Transliteration: ming gzhi
<noun> "Name-base". Grammar term. Tibetan language begins with letters. Letters are then used to produce two different types of basic morpheme of the language. The first is called a མིང་ grammatical name and the second a ཚིག་ཕྲད་ phrase connector. Of the two, the names are seen as more important and the phrase connectors are seen only as accessories to the names. Thus, when the construction of "words" i.e., the morphemes of Tibetan language is discussed, it is only discussed in relation to the grammatical names and not in relation to the phrase connectors.Thumi Saṃbhoṭa laid out a system for the construction of grammatical names. The system is defined in the first treatise on grammar called The Thirty Verses. In the system, grammatical names are constructed from letters, which are of two types: དབྱངས་ཡིག་ vowels and གསལ་བྱེད་ consonants. There are three possible positions that a consonant can be positioned in when constructing a name. A consonant letter is first assigned to the most important position. This position is the basis of the name in many ways (see below), therefore it is called the name-base. A consonant letter must then be put after the name-base in what is called the རྗེས་འཇུག་ suffix position to the name-base. After that, a consonant can but does not have to be put in the སྔོན་འཇུག་ prefix position to that name-base.
Of the thirty consonants, all can be used in the name-base position. A specific group of ten of the thirty consonants were selected for used as suffixes. Five of those ten letters for use as suffixes were selected for use also as prefixes. For this reason, it says in The Thirty Verses that there are "thirty name-base consonants".
Thus, a Tibetan grammatical "name" is made up of letters. However, it is not constructed like an English word where a first letter, either vowel or consonant, is chosen and other letters, one after another, are strung after it. Instead, as above, a grammatical name is defined from the outset as having three "slots" in it. The main slot is the basis for the whole name, hence it is called the མིང་གཞི་ "name-base" position. This position will be occupied by any of the thirty consonants, all of which can function as a name-base letter.
A name-base letter can have consonant letters added above and / or below it. In Tibetan grammar, this is described by saying that the name-base consonant can have a consonant letter བརྩེགས་པ་ super-fixed or བཏགས་པ་ sub-joined to it. When this is done, the name-base letter position now has two types of name-base letter in it. It has the principal name-base consonant and the other ones that complement it. These are called the གཙོ་ཡིག་ principal name-base letter and ཕལ་ཡིག་ complement name-base letters respectively. E.g., in སྒྲ་ the letter ག་ ga is the principal name-base and the letters ས་ sa and ར་ ra are the complement letters.
Thus, a Tibetan name is constructed by taking a consonant letter—the name-base—which is regarded as central to the name then adding other consonants around it—above and below, before and after. Additionally, the tone of central letter can be modified by adding one of the དབྱངས་བཞི་ four vowel sounds to it. Regardless of how the central letter is modified and regardless of its final, physical location in the "name", it retains the distinction of being the basis upon which the name was built and hence is the "name-base".
The "name-base" is very important because:
=> it is the letter in the name that is used for alphabetization. I.e., unlike English where the leftmost letter of a word is always used as the basis for alphabetization, in Tibetan, regardless of its position in the "name", the "name-base" is always used as the basis for alphabetization.
=> it is the only letter in a "name" which can have a vowel sound joined to it (there are what look like exceptions but when the rules of grammar are known, this is correct.)
=> there can only be one name-base per name.
=> it defines the rest of the structure of the grammatical name. All Tibetan consonants are assigned varying levels of gender value and there are strict rules about which levels of gender value may be joined with other values. Thus, combined with the other rules mentioned above, the name-base defines the allowable "spellings" of a word. Taking this a step further, the whole Tibetan vocabulary is predefined by these rules and consists of not more than approximately 6000 names.
The term མིང་གཞི་ has also been translated as "root letter". This translates the meaning of the "importance of the letter to a grammatical name" but loses the essential meaning which is that this letter is the basis for a name, where a name is the most fundamental unit of meaning in the Tibetan language. Any presentation of Tibetan grammar constantly refers to "name" because it is the root morpheme of the language. Thus the loss of this term by loose translations such as "root letter" has very serious consequences. In fact, the grammar cannot be described adequately using its own terms if the name-base is reduced to a root letter or any of several other words that have been bandied about for this term. And, when translating Tibetan grammar texts, the loss of the "name" part of the word makes a correct, cogent translation impossible!
The རྟགས་ཀྱི་འཇུག་པ་ Application of Gender Signs gives five gender categories to the name-base consonants and allocates the thirty name-bases into them. This is clarified in [KSM],
"The five letters ka and ca and ta and pa and tsa taken together are the ཕོ་ཡིག་ male letters.
The five letters kha and cha and tha and pha and tsha taken together are the མ་ནིང་ཡི་གེ་ neutral letters.
The twelve letters ga, ja, da, ba, dza, wa, zha, za, 'a, ya, sha, and sa taken together are the མོ་ཡིག་ female letters.
The four letters nga, nya, na, and ma taken together are the ཤིན་ཏུ་མོ་ཡིག་ extremely female letters.
The four letters ra, la, ha, and a taken together are the མོ་གཤམ་ barren letters.
Achen is also named མཚན་མེད་ "characterless". Achen is not only a barren letter but since it has a sound effort that is exceptionally weak it is also named, i.e., called, "characterless"."
The gender of the prefix and suffix letters have great effects on the pronunciation and meaning of the various types of morphemes that they are used in (names, phrase connectors, and so on). The gender of the name-bases on the other hand, affects only which prefixes, etc., can be attached to it. Superficially, it would seem as though the gender of the name-base was not nearly as important as that of the prefixes and suffixes. However, the name-base itself, because of its gender controlling which prefixes, etc., can be joined to it, predetermines the complete range of morphemes carrying meaning—the grammatical names—of the language. The nett result is that the Tibetan language has, as mentioned above, a total morpheme set of about 6,000 grammatical names plus some hundreds of phrase connectors and similar accessories. This morpheme set is fixed and cannot be changed, because of the base definition of the language itself! The result is that the Tibetan language builds up its vocabulary by making groupings of grammatical names that function in concert. These མིང་དོན་ "name-equivalents" as they are called constitute about ninety percent of the Tibetan vocabulary. This comes about entirely because of the gender definitions of the name-bases to start with and because of the gender definitions of the prefixes and suffixes and the rules about which may be co-located with which.