In Tibetan, any verb may be followed by a nominalizing suffix (or “nominalizer”). Nominalization converts a verb or even an entire clause into a noun (or rather a noun phrase). This is an important and complex feature of Tibetan grammar.

The most common nominalizing suffixes are:

• པ་
• མཁན་
• ས་
• སྟངས་
• ཚུལ་
• སྲོལ་
• རྒྱུ་
• ཡག་
• འགྱོག་

These nominalizers are treated in more detail below, in individual sections dedicated to them.

My entries in this Reference Grammar focus on the use of these nominalizers in Spoken Tibetan, but they are all used in Literary Tibetan as well, with the exception of ཡག་ and འགྱོག་. The latter is used exclusively in a familiar register, and despite the frequency of its occurrence doesn’t figure in grammars. The spelling given here is purely phonetic. All the other suffixes are clearly derived from nouns and have kept a grammatical role linked with their original meaning.

Most of these suffixes are used for three main purposes:

1. They form relative clauses functioning as modifiers of noun phrases like an adjective (In English, relative clauses are introduced by wh- pronouns or that. (See the discussion of relative clauses below xxlink 26.3.1).
2. They form nominal clauses that function like any noun phrase: as subject, object, complement, etc. (In English, nominal clauses correspond to that clauses, -ing clauses, and infinitive clauses.) The nominalized verb (or the proposition) becomes the head of the noun phrase: i.e., it operates as a noun and may be followed by a demonstrative and a case marker like any other noun (See the discussion of nominal clauses below xxlink 41.3.2).
3. Finally, it may be noted that most of these nominalizers may combine with final auxiliary verbs to form inflectional endings: པ་ཡིན་ (xxlink 7.3.2), མཁན་ཡིན་ (xxlink 20.3.1), རྒྱུ་ཡིན་ and ཡག་ཡིན་ (xxlink 28.3.1).