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The Ni Particle

The ནི་སྒྲ། is a purely grammatical particle and rarely explicitly makes it into English translation. It has three main usages:

  1. Isolation (དགར་བ།)
  2. Emphasis (ངེས་བཟུང་ངམ་ནན་ཏན་བརྣན་པ།)
  3. Padding (ཚིག་ཁ་སྐོང་།)

The first two are its main usages and thus it is better to think of the ནི་སྒྲ། as a particle that is used to separate out parts of the sentence as being different clauses etc., either for clarification or for emphasis.

1. Isolation (དགར་བ།)

This is the most common usage. Usually clarifying a sentence clause in relation to an Existence Particle (སྒྲུབ་སྒྲ།) such as ཡིན།. Since ཡིན། takes two things in the First Case to form the “A is B” construction, it can sometimes be unclear what A and B are (especially as sentences get longer and more complex); the ནི་སྒྲ། is then used to isolate the two.

For example:

This will also apply to outlines, which are usually marked with the ནི་སྒྲ།, in that, regardless of how long the subsequent text is, it will usually be connected to an explicit or implicit ཡིན།, forming the structure: “The first outline, [xyz], is…[remainder of section].”

For example:

Although one would probably not translate it as such, this translation shows the literal grammatical structure of the sentence:

2. Emphasis (ངེས་བཟུང་ངམ་ནན་ཏན་བརྣན་པ།)

The next usage is for the purposes of emphasis, but often also helps in clarifying clauses. It sets up a word or part of a sentence as important or as the overarching topic or clause of a sentence or paragraph.

For example:

(The italics are not marking the ནི་སྒྲ། themselves, but rather the words they are emphasising.)

3. Padding (ཚིག་ཁ་སྐོང་།)

Finally, this particle will also be used for verse padding when extra syllables are needed for the meter. In doing so, the ནི་སྒྲ། will add no meaning or grammar.

Up a level: Fourteen grammar particles