Armenian Language and Literature
What to master
Armenian grammar questions test morphology (case system, declension of nouns, conjugation of verbs), orthography (the classical Mesropian alphabet and its spelling rules), syntax (agreement, word order, sentence structure), and lexicology (synonyms, antonyms, loanwords, dialect vs. standard usage). Literature questions cover the classical and medieval heritage (Grabar texts, the Narekatsi tradition, medieval poets), the nineteenth-century national revival (the Ashugh tradition, the novel and the short story), and twentieth-century prose and poetry, including diaspora writing.
Traps to expect
- Case confusion: Armenian marks several grammatical cases; questions often hinge on distinguishing the genitive/dative from the ablative or instrumental by the article and ending pattern. Do not answer by ear alone; identify the noun's stem and declension type.
- Orthography pairs: words that are homophones but spelled differently. Learn the rule, not the individual word.
- Attribution errors: a famous line is matched to the wrong author. Fix in your mind one signature work per major author.
- Genre labels: distinguishing patmutyun (history), vipar (narrative), and banasteghtsutyun (poetry) when a title is given.
Rule of thumb
For any grammar item, first parse the sentence into subject, predicate, and object, then decide which ending the missing word must carry. For literature items, if you cannot place the author, reason from the period: language style (Grabar vs. modern) and theme (religious, national-liberation, Soviet-era) usually eliminate two of the options.
Worked example
A stem ending in a vowel takes a different article/ending pattern than one ending in a consonant. When a question offers four forms of the same noun, discard the two that mix a vowel-stem ending onto a consonant stem; the remaining pair is decided by the case required by the sentence's verb or preposition.