The Demonstrative Pronouns

The grammar texts mainly discuss the history of these particles and their position in relation to nouns and so forth. However, འདི་སྒྲ། and དེ་སྒྲ།, can very easily be understood as the demonstrative pronouns “this” and “that”.

This is not to be confused with the Continuative Particles (ལྷག་བཅས།), which will have a different set of usages and can usually be distinguished due to not being suffix dependent.

As such, these pronouns are placed after the noun, adjective, or nominalised verb they are marking, but can also replace them in some contexts.

For example:

• “That pot is red.” བུམ་པ་དེ་དམར་པོ་ཡིན།
• “In order to generate that mind, it is necessary to generate the roots of that mind, i.e. love and great compassion.” སེམས་དེ་བསྐྱེད་པ་ལ་སེམས་དེའི་རྩ་བ་བྱམས་པ་དང་སྙིང་རྗེ་ཆེན་པོ་བསྐྱེད་དགོས།
• “There is no time to spare in this life.” ཚེ་འདིར་ནི་བསྡད་ལོན་མེད།
• “There is no freedom in taking birth in those [lower realms.]” དེ་དག་ཏུ་སྐྱེ་བ་ལ་རང་དབང་ནི་མེད།

Please note that unlike English, these can be used as personal pronouns as well. For example:

• “The Buddha came, he taught the Dharma…” སངས་རྒྱས་བྱོན་པ། དེས་དམ་ཆོས་སྟོན་པ།

Moreover, there are usages of these pronouns that are not delimiting but appositional. For example:

• “There is a definition of form-source because that which is the apprehended object of eye-consciousness is that [definition].” གཟུགས་ཀྱི་སྐྱེ་མཆེད་ཀྱི་མཚན་ཉིད་ཡོད་དེ། མིག་ཤེས་ཀྱི་བཟུང་བྱ་དེ་དེ་ཡིན་པའི་ཕྱིར།

In this case, the དེ་སྒྲ། is in apposition to the phrase “apprehended object of an eye-consciousness” and is simply being used for clarity; since the preceding phrase may be long and complex, it is syntactically “summarised” into the དེ་སྒྲ།, which is then clearly the First Case for the ཡིན། etc.

Up a level: Fourteen grammar particles