Note 2 — Chapter III · The Adjective.

17. Comparison. 1. Special terminations, expressive of the different degrees of comparison, as in the Aryan languages, do not exist in Tibetan. There are two particles, however, corresponding to the English than: བས་, after the final consonants ང་ ར་ ལ་ and after vowels (པས་, after ག་ ད་ ན་ བ་ མ་ ས་2), and ལས་; these particles follow the word with which another is compared (like the Hind. سے‎) and this then precedes the compared one, finally follows the adjective in the positive: རྟ་བས་ (or ལས་) ཁྱི་ཆུང་བ་ཡིན་ ‘horse—than dog small is’, just as in Hindūstāni: گھوڑى سے كتّا چھوٹا ھَى‎. But also the position usual in our European languages occurs, thus: རབ་ཏུ་འབྱུང་བའི་བསོད་ནམས་རི་རབ་ལྷུན་པོ་བས་འཕངས་མཐོའོ་ ‘the merit of becoming a priest is relatively higher than mount Meru’; བོད་གྱི་རྒྱལ་པོ་གཞན་ལས་ཆེ་བ་ཡིན་ནོ་ ‘the king of Tibet is greater than the other ones’. The particle བས་ (པས་) may be put, in the same manner, after adverbs. Thus, སྔར་བས་གསལ་བར་མཐོང་བར་གྱུར་ཏོ་ ‘(their eyes) became more keen-sighted than before’. Or, after infinitives, གཞན་སོང་བ་བས་ནུ་བོས་སོང་ན་ཕན་ ‘it is better (for him) that his younger brother should go (with him) than another’. ལས་ for itself has the meaning of ‘more than’, with the negative: ‘not more than’, ‘only’; thus: ང་ལ་སྲང་གཉིས་ལས་ནི་མི་དགོས་ ‘more than two ounces I do not want’ (cf. vulg. WT: གསུམ་མན་ན་མེད་ ‘there are not more than (only) three’); or ‘nothing but’, ‘only’, རི་དྭགས་ཤོར་བ་ལས་དགའ་བ་མེད་ ‘there is no pleasure (for us) but hunting, h. is our only pl.’.