The Classical Tibetan cases and their transcategoriality

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Tournadre: The Classical Tibetan cases
For a better understanding of the case system functioning, I have proposed an analysis in 10
cases and shown that the CLT case system has four fundamental properties: cliticity,
multifunctionality, transcategoriality and optionality. The originality of the system lies much in the
transcategorial and optional nature of the use of case markers, which largely contributes to the great
syntactic complexity of this literary language.
I have listed the main functions of the various cases; however, this list is certainly not
exhaustive and other minor functions may be added within this model.
This type of analysis should not only facilitate the syntactic description of Classical Literary
Tibetan but also the teaching of this language. The modernization of the language description
could thus go along with the extraordinary development of Literary Tibetan on the internet (email,
wikipedia, websites, blogs, youtube, etc.) and the development of new technologies applied to this
language and to this script.
A BBREVIATIONS
ABL Ablative ELA Elative
ABS Absolutive FP Final Particle
ADJCT Adjunctive GEN Genitive
ADVR Adversative INES Inessive
AGT Agentive LOC Locative
AST Associative PURP Purposive
CLT Classical Tibetan SUPER Superessive
CMP Comparative SPEC Specification
DAT Dative
R EFERENCES
Bacot, Jacques. 1928. Une grammaire Tibétaine du Tibétain Classique : Les Ślokas grammaticaux de
Thonmi Sambhoṭa, avec leurs commentaires. Paris: P. Geuthner [Annales du Musée Guimet.
Bibliothèque d’études 37].
Bacot, Jacques. 1946. Grammaire du Tibétain littéraire. Paris: Paris Libraire d’Amérique et d’Orient.
Bacot, Jacques. 1948. Grammaire du Tibétain littéraire: Index morphologique. Paris: Paris Libraire
d’Amérique et d’Orient.
Bacot, Jacques.1925 Le poète Tibétain Milarépa : ses crimes, ses épreuves, son nirvāna. Paris: Éditions
Bossard [Classiques de l’Orient 11].
Bacot, Jacques. 1971. Milarépa : ses méfaits, ses épreuves, son illumination (Le poète Tibétain Milarépa :
ses crimes, ses épreuves, son nirvāna; translation from Tibetan to French by Jacques Bacot).
Paris : Fayard.
Beyer, Stephan. 2003. The Classical Tibetan language. New York: State University of New York.
Bickel, Balthasar. 2007. “Two ways of Suspending Object Agreement in Puma: Between
Incorporation, Antipassivization, and Optional Agreement”. Himalayan Linguistics 7: 1-19.