Talk:Georgian grammar

Pronouns
In the article it says that "that" in English can never be used as a pronoun. This is patently not true. "That" is a demonstrative pronoun in English, and I assume the author meant to say that "that" can't be used as a personal pronoun in English, which is true. Someone please fix this.

"Screeve"?
What is a screeve? Do you mean mood? --195.82.213.193 18:05, 21 Apr 2005 (UTC)


 * Yes.


 * The reason the term 'screeve' is used instead of 'tense' is because in Georgian there are no definite prefixes and suffixes to establish the meaning of the tense. (In English, for example, (for the regular verbs) the suffix for simple past tense is -ed, or the present perfect tense requires the verb have with the past participle of the verb. So there are definite sets of rules how to build a tense. but in Georgian there is not really a strict way to mean a tense. There is not a certain prefix or suffix or an auxillary verb like have in Georgian to build a verb. Because of this, the meaning of the verb is not necessarily in a strict time frame. That is why the term screeve suits better in Georgian. --81.213.89.226 21:23, 28 Apr 2005 (UTC)

The term "screeve" was coined by american linguist Howard Aronson to render the georgian term "mck'rivi", roughly translatable as "row", introduced by the founder of georgian linguistics Ak'ak'i Shanidze to describe what Aronson himself calls "a unique combination of tense, mood and aspect" (i quote from memory). It is not the same as mood, then.Archimagister 10:40, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Expansion request
It seems that this article needs a bit more in terms of linguistics, but unfortunately I don't know much about Georgian really. For example, I know that Georgian has an active alignment in some verb series (more precisely, a split-S system), and I suspect that the behaviour of the verbs cough and sneeze have to do with that (Georgian is ergative in places, yet marks some intransitive subjects as ergative, when the verb action is performed by the subject).

The explanation of cases is not very helpful, since almost all cases can be applied to almost any syntactic role... :-( Systematic examples with all the possible patterns would be better. --Pablo D. Flores 11:56, 24 May 2005 (UTC)


 * I am willing to expand the article in the way you want. However it is still not very clear to me what exactly you are asking for. (I did visit the article "active language"). If you can explain more detailly, I will be very happy to add the examples and explanations you are requesting.


 * The article does not really explain how Georgian is an ergative-absolutive language in parts, and an active language in other parts, and what that means for case marking; as a result, the explanations about "exceptions" in one of the screeves (that I remember) are off the mark. If some intransitive verbs get the subject marked like the subject of transitive ones, while others get the same marking as direct objects, then that's pretty much the definition of an active language.


 * About the usage of cases: the system is considerably complicated, the major cases have several uses with no apparent logical connection, and worst of all, the traditional names of the cases are misleading, so listing the usage of each case does nothing for the reader. Example sentences showing case marking patterns (noting which kind of verbs, of what screeve, etc. take that pattern) would be much easier to grasp. That is, "verbs of the XXX screeve mark the subject as YYY and the object as ZZZ, as in -(example)--". That way it would also be much easier for editors with some linguistic knowledge to figure out what's going on and describe the patterns more technically.


 * --Pablo D. Flores 16:58, 25 May 2005 (UTC)

Voice?
Does Georgian have an Antipassive voice? If so, could someone add Georgian examples to that article? --Jim Henry | Talk 20:21, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

Transcription issues
I would suggest that the phonetic transcription in this article should be made consistent. There are some uses, for example, of ç (instead of ch?), or ş (instead of sh?), or ġ (what is this?). I don't know any Georgian and am not competent to do the necessary editing, but I assume there are others out there who can. Richwales 01:39, 19 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Changed instances of transcription inconsistency in favour of ease of reading (for English speakers, at least): ç to ch, ş to sh, ġ to gh, c' to ts' and j to dz. I have left x (otherwise kh) intact, as it was consistent throughout. --01:05, 16 January 2007 (GMT)

Wait a minute! There's a well-estabilished scholarly standard for the translitteration of georgian, and I see no reason to invent new ones. I see it as much more sensible to follow the table given in Hewitt's reference grammar, for those who have access to it right now. That's the only way to ensure consistency —Preceding unsigned comment added by Archimagister (talk • contribs) 10:44, 5 September 2007 (UTC)

Or why not follow the Georgian national system of romanization? It seems intuitive to English readers and consistent with how Georgian names are usually transliterated. I agree that ad hoc systems ("I have left x intact as it was consistent") are not helpful at all. Whatever system is used, the mapping should be explained on Wikipedia, not just in some book.--87.162.35.44 (talk) 11:06, 24 January 2010 (UTC)

Vocative?
In the case section it says that only proper nouns (names) in Latin (and other languages) have a separate vocative. What is this statement based on? I'm fairly certain that any Latin masculine noun of the second declension ending in -us in the nominative will have a separate vocative in -e regardless of whether it is a name or not. I should like to see that claim backed up with sources or else removed from the article. Nothingbutmeat 13:15, 10 July 2007 (UTC)

This is very true, any noun or adjective can take the vocative in Latin. From Allen and Greenough's New Latin Grammar (the standard reference grammar of Latin) I quote §340b and c respectively: "The vocative of an adjective is sometimes used in poetry instead of the nominative, where the verb is in the second person:- quo moriture ruis (Aen. x. 811), whither art thou rushing to thy doom?  censorem trabeate salutas (Pers. iii. 29), robed you salute the censor." "The vocative macte is used as a predicate in the phrase macte esto (virtute), success attend your (valor):- iuberem te macte virtute esse (Liv. ii. 12), I should bid you go on and prosper in your valor. macte nova virtute puer (Aen. ix. 641), success attend your valor, boy!..." —Preceding unsigned comment added by Special:Contributions/ (talk)

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Class 2 verb subjects usually in the nominative?
The current text contains:

”Verbs in Class 3 are usually intransitive verbs, but unlike Class 2 verbs, they mark their subject using the ergative case.”

Does that mean that Class 2 verbs usually have subjects in the nominative case? Shall we mention that in the paragraph about Class 2 verbs?Redav (talk) 16:25, 3 October 2023 (UTC)

Ergative-language behaviour with nominative, accusative-system behaviour with ergative? Or the other way around?
The current article text contains:

”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.”

Most (Wikipedia) texts on grammar seem to relate the nominative case to (nominative-)accusative systems and the ergative case to (absolutive-)ergative systems.

I wonder why in the quoted text a view is presented that seems to be the other way around.Redav (talk) 13:03, 12 March 2024 (UTC)


 * I had a stroke trying to read that part of the article. Ergative primarily shows up on intransitive verbs conjugated for Series 2 (refered to as Second conjugation I assume) - so the aorist and optative.
 * Georgian is not truly Ergative though. It mostly follows a Nominative-Accusative alignment. Bizko4ito (talk) 17:44, 14 March 2024 (UTC)