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The Prefix m- with Certain Substantives in Tibetan

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

Stuart N. Wolfenden
Stuart N. Wolfenden*
Affiliation:
Royal Anthropological Institute
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Extract

The origin and signification of the prefixes of Tibetan have in the past been the centres of a variety of theories, and among them m-has naturally excited speculation. The light thrown upon the matter by the native grammarians does not seem to greatly clarify the issue, although in the case of m- their main statement has, perhaps, a significance so far unnoticed. The object of this note, accordingly, is to bring out this fact, and to illumine the origin of at least some of the substantives in m-. To this end let us first examine the main contention of the Tibetan grammarians with regard to this prefix.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 4 , Issue 4-Part1 , December 1928, pp. 277 - 280
Copyright
Copyright © 1928 Linguistic Society of America

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References

1 See Laufer, ‘Studien zur Sprachwissenschaft der Tibeter,‘ Sitzungsber. d. philosoph.-philolog. u. hist. Classe d. k. b. Akad. d. Wissensch. zu München 1898. 542–3, and compare Si-tu-i sum-rtags 56, as reprinted by Sarat Chandra Das in his Introduction to the Grammar of the Tibetan Language (Darjeeling, 1915).

2 Op. cit. 543.

3 Jäschke, Tibetan-English Dictionary 120, s. v. sgrig-pa.

4 Questionable as a Present form. Schroeter (Dictionary of the Bhotanta or Boutan Language 321) gives rgal-ba a dispute, a sense not listed by Jäschke, but does not record rkal-ba. From Jäschke's Tibetan-English Dictionary and the Dictionary Tibetan and English of Csoma de Körös the form is also lacking. Schmidt's Tibetisch-Deutsches Wörterbuch the writer has had no opportunity to consult. The Perfect occurs in the Dzanglun: č'en-ma k'yod-kyis ṅa-i bu bsad-do žes brkal-to She accused the first wife (saying) 'You have killed my son.' See Schmidt, Grammatik der tibetischen Sprache 222.

5 Occurs in an early document from Chinese Turkestan. See Thomas, JRAS 1927. 74. k'u-mt'san uncle(s) and nephew(s) there appears for later k'u-t'san.

6 T'oung Pao 15. 109 (1914).

7 This has more than once been suggested. See, for instance, Conrady, Eine indochinesische Causativ-Denominativ-Bildung, p. x, and again in the Zeitschrift der deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 51. 532–3 (1897).

8 Causativ-Denominativ-Bildung 20.

9 Ibid. 23.