ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors adopt the conventional name of preposition but would like the reader to remember that it appears at the end of the preposition phrase. When the verb phrase contains an auxiliary verb, the auxiliary verb follows the main verb, also exhibiting the opposite word order of English. All Tibetan dialects share one syntactic property: they are all verb final (i.e., the object precedes the verb.) This is manifested in the basic subject-object-verb word order in all sentences. It is worth noting that “verb final” is a property derived from an even more fundamental property in Tibetan syntax: all phrases are head final. Another important syntactic property of Tibetan is that it employs a case system different from the nominative-accusative system employed by English. This case system is called ergative-absolutive. In historical records, Tibetans used to have family names, but this custom has long become obsolete.
