Complementation in Georgian

Nordic Journal of Linguistics, 1991

Long-time readers of this journal will have already made the acquaintance of the Georgian language through the works of the late Hans Vogt, who was one of the first non-Georgians to undertake its detailed investigation. The book under review-Complementation in Georgian (henceforth CIG) by Karina Vamling (KV)-represents an attempt to devise a formal model for generating a certain class of complex constructions in Georgian. The word 'complement', as used here, denotes clauses-including nominalized clauses-which function as the subject or object of a matrix (main) predicate. The data presented in CIG show that the distribution of verb forms in complement clauses correlates with a semantic distinction, described below, between 'Truth' and 'Action' information modalities. The author also compiles and analyses data on control in Georgian, and, on thj >asis of these and other facts, proposes a model for one segment of the Georgian lexicon.

BULLETIN OF THE GEORGIAN NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES, vol. 13, no. 1, 2019

In the article, the types of causative constructions in Georgian are discussed with respect to semantic roles, syntactic functions, and morphological marking. The three types of causaitve: lexical, analytic, and morphological are mentioned, but within the scope of the article, all the analyses are focused on and the restrictive rules are established according to the latter. The Georgian Causative are checked according to the hierarchy of grammatical relations by Comrie and the generalisation of case marking by Baker. Theoretically possible and actually attested combinations of basic and syntactically derived constructions are calculated with respect to valency and transitivity. At the end of the paper the restrictive rules (according to Baker) and relationship with the Comrian ideas are established. The schemes are shown according to the relationship and correpsondences of semantic roles and syntactic functions (taking into account both basic and derived constructions). The results are useful for the linguistic typology.

Studies in Theoretical Psycholinguistics, 2011

That the human sentence processing mechanism makes use of all available cues for grammatical function assignment and structure building in incremental sentence processing is a very natural assumption that has been confirmed in a number of experimental studies. were among the first showing this by demonstrating that overt case marking, morphological agreement information and syntactic position are used to different degrees in different languages in a sentence interpretation experiment.

International Journal of Multilingual Education, by Rusudan Saginadze, 2021

For non-Georgian speakers, in the process of teaching the Georgian language, it is crucial to overcome the problems that accompany the understanding, comprehension and mastering of verb forms. The complexity and diversity that is characteristic to the Georgian verb is conditioned not only by polypersonalism or even by the large number and functional richness of the prepositions, but also by the variety of lexical means. The Georgian language has inexhaustible means to produce new verb forms, in order to give the speaker (speaking individual) opportunity to express the new semantics more accurately, to specify the utterance and to add more clarity to the meaning. For example, if a language learner expresses a desire to perform an action, then it is better to first get him/her used to the infinitive constructions of the verbs including მინდა (მსურს) minda (msurs) I want (I would like), for example, I want (I would like) წაკითხვა tsakitkhvato read (მუშაობა mushaobawork... წასვლა tsasvlago, დადგომა dadgomastand... თქმა tqmasay, ჩაცმა chatsmadress...). In the next level of language learning, we can also introduce verb constructions expressing the desired action: I want (I would like) წავიკითხო tsavikitkhoto read (ვიმუშაო vimushaoto work... წავიდე tsavideto go, დავდგე davdgeto stand... ვთქვა vtqvato say, ჩავიცვა chavitsvato put on)... This will also prepare the ground for the language learner to express the obligation with the help of a particle უნდა unda (I must): unda tsavikitkho-I must read (vimushaowork... tsavidego, davdgestand... vtqva say, chavitsvaput on)... He/she could easily build relatively extensive constructions: qartuli ena kargad unda vistsavlo-"I must learn Georgian well"; dghes bevri unda vimushao-"I must work a lot today"; khval universitetshi unda tsavide-"I must go to university tomorrow"; dilit adre unda avdge-"I must get up early in the morning"; es teqsti zepirad unda vtqva?-"Should I say this text orally?"; Tbilad unda chavitsva-"I must dress warmly". The report will provide extensive material to demonstrate the grammatical and lexical means that will make the learning / teaching process of verb forms easier for non-Georgian speakers.

Studies in Greek Linguistics 42, 2023

Georgian is a Kartvelian language, and Kartvelian languages are considered not to have genealogical connections to other languages in the world. This circumstance still allows certain conclusions related to typology to be made, as well as some hypotheses concerning the necessity for a language to feature or not certain grammatical categories. Aspect, represented by the perfective-imperfective distinction, is one of the categories that have for a long time pestered the minds of linguists as to why they are present in some languages and not in others. Aspect in Modern Georgian is generally thought to be identical or similar to the corresponding Slavic or Greek phenomenon, intrinsically verbal-not compositional as in English, other Germanic languages, Finnish, etc. The exact status of Georgian aspect remains, however, a somewhat controversial issue, because of some structural specificities of Georgian. This co-authored paper sets as its aim the identification of the major characteristics of Georgian aspect in typological and internal-structural terms, using a model in which aspect is understood as an all-pervading and perpetual process of mapping temporal features between referents of verbs and nominals that are situation participants, whatever the particular language analyzed. 1

2006

Introduction 1 2 Types of complex sentences 2 3 Core arguments 7 4 Semantic types of verbs 8 5 Complement clauses 15 6 Semantic types of verbs and types of complement clauses 27 7 Complementation strategies 33 8 The individual studies in this volume 40 9 Conclusion 42 Appendix: notes on terminology 44 References 46 2 Complement Clause Types in Pennsylvania German 49 Kate Burridge

Proceedings of the annual meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 1987

Georgian, the major language of the South Caucasian (Kartvelian) family, has received a degree of notoriety for its complex pattern of case assignment, a paradigm example of split ergativity [in fact, all three varieties of split ergativity recognized by Dixon 1979; see Boeder 1979 for an excellent and concise presentation]. Georgian indicates grammatical relations by means of both nominal case and crossreferencing verb morphology, with somewhat different patterns of marking in the two systems. Kartvelian verb stems divide into two primary lexical classes commonly labelled active and passive [Shanidze 1953:289-90]. The labels are rather misleading-many verbs in the passive class are agentive (e.g. verbs of directed motion), while a few formally active verbs are semantically stative (arsebobs "s/he,it exists"; q'vavilobs "it blooms") [Harris 1981:268-74]. Also, while many active verbs are transitive, a sizeable subclass of them is not [Holisky 1981a]. What does distinguish the two classes is case and agreement patterning. Active verbs undergo case shift in certain tense/mood paradigms, while passives do not. The correlation between typical semantic roles and formal markers for verbs of the two classes in each of the three tense-mood series is laid out in {1}. 1 The Kartvelian languages employ two sets of agreement affixes, termed Set V ("subject") and Set M ("object"-which, in the 3rd person, distinguishes Md "direct" and Mi "indirect object" affixes).