Tibetan Grammar - 'la don' particles
The la don particles
| Case | Particles |
| Second Case: Objective Case, ལས་སུ་བྱ་བའི་སྒྲ་ | སུ་, རུ་, ཏུ་, དུ་, ན་, ར་, ལ་ |
| Fourth Case: Purposive Case, དགོས་ཆེད་ཀྱི་སྒྲ་ | སུ་, རུ་, ཏུ་, དུ་, ན་, ར་, ལ་ |
| Seventh Case: Locative Case, རྟེན་གནས་ཀྱི་སྒྲ་ | སུ་, རུ་, ཏུ་, དུ་, ན་, ར་, ལ་ |
Each of these three Tibetan cases refer to the same set of seven particles. These are the la don particles ལ་, ན་, སུ་, རུ་, ཏུ་, དུ་, ར་. The la don particles are in essence three particles ལ་, ན་ and སུ་རུ་ཏུ་དུ་ར་1 which have overlapping usages within these three cases.
Note: There is no connection between the fact that there are three particles and three cases. The three cases come from Sanskrit grammar which was used to describe Tibetan grammar. It is a coincidence that the three Tibetan particles—combined as the la don—express functions found in the three Sanskrit cases. The three different particles of the la don are not identical in their usage. And though Tibetan grammarians generally try to establish an at least nominal equivalence among them, practically this equivalence does not appear. Because of their overlapping usage and the Tibetan way of combining them as la don these three particles are treated together. An exclusive or predominate usage of the particles for a given function will be pointed out.
1 སུ་རུ་ཏུ་དུ་ར་ are the different spellings of one particle
Independent of verb type
Location in space
Place of activity
(Tib. ལས་སུ་བྱ་བའི་སྒྲ་, Objective case)
| སངས་རྒྱས་ཀྱིས་རྒྱ་གར་ལ་ཆོས་བསྟན། |
| Buddha India Dharma taught |
| The Buddha taught the Dharma in India. |
Direction
| ཞིང་ལ་ཆུ་འདྲེན། |
| field water irrigate |
| to irrigate the field |
Location in time
Locative case
| དེའི་ཚེ་ན་ |
| that time |
| at that time |
| ཁོ་ཡུན་རིང་དུ་ལྷ་སར་བསྡད། |
| he time long Lhasa stayed |
| He stayed a long time in Lhasa. |
| དུས་དང་གནས་སྐབས་ཐམས་ཅད་དུ་འཆི་བ་ཁོ་ན་སྒོམས། |
| time circumstance all death only meditate |
| At all times and circumstances meditate only on death. |
Adverb of time with ན་
from སྔ་མ་: "in the past, before, past time, earlier"
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| དུས་སྔ་མ་ནས་ད་ལྟའི་བར་ |
| time former now until |
| from former times to now |
Note: also སྔར་ "in the past, preceding, former, before", with a frozen la don (see: "frozen particles")
| སྔར་ནས་འདྲིས་པའི་གྲོགས་པོ་ |
| past to be acquainted friend |
| the friend [one] is acquainted with from the past |
Purpose
| ཞིང་པ་རྣམས་ཀྱིས་ལོ་ཏོག་སྨིན་པ་ལ་ཆུ་འདྲེན། |
| farmer pl. the crop ripen water irrigate |
| The farmers irrigate for the ripening of the crop. |
Referential qualifier (ལ་)
| མོ་ལ་བུ་ཞིག་སྐྱེས། |
| she child a born |
| A child was born to her. |
| ང་ལ་ཁྱོད་ཀྱི་སྡིག་པའི་ལས་མི་ཆུང་ངོ།། |
| I you evil deeds not small |
| For me your evil deeds are not small. |
| སེམས་ཅན་ཆེན་པོ་ཐམས་ཅད་ལ་བུ་གཅིག་པ་དང་འདྲ། |
| Mahasattva all son same similar, like |
| Mahasattva was for everyone like their son. |
| གཟུགས་བརྙན་གྱི་བུད་མེད་ལ་བུད་མེད་དོ་སྙམ་ |
| image, reflection woman woman to think |
| to think in regard to an image of a woman [that it is] a woman |