Georgia Unified Foreign Language flashcards

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Georgian ergative case

The suffix -მა marks the subject of transitive verbs in the aorist and other past-series screeves, while the direct object takes the nominative. Present-series clauses instead use a nominative subject.

Split ergativity in Georgian

Georgian aligns subjects ergatively only in the aorist series; the present and perfect series align them like nominative-accusative languages. This split is the single most important syntactic rule for reading and writing.

Preverb function

A preverb such as მი-, მო-, შე-, გა-, ა- or ჩა- attaches directly before the verb stem, marking direction and making the verb perfective, typically producing future or aorist meaning.

Polypersonal verb agreement

Georgian verbs cross-reference subject, direct object and indirect object through prefixes and suffixes in one form, so a single word can encode three participants, e.g. მიცემს 'he gives it to me'.

No grammatical gender

Georgian has no noun classes or gender, and adjectives do not agree with nouns. Pronouns ის and ეს cover he, she and it, distinguished only by context.

Six Georgian cases

Nominative -ი, ergative -მა, dative -ს, genitive -ის, instrumental -ით, adverbial -ად. Case endings attach after the plural marker -ებ-, as in კაცებს 'to the men'.

Plural with numerals

After a numeral, the noun stays singular: სამი კაცი 'three men', ხუთი წიგნი 'five books'. Plural -ები appears only when no numeral quantifies the noun.

Copula suffix -ა

Present-tense 'to be' is a suffix: სტუდენტია 'he/she is a student', ხარ 'you are', ვარ 'I am', ვართ 'we are', არიან 'they are'. Negation uses არ before the form.

Version vowels

A vowel before the stem marks beneficiary: ა- neutral, ი- for oneself, უ- for him/her/it, ე- for them or for me. Example: ვუწერ 'I write to him'.

Georgian screeves

Three tense-aspect-mood series: present (ongoing, habitual, future with preverb), aorist (single completed past event), perfect (resultative or evidential). Each series has its own case pattern.

Mkhedruli script

The modern Georgian alphabet has 33 letters, one per phoneme, and is unicameral with no capital letters. Proper nouns and sentence starts are therefore not capitalized.

Ejective consonants

პ ტ კ წ ჭ are glottalized ejectives, distinct from aspirated ფ თ ქ ც ჩ. Confusing the two series changes meaning and is a common listening distractor.

Postposition case government

ზე 'on' and თან 'at/with' take the dative; გან 'from' takes the genitive; მდე 'up to' takes the dative. The preceding case ending, not the postposition, identifies the relation.

Question particle -ა

Yes/no questions can be marked by the enclitic -ა or by ხომ 'right?'. Answers typically repeat the verb rather than using a bare 'yes' or 'no'.

Polite address თქვენ

Formal or plural addressee uses თქვენ with second-person plural verb agreement: როგორ ხართ? 'how are you?'. Peers and children take შენ with singular agreement.

Vocative -ო

Direct address adds -ო to names and kinship terms: ბატონო 'sir', შვილო 'child', ნინო stays ნინო but მასწავლებელო 'teacher!'. It attaches after the final vowel.

Georgian word order

Order is pragmatically determined. The finite verb usually comes last, and a constituent moved left of the verb carries focus or contrast rather than a fixed grammatical role.

რომ clause function

The conjunction რომ introduces complement clauses ('that') and reason clauses ('because'). It is a reliable segmentation cue when parsing long Georgian sentences in reading tasks.

Future via preverb

Many verbs use the same stem for present and future; adding a preverb creates the future: ვწერ 'I write' versus დავწერ 'I will write'. Absence of a preverb signals non-future.

Imperfect marker -დ-

The imperfect, a past habitual or progressive form, inserts -დ- before the ending: ვწერდი 'I was writing'. The conditional adds -იდ-: დავწერდი 'I would write'.

Comparative and superlative

Georgian uses უფრო 'more' before the adjective for comparative and ყველაზე 'most' for superlative: უფრო დიდი 'bigger', ყველაზე დიდი 'biggest'. Adjectives themselves do not inflect.

Georgian numerals

Numbers are built additively with და: ოცდაერთი '21', ოცდახუთი '25'. Thousands use ათასი as a separate word, and ordinals add the suffix -ე.

Formal letter frame

Open with მოგესალმებით 'greetings' and close with პატივისცემით 'respectfully'. The body uses full verb forms and თქვენ-based polite agreement throughout.

Georgian quotation marks

Georgian printed text uses „ “ for quotations, and direct speech follows a colon with a reporting verb such as თქვა 'said'. English-style capitals inside quotes do not occur.

Consonant clusters

Georgian permits long onset clusters such as ბრდღვნ and გვფრცქვნ, pronounced without inserted vowels. Articulating them slowly and separately preserves the word shape in oral production.

Loanword adaptation

International vocabulary is phonologically adapted: სტუდენტი 'student', ტელეფონი 'telephone', უნივერსიტეტი 'university'. Recognizing these forms speeds comprehension of unfamiliar reading passages.

Negative copula

Negation of 'to be' uses არ before the copula: არ არის 'is not', არ ვარ 'I am not'. Other verbs normally take არ directly before the verb form.

Fluency fillers

Natural oral markers include აბა 'well', მოკლედ 'in short', ესე იგი 'that is', and ხომ? 'right?'. Using them appropriately signals fluency rather than hesitation in speaking tasks.

Aorist narration

Oral narratives sequence completed events in the aorist with ergative subjects: მან თქვა 'he said'. Background description stays in the present series, giving a clear tense contrast.

Topic sentence in Georgian

Exam paragraphs open with a topic sentence, support it with clauses joined by რომ or ამიტომ, and close with a result. A standard B1/B2 response runs about 80-120 words.

Stress in Georgian

Georgian has weak, non-contrastive stress, usually on the antepenult or penult, and no distinctive vowel length. Meaning never depends on stress placement, unlike in Russian or English.

Transliteration conventions

The national Latin system renders ღ as gh, შ as sh, ჩ as ch, ც as ts, ძ as dz, ჯ as j, ხ as kh, ყ as q. These mappings apply when writing Georgian names in Latin script.