The Classical Tibetan cases and their transcategoriality

Himalayan Linguistics, Vol 9(2)
Dative ལ་སྒྲ་ (ལ་ LA and་ ར་R):
A. functions: a) case functions: marks the role of Beneficiary (‘to’ or not translated) and
Possessor (usually not translated), locative (superessive ‘on’, inessive ‘in’, ‘at’, allative ‘towards’,
‘to’). b) connective functions: connective for adjectives and verbs ‘and’, [c) no adverbial
function], d) postpositional function, e) sentence final particle function.
B. illustrations:
a1) Beneficiary52 ལྷ་ལ་འབུལ་ lha+la ’bul ‘to offer to the deity’, གྲོགས་ལ་ཡི་གེ་སྟོན་་grogs+la [friend+DAT:BEN] yige ston
‘to show the letter to a friend’, སློང་མོ་བར་བཟའ་བཏུང་བྱིན་ slongmoba+r [beggar+ DAT:BEN] bza’
btung byin ‘to give food and drink to the beggar’. It is also used with affect verbs: སྟག་ལ་སྐྲག
stag+la [tiger+DAT: BEN] skrag ‘to be afraid of the tiger’, དགྲ་ལ་སྡང་ dgra+la
[ennemy+DAT:BEN] sdang ‘to hate the ennemy’, གཉེན་ལ་བྱམས་ gnyen+la [relative+
DAT:BEN] byams ‘to love one’s relatives’.
a2) Possessor 53
ཡུམ་ལ་སྲས་ཤིག་འཁྲུངས། yum+la [mother+ DAT:POS] sras shig+Ø ’khrungs ‘The mother gave birth
to a son (litt. To the mother a son was born).’, འབྲས་བུ་ལ་རྒྱུ་ཡོད། ’brasbu+la [result+DAT:POS]
rgyu+Ø yod ‘The result (the fruit) has a cause.’, བུ་མོ་བདག་ལ་ཕ་མ་ལོས་ཀྱང་ཡོད། bumo bdag+la [me+
DAT:POS] phama+Ø los kyang yod ‘Of course the girl that I am has parents!’.
The Beneficiary is marked in the same way as the Possessor but their syntactic position is
different. In unmarked sentences, the Possessor occurs as the first argument while the
Beneficiary occurs as the second or third argument. However in marked sentences it is
possible to place the possessor in the second position: བདེན་པ་ང་ལ་ཡོད། bden pa+Ø nga+la [me+
DAT:POS] yod ‘I have the truth.’. The unmarked sentence is: ང་ལ་བདེན་པ་ཡོད། nga+la [me+
DAT:POS] bden pa+Ø yod ‘I have the truth.’.
For the functions of grammatical Beneficiary and Possessor, only r and la may be used.
According various authors (e.g. Skalbzang ’Gyurmed (1981) and Dorzhi (1987)), the
purposive and the locative cases are not suited for this meaning.
a3) superessive location (‘on, at’)
ཁྲི་ལ་བླ་མ་བཞུགས་ khri+la [throne+ DAT:SUPER] blama+Ø bzhugs ‘The lama is on the throne.’,
ས་ལ་རྩྭ་སྐྱེས་ sa+la [ground+ DAT:SUPER] rtswa+Ø skyes ‘Grass grows on the ground.’,
མཁའ་ལ་ཉི་མ་ཤར་སྣང་ mkha’+la [sky+ DAT:SUPER] nyima+Ø shar+snang ‘The sun has risen in the
sky.’, རི་ལ་རྩྭ་ནི་མི་འདུག ri+la [moutain+DAT] rstwa+Ø ni mi ’dug ‘On the mountain, there is no
grass.’, ཤིང་ཁྱི་ལོ་ལ་འཁྲུངས་ shing khyi་lo+la [wood dog (year)+ DAT:SUPER] ’khrungs ‘to be born
in the wood dog [year]’.
52 Native grammarians call this function dngos yul la ’jug pa bya ba (Dorzhi, 1987: 16), ’jug yul dngos or las su bya ba
gtso bo ( Skalbzang ’Gyurmed, 1981: 40)
53Alternatively, the possessor can be called “recipient”. Skalbzang ’Gyurmed (1981: 59) calls this function “dngos po’i
bdag po la ston pa”.
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