/r/conlangs Chat Network Relay Game - Learn a Lang Natlang Relay 8

#12Georgian by Anaïs
GeorgianEnglish

კოლოს უსიამოვნების შედაგები მოვიღე.
თორმეტი საათის შენდეგ შენდეგი დოზები მიეცი.
კიდევ ორი დოზა მიეცი და შვიდ დღეში კიდევ ორი.
თუ ყოველდღე დოზებს მიიღებენ, განიკურნებიან.

I have received the results for the annoyance of the mosquito.
Give the following doses twelve hours later.
Give two more doses and over seven days two again.
If they have taken the doses daily, they are healed.

Lexemes

  • გან-ი-კურნ-ავ-ს - heal (someone)
  • და - and
  • დოზა - dose
  • დღე - day
  • თორმეტი - twelve
  • თუ - if
  • კიდევ - again
  • კოლო - mosquito
  • მი-ს-ცემ-ს - give
  • მი-ი-ღ-ებ-ს - take (when 3rd is the subject)
  • მო-ი-ღ-ებ-ს - take (when 1st or 2nd is the subject)
  • ორი - two
  • საათი - hour
  • უსიამოვნება - annoyance, trouble
  • ყოველდღე - every day, daily
  • შედაგი - result
  • შენდეგ - after
  • შენდეგი - following
  • შვიდი - seven
  • (dative)-ში - in, over a period of

All verbs are cited in the 3rd singular future form, and all nouns and adjectives are cited in nominative case.

Nouns and Adjectives

Nouns and adjectives (including numbers) in Georgian take seven cases - of these, you’ll find the nominative, genitive, and dative in the text. The nominative takes the ending -ი (which is omitted after vowel-final stems), the genitive takes the ending -ის (where the -ი is omitted before a stem-final -ო or -უ, but replaces a stem-final -ა or -ე), and the dative takes the ending -ს. When an adjective agrees with a nominative or genitive noun, it takes the ending -ი - if it agrees with a dative noun, it takes no ending. The plural is marked with the ending -ებ, which comes between the noun stem and its case. Adjectives that agree with nouns do not take the plural suffix. Nouns modified by a number do not take the plural.

Verbs

There are a lot of parts to verbs in Georgian. The citation form given here is the 3rd person singular future form - here’s a breakdown of that form for a given verb (in this case, the verb გა-ს-კეთ-ებ-ს, “he/she will make”):

გა- - this is a preverb - for most verbs, if the verb has a preverb, it’ll occur on all screeves but the present and those derived from it. გა- is one such preverb but there are way more.

This verb doesn’t have one because it’s third-person, but if there were a first-person prefix ვ- (or, in some rare verbs, a second-person prefix ხ-) it’d come here.

-ა- - this is a *version* marker, helping signal transitivity. -ა- often signals transitive verbs, -ი- often signals intransitive verbs (though used for some transitive verbs as well), -ჰ-/-ს- signals a 3rd person indirect object for some verbs, etc.

-კეთ- is the verb root.

-ებ- is the present-future stem formant - it occurs on all screeves derived from the present or the future. This is the most common present-future stem formant but there are a few others, and some verbs don’t have one.

-ს is a screeve ending, this one marking 3rd person singular. In general, screeve endings tend to pattern so that there’s one ending for 1st and 2nd persons (no matter the number), one for 3rd person singular, and one for 3rd person plural.

For a 1st conjugation verb in the present/future screeves, the screeve endings are:

  • null for the 1st and 2nd persons
  • -ს for the 3rd person singular
  • -ენ for the 3rd person plural (or -ან if the present-future stem formant is -ი)

In the aorist, it is:

  • -ე for the 1st and 2nd persons
  • -ა for the 3rd person singular
  • -ეს for the 3rd person plural

For a 2nd conjugation verb in the present/future screeves, the screeve endings are:

  • -ი for the 1st and 2nd persons
  • -ა for the 3rd person singular
  • -იან for the 3rd person plural

Present-derived and future-derived screeves take the nominative as the subject and the dative as the object, whereas aorist-derived screeves (and by the way, the imperative is the same as the aorist) take the ergative as the subject and the nominative as the object.

Georgian has a passive formation - if the root has the version marker -ა- and the present-future stem formant -ებ-, then the passive adds a -დ to the root and has no version marker - this converts the root into 2nd conjugation with the appropriate screeve endings. If the root does not have these characteristics, the verb takes the version marker -ი- and the present-future stem formant -ებ-, and this also converts the root into 2nd conjugation verb.

The verb “give” is intensely irregular, and it’s so wildly irregular that I won’t bother explaining the whole thing - just know that მიეცი is a 2nd-person aorist form (and remember what I told you about the aorist!).

A quick note on syntax: Georgian is SOV, and possessors and modifiers precede their heads.