The Attenuative Suffix: ཙམ་    This suffix may be used with adjectives (in their short form) as well as with substantives, numbers, and verbs. In the conversational register, the suffix ཙམ་ is usually pronounced -ts. Its meaning varies according to context: After an adjective, it means “a little,” or “a little more”: མང་ཙམ་ “A little more” གོང་ཁེ་ཙམ་ “A little cheaper” མགྱོགས་ཙམ་ “A little faster” དམར་ཙམ་ “A little red” ལྷག་ཙམ་ “A few more” སྔ་ཙམ་ “A little earlier (or early)”
After a number, it means “about”: མི་བརྒྱ་ཙམ་ “About 100 people” སྒོར་མོ་འབུམ་གཉིས་ཙམ་ “About two hundred thousand gormo (yuan)” སྐར་མ་བཅོ་ལྔ་ཙམ་ “About a quarter of an hour”
After a noun, a verb, or a nominalized verb, depending on context this suffix may mean “only,” “simply,” “mere,” “just,” or “almost”: མིང་ཙམ། “Only the name, purely nominal” ཁོང་ཕེབས་པ་ཙམ་གྱིས་རྙོག་ཁྲ་བཟོས་སོང་། “The mere fact that he came created problems.” ལག་པ་ཐུག་པ་ཙམ་གྱིས་ན་ཚ་གཏང་གིས། “Just touching it with my hand makes it hurt.” ཁོ་རང་མ་ཤི་ཙམ་བརྡུངས་པ་རེད། “He was beaten almost to death.” མགོ་ནས་རྟིང་པར་མ་སླེབས་ཙམ་བར་དུ། “Almost from head to foot” The suffix also appears in certain adverbial formulations such as: ཨའོ་ཙ་ “Quite, not bad” ཕར་ཙ་ད་གར་ “Just there”
   The Attenuative Suffix: ཙམ་  subjects 5210 For more information about this term, see Full Entry below.Subjects GrammarsTibetan Grammatical FunctionAdjectives and Adjectival PhrasesAdjectival SuffixesFull EntryRelated Subjects (1)Related Texts (1)