Georgian Syntax

Kara Jackson LING 461 A Professor Zagona

Introduction Georgian (ISO 639-3:kat) is a Kartvelian language spoken primarily by ethnic Georgians in the Caucasian country of Georgia. It has around 4,238,000 speakers globally, about 92% of whom are in Georgia, where it is the national language (Lewis et al., 2013). It uses the Georgian (also known as Mkhedruli) phonemic alphabet, which consists of 33 unique non-Latin characters. This alphabet can also be used to write other languages in the Kartvelian family (Mingrelian, Svan, and Laz), which are unofficial minority languages is Georgia (Lewis et al., 2013). Although Georgian is not an isolate because of these known related languages, the Kartvelian family is in a sense an isolate family, and it is not well understood how Kartvelian languages are related to other world languages. Georgian is interesting syntactically, as it has great flexibility in its word order: Skopetas et al. (2009) write that all permutations of constituent order are possible and the choice among them is primarily determined by information structure (p. 102). This flexibility is due to prominent agglutination of morphological case markings that impart a lot semantic information into a single word, reducing the need to rely on word order to find meaning. Because of this, Georgian syntax cannot be separated from its morphology, but I will attempt to structure this paper in a way that places syntax primary, although a discussion of cases is necessary. Because most of the glosses are taken from Harris, they often include her system of marking verbs, which include case and state in that order, and although Im not prepared to discuss them at length here, I think they still may be useful.

Basic Structure In Georgian, all permutations of major constituents are grammatical (Skopetas et al., 2009). However, Georgian tends to display two patterns most commonly: SVO and SOV. Harris writes that although the subject is uncontroversially precedent, Georgian cannot be classified as being necessarily more VO than OV, or vice versa. Within these patterns, Harris has identified three common word orders: S IO DO V, S DO V IO, and S IO DO V, where IO and DO represent Indirect object and direct object, respectively. However, in an example from Harris, one can see that sentences in Georgian rarely have every single one of these components represented as a word. A. Gela m-pasuxbos Gela-NOM he-answers-me-I-3 Gela is answering me (Harris, 62) B. cerils mi-vcer mas letter-DAT I-will-write-him-it-I-1 brother-DAT I will write a letter to my brother (Harris, 63) I have not yet discussed the order of the morphological affixes, but these sentences demonstrate some of the issues that one might face in classifying Georgian word order. In A., we have a subject (Gela) that clearly precedes the verb, but is such an inflected verb really just a verb, or an entire verb phrase? The affix min mpasuxos represents the first person direct object, so can we classify the sentence as being S DO V? In B, we can see that Georgian is pro-drop, so the subject (first person singular) is not represented at the beginning of the sentence. This sentence appears to be DO V IO, with the verb taking two prefixes. Mi- indicates the third person indirect object and v- indicates and the other indicates the subject (first

person singular). mivcer has enough content to be a sentence on its own. Knowing this, does it make sense to classify Georgian with typical rules? Although the marking on the verbs is complex and meaningful, most Georgian sentences do have multiple words and exhibit regular structure, and can be Formation Rules Determiners Georgian does not have definite or indefinite articles; the usage is inferred from context. However, it does have other determiners, such as numerals and some (see examples from Adverbs). These determiners, when present, come before the noun they modify, giving the rule DP -> (D) NP Cvitamaset sami partia. We-played-II-3 three rounds-NOM We played three rounds (Harris, 183). Adjectives Although the texts I referenced were more interested in the verb formation of Georgian, Aronson makes reference to adjectives: Sainteroso cigni Interesting book Interesting book (Aronson 47). I did not find a lot of evidence to supplement this claim, but it appears that the rule may be AdjP -> Adj. Adjectives come before the verbs they modify, and undergo some very simple inflection. Postpositional phrases Instead of the prepositional phrases that English speakers are familiar with, Georgian has postpositional phrases. The postposition can be either a morpheme or

a word, but both come at the end or after the noun phrase they modify, as demonstrated below. sakartvelosi davibade Georgia-in I-born-II-2 I was born in Georgia (Harris, 147) otaxi gamtbaria patronis mier Room-Nom heated-it-is-I-2 landlord by The room is heated by the landlord (Harris, 220) In the first example, -si functions as a postpostional suffix that attaches to sakartvelo. There are multiple suffixes with different nuances, so si means in and the other affixes convey different relationships . Less common are separate words, as in the second example, where mier represents the equivalent of the English word by. The postpostition rule is then PP -> NP P. It is also worth noting here that some prepositions are implied within verb inflection. If we return to our previous example of mivcer/ I-will-write-him-it, analysis the morphemes shows that the verb really only carries information about the stem (to write, cer) and the subject and indirect object (first person singular and third person singular respectively). Because the verb is a certain class of verb that is generally understood to be transitive, there is no direct object, and that the object is being sent to the indirect object is implicit (Harris, 55). Adverbs Adverbs in Georgian are unusual in that they, as a class, are almost entirely derived from adjectives. They precede the verb they modify, and I could only find examples where they modified verbs and not adjectives, presumably by a AdvP -> Adv rule

zog-i haer-s iolad amo=a-boqin-eb-s. some-NOM air-DAT easily PV =VM -burp-SM -S 3SG Some (babies) burp up air easily. (chat-group) (Tuite, 286) camosvl-is d e-s gaciebuli vqopilvar; sainlad m-a-xveleb-d-a. leaving-GEN day-DAT chilled I.was.PERF terribly O1SG-VM-cough-SM-IMP-S3SG The day I was to leave I had a cold; I was coughing terribly. (Tuite, 281)

Nouns Nouns in Georgian are not inflected to the degree that the verbs are, though they do have regular case markings that further specify their role in the sentence, which will be discussed later in the section on cases. Examples of nouns with postpositional phrases are not readily available, so I am unsure of how they may modify noun phrases. From the above examples and rules, it follows that NP in Georgian has a rule NP -> (D) (AdjP) N. Verbs Verbs are the most complex area of Georgian syntax, and the one that has received a lot of research interest. They demonstrate extreme agglutination, and a general understanding of the morphology and structure will help to elucidate the relationships between subjects and objects. Georgian verbs are divided into four classes, which are divided by similar conjugation patterns and general properties. The examples given in this section will be class I, which are typically transitive verbs. Georgian also has three series: future/present, aorist, and perfect (Aronson, 198). Each of these series consists of screeves, which are similar to tenses in that they vary only in person and number. However, they differ in that they convey more than

just temporal information. The class and series of verb affect the behavior and some of the morphemes that are attached to the verb. Aronson gives a rough morphological breakdown of the verb as this: pre verb- person marker preradical vowel- verb- stem formant tense (screeve) marker plurality marker. Not every verb will have every component; the pre verb and preradical vowel are most often used to convey nuance within a screeve (Aronson 56) and the formant changes to reflect the series that you are in, and varies some between verbs. For example, the class 1 verb xed can be used as: xed-av-t see-P/F stem formant- you plural You all see him/her/it (Aronson, 49) Here, the whole verb functions as a sentence, and there are only three morphemes, as the object for the third person singular is marked by the absence of an affix. Within the present/future series, the present and the future share a formant, and have no tense marker. With certain verbs, as seen with cer, there is no future/present stem formant: da-v-cer-t fut- we-write-it we will write it v-cer-t we-write-it we are writing it (Aronson, 51) The only difference between the future and the present is the pre verb marker, and with a different tense marker attached, these same roots would change to different tenses. Full tables of morphemes would serve limited use in a paper primarily focused on syntax. However, the present and future tense serve to illustrate the

great complexity that Georgian verbs present. The examples have only considered the first series and the first conjugation class, and within this, one must need to consider what formant is appropriate for the series, differentiate between the present and the future by marking marking with a preverb, and then use a screeve to distinguish between different moods and tenses. Although the future and present are quite semantically distinct, the only difference morphologically is the preverb. If we use a different screeve with the same stem and formant, we end up with different moods that convey that conditional and present. This process across the 12 difference combinations of series and class creates many variables to be accounted for indeed. Prepositional phrases came before or after the verb, as can the noun phrases, depending on what role they play in the sentence. I am not sure what order the prepositional phrases and noun phrases may come in depending on the context, but the rule below indicates that both can come before and after the verb, whereas the adverb must precede the verb. VP -> (PP) (NP) (AdvP) V (NP) (PP) Parameters From the rules previously identified, the parameters needed to aquire Georgian are as follows: Specifier: XP -> W X The determiner rule that shows that determiners precede noun phrases gives evidence that specifiers come before X. Complement: X -> YP X

The direct object, when indicated in the sentence, tends to proceed the verb, indicating that complements come before the X. Adjunct: X - > ZP X or X - > X ZP Indirect objects, when indicated syntactically and not morphologically, can be placed before or after the verb, indicating that there is some flexibility, although adverbs and adjectives always proceed the nouns and verbs they modify. Ergativity and cases Georgian is an ergative language, which means that it marks the subject of a transitive verb in the ergative, and places the object of the transitive verb as nominative, which is the same case that the subject of a intransitive verb is marked in. Ergativity can be morphological (as is the case in Georgian) or syntactic, which is much more rare. Very few languages are totally ergative, so there are multiple patterns that verbs can take, and there are a few intransitive verbs that take the ergative case. Georgian has 3 patterns of case marking, as demonstrated below: glexi tesaves siminds. peasant-NOM he-sows-it-1-I corn-DAT The peasant is sowing corn glexma datesa simindi. Peasant-ERG he-sowed-it-2-I corn-NOM The peasant sowed corn glexs dautesavs simindi Peasant-DAT he-sowed-it-3-I corn-NOM. The peasant has sowed corn (Harris, 20). The patterns extend to the indirect object, and are as follows (SUB DO IO) A- ERG NOM DAT B- NOM DAT DAT

C- DAT NOM NOM The noun endings for each of the cases are given below, though there are many more cases than given. Nominative Post consonant Post vowel -i null Ergative -ma -m Dative -s -s

Ergativity in Georgian is currently the area of ongoing research, as the patterns vary regularly based on series and class of verb, but the boundaries of the behavior are different than many ergative languages. Concluding Remarks Georgian is an interesting and singular language syntactically, due especially to its flexible structure, complex morphology, and unconventional case patterning. If I had had more time, I would be interested in examining the interaction between its morphology and syntax.

Works Cited Aronson, H. I. (1982). Georgian: A reading grammar. Columbus: Slavica. Harris, A. C. (1981). Georgian syntax: A study in relational grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lewis, M.P., Simons G.F., & Fennig, C.D. (eds.) (2013). Georgian. In: Ethnologue: Languages of the world (17th ed.). Dallas: SIL International. Retrieved from: https://www.ethnologue.com/language/kat Skopeteas, S., Fery C., & Asatiani R. (2009). Word order and intonation in Georgian. Lingua: volume 119(1), 102-127. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2008.09.001. Tuite, K. (2009). Agentless Transitive Verbs in Georgian. Anthropological linguistics: volume 51(3-4), 269-295.