How to mark the Subject and Objects in a Georgian Sentence?!

or

How to recognize the Subject and Objects in a Georgian sentence?!

For any learner of the Georgian language, the correct use/recognizing of the subject and the objects in a Georgian sentence poses a challenge for a long time. Well, even correctly using/recognizing the right mood and tense of a verb is no simple matter, either.

Take these three examples in aorist indicative: ბიჭმა დაწერა წერილი დედისთვის, ბიჭმა დაუწერა წერილი დედას and წერილი დაიწერა ბიჭის მიერ დედისთვის. The semantic subject can obviously sometimes be in ergative (ბიჭმა) or referred to in a preposition (ბიჭის მიერ). The direct object can be in dative (წერილს) in one sentence and in nominative (წერილი) in another. The indirect object can be in dative (დედას) or in a preposition (დედისთვის). When to use what? Or how to recognize subject, direct object and indirect object?

Today I want to provide you with a hopefully concisive overview on how to do this for verbs of all three conjugation classes. You can already note that in Class I, marking of subject and object varies quite a bit across the moods and tenses, sometimes the subject is in nominative, sometimes in ergative and sometimes in dative; for the objects this is equally complex. The good new is, in verbs of Class-II and Class-III the marking pattern is consistent across all moods and tenses, albeit different between the two classes.

Note that in all verb classes I-III the indirect object can be expressed as a preposition with -ისთვის: დედისთვის - for mother, or using the dative: დედას - for mother; it is just that the dative is not always used (but people would probably understand what you mean).

Here it goes:

Quick reference for the Class-I Verbs:

*Note that the Present Group includes all Present Indicative, Future Indicative, Imperfect Indicative, Conditional Mood and the Subjunctive Mood.

Example:

Present Indicative

When using the verb with the indirect object marker უ-, the indirect object is marked in dative.

Present Indicative

Dive deeper and find more details on this and more examples with subjects and objects from sentences in the imperfect, subjunctive, aorist, optative, perfect and more on this page here linked below ...

Verbs of Conjugation Class I

Of the Georgian Conjugation Classes, Conjugation Class I includes all verbs for which is true: (1) in the present indicative the subject is in nominative and the object is in dative: ის წერს წერილს; and (2) in the aorist indicative the subject is in ergative and the object is in

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Quick reference for the Class-II Verbs:

Due to their often being of passive nature, it is not easy keeping track of syntactic subjects, objects or semantic agents and patients in theses sentences. But see, how the pattern is the same across all moods and tenses? What a relief!

Examples:

Present Indicative

Aorist Indicative

Again, more details and lots of example sentences are on this separate page:

Verbs of Conjugation Class II

In the Georgian verb system, Class II includes all verbs which in present indicative as well as in aorist indicative have their subject in nominative: ის იჭრება - he is cutting himself (present) and ის დაიჭრა - he cut himself (simple past). The conjugations in Class-II depend on the verb

The Georgian Language UniverseStefan

Quick reference for the Class-III Verbs:

Again, the same marking of subject and objects across the board!

Examples:

Present Indicative

Aorist Indicative

Perfect Indicative

Again, here is the link to the page with more details:

Verbs of Conjugation Class III

Less than three hundred Georgian verbs show an unusual way of marking subject and object in the present indicative by using the dative for the subject, much like in impersonal expressions: მას აქვს წიგნი - The book belongs to him // Das Buch gehört ihm. This kind of marking of the

The Georgian Language UniverseStefan

Enjoy! გაამოთ!

P. S. I am steadily working on the pages of kartuliena.eu – behind the scenes – The blog updates merely summarize the "completion" of certain parts/chapters and milestones reached. The real treasure is in the hundreds of pages to explore and use as a regular study companion! Check this page here to see what is new each week:

Updates & Next Posts

What’s next on The Georgian Language Universe? See the info boxes below to get an idea of the next changes and additions to the content! Recent Updates (as of 17. Feb. 2024, full conjugations in bold) Verb No. Full Conjugation No. Verb 386 125 მორჩება 385 - ათავებს 384 124

The Georgian Language UniverseStefan