The paper presents earlier unpublished results from a field study conducted in Georgia in the late 1990s among speakers of the endangered Tsova-Tush (Bats) language (also Tsovatush, Batsbi). The aim of the study is to map patterns of language use and language choices in the family and local community in different settings and domains, to study the linguistic repertoire of speakers and how it develops. Based on written questionnaires, the study was conducted in the village of Zemo Alvani in the Akhmeta region of Georgia, where the majority of the Tsova-Tush population lives. The study spans generations of Tsova-Tush speakers from the beginning of the last century to the 1980s, showing the development from a situation with Tsova-Tush as the strongest language among the oldest generation having a firm position as the home language, to a higher fluency in Georgian in the post-war generation, followed by a clear decrease in the command of Tsova-Tush among the youngest generations.

Verb formation from  recently borrowed stems in modern Georgian in a typological perspective

The paper deals with borrowed verbs regardless of whether they are true borrowings or barbarisms and does not discuss the issues of language standardization.

Three out of four manners of verb borrowing (Wichmann & Wohlgemuth 2008) are attested in Georgian: light verb strategy, indirect insertion, and direct insertion. The paper gives examples of all three strategies in Georgian and suggests that the choice of strategy depends rather on sociolinguistic and stylistic reasons than on purely linguistic factors.

In the paper, borrowing of verbs connected to the use of the Internet is described as ‘label borrowing’, which means that the source of borrowing is a written text presented as a label of various commands, e.g., ‘save’, ‘like’, ‘post’, etc. Consequently, the borrowed items take specific semantic fields narrowed to the context expressed by that label (for Internet usage).

Since the verbs formed from the borrowed “labels” usually describe an action performed by clicking on a symbol or a key (‘to save’, ‘to like’, etc.), they take the preverb da- expressing the direction downwards to a surface (as in the native verb da-ac’k’ap’unbes ‘s/he will click on it’); e.g., da-laik-eb-a ‘to like' (by clicking on the label/symbol ‘like’)’, but not *mo-laikeba (cf. mo-c'oneba, the same verb in Georgian, using the prverb mo-), da-p'ost’va ‘to post' (by clicking on the label/symbol ‘post’)’, but not *ga-p'ost'va (cf. ga-gzavna, the same verb in Georgian, using the prverb ga-), etc.

The choice of thematic markers in recently borrowed verbs (when they form conjugation type 1 verbs) is determined by their phonematic structure; monosyllabic stems take the thematic marker -av, (da-link’-av-s ‘s/he will link it’, da-bust’-av-s ‘s/he will boost it’, etc.), whereas polysyllabic stems take the thematic marker -eb (da-a-haid-eb-s ‘s/he will hide it’, da-a-porvard-eb-s ‘s/he will forward it, etc). The paper finds that the prohibition of the thematic marker -av after polysyllabic stems is a general rule not only in new borrowings, but throughout the whole verb system in the Georgian language.

It is shown that the direct insertion can imply not only a simple replacement of an original stem by a borrowed one (e.g. e-p’azor-eb-a, where the Russian pozor ‘shame’ has replaced the native stem in the verb e-sircxvil-eb-a ‘s/he feels ashamed of sth’), but also an insertion of a borrowed stem in another model that suits to the semantics and phonematic structure of the borrowed stem and does not coincide to the model of the corresponding lexeme in the recipient language; e.g., a borrowed stem seiv (save) produces the verb da-a-seiv-eb-s ‘s/he will save it (to a computer)’, but not *she-i-seiv-av-s cf. Georgian she-i-nakh-av-s ‘s/he will save it’. The preverb da- is chosen to express the direction of the action downwards to a surface (to click on a symbol for saving) and the thematic marker -eb is chosen since the stem is polysyllabic (-seiv-).  

It is noteworthy that an ablauting verb is found among relatively new borrowings: dabredavs ‘s/he will kill sb’, dabrida ‘s/he killed sb’. This fact is a clear indication for assuming that vowel alternation with a morphological function is still active in Georgian. It is determined by the verb stem structure (mainly, C_nS-e-C where the C_n is a consonant or a sequence of consonants and the S is a sonorant consonant, e.g. l, n or r) and does not necessarily imply prerequisites such as a phonemic stress, vowel length, syllabic consonants or other hypothetically reconstructed linguistic feature in the language.

Mutual dependence of phonematic structure and morphological features occurring in the formation of recently borrowed verbs is one instance of widely spread interdependence of phonematic structure and morphological behavior of verbs observable in Georgian.

The present chapter is a study of the system of olfactory expressions in Georgian, Megrelian, and other Kartvelian languages, including questions of etymology and semantic extensions. Olfactory expressions in the Kartvelian languages are explored with Viberg (1984) as a point of departure, making a division into activity, experience and copulative (source-based) expressions. The study largely relies on data from text corpora of Standard Georgian as well as Georgian dialects. The Kartvelian languages are shown to exhibit specific olfactory terminology, but show numerous examples of expressions being used in several perception modalities. 

This paper is focused on newly created Georgian verbs where verb roots are borrowed from English and the affixation is Georgian. The paper does not deal with loanwords already integrated into the Standard Georgian language (true borrowings), but is focused on so-called barbarisms, foreignisms and slang. Thus, the term ‘borrowed words’ is used in a wide sense of this term.

The paper demonstrates that the decisive factor for the choice of affixation models of recently created verbs based on English is the phonological structure of the verb roots. Two productive models are identified: one model (Preradical vowel-ROOT-eb) is used for polysyllabic roots (e.g. a-haid-eb-s ‘s/he hides it’, a-laik-eb-s ‘s/he likes it’, lit. ‘s/he clicks on the like-button to it’, etc.) and the other model (ROOT-av) applies to monosyllabic roots (e.g. t’rol-av-s ‘s/he trolls it’, tag-av-s ‘s/he tags it’, etc.). It turns out that not only recently borrowed verbs, but all transitive (verb class I) and labile transitive (verb class III) polysyllabic verbs avoid the thematic marker –av, whereas monosyllabic verbs prefer the thematic marker -av in Georgian. Even those monosyllabic verbs that functioned without thematic markers in Old Georgian have taken the thematic marker –av in Modern Georgian; e.g. t’ekh-s (the older form) > t’ekh-av-s (the newer form) ‘s/he breaks it’. Choice of preverbs in newly created verbs is also discussed.

The paper is descriptive. It does not deal with the issue of language standardisation, although some sociolinguistic aspects of the phenomenon are touched upon. Rather, the paper examines strategies for the morphological integration of borrowed verb roots into Georgian.

It seems that the morphological adaptation of borrowed items occurs immediately, as soon as a new lexeme is introduced to the language. In this respect, newly borrowed English verbs in Georgian confirm the conclusion by Poplack: nonce forms generally ”do not go on to become established loanwords, they are not integrated gradually; instead they assume recipient-language grammatical structure abruptly” (2018). At the same time, the way of adaptation for newly borrowed items comprises a good indication for identifying tendencies in the language development not only in the sociolinguistic aspect, but also in the purely linguistic, more specifically, morphological sense.

The paper discusses etymology of some stems, among them, kh-ev-a ‘to sound, to talk aloud, to recite’, m-kh-i-ar-ul-i ‘cheerful’, sa-kh-el-i ‘name’. In this paper, it is supposed that these stems are derived from the root -kh-. The same root occurs in verbs kh-ed-v-a ‘to see’, kh-eb-a ‘to touch’. The original meaning of the root -kh- must have been expression of physical contact. The similar shared etymology of different perception verbs is attested in wide range of languages and has been examined in lexical typology.

In this paper, it is proposed that Georgian verbs can be classified into two large groups: verbs formed without auxiliary verbs (mainly with thematic markers) and with auxiliary verbs. Syntactically, two main groups are identified: direct verbs and inversive verbs. Dynamic and stative are considered formal categories; the ability to form the present tense without taking an auxiliary verb is considered a morphological marker of formally dynamic verbs. Within this frame, a system is proposed that includes eight verb types, each with direct and indirect syntactic patterns. A large class of Georgian verbs, traditionally known as Class III verbs, is split into three different types, or subclasses. Characteristic formal features of all three types within Class III are touched upon. It is argued that various degrees of semantic transitivity have their morphological marking in Georgian.

There is a strong tendency to form morphologically marked two major groups of verbs in Georgian: dynamic verbs marked by thematic markers, on the one hand, and stative verbs makred by auxiliary verbs, on the other hand. This difference is manifested in the first and second persons of the present tense in the v-set marked forms. Stative verbs which formed the present tense without auxiliary verbs in old Georgian employ auxiliaries in contemporary Georgian (vzi vzivar ‘I am sitting’, vdga vdgavar ‘I am standing’...), whereas a large group of dynamic verbs presented without thematic markers in old Georgian takes thematic markers in contemporary Georgian (vtib vtibav ‘I am mowing it’, vt’ex vt’exav ‘I am breaking it’). All formally stative verbs are atelic verbs (vuq’varvar ‘S/he loves me’, vdgavar ‘I am standing’). They form the future tense by adding vowel prefixes. Within dynamic verbs, three large groups are distinguished: transitive telic verbs (vasheneb ‘I am building it’), intransitive telic verbs (vimalebi ‘I hide myself) and atelic verbs (vcxovrob ‘I live’, vmgheri ‘I sing’). Telic verbs (both dynamic transitives and dynamic intransitives) form the future tense by adding preverbs. Atelic verbs (both dynamic and stative) form the future tense by adding vowel prefixes. It is reasonable to identify three various types traditionally presented within conjugation type III: a) verbs formed with the markers –eb, -ob- and –av, b) verbs formed with the marker –i (vicini ‘I am laughing), and c) verbs formed with auxiliary verbs (vc’uxvar ‘I am worried). It is suggested to place the latter group (medioactives formed with auxiliary verbs, e.g. vc’uxvar ‘I am worried’, vdumvar ‘I am silent’) within the verbs formed with auxiliary verbs. Three other main groups within auxiliary formation verbs are the following: mediopassives (vdgavar ‘I am standing’), stative passives (vgdivar ‘I am lying thrown about’), and verbs where the 3rd subject person marker –a is attached directly to the root (cxela ‘It’s hot’). Some other features, characteristic of each type, are also described. Separation of auxiliary and non auxiliary verb formation makes it possible to describe the relation between phonematic structure of verbs and conjugation types. Inversive verbs are presented as differnet groups reflecting a variety of morphology of direct verbs but marked with a shared syntactic pattern C. (Abbreviations: PV – preverb, PVR – preradical vowel, R – root, Th – thematic marker, Syntactic B – syntactic pattern of transitive and labile transitive verbs, Syntactic pattern A – syntactic pattern of intransitive verbs, Syntactic pattern C – syntactic pattern of inversive verbs )

Three main issues are touched upon in this paper: (a) main morphological types of Georgian verbs in correlation with verb form, on one hand, and with the categories of telicity, stativeness, and transitivity, on the other; (b) peculiarities of case alternating objects of medial verbs; (c) and formal features of medial verbs as the basis for identification of the medial verb class (along with semantic features). This paper is based on Hopper & Thompson’s (1980) hypothesis that considers transitivity not as a strict dichotomy but as a continuum where various degrees of semantic transitivity may be distinguished. Differences expressed on semantic and syntactical levels mark one class of Georgian verbs, Class III, as intermediate between transitives and intransitives. Labile transitives, a term suggested by Melikishvili (2001), is used in this paper to indicate peculiarities of Class III verbs with respect to transitivity. This term expresses the nature of Class III verbs in terms of transitivity more accurately than the labeling of these verbs as intransitive, transitive, stative voiceless, or active intransitive verbs. It is demonstrated in this paper that various degrees of semantic transitivity as well as the category of telicity have their morphological expression in Georgian. Semantically, a case-alternating object of labile transitive verbs is often an inconcrete, non-definite object and/or is not affected by the action described in the verb. Syntactically, the difference is expressed by the lack of ability to assign a third person object marker to a verb. Case alternating objects of both Class I and Class III verbs are marked by the dative case in the tenses of series I. But the difference is that the dative marked, case alternating object of telic verbs (Class I) is usually marked by a prefix on verbs in old Georgian and in several modern dialects of East Georgia (ს-თლის s-tlis ‘s/he is peeling it’). In contrast, the dative marked, case alternating third person object of Class III verbs (atelic, labile transitives) cannot trigger a person marker on a verb (თამაშობს tamashobs but not *ს-თამაშობს *s-tamashobs ‘s/he is playing’). The latter forms are not attested, not even in those dialects where the person marking of the dative marked third person direct object is still preserved. As is described above, besides semantic peculiarities, this verb class, standing in an intermediate position between transitives and intransitives, exhibits morphological and syntactical features of its own.