The First Case – Nominative

ཁྱད་གཞི་དོན་གྱི་ངོ་བོ་ཙམ་སྟོན་ཞིང་། དེའི་ཁྱད་ཆོས་གང་ཡང་གསལ་བར་མི་བྱེད་པའི་མིང་རྐྱང་ཡིན་པ།
Meaning: The mere name indicating the mere entity of the object that is an attribute-basis and does not clarify any of its attributes.

This is not technically a case or a grammar particle because of not fulfilling the definition; because it has no particle. However, it fulfils the rest of the definition because a word is “marked” in the First Case because that word itself distinguishing the meaning in a particular context without mixing it up with other meanings.

For example, the word “pot” (བུམ་པ།) is the First Case because the noun “pot” clearly indicates the pot without mixing it up with any other phenomena, such as pillars and so forth.

This links to the idea that concepts and words work by way of isolates (ལྡོག་པ།), such that “pot” is conceptually or linguistically isolated from other phenomena by way of a double negation: it is the opposite of everything that is not a pot (བུམ་པ་མ་ཡིན་པ་ལས་ལོག་པ།). Since only pot is the opposite of everything that is not a pot, the word “pot” does a good job at indicating and distinguishing the pot itself, as opposed to other phenomena, and therefore fulfils that part of the definition.

Function of the First Case

The First Case marks the object (ལས།) of a sentence (See: Part of speech referents). As such, it marks what the verb is happening or being done to.

Illustrations:

• Effects depends on [their] causes འབྲས་བུ་རྒྱུ་ལ་བརྟེན།
  i.e. What depends? The effects (the བརྟེན་བྱ།)
• Tashi goes to the market བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཁྲོམ་ལ་འགྲོ།
  i.e. What goes? Tashi (the འགྲོ་བྱ།)
• One is liberated from samsara རང་ཉིད་འཁོར་བ་ལས་གྲོལ།
  i.e. What is liberated? Oneself (the གྲོལ་བྱ།)
• All phenomena are empty of inherent existence ཆོས་ཐམས་ཅད་རང་བཞིན་གྱིས་སྟོང་།
  i.e. What is empty? All phenomena (the སྟོང་བྱ།)
• The Buddha taught the Dharma སངས་རྒྱས་ཀྱིས་ཆོས་བསྟན།
  i.e. What was taught? The Dharma (the བསྟན་བྱ།)

Exceptions:

• Tashi looked at the flower བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཀྱིས་མེ་ཏོག་ལ་བལྟས།
• Tashi listened to the teachings བཀྲ་ཤིས་ཀྱིས་གསུང་ཆོས་ལ་ཉན།

Such verbs, where the acted-upon object remains unchanged, the བལྟ་བྱ། and ཉན་བྱ། are more strongly considered to be the བལྟ་ཡུལ། and ཉན་ཡུལ། thereby being marked with the Second Case. This is also reflected in English, where we say “to look at” and “to listen to”.

Up a level: The eight cases