Classical Tibetan

Nominalizing suffixes — pa or ba and ma — are required by the noun or adjective that is to be singled out;

• po or bo (masculine) and mo (feminine) are used for distinction of gender.

The plural is denoted, when required, by adding the morpheme nams-rnams}}; when the collective nature of the plurality is stressed the morpheme -dag is instead used. These two morphemes combine readily (e.g. namsrnams-dag}} 'a group with several members', and namsdag-rnams'}} 'several groups').[3]

The classical written language has ten cases.[4]

• absolutive (unmarked morphologically)
• genitive (གི་ -gi, གྱི་ -gyi, ཀྱི་ -kyi, འི་ -'i, ཡི་ -yi)
• agentive (གིས་ -gis, གྱིས་ -gyis, ཀྱིས་ -kyis, ས་ -s, ཡིས་ -yis)
• locative (ན་ -na)
• allative (ལ་ -la)
• terminative (རུ་ -ru, སུ་ -su, ཏུ་ -tu, དུ་ -du, ར་ -r)
• comitative (དང་ -dang)
• ablative (ནས་ -nas)
• elative (ལས་ -las)
• comparative (བས་ -bas)

Case morphology is affixed to entire noun phrases, not to individual words (i.e. Gruppenflexion).

Traditional Tibetan grammarians do not distinguish case markers in this manner, but rather distribute these case morphemes (excluding -dang and -bas) into the eight cases of Sanskrit.

There are personal, demonstrative, interrogative and reflexive pronouns, as well as an indefinite article, which is plainly related to the numeral for "one."

As an example of the pronominal system of classical Tibetan, the Milarepa rnam thar exhibits the following personal pronouns.[5]

Like in French, the plural (ཁྱེད་ khyed) can be used a polite singular.[5]

Many verbs exhibit stem ablaut among the four stem forms, thus a or e in the present tends to become o in the imperative byed, byas, bya, byos ('to do'), an e in the present changes to a in the past and future (len, blangs, blang, longs 'to take'); in some verbs a present in i changes to u in the other stems ('dzin, bzung, gzung, zung 'to take'). Additionally, the stems of verbs are also distinguished by the addition of various prefixes and suffixes, thus sgrub (present), bsgrubs (past), bsgrub (future), 'sgrubs (imperative). Though the final -s suffix, when used, is quite regular for the past and imperative, the specific prefixes to be used with any given verb are less predictable; while there is a clear pattern of b- for a past stem and g- for a future stem, this usage is not consistent.[6]

Only a limited number of verbs are capable of four changes; some cannot assume more than three, some two, and many only one. This relative deficiency is made up by the addition of auxiliaries or suffixes both in the classical language and in the modern dialects.

Verbs are negated by two prepositional particles: mi and ma. Mi is used with present and future stems. The particle ma is used with the past stem; prohibitions do not employ the imperative stem, rather the present stem is negated with ma. There is also a negative stative verb med 'there is not, there does not exist', the counterpart to the stative verb yod 'there is, there exists'

As with nouns, Tibetan also has a complex system of honorific and polite verbal forms. Thus, many verbs for everyday actions have a completely different form to express the superior status, whether actual or out of courtesy, of the agent of the action, thus lta 'see', hon. gzigs; byed 'do', hon. mdzad. Where a specific honorific verb stem does not exist, the same effect is brought about by compounding a standard verbal stem with an appropriate general honorific stem such as mdzad.