Verbals
At their most basic, a verbal is a verb turned into a noun or an adjective by the addition of པ་ or བ་. Notice that the verbal noun and verbal adjective (also called a participle) are formed exactly the same way.
ཤེས་ → (verb) to know
ཤེས་པ་ → (verbal noun) consciousness, mind, cognition
སྟོན་ → (verb) to teach
བསྟན་པ་ → (verbal noun) teaching, (verbal adj.) taught
སྟོན་པ་ → (verbal noun) teacher
As a general pattern, when verbal nouns are formed from the past tense, they create an OBJECT-NOUN and when verbal nouns are formed from the present tense they create an AGENT-NOUN. བསྟན་པ་ as teaching and སྟོན་པ་ as teacher. See Hackett, Learning Classical Tibetan, pp. 79. This should be understood as a general trend and not by any means a strict rule.
སློབ་ → (verb) to learn, to train
སློབ་པ་ → (verbal noun) learner, student; also སློབ་མ་
བསླབ་པ་ → (verbal noun) training, learning
རྟོག་ → (verb) to think, to conceptualize
རྟོག་པ་ → (verbal noun) conceptualization, conception, thought, conceptuality
རྟོག་པ་ → (verbal adjective) conceptual
སྣང་ → (verb) to appear
སྣང་བ་ → (verbal adjective) appearing
སྣང་བ་ → (verbal noun) appearance, something that appears
Verbals are not always as simple as the examples above. In fact, verbal nouns and verbal adjectives in conjunction with a 6th-case clause connector can capture complex grammatical clauses.
It is a general rule in Tibetan that all words have only one function in a sentence. If something is a verb, it is only a verb in that sentence. Likewise a noun or an adjective. Words can have multiple uses and meanings, but not simultaneously. Like all good rules, however, there is an exception – verbals.
Verbals are unique in Tibetan in that they act essentially as two different parts of speech. To their left, they can act as a verb. They can form complex clauses and phrases that capture their own grammar. To their right, they act as either a noun or an adjective.
ACT AS VERB ← VERBAL → ACT AS NOUN OR ADJECTIVE
Notice the box. That's a hint to show that verbals, although they act as a whole as a noun or an adjective, in their acting as a verb they can capture their own grammar and create a “box” of syntax within a sentence.
Here is our canonical agentive sentence.
སངས་རྒྱས་རྐྱིས་ཆོས་བསྟན་ The Buddha taught the doctrine.
We can turn this into a verbal adjective (or participial) clause using a 6th-case clause connector to connect the verbal to a noun that the verbal clause modifies.
སངས་རྒྱས་རྐྱིས་བསྟན་པའི་ཆོས་ the dharma taught by the Buddha
ཆོས་བསྟན་པའི་སངས་རྒྱས་ the Buddha who taught the dharma
Or we can create complex verbal nouns.
སངས་རྒྱས་རྐྱིས་ཆོས་བསྟན་པ་ Buddha’s teaching of the doctrine
སངས་རྒྱས་རྐྱིས་བསྟན་པ་ that taught by the Buddha
One way to differentiate verbal nouns from verbal adjectives is to remember that verbal adjectives can be modified by adverbs while verbal nouns can be modified by adjectives. For example, the verbal adjectives taught by the Buddha could be modified by quickly as in quickly taught by the Buddha, but not by an adjective, such as great taught by the Buddha, which is nonsense. However, in contrast, one could say Buddha’s teaching of the doctrine was great (using the predicate adjective great to modify the verbal noun Buddha’s teaching of the doctrine).
<< TODO: need a note about making verbs from བྱ་ and བྱེད་ ; རེག་བྱ་>>
Verbal nouns can also be made from two auxiliary verb constructions:
The verb + པར་བྱ་ is nominalized in the normal manner, such as verb + པར་བྱ་བ་, and translates into that which is to be <whatever the action of the verb is>. For example, ཤེས་པ་ (to know) becomes ཤེས་པར་བྱ་བ་, which is almost always shortened to ཤེས་བྱ་, (that which is to be known or object of knowledge). This is very similar to the general trends of the creation of object-nouns from the past tense form of verbs.
Verb + པར་བྱེད་ can similiarly create nouns. ཤེས་པ་ becomes ཤེས་པར་བྱེད་པ་, which is shortened to ཤེས་བྱེད་. The general rule is that this noun is the agent or subject doing the action, so ཤེས་བྱེད་ would be knower or cognizer. This is, in fact, one of the meanings of ཤེས་བྱེད་. However, it's important to realize that these words are often words with their own meanings apart from these generalized rules, and in this case, ཤེས་བྱེད་ also means (according to the UMA Tibet dictionary) revelatory, source, and scriptural source.
སྐྱེད་ is a good example. སྐྱེད་ it is a volitional verb (བྱེད་འབྲེལ་ལས་ཚིག་) that means generate or produce. It is a two-form verb with the same spellings for past/future and present/imperative.
བསྐྱེད། སྐྱེད། བསྐྱེད། སྐྱེད།
past | present | future | imperative
སྐྱེད་བྱེད་ means producer, one who generates, or that which produces. It is short for སྐྱེད་པར་བྱེད་པ་ (the long, spelled-out form would not be commonly seen). བསྐྱེད་བྱ་, short for བསྐྱེད་པར་བྱ་བ་ , means object produced or that which is produced.
ཁྱབ་ is a verb that means pervade, entail, cover, or fill. It is an important term in Tibetan logic. The ཁྱབ་བྱ་ is the object pervaded or that which is covered by the ཁྱབ་བྱེད་, the pervader. A pervader, incidentally, is a definition of generality སྤྱི་ because a generality covers its instances.
ཁྱབ་ is a single-form verb in that all four of its tenses (past, present, future, and imperative) are spelled the same.
ཁྱབ། ཁྱབ། ཁྱབ། ཁྱབ།
past | present | future | imperative
There is no way from spelling to distinguish pervaded from will pervade and pervading. Thus in the verbal nouns derived from the auxiliary verb constructions, the same spelling in used. Compare this to བསྐྱེད་བྱ་ and སྐྱེད་བྱེད་, which use the future and present tense forms of the core verb, respectively.
To understand more about the auxiliary verb constructions these verbal nouns are derived from, take a look at the wiki page on auxiliary verbs.
Talking about verbals, gerunds, and participles in this context is a little confusing. We use these terms in both English and Tibetan. However, while they're usage is very similar, it is not quite the same. Further, Hackett, Wilson, and Preston tend to use different words (sometimes to mean different thing). For example, what Wilson calls verbal adjectives, Hackett calls participles. What Hackett calls a gerund, Wilson calls a continuative. Everybody seems to agree on verbal nouns – although, sadly, in English a gerund is a verbal noun while this is definitely not the case in Tibetan.
In English, a verbal is a verb form that acts as another part of speech—either as a noun or an adjective (possibly also adverb). Participles, gerunds, and infinitives are the three types of verbals. A participle is a verbal form that functions as an adjective (the sleeping monk). It modifies nouns and pronouns and can be either a present participle (the sleeping monk) or a past participle (the caught ball, the whispered secret). A gerund is a verbal form that functions as a noun (the teaching). Participles can be modified by adverbs (the soundly sleeping monk) while gerunds can be modified by adjectives (the amazing teaching). In English, infinitives are also verbals because infinitives can act as nouns (to smoke is unhealthy).
In Tibetan, the situation is similar but slightly different. Verbals are verb forms that act as nouns or adjectives. Infinitives in Tibetan are not verbals as they cannot act as nouns or adjectives and generally their use is different than in English. Participles are verbal adjectives. In Tibetan, participles can be past (the Buddha who taught the dharma), present (the Buddha who teaches the dharma), and future (the Buddha who will teach the dharma) participles. Verbal nouns in Tibetan are simply verbal nouns and have nothing to do with gerunds.
Long participle clauses are common in Tibetan sentences and are an important method for creating complex thoughts, much more so than in English. In English we might say the running man, where running is the participle. In Tibetan, running might be an entire clause or sub-sentence, such as the to-the-store-to-get-groceries-while-talking-on-the-phone-and-needing-eggs-running man. In English, this would get translated to a relative clause the man who, needing eggs, ran to the store to get groceries while talking on the phone.
One important and confusing difference between Tibetan and English is how “gerunds" work. In English, a gerund is a verb that is used as a noun. For example: “seeing is believing” or “taking the bus is a great.” In Tibetan, this is much more closely signified by a verbal noun, which is literally a verb nominalized (with the addition of པ་ and བ་ to the core verb) such that it represents the abstract idea of an action or state. For example, རྟོགས་ is a verb that means “to realize” and རྟོགས་པ་ is a noun that means “realization.”
However, according to Hackett's terminology, gerunds in Tibetan are formed with ནས་ following a core verb and imply a sequence. For example: སྟོང་ཉིད་རྟོགས་ནས་བསོད་ནམས་ཕུང་པོ་དཔག་མེད་པ་བསགས་ would mean: “Having realized emptiness, [she] accumulated immeasurable heaps of merit.” The important point here is to notice that the gerund creates a sequence. The clause that precedes the gerund happens temporally before what comes after it. Continuatives are another way to create a temporal sequence. Participles, in contrast, do not necessarily create a sequence and can create temporally simultaneous relationships (the Buddha who teaches the doctrine).
“A verbal noun is the nominalized form of a verb (this, confusingly, is also called a ”gerund" in English), and generally refers to the abstract idea of an action or state – being something or the action of doing something. A participle on the other hand, is an adjectival form of a verb which can serve as a predicate adjective in a sentence, can modify a noun, or sometimes – in the absence of a noun – can convey a generic connotation ("[that which is] being generated"). In Tibetan, gerunds are distinct [because they are marked with ནས་] though participles and verbal nouns are not [both are marked with the same particles, པ་ and བ་]." Hackett Verb Lexicion, first edition pp. 12 (my notes in brackets)
པ་ and བ་ form:
Predicate adjective making an indirect statement:
ས་བཅུ་པ་ལ་ཡོངས་སྤྱོང་མེད་པ་མིན།
It is not that there are not thorough purifiers on the tenth ground.
དེ་ཚེ་ངེས་འབྱུང་སྐྱེས་པ་ལགས།
Then, [it is the case that] renunciation has been generated. (taking skyes pa as a participle and taking into account the past tense form of the verb)
Then, [this] is the generation of renuncation. (taking skyes pa as a verbal noun)
ལགས་ is honorific form of ཡིན་
“When forming an indirect statement, a referential noun is not necessary (in English, this is rendered with a subordinate clause introduced by the relative pronoun ”that")." Hackett Verb Lexicion, first edition pp. 12
Predicate adjective is a complement of linking verb?
Participle is often used in place of a finite verb form to indicate a temporally simultaneous event (unlike the gerund in Tibetan, which implies sequence).
ནས་ forms a gerund that implies sequence. Having done X, …
need examples of participial uses of 5th case (མཐོང་ནས་, having seen …, is good)
use of 6th case linking verbal to verb on pp. 11
example of present active and past passive participles?
Is a predicate adjective simply a complement of a linking verb?
what if དེ་ཚེ་ངེས་འབྱུང་སྐྱེས་པ་ལགས། were དེ་ཚེ་ངེས་འབྱུང་སྐྱེ་པ་ལགས། (present tense)
རེ་ཞིག་སོང་[བ་]ལ་མི་འགྲོ་སྟེ། omitted ba? pp. 13
Is “the gone over” (སོང་) a participle or a verbal noun?
Why is བགོམ་ལ་ “being gone over” and not “not yet gone over” if it is future tense? pp. 13