Lhasa Tibetan (), or Standard Tibetan, is the Tibetan dialect spoken by educated people of Lhasa, the capital of the Tibetan Autonomous Region of China. It is an official language of the Tibet Autonomous Region.
In the traditional "three-branched" classification of the Tibetic languages, the Lhasa dialect belongs to the Central Tibetan branch (the other two being Khams Tibetan and Amdo Tibetan). In terms of mutual intelligibility, speakers of Khams Tibetan are able to communicate at a basic level with Lhasa Tibetan, while Amdo speakers cannot. Both Lhasa Tibetan and Khams Tibetan evolved to become tonal and do not preserve the word-initial consonant clusters, which makes them very far from Classical Tibetan, especially when compared to the more conservative Amdo Tibetan.
Registers
Like many languages, Lhasa Tibetan has a variety of language registers: (Wylie: , literally "demotic language"): the vernacular speech. (Wylie: , "honorifics or deference, courtesy"): the formal spoken style, particularly prominent in Lhasa. (Wylie: , literally "letters language" or "literary language"): the written literary style; may include below. (Wylie: , literally "doctrine language" or "religious language"): the literary style in which the scriptures and other classical works are written.
Grammar
Syntax and word order
Tibetan is an ergative language, with what can loosely be termed subject–object–verb (SOV) word order. Grammatical constituents broadly have head-final word order: adjectives generally follow nouns in Tibetan, unless the two are linked by a genitive particle objects and adverbs precede the verb, as do adjectives in copular clauses a noun marked with the genitive case precedes the noun which it modifies demonstratives and numerals follow the noun they modify.
Nouns and pronouns
Tibetan nouns do not possess grammatical gender, although this may be marked lexically, nor do they inflect for number. However, definite human nouns may take a plural marker .
Tibetan has been described as having six cases: absolutive, agentive, genitive, ablative, associative and oblique. These are generally marked by particles, which are attached to entire noun phrases, rather than individual nouns. These suffixes may vary in form based on the final sound of the root.
Personal pronouns are inflected for number, showing singular, dual and plural forms. They can have between one and three registers.
The Standard Tibetan language distinguishes three levels of demonstrative: proximal "this", medial "that", and distal "that over there (yonder)". These can also take case suffixes.
Verbs
Verbs in Tibetan always come at the end of the clause. Verbs do not show agreement in person, number or gender in Tibetan. There is also no voice distinction between active and passive; Tibetan verbs are neutral with regard to voice.
Tibetan verbs can be divided into classses based on volition and valency. The volition of the verb has a major effect on its morphology and syntax. Volitional verbs have imperative forms, whilst non-volitional verbs do not: compare "Look!" with the non-existent * "*See!". Additionally, only volitional verbs can take the egophoric copula .
Verbs in Tibetan can be split into monovalent and divalent verbs; some may also act as both, such as "break". This interacts with the volition of the verb to condition which nouns take the ergative case and which must take the absolutive, remaining unmarked. Nonetheless, distinction in transitivity is orthogonal to volition; both the volitional and non-volitional classes contain transitive as well as intransitive verbs.
The aspect of the verb affects which verbal suffixes and which final auxiliary copulae are attached. Morphologically, verbs in the unaccomplished aspect are marked by the suffix or its other forms, identical to the genitive case for nouns, whereas accomplished aspect verbs do not use this suffix. Each can be broken down into two subcategories: under the unaccomplished aspect, future and progressive/general; under the accomplished aspect, perfect and aorist or simple perfective.