Dr. Tamar Makharoblidze a short Grammar of Georgian Introduction Georgian
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Vowels
ConsonantsWhere there are multiple consonants for a point of articulation, they are given in the following order: voiceless / voiced / voiceless ejective.
Compare these similar sounds: In the ejective sounds, one creates a stronger stress in the sound that follows the consonant.
3. Noun 3.1. Flexion There are seven cases in Georgian: nominative, ergative, dative, genitive, instrumental, adverbial and vocative. Plural forms are produced by the suffix “eb,” which appears after the root of the noun and before the case marker. Nominative -i k'ats-i k'ats-eb-i Ergative -ma k'ats-ma k'ats-eb-ma Dative -s k'ats-s k'ats-eb -s Genitive -is k'ats-is k'ats-eb -is Instrumental -it k'ats-it k'ats-eb -it Adverbial -ad k'ats-ad k'ats-eb -ad Vocative -o k'ats-o! k'ats-eb -o!
2. Genitive is an equivalent to the preposition “of “or the possessive clitic -'s in English. In the phrase “Tbilisis kucha” "the street of Tbilisi" the word "Tbilis-is" is in genitive case. 3. Instrumental case corresponds the preposition “with” in English. "He is painting with a pencil," “is khat’avs pankrit” where the word "pencil"- “pankrit” is in the instrumental case. 4. Adverbial case commonly marks adverbial phrases. It is also used in some other arbitrary contexts, especially while using the name of languages. For example, in the sentence "Please, write this in Georgian." getaq’va, es dats’ere kartulad “Georgian” – “kartulad” is in adverbial case. 5. Vocative case is used for addressing someone and therefore only exists for the second person singular and plural. Plural suffix is not used when the noun is preceded by a cardinal number; For example, "five books" in Georgian is expressed as "khuti (5) ts’igni" and not "khuti ts’ignebi." 3.2. Flexion of consonant-ending nouns The vocals - a, e, o are missing before n, r, l, m in the words ending on these consonants - in 3 cases: genitive, instrumental and adverbial in singular and everywhere in plural. In the same cases in singular (and everywhere in plural as well) “o” changes into “v” before n, r, l. a, e, o, before n, r, l, m ov before n, r, l,
Stumari -guest, oboli-orphan, matsoni -yogurt Orthography A. The words ending at “s” have two “s”-s in dative of singular forms: tbiliss B. The words ending at “m” have two “m”-s in ergative of singular forms: katamma (hen-erg.) 3.3. Emphatic vowel The emphatic “a” may appear after case markers in dative, genitive, instrumental and adverbial cases in singular and plural but it doesn’t change the word meaning: sakhli -house sakhls/sakhlsa sakhlebs/sakhlebsa sakhlis/sakhlisa sakhlebis/sakhlebisa sakhlit/sakhlita sakhlebit/sakhlebita sakhlad/sakhlada sakhlebad/sakhlebada
ghvino is an exception - ghvinis, ghvinit and in plural – ghvinoebi, ghvinoebs, etc. 3.5. Old plural forms In the old Georgian there were another affixes for noun plurality. Suffix “n” was a case marker in nominative and vocative together with proper case markers (“i” and “o”) and “t” was in the other cases:
In modern Georgian these forms are used in some forms: sabch’ota k’avshiri (USSR), mts’eralta k’avshiri (Writers’ Union), mkhat’varta k’avshiri (Painters’ Union), etc. 4. Postpositions Georgian has postpositions not prepositions. Ad-positions are placed after rather than before the nouns. 4. 1. The postposition of nominative is “-vit” - like. It adds only to the nouns ending on consonants: lomivit (like a lion), bavshvivit (like a child), kalivit (like a woman). The nouns ending on vowels have the same postposition in dative. 4. 2. The postpositions of dative Like - vit dedasavit (like a mother), kalsavit (like a woman). This postposition is seldom used in dative, as the same postposition in nominative is mostly used with consonant-ending words. On - ze (magidaze – on the table) In - shi (magidashi – in the table) At /near -tan/-s-tan (k’ats-tan, magida-s-tan ) This postposition is added to the word root directly in the words with final consonants, while the words ending on vocals keep the dative marker “–s”. Compare: - magida-s-tan (at the table) and megobar-tan (at/with the friend). Between/among shoris /shua k’edlebs shoris/ k’edlebs shua (Between/among the walls) Orthography A. The words ending at “z” have two “z”-s after adding the postposition “-ze” (on) only in singular forms: k’ovzze (on the spoon). B. The words ending at “sh” have two “sh”-s after adding the postposition “shi” (in) in singular forms: tamashshi (in game). 4. 3. Postpositions of genitive For - tvis (kalistvis - for the woman) From (material) - gan (kalisgan from the woman) Towards - k’en (kalisk’en to/towards the woman) By mier (kalis mier by the woman) Because of gamo (kalis gamo - Because of the woman) Except garda (kalis garda - except for the woman) About shesaxeb (kalis shesakheb - about the woman) According mixedvit/tanakhmad (kalis mikhedvit/tanakhmad - According to the woman) In spite of miukhedavad (kalis miukhedavad - In spite of the woman) Instead of natsvlad / magier (kalis natsvlad / magier - instead of the woman) In front of c’in (kalis c’in - in front of the woman) Behind uk’an (kalis uk’an – behind the woman) After shemdeg (kalis shemdeg - after the woman) Around irgvliv (kalis irgvliv - around the woman) Up zemot (kalis zemot - up of the woman) Down kvemot (kalis kvemot - down/under the woman) Under kvesh (kalis kvesh - down/under the woman) Left to/on martskhniv (kalis martskhniv – to the left of the woman) Right to/on marjvniv (kalis marjvniv – to the left of the woman)
Note, that the final “a” and “e” vocals are reduced by adding this postposition. 4. 5. The postpositions of adverbial -mde/-(a)mde and -mdis/-(a)mdis both mean till/unit. The “a” is the rest of case marker, the consonant “d” of case marker is missing. The samples: sakhlamde/sakhlamdis, tbilisamde/tbilisamdis, etc. 4. 6. Postpositions with ergative semantics In Georgian there are two cases are without postpositions: vocative and ergative. There are different points of view about vocative in Kartvelian linguistics. The fact is that this case stands separately in the system of Georgian flexion. So, it’s quite natural that this case doesn’t share much with the other cases. The second case which never adds the postpositions is ergative. Its function is well-investigated in different linguistic systems. It has an active role in the language systems where it appears. Generally the cases are more or less open for postpositions. It all depends on their semantic diapasons. Ergative as a case of transitive subject has no postpositions and it is not expected for a subject case to have postpositions. However still there are some postpositions with semantics of the ergative - “mier” (by), “gan” (from), “gamo” (of, from, because). The semantics of “mier” (by) is absolutely clear. It is a postposition of a subject – an acting person and its ergative meaning leaves no doubt. This is an agentive-type morphological unit; Compare:
The postposition “mier” appears with infinitives of transitive verbs, or in other words, it acts out of Georgian verbal morphology. It’s very significant that the postposition “mier” is never used with nouns by intransitive verbs. This postposition doesn’t appear at all with intransitive semantics. Compare: k’atsi ts’evs / k’atsi ats’vens / k’atsis mier dats’venili (The man lies / The man lies down somebody / Somebody is lied down by the man) k’atsi (u)tbeba / k’atsis mier gamtbari (for object) (The man becomes warm / Something becomes warm by the man) Only in case of such transitivation of the forms can we have the postposition “mier” with nouns by intransitive verbs. Postpositions “gamo” and “gan” expose this. They very often have ergative semantics. Of course we should remember that these postpositions also have other functions (especially “gan”), but now we are taking into consideration only their ergative semantics. In the Georgian language we have the equal pair of forms: 1. shishma amak’ank’ala - (The fear shivered me - I shivered with fear) 2. shishisgan mak’ank’alebs (shishis gamo mak’ank’alebs - I shiver because/with/from fear) In these impersonal transitive forms (in the above samples) we can easily see the ergative semantics of the postposition “gan”. The semantic role of the verbal person (or the argument) becomes wider by adding the meaning of reason and it turns out to be impossible to put these two meanings in the forms of ergative case. It’s very important that in such type of impersonal transitive forms (mak’ank’alebs, matsiebs, makhvelebs, mtskhela, mtsiva, mamq’opa, etc.) the actual subject doesn’t belong to either a class of humans or things. For Georgian there is a basic binary opposition between humans and things. The semantics of a subject out of the who-what category was taken away from the verbal morphology and ergative semantics of above mentioned postpositions appeared. There are the two groups of impersonal transitive forms: a. The verbs connected with any conditions of a human’s body and b. The forms with particle “net’av” (“wish”). The ellipsis of this particle in the second groups is quite common. Impersonal transitive forms can’t artificially take the ergative subject. The language doesn’t allow the creation of such hyper-ergativisation. – organizmma shishisagan amak’ank’ala (My organism made me shivering from fear) – is not acceptable, because “shishi” (fear) is the reason and the source (as the actual acting subject) in this action at the same time. Speaking about the reason we mean the reason of verbal action, which could be also the source for this action. This is the reason and motivation of a verbal act. We have bilateral contacts between the semantics of reason and ergativity. The only form of hyper-ergativization which is more or less acceptable in Georgian is the following: (raghatsam) shishisagan amak’ank’ala. - Something made me shiver from fear. The language can permit the existence of such forms, because it’s one explanation of the class of the subject, which is outside of the who-what category, as could be exposed by the word raghatsam “something”. The semantics of the ergative exposed by postpositions doesn’t show split ergativity in Georgian. With these postpositions we have ergative semantics in any of the rows of conjugation. We could review a comparison these forms with ergative meaning from the one hand and the system of split ergativity in Georgian from the other. Compare:
The forms of impersonal transitive have the problems in producing the third serya. The above-exposed forms of impersonal transitives can show postpositional ergativity in all rows of conjugation and we call them supper -ergatives. It’s very significant that all postpositions with semantics of ergativity are the postpositions of the genitive case. This fact outlines the very specific systemic relations between these two cases (ergative and genitive) in Iberian-Caucasian languages. The declination systems in some North Caucasian languages (the ergative or genitive type declinations, or so called “отэргативное” and “отгенитивное склонение” – from-ergative or from-genitive declination) seem to be a very important key in the light of relations with linguistic models of possessive-destination and ergativity. In our opinion the exposed item is connected with double marking declination appearing only in the ergative or the genitive in North Caucasian languages. 5. Adjectives 5.1. Adjective Degrees In Georgian adjectives have three degrees: 1. Neutral 2. Superlative/more - produced by affixes “u-es” 3. Minimal/less - produced by affixes “mo-o” Compare: tetri (white) – utetresi (the whitest) – motetro (less white) mts’vane (green) – umts’vanesi (the most green) – momts’vano (less green) ts’iteli (red) – uts’itlesi (the reddest) – mots’italo (less red)
Some adjectives ending on “il” and “el” loose these letters. Compare: t’k’bili (sweet) – ut’k’besi (the sweetest) – mot’k’bo (less sweet); grdzeli (long) – ugrdzesi (the longest) – mogrdzo (less long). The two adjectives “good” – “k’argi” and “bad” – “tsudi” produce the degrees by changing the forms: k’argi (good) – uk’etesi (better ) – sauk’eteso (the best) tsudi (bad) - uaresi (the worst) (It has only superlative).
Erg. p’at’ara megobar-ma p’at’ara megobreb-ma Dat. p’at’ara megobar-s p’at’ara megobreb-s Gen. p’at’ara megobr-is p’at’ara megobreb-is Instr. p’at’ara megobr-it p’at’ara megobreb-it Adv. p’at’ara megobr-ad p’at’ara megobreb-ad Voc. p’at’ara megobar-o p’at’ara megobreb-o
Nom. did-i megobari did-i megobreb-i Erg. didm-ma megobar-ma did-ma megobreb-ma Dat. did megobar-s did megobreb-s Gen. did-i megobr-is did-i megobreb-is Instr. did-i megobr-it did-i megobreb-it Adv. did megobr-ad did megobreb-ad Voc. did-o megobar-o did-o megobreb-o It has full forms in 3 cases: nominative, ergative and vocative. The adjective partially looses case markers (It looses the consonants.) in two cases: genitive and instrumental. It is absolutely without case markers in two cases: dative and adverbial. |