User:Pá mamūnám ontā́ bán/თქარინ

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თქარინ, pronounced /tʰkʰarin/, means "the language".

Phonology

Consonants

Labial Alveolar Palatal Velar Uvular Glottal
Nasal /m/ /n/
Plosive /pʰ/ /pʼ/
/b/
/tʰ/ /tʼ/
/d/
/kʰ/ /kʼ/
/g/
/qʼ/
Affricate /tsʰ/ /tsʼ/
/dz/
/tʃʰ/ /tʃʼ/
/dʒ/
Fricative /f/
/v/
/s/
/z/
/ʃ/
/ʒ/
/x/
/ɣ/
/h/
Liquid /r/ /l/

Vowels

Front Back
Close /i/ /u/
Mid /e/ /o/
Open /a/

Stress

Stress falls on the penultimate syllable.

If a word begins with a phonemic consonant cluster, it falls on the first (which may also be the penultimate).

Phonotactics

Template: (C)(C)(V)(C)(C)

Permitted complex onsets?

Permitted complex codas?

Sonority hierarchy?

Phonological processes and allophones

Onsets often contain "harmonic clusters" containing two similar consonants stops, e.g. aspirated, ejective or voiced. In reality these are often pronounced with an intervening schwa.

  • "language"; თქარა; /tʰkʰara/; [tʰəkʰɑra]

Voicing assimilation is regressive.

Vowels undergo phonetic alteration after /q’/:

  • /a/ > [ɑ]
  • /e/ > [ɛ]
  • /i/ > [ɨ]
  • /o/ > [ɒ]
  • /u/ > [ʉ]

As well as before /r, l/.

  • /a/ > [ɑ]
  • /e/ > [ɛ]
  • /i/ > [ɪ]
  • /o/ > [ɔ]
  • /u/ > [ʊ]

Orthography

Georgian alphabet and Romanisation

  • Georgian
  • Latin (scholarly)
  • Latin (common)

Other writing systems

  • Armenian
  • Cyrillic
  • Greek (rare)
  • Arabic (rare)

Punctuation

  • Clauses are preferably separated by commas
  • The semi-colon is used more extensively than in English

Case system

There are four grammatical cases: nominative, accusative, dative and genitive.

  • The nominative is used to denote the subject of a verb and also fulfils the vocative role.
  • The accusative denotes the direct object of a transitive verb. It is also used to indicate motion towards something.
  • The dative is used to mark the indirect object of a transitive verb as well as indicating a location. It is used with many other prepositions, too (e.g. "with"). The dative is sometimes used to denote the "quirky subject" of verbs (that is the semantic but not grammatical subject); this usually marks lack of volition, experience or feelings; it is common to find impersonal constructions where the dative is used in this way. In addition, there are some verbs whose direct object is marked by the dative case; such verbs are often verbs of hindrance, service and use.
  • The genitive denotes possession or relationship, a lack or replacement of something as well as provenance. As with the dative, some verbs mark their direct object with the genitive case; these are usually verbs of request and attainment.

There is an archaic fifth case: the instrumental. This is formed identically to the dative except for the fact that ს is replaced by ტ.

Nouns

There is no grammatical gender.

All nouns end in vowels; one of -ა, -ი, -ო.

Plurals are formed by adding the suffix -ი after the desinence.

The indefinite declension is given below:

ჭაკა "dog" მქარი "face" პირო "paper"
Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural
Nominative ჭაკა ჭაკაი მქარი მქარიი პირო პიროი
Accusative ჭაკამ ჭაკამი მქარიმ მქარიმი პირომ პირომი
Dative ჭაკას ჭაკასი მქარის მქარისი პიროს პიროსი
Genitive ჭაკიშ ჭაკიში მქარიშ მქარიში პირიშ პირიში

The definite is given in the following section.

Definiteness marking

Definiteness is marked only on nouns; unmarked noun are by default indefinite.

This is done by adding the suffix -ინ to the end of the noun (replacing the first vowel of the desinence).

In the accusative this suffix becomes -იმ.

Table given below:

ჭაკა "dog" მქარი "face" პირო "paper"
Singular Plural Singular Plural Singular Plural
Nominative ჭაკინ ჭაკინი მქარინ მქარინი პირინ პირინი
Accusative ჭაკიმ ჭაკიმი მქარიმ მქარიმი პირიმ პირიმი
Dative ჭაკინს ჭაკინსი მქარის მქარისი პირინს პირინსი
Genitive ჭაკინშ ჭაკინში მქარინშ მქარინში პირინშ პირინში

Adjectives

Adjectives decline identically to nouns.

Any noun can be used as an adjective.

Adjectives precede the noun they qualify and agree in both number and case.

Comparatives are formed by using the suffix -ეხ-. This is placed before the desinence.

Superlatives are formed by adding the prefix სა- to the comparative form.

From სა- comes the word სახი meaning "most" or "best".

Adverbs

Adjectives can be turned into adverbs simply by removing the desinence.

Time, place, manner, degree/quantity, proadverbs, other

Prepositions

Prepositions require the use of one of three cases: accusative, dative or genitive.

Many prepositions may take more than one case. A change in case may indicate motion or other semantic change.

The accusative is usually used to indicate motion towards, the dative location and the genitive motion away from.

Numerals

All numerals end in -უ and are invariable. That is, with the exception of მილ, მილიონ and მილიარდ.

Numerals are placed before the noun they modify and the noun is never pluralised.

The noun carries the case marking for the numeral.

Cardinal numbers can be made into ordinal number by adding the suffix -ხი.

Ordinal numbers are adjectives and can therefore be made into adverbs.

Pronouns

Personal

Singular Plural
1 2 3 m 3 f 3 n 1 2 3
Nominative ემ ცომ ლიუ ჰარ ღე ჟალ ლარ
Accusative მა ცა ომ ლიუმ ჰარმ ღემ ჟალმ ლარმ
Dative მას ცას ოს ლიუს ჰარს ღეს ჟალს ლარს
Genitive მაშ ცაშ ოშ ლიუშ ჰარშ ღეშ ჟალშ ლარშ

Verbs

Infinitives

Verbal infinitives are formed from roots with the addition of the suffix -(ე)თ.

Infinitives can be declined as if they were nouns. In such cases the -თ is removed. However, the nominative form retains the final consonant.

Conjugation

Verbs do not conjugate for person; they do conjugate for number, tense, mood, aspect and voice.

A plural subject is indicated by the prefix ი-.

The tense-mood-aspect combinations are:

  • present/imperative: -Ø
  • aorist: -ხ
  • delimitative: -ფი
  • imperfect: -ვა
  • future: -თეჩ
  • conditional: -მუ
  • optative: -ზი

The final -თ is removed from infinitive before these suffixes are added.

Voices are:

  • active: -Ø-
  • passive: -ემ-
  • middle: -ოჟ-

These are added before the tense-aspect-mood suffixes and delete any preceding vowel in the root.

Negation

Negation is shown by the addition of the prefix კა- to the verb.

Participles

Participles act as adjectives or adverbs.

There are four adjectival participles:

  • present active: -სო
  • past active: -სხი
  • present passive: -ემსო
  • past passive: -ემსხი

And two adverbial participles:

  • present: -ს
  • past: -სეხ

Syntax

Neutral word order: verb-subject-object (well, verb-subject-complement).

In relative clauses: subject-verb-object (subject-verb-complement).

Question words are not obligatorily fronted (except for focus). However, where question words are pro-adverbs they are found clause initially.

Adverbs (and adverb-like phrases) of time and place and placed at the beginning of the phrase.

Adverbs (et cetera) of manner precede that which they modify.

Derivational morphology

Pragmatics

If the subject of a relative clause is the same as that in main clause, the personal pronoun may be dropped. This even occurs where the semantic subject is in the dative case in the main clause.

Vocabulary