa are added to the root, whereby it assumes all the qualities and powers of a noun. In verbs of more roots than one, each of them can, of course, in this way be converted into a substantive, or, in other words, each tense has its Infinitive, except the Imperative. From one-rooted verbs the different Infinitives may be formed by the above mentioned auxiliaries: thus, the Inf. Perf., by adding ཡིན་ to the Infinitive of [[43]]the verb in question, or ཚར་, ཟིན་, སོང་ to the root, and the Inf. Fut. by adding འགྱུར་ to the Supine (terminative of the infinitive, [41. B]) thus, མཐོང་ visurum esse, visum iri.