Tibetan Colloquial Disclaimer
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Those are my personal summarized notes on the great work done by Franziska Oertle and the SINI Sarnath International Nyingma Institute. They are not revised by teachers and I might have understood the material incorrectly. Also you will miss on the examples to illustrate the grammar points. Therefore they are not intended to be read on its own since it might confuse you. Some notes might not even be officially part of the material but reflections from our meetings!
༡༽ གཅིག་པུ། ༢༽ མ་གཏོགས། ༣༽ ལས། ༤༽ མ་གཞི།
གཅིག་པུ། (alone) can be used to say “only”, and it’s more used for persons. The verb is not negated.
NOTE
It’s preferable to use མ་གཏོགས། to གཅིག་པུ། since the latter has the connotation of loneliness, or being alone… That was after speaking to some native Tibetans. I will myself stick with མ་གཏོགས། for the general case.
ལས། (lit. “from”) is short form of ལས་མང་བ། and always negates the verb or non-verb.
མ་གཏོགས། (“only”, “apart from”, “except for”, “unless”) always negates the verb or non-verb.
མ་གཞི། is the same as མ་གཏོགས།, and it’s pronounced with a trailing “n” མ་གཞིན།
Confusion
When saying “There is only one chair in the room” it can generate confusion: is the room empty with only one chair, or there are many things but chairs only one? Let’s see below.
Transclude of Tibetan-"ma-gtogs"