Part 2 — Chapter III. The Adjective.
Reading edition
Or the Adjective may be put in the Gen. before the Substantive: མཐོན་པོའི་རི་, and then the latter only is declined: མཐོན་པོའི་རིའི་, མཐོན་པོའི་རི་རྣམས་. In the vulgar speech both of C and WT the adjective sometimes preserves, even in this position, its simple form (Nominative). A third way of expression, when both are joined together, without any article, as སྐམ་ས་ instead of ས་སྐམ་པོ་ ‘the dry land’, is rather a compound substantive, with the same difference of meaning as ‘highland’ and ‘a high land’ in English.
2. An Adverb which augments the notion of the adjective itself, is ལྷག་པར་ ‘more’; this can be added ad libitum: རྟ་བས་ཁྱི་ལྷག་པར་ཆུང་བ་ཡིན་.
3. Another adverb, ཇེ་ means: ‘more and more’, ‘gradually more’, e.g. ཇེ་ཉེ་ཇེ་ཉེ་སོང་སྟེ་ ‘going nearer and nearer’. 4. ‘The elder—the younger’ e.g. of two brothers, is simply expressed by: ‘the great—the little’. 5. The Superlative is paraphrased by the same means: ཀུན་ལས་ཆེན་པོ་ or ཐམས་ཅད་པས་ཆེན་པོ་ ‘greater than all’. Or it is expressed in the following manner: ཡུལ་གྱི་རྒྱལ་པོའི་ནང་ན་རྒྱལ་པོ་གང་ཆེ་ ‘of (among) the kings of the country which one is the greatest (prop. great)?’. Adverbs for expressing high degrees are: ཤིན་ཏུ་ or རབ་ཏུ་ ‘very’, ཀུན་ཏུ་ ‘all’, ཡོངས་སུ་ ‘quite’, མཆོག་ཏུ་ ‘exceedingly’ etc.
Note. The colloquial language of WT uses སང་ instead of བས་ or ལས་, and མཱ་ (mā, always with a strong emphasis, perhaps a mutilated form of མངས་ ‘much’) or མང་པོ་ instead of ཤིན་ཏུ་, whereas that of CT employs ལས་ in the former case, but repeats the adjective in the latter, so that ‘very large’ is expressed in books by ཤིན་ཏུ་ཆེན་པོ་, in speaking, in WT by mā́ c̀ʽén-po, in CT by c̀ʽem-po c̀ʽem-po.
[
Contents
]