The Grammar of Dzongkha Revised and Expanded, with a Guide to Roman Dzongkha and to Phonological Dzongkha 1 Karma Tshering of Gaselô George van Driem 1 University of Bern Published in 2019 by Himalayan Linguistics University of California at Santa Barbara Santa Barbara, California 93106 United States of America This book has been published as a free, open access resource by The entire volume may be printed and bound as a book for private use, but not for sale. The Dzongkha sound files accompanying this book are freely available online. Himalayan Linguistics Archive 7 (2019), x + 709 pages Himalayan Linguistics University of California at Santa Barbara United States of America Copyright in this edition is vested with the authors. Released under Creative Commons License (Attribution 4.0 International) First published: 1992 (1st edition) Revised and expanded: 1998 (2nd edition) Enhanced French version: 2014 (3rd edition) Revised and Expanded, with a Guide to Roman Dzongkha and to Phonological Dzongkha: 2019 (4th edi- tion) Creators: Karma Tshering & van Driem, George Title: The Grammar of Dzongkha ISBN: 978-0-578-50750-7 Credits All photographs, images, maps and figures included herein are sourced as cited in the text, andare provided here under a CC (Creative Commons) License. Copyright remains vested in the authors/illustrators. Cover design by Yeshy Tempa Sotrug Typesetting by Naoki Peter Contents List of abbreviations . vii Preface ................................ x 1 The Dzongkha language 1 1 Dzongkha, Chöke and Dränjoke ................ 1 2 Earlier work on Dzongkha ................... 4 3 Roman Dzongkha and Phonological Dzongkha . 8 Exercises to Chapter 1 ..................... 10 2 Dzongkha Script 11 1 The ’Ucen Script ........................ 12 2 Bhutanese Cursive ....................... 18 Exercises to Chapter 2 ..................... 24 3 Dzongkha Phonology 27 1 Dzongkha initials and tones . 27 2 Dzongkha vowels ........................ 32 3 Phonetic description of Dzongkha vowels . 35 4 Phonetic description of Dzongkha initials . 44 5 Dzongkha finals ......................... 72 6 Roman Dzongkha and traditional orthography . 75 7 Contour tones .......................... 91 Exercises to Chapter 3 ..................... 93 4 Pronouns, postpositions, numerals and the verbs ‘to be’ 97 1 Dzongkha pronouns ...................... 98 2 Suffixes and postpositions . 103 3 The verbs ‘to be’ ꍲན་ ’ing and ꍲན་པས་ ’ime . 105 4 The verbs ‘to be’ 蝼ད་ yö and འ䝴ག་ dû . 114 5 The comparative བས་ -wa and superlative 鍼ས་ -sho . 125 iv • Grammar of Dzongkha 6 The verb སྨོ་ mo ~ ’mô . 127 7 Numerals: the decimal system . 130 8 Numerals: the vigesimal system . 138 9 Telling time . 146 Exercises to Chapter 4 . 148 5 Present tenses, the ergative, negation, the adhortative, opt- ative, supine and modal verbs 169 1 The ergative case . 169 2 The steady state present and the suffix of acquired knowledge . 172 3 The progressive . 177 4 The factual tenses and inflected stems . 186 5 The present continuous . 201 6 Experienced perceptions . 203 7 The adhortative and the optative . 211 8 The supine . 213 9 Modals expressing permission, ability, opportunity, exigency and probability . 217 10 Rhetorical questions . 225 Exercises to Chapter 5 . 226 6 Past tenses, perfective aspect, the present gerund, the past, participle and conjunctions 243 1 The witnessed past . 243 2 The inferred past . 246 3 Perfective aspect, auxiliaries expressing Aktionsart and verb stem alternation . 253 4 The present and durative gerunds . 270 5 The past participle and perfect gerunds . 272 6 The conditional conjunction ‘if’ . 280 7 The concessive conjunction ‘although’ . 284 Contents • v 8 The adversative conjunction ‘but’ . 286 9 The alternative conjunction ‘or’ . 288 10 The causative conjunction ‘because’ . 290 11 The adverbialiser . 292 Exercises to Chapter 6 . 297 7 Periphrastic constructions with the infinitive, the potential, the future, interrogative and indefinite pronouns, the Bhu- tanese calendar 315 1 The infinitive . 315 2 Periphrastic constructions with the infinitive . 322 3 The potential auxiliary . 333 4 The autolalic future and future perfect . 340 5 Interrogative and indefinite pronouns . 342 6 The Bhutanese calendar . 353 Exercises to Chapter 7 . 366 8 Subordinate clauses, indirect speech, the imperative, hon- orifics, fixed expressions and proverbs 375 1 Subordinate clauses, indirect speech and the hearsay evidential ............................375 2 The subordinator 捲་ -mi . 385 3 The imperative . 392 4 Honorific speech . 399 5 Fixed expressions . 404 6 Some Dzongkha proverbs . 408 Exercises to Chapter 8 . 414 References 431 Appendices 437 1 Answer Key . 438 2 People’s Names . 458 vi • Grammar of Dzongkha 3 Place Names . 464 4 Guide to Roman Dzongkha (Dzongkha) . 486 5 Guide to Phonological Dzongkha (Dzongkha) . 594 6 Guide to Roman Dzongkha (English) . 606 7 Guide to Phonological Dzongkha (English) . 637 8 Sample Texts in Roman Dzongkha and Phonological Dzongkha ............................647 List of abbreviations • vii List of abbreviations When used in interlinear morpheme glosses,the abbreviations listed below appear between square brackets. acc rhematic accent particle སྟེ་ te highlighting the preceding higher-level order syntactic constituent, comparable to Nepali ta. adh adhortative ending ୺་ ‑ge adj adjective adv adverb ak the suffix པས་ ‑be ~ བས་ ‑we of newly acquired knowledge or information art article auth particle of authority 鮨་譺་ ’mare aux the verbs ‘to be’ ꍲན་ ’ing ~ ’in, ꍲན་པས་ ’ime or ꍲནམ་ ’im, used as auxiliary verbs. col the collective ending ཆ་ޱབ་ châchap for nouns denoting hu- man referents con the ending པ荲་鮒ང་ ‑bigang ~ migang or བ荲་鮒ང་ ‑wigang of the continuous present, used in conjunction with the auxiliary verbs ꍲན་ ’ing and ꍲན་པས་ ’ime ctr particle སྦོ་ bô expressing that the proposition is contrary to the speaker’s expectations, similar to Nepali po. dat the dative or target case def definite article 䝺་ -di dem demonstrative pronoun dpg durative present gerund in ས་ར་ ‑sara ep present tense ending མས་ -me marking the present of just ex- perienced perception erg ergative suffix གྱིས་ ~ ཀྱིས་ ~ ୲ས་ -gi fe particle of friendly entreaty 鮨ས་ ’mä viii • Grammar of Dzongkha fp future perfect auxiliary རྙོ་ nyo gen genitive ending གྱི་ ~ ཀྱི་ ~ ୲་ -gi gn the gnomic present or nominalised forms in པ荲་ bi ~ mi and བ荲་ wi hard hard stem verb he hearsay evidential particle 轼་ lo hon honorific inf infinitive, infinitival ending 佲་ -ni ip inferred past suffix 佴ག་ -nu n noun nom nominalising suffix པ荲་ ‑bi ~ ‑mi or བ荲་ ‑wi, seen for ex- ample in ordinal numbers num numeral part particle pf any of the several markers of the perfective aspect: the in- transitive auxiliary 魼་ so, the intransitive auxiliary ᭲་ (མ᭲ས་) chi, the transitive auxiliary 计་ da, and the perfective auxiliary 荼ང་ ong, which combines uniquely with the perfective stem of the verb ‘to come’ pfg perfect gerund in 鍲ང་ན་ ‑shina pg present gerund in ད་ ‑da pl plural suffix 歴་ ‑tshu pol polite sentence-final particle ལགས་ lâ postp postposition pot auxiliary of potentiality 荼ང་ ong pp past participle in སྟེ་ ~ 㽺་ ~ 䝺་ ‑di ppg prompt perfect gerund in ᝲག་ ‑ci prb modal of probability འ䞲་བས་ drä pr ending 䝼་ -do marking the progressive tense pro pronoun pt witnessed past tense, marked by the suffix 蝲་ ‑yi ~ ᝲ་ ‑ci List of abbreviations • ix Q interrogative particles ག་ ga, ୼་ g’o or ན་ na soft soft stem verb str stress particle རང་ ra highlighting preceding lower-level order syntactic constituent, comparable to Nepali nai. sub subordinator suffix 捲་ -mi sup supine marked by the suffix པར་ ‑ba or བར་ ‑wa u urging suffix 鍲ག་ -sh vi verbum intransitivum, intransitive verb vt verbum transitivum, transitive verb x • Grammar of Dzongkha Preface The present revised and expanded grammar of Dzongkha supersedes the earlier 1992 and 1998 English editions and the 2014 French edition of our Dzongkha language textbook. The grammar lessons in our Dzongkha language textbook have over the years appealed to an international read- ership eager to acquire a working command of Dzongkha, and this new textbook has been augmented with appendices in order better to serve our Bhutanese readership as well. Appendices Four through Eight incorporate the Guide to Roman Dzongkha, which explains the romanisation known as Roman Dzongkha and introduces the Bhutanese system of writing known as Phonological Dzongkha that was developed for the Dzongkha Develop- ment Commission of the Royal Government of Bhutan in 1994. Our thanks go to Dr. T. Mark Ellison at Australian National University in Canberra for rescuing the text of the Guide and the 1998 grammar, extricating the texts from obsolete software and converting their legacy fonts. We both extend a special thanks to Naoki 直樹 Peter for the exquisite and assiduous type- setting of this book and to Yeshy Tempa Sotrug 蝺་鍺ས་བ鮟ན་པ་魼ག་ཕྲུག། of Jurasüdfuss for the double rDo-rje that adorns this book. We also cordially thank Ben འཇམ་དཔལ་རྡོ་རྗེ་ Christian for the use of his images of Mañjuśrī. Since the first half of the book serves an international audience, whereas the second half of the book caters more to Bhutanese readers, it has proved useful for the convenience of our readers to repeat some of the informa- tion contained in Chapter 3 of the language textbook again in Dzongkha and in English in Appendices Four and Six respectively. 1 The Dzongkha language zongkha is the national language of the Kingdom of Bhutan, and D Dzongkha is the native language of most of western Bhutan. Yet at least nineteen different languages are spoken in the kingdom. The poly- glot country of Bhutan is the size of multilingual Switzerland. Unlike the Swiss Confederation, however, in Bhutan there is no one absolute ma- jority language. Most of the languages of Bhutan are members of the Trans-Himalayan family, which happens to be the second most populous language family on our planet in terms of numbers of speakers (van Driem 2014). The sole exception is Nepali, spoken in parts of southern Bhutan, which is a member of the Indo-European language family, the world’s most populous language family.