Georgian grammar has many distinctive and extremely complex features, such as split ergativity and a polypersonal verb agreement system.
Georgian has its own alphabet. In this article, a transliteration with Latin letters will be used throughout.
Morphosyntactic alignment Georgian syntax and verb agreement are largely those of a nominative–accusative language. That is, the subject of an intransitive verb and the subject of a transitive verb are treated alike when it comes to word order within the sentence, and agreement marks in the verb complex. Nominative–accusative alignment is one of the two major morphosyntactic alignments, along with ergative-absolutive.
However, Georgian case morphology (that is, the declension of nouns using case marks) does not always coincide with verbal alignment. Georgian has often been said to exhibit split ergativity; morphologically speaking, it is said that it mostly behaves like an ergative–absolutive language in the Series II ("aorist") screeves. That means that the subject of an intransitive verb will take the same case markings as the direct object of a transitive verb. However, this is not a fully accurate representation.
This is because Georgian has yet another level of split ergativity. In the aorist series, intransitive verbs behave differently. Second conjugation verbs behave as would normally be expected in an ergative language; the subject is declined in the least-marked case, the nominative case (terminologically equivalent in this instance to absolutive cases in other languages). Third conjugation verbs behave as if they belonged to an accusative system; the most-marked case (the ergative) marks the subject. The division between second and third conjugations is a convenient way to remember the difference, but in fact they both contain intransitive verbs, and as a whole the behaviour of these verbs follows an active alignment. In an active language, intransitive verbs are subdivided into two classes. The division is usually based on semantic criteria regarding the nature of the subject and the verb; for example, if the subject identifies an agent (an active or intentional performer of the action of the verb), then it might be marked with one case (e.g., the ergative), while if the subject identifies an experiencer of the event or one who does not actively initiate it, then it might be marked with another case (e.g., the absolutive or nominative). What might be called the "most active" case, then, marks the subject of a transitive verb, while the "least active" or "most patientive" case is that used to mark a direct object. This is precisely what happens in Georgian, in the restricted environment of the second or third conjugation verbs in the aorist series.
In Georgian, the classification of verbs according to the agentive or patientive nature of their subject has to do with performing an action, regardless of whether the subject is in control or not. (There are some exceptions to this; weather verbs and verbs of emission of light and sound are usually zero-place predicates, and thus have no agent at all.) The division between classes is conventional and rigid; each verb receives the class that typically corresponds to it. Where the subject is typically an active performer, it is marked as ergative, even if in some specific instances the action might be outside the control of the subject. Therefore, Georgian active alignment is said to be of the "split-S" type.
Case system Georgian has seven grammatical cases: nominative, ergative (also known in the Kartvelological literature as the narrative (motxrobiti) case, due to the rather inaccurate suggestion of regular ergativity, and that this case generally only occurs in the aorist series, which usually moves the narrative forward), dative, genitive, instrumental, adverbial and vocative.
The nominative, ergative and dative are core cases, and due to the complex morphosyntactic alignment of Georgian, each one has several different functions and also overlaps with each other, in different contexts. They will be treated together with the verb system.
The non-core cases are genitive, instrumental, adverbial and vocative.
The genitive case is the equivalent of the preposition of or the possessive clitic -s in English. In the phrase "the republic of Georgia", the word "Georgia" is in the genitive case: Sakartvelos resp'ublik'a. The instrumental case corresponds to the preposition with in English, as in "he is cutting with a knife", where the word "knife" is in the instrumental case. It also occurs with the objects of certain postpositions. The adverbial case commonly marks adverbial phrases. It is also used in some other contexts, especially when using names of languages. For example, in the sentence "Can you translate this into Georgian?", Georgian is in the adverbial case. The vocative case is used when addressing someone. For example, a mother calls her child with bat'ono? (meaning "sir?").
Nouns The declension of a noun depends on whether the root of the noun ends with a vowel or a consonant. If the root of the noun ends with a vowel, the declension can be either truncating (roots ending with -e or -a) or non-truncating (roots ending with -o or -u). In the truncating declensions, the last vowel of the word stem is lost in the genitive and the instrumental cases. The table below lists the suffixes for each noun case, with an example next to it.
Consonant final Vowel final (truncating) Vowel final (non-truncating) Suffix Example:k'ats- ("man") Suffix Example:mama- ("father") Suffix Example:Sakartvelo- ("Georgia")Nominative -i k'ats-i -∅ mama -∅ SakartveloErgative -ma k'ats-ma -m mama-m -m Sakartvelo-mDative -s k'ats-s -s mama-s -s Sakartvelo-sGenitive -is k'ats-is -is * mam-is -s Sakartvelo-sInstrumental -it k'ats-it -it * mam-it -ti Sakartvelo-tiAdverbial -ad k'ats-ad -d mama-d -d Sakartvelo-dVocative -o k'ats-o! -∅ mama! -∅ Sakartvelo!
(* truncation of the last vowel occurs)
In the case of a word that ends in an -o, the -o may disappear completely or reduce to a -v and the consonant case endings are used, with the exception of the vocative case, which itself becomes a -v. An example of this is the word teorbo (music), which becomes teorbo-v in the vocative case.
Pluralisation The plural number is marked with the suffix -eb, which appears after the root of the noun and before the case suffix. Some examples are:
The nominative case of men in Georgian is constructed as, k'ats+eb+i, while the ergative case would be, k'ats+eb+ma. The nominative case of trees in Georgian (xe, root ending with truncating vowel -e) is, xe+eb+i, while the dative case would be, xe+eb+s. The nominative case of girls in Georgian (gogo, root ending with non-truncating vowel -o) is, gogo+eb+i, while the instrumental case would be, gogo+eb+it.
The plural suffix is not used when the noun is preceded by a quantifier of some kind, such as a cardinal number. Therefore, for example, "five men" in Georgian is expressed as, "xuti (5) k'atsi", not "xuti k'atsebi". Additionally, in certain formal contexts, Georgian uses Old Georgian case endings distinct from those of modern Georgian: k'atsta saloni ("men's salon") lit. salon of men.
Pronouns The following table lists the declension of all six personal pronouns.
Nominative ErgativeDativeGenitiveInstrumentalAdverbialVocative Singular First me chem(s) chemit chemad - Second shen shen(s) shenit shenad she! Third proximal es (a)man (a)mas (a)mis (a)mit (a)mad - medial eg ma(ga)n ma(ga)s m(ag)is m(ag)it ma(ga)d - distal is / igi (i)man (i)mas (i)mis (i)mit (i)mad - Plural First chven chven(s) chvenit chvenad - Second tkven tkven(s) tkvenit tkvenad tkve! Third proximal eseni (a)mat - medial egeni ma(ga)t - distal isini (i)mat -
As can be seen from the table, all the cases of the third persons except the nominative case can be expressed in two different ways; with or without an "i" at the beginning of the pronoun. The extra letter "i" adds a directional meaning. The closest English equivalent could be the distinction between his, her and that. An example can be "her pencil" versus "that (girl)'s pencil." In English "that" can never behave as a personal pronoun, but in Georgian, the additional letter "i" makes that possible.
Adjectives The declension of adjectives is different from that of nouns, but like that of nouns depends on whether the root of the adjective ends with a consonant or a vowel: a vowel-final-stem adjective is identical in all cases, while a consonant-final-stem adjective changes from case to case (put another way, one might say that vowel-final-stem adjectives do not actually decline for case). The following table presents declensions of the adjectives did- ("big") and ch'aghara- ("grey-haired") with the noun datv- ("bear").
Consonant final stemExample: did- Vowel final stem Example: ch'aghara- Noun example: datv-Nominative -i did-i -∅ ch'aghara datv-iErgative -ma did-ma -∅ ch'aghara datv-maDative -∅ did -∅ ch'aghara datv-sGenitive -i did-i -∅ ch'aghara datv-isInstrumental -i did-i -∅ ch'aghara datv-it Adverbial -∅ did -∅ ch'aghara datv-adVocative -o did-o -∅ ch'aghara datv-o
While often used as modifiers, adjectives can also have stand-alone substantive force in Georgian: one could say mindoda lurji ts'igni ("I would like the blue book") or just mindoda lurji ("I would like the blue one").
Possessive adjectives The possessive adjectives (equivalent to English my, your, etc.) are declined like other consonant-stem-final adjectives, except for a final -s in the dative, instrumental, and adverbial forms of the first- and second-person possessive adjectives. There are no second- and third-person vocative forms.
Nominative ErgativeDativeGenitiveInstrumentalAdverbialVocativeFirst-person singular chem-i chem-ma chem-s chem-i chem-i(s) chem-s chem-oSecond-person singular shen-i shen-ma shen-s shen-i shen-i(s) shen-s –Third-person singular amis-i magis-i
(i)mis-i amis-(ma) magis-(ma)
(i)mis-(ma) amis magis
(i)mis amis-(i) magis-(i)
(i)mis-(i) amis-(i) magis-(i)
(i)mis-(i) amis magis
(i)mis –First-person plural chven-i chven-ma chven-s chven-i chven-i(s) chven-s chven-oSecond-person plural tkven-i tkven-ma tkven-s tkven-i tkven-i(s) tkven-s –Third-person plural amat-i magat-i
(i)mat-i amat-(ma) magat-(ma)
(i)mat-(ma) amat magat
(i)mat amat-i magat-i
(i)mat-i amat-(i) magat-(i)
(i)mat-(i) amat magat
(i)mat –
Adpositions Georgian by and large has postpositions rather than prepositions. Most of these are cliticized to the ends of nouns. They might be written separately or together with the noun. Prepositions do exist, but they are very few in numbers, and tend to be calques from Russian that entered the language during the Soviet period.
Each postposition governs (requires) a specific case of the noun, akin to the usage of prepositions in German or Latin. Only one postposition governs the nominative case (-vit "like"), and there are no postpositions that govern the ergative or the vocative cases. Here are some examples of postpositions:
Postposition English meaning Case-vit 1 like nominative-ze on dative-tan at, near-tan ertad together with-shi 2 in, toshorisamongshuabetween-dan 3 from (a place) instrumental-gan from (a person, a thing) genitivegamo because ofgarda exceptgareshe without-tvis formier bymagivrad instead ofmiuxedavad in spite ofshesaxebabout, concerning-ts'in before, in front of-mde 4 up to, as far as adverbial
1 The postposition -vit could also take the dative case in its elongated form (with an insertion of -a- in between the case suffix and the postposition).
2 In the usage of postposition -shi the dative case suffix -s is dropped.
3 In the usage of postposition -dan the instrumental case suffix -t is dropped.
4 In the usage of postposition -mde the adverbial case suffix -d is dropped.
Examples The Georgian nominal has a series of morpheme slots that must be filled in a specific order: