The Ladon Particles

There are seven Ladon particles: ལ། ན། དུ། ཏུ། སུ། རུ། -ར།

ལ་སྒྲ། and ན་སྒྲ། are not suffix dependent. The remaining are as follows:

Notes:

• Since the ད་དྲག secondary suffix is omitted in modern Tibetan, it can often seem like the "wrong" Ladon has been used, e.g. ཀུན་ཏུ་བཟང་པོ། ཤིན་ཏུ་རྒྱས་པ།
• For the འ། and no suffix (མཐའ་མེད།) there is a choice with how to proceed:
  • If the author needs an extra syllable (e.g. for verse meter) they can use: མཐའ་རུ། ནམ་མཁའ་རུ།
  • If they don’t, the ladon is added directly to the word or replaces the suffix:
    • ཡིན་པ། → ཡིན་པར།
    • མཐའ། → མཐར།  ནམ་མཁའ། → ནམ་མཁར།

The Ladons are used to mark five different meanings:

• The Second Case:
  • The Objective ལས་སུ་བྱ་བ།
  • The དེ་ཉིད།
• The Fourth Case
• The Seventh Case:
  • The Locative རྟེན་གནས།
  • The Time-marker ཚེ་སྐབས།

The ལ་སྒྲ། can replace any other Ladon, apart from when it is marking the དེ་ཉིད།.
The དེ་ཉིད། will never be marked with a ལ་སྒྲ། or ན་སྒྲ།.

ལ་སྒྲ། is the main Ladon used in the spoken language, though this will depend somewhat upon the region of Tibet the speaker is from.

Although the ན་སྒྲ། can technically replace any Ladon, it is mainly used for the Seventh Case; using it for the Second and Fourth cases is said to be uncomfortable. For example:

• “Tashi goes in Lhasa” བཀྲ་ཤིས་ལྷ་ས་ན་འགྲོ། ✗ (Second Case)
• “Tashi lives in Lhasa” བཀྲ་ཤིས་ལྷ་ས་ན་གནས། ✓ (Seventh Case)

Moreover, the ན་སྒྲ། will rarely, if ever, be used to mark living beings (གང་ཟག) with the Seventh Case Locative. Living beings marked with the Seventh Case Locative or Second Case Objective will usually be marked with a ལ་སྒྲ།. For example (“I have a pen”):

• ང་ལ་སྨྱུ་གུ་ཡོད། ✓
• ང་ན་སྨྱུ་གུ་ཡོད། ✗

The Second and Seventh Case Ladons should never be affixed directly to verbs; verbs must be nominalised in order to apply these cases to them. For example (“Training the mind to take the responsibility for liberated them”):

• དེ་དག་སྒྲོལ་བའི་ཁུར་འཁྱེར་ལ་བློ་སྦྱང་བའོ། ✗
• དེ་དག་སྒྲོལ་བའི་ཁུར་འཁྱེར་བ་ལ་བློ་སྦྱང་བའོ། ✓

If the verb is not nominalised, it becomes a non-case usage of the ན་སྒྲ། (to make an “if” statement) and ལ་སྒྲ། (used as a continuative particle “and/but”) (See: non-case usages).

On the other hand, the Fourth Case Ladons should always be affixed directly to verbs. However, they will sometimes be affixed to nouns or will use other particles that clarify the Fourth Case usage; see Fourth Case.

Up a level: The eight cases