Georgian grammar has many distinctive and extremely complex features, such as split ergativity and a polypersonal verb agreement system.
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.
Third conjugation verbs behave as if they belonged to an accusative system; the most-marked case (the ergative) marks the subject.
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).
This is precisely what happens in Georgian, in the restricted environment of the second or third conjugation verbs in the aorist series.
[1][2][3] 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.
In the truncating declensions, the last vowel of the word stem is lost in the genitive and the instrumental cases.
Some examples are: The plural suffix is not used when the noun is preceded by a quantifier of some kind, such as a cardinal number.
In English "that" can never behave as a personal pronoun, but in Georgian, the additional letter "i" makes that possible.
The following table presents declensions of the adjectives did- ("big") and ch'aghara- ("grey-haired") with the noun datv- ("bear").
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.
separately, linguists prefer to use the term "screeve" to distinguish between different time frames and moods of the verbal system.
Although these verbs are described as not having transitive counterparts (such as "cry"), some of them still have direct objects, such as "learn" and "study".
Verbs that convey the meaning of emotion and prolonged state belong to this class.
The imperfect screeve is used to express an incomplete or continuous action in the past ("S/he was verbing").
The performer of an action is called the subject or the agent, and affected persons are patients or objects (indirect or direct).
The oldest S2 x- is preserved with three verbal stems: Here is presented subject markers' usage example: v-ts'erv-ts'erI am writingv-ts'er-tv-ts'er-tWe are writingts'erts'erYou (sing) are writingts'er-tts'er-tYou (plu) are writingts'er-sts'er-sS/he is writingts'er-ents'er-enThey are writingIn the case of v-ts'er-t, ts'er-t, and ts'er-en, the -t and -en are the subject plurality markers.
Here is presented object markers' usage example" m-i-nd-am-i-nd-aI wantgv-i-nd-agv-i-nd-aWe wantg-i-nd-ag-i-nd-aYou (sing) wantg-i-nd-a-tg-i-nd-a-tYou (plu) wantu-nd-au-nd-aS/he wantsu-nd-a-tu-nd-a-tThey wantIn the case of g-i-nd-a-t and u-nd-a-t, the -t is the plural marker.
Georgian's polypersonalism allows the involvement of as many as three action participants to be expressed unambiguously within a single word.
"Lexical derivation" (or "word formation") is accomplished through the use of preverbs, version markers, and thematic suffixes.
The language has eight kinds of thematic suffixes (also sometimes known as present-future stem formants or PFSF).
In order to say "I am building", we have to add the thematic suffix -eb- to the end of the root: v-a-shen-eb (v- meaning that the doer is the first person (v- set nominal marker), a is the versioner, shen is the root, and eb is the thematic suffix).
The transitive verbs (which employ the v- set) use the suffixal nominal marker -s- (as in a-shen-eb-s, ts'er-s) for the third person singular in present and future screeves.
The aorist intransitive form avashene, 'I built', has the structure, a-v-a-shen-∅-e, characterized by preverb -a- and weak suffixal nominal marker -e-.
Depending on which set of nominal markers is employed, the appropriate plural suffix is added.
For example, the sentence "I am writing a letter to my mother" can be expressed as follows (the glosses use the abbreviations NOM = nominative case, DAT = dative case, PRES = present screeve): MeI-NOMdedasmy mother-DATts'erilsletter-DATvts'er.write-PRESMe dedas ts'erils vts'er.I-NOM {my mother-DAT} letter-DAT write-PRESThis sentence could also occur with the constituent order subject – verb – direct object – indirect object.
Since the verb encodes information about all these arguments, any of them can always be dropped (see pro-drop, null subject).
For example: Those tag questions which expect an affirmative answer may employ the particle xom in second position within the sentence.
Interrogative pronouns in questions have a strict word order: they appear immediately pre-verbally.