Georgian Case (Was Re: Polysynthetic nouns)

Paul responded to me:

<<> d-is-a-s
> /sister-genitive-epenthetic vowel-dative/
> "to something belonging to one's sister"
The morpheme for "sister" is /d/?>>

Why not?   The morpheme for "to be" in Latin is /s/ (the /e/'s are epenthetic
in "esse").
In the nominative, the Georgian word for sister is /da/.   Whenever a
case-ending that
begins with a vowel is attached, though, that /a/ drops out.   The full
paradigm is:

Nom.: da
Acc./Dat.: das
Gen.: dis
Instr.: dit
Erg.: dam
Adverb.: dad

Plural:
Nom.: debi
Acc./Dat.: debs
Gen.: debis
Instr.: debit
Erg.: debma
Adv.: debad

I'm leaving out the vocative on purpose.   Also, the ergative case is often
called the
"narrative" case (because it's only used in the past tense).

-David
*******************************************************************
"sunly eleSkarez ygralleryf ydZZixelje je ox2mejze."
"No eternal reward will forgive us now for wasting the dawn."

-Jim Morrison

http://dedalvs.free.fr/

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