ma dag?

[kirtu]

The following is in the Tibetan Machine Uni format so hopefully it will show up correctly:

མདག

According to the THL Tibetan to English Translation tool this means impure. But is it impure by itself or is it a kind of prefix ?

Thanks!

Kirt

[tantular]

like English "impure", it's a combination of a negative prefix (མ་) and the word for "pure" (དག་པ་).

[kirtu]

like English "impure", it's a combination of a negative prefix (མ་) and the word for "pure" (དག་པ་).

How is this pronounced in it's base form: དག་པ་? Is the པ silent?

Thanks!

Kirt

[conebeckham]

It's pronounced "Dak Pa" or "Ma Dak Pa," when it is a noun.
When it's used as an adjective, the "pa" would be dropped--but when it's "there," i.e., spelled as a second syllable, it's always pronounced.

[tantular]

དག་པ་ is both a substantive and an adjective. Like many Tibetan words, it's actually a past participle of a verb, and Tibetan participles function as both substantives and adjectives. It's just that suffixes are usually contracted in common phrases or poetry: full form དག་པའི་སྣང་བ་​​​​ becomes contracted དག་སྣང་ (pure vision). The same can happen with a negative: མ་དག་པའི་ས་ becomes མ་དག་ས་ (impure bhūmi). True adjectives would follow the word, e.g. ས་ཆེན་པོ་ (great earth), not precede it, so this is a good indication that a participial suffix and འབྲེལ་སྒྲ་'s been dropped.