Re: Screeve question

Quoting Rob Haden <magwich78@...>:

> I take it that the site you mention is www.armazi.demon.co.uk/georgian?  In
> any case, 'screeves' are basically combinations of tenses, aspects, and/or
> moods.  The three main screeve series are distinguished by aspect: Series I
> is the 'Present Series' (but a better name would be 'Progressive Series'),
Not really.  Progressivity is but one facet of the present series.
The really salient thing about the present series is that for
the three main classes of verbs notional subjects take the nominative
case and the notional object, if any, is in the dative case. (In the
fourth conjugation, the notional subject is dative in all series.)

> Series II is the 'Aorist Series,' and Series III is the 'Perfect Series.'
> From what I understand the first two series are used much more often than
> the third.
Not really.  The 'perfect' series is the unmarked way to represent
negation in the past; use of the aorist implies volitionality.  The
perfect series surfaces all the time, in fact, especially when a
verb lacks a stem necessary for modal constructions.

> I think the best way to show you is to illustrate using some examples.
> [...]
I don't think this is the best way to go about understanding the
language.  There is an extensive literature in English on Georgian.
One good short sketch of the language can be found in _Indigenous
Languages of the Caucasus_ (ed. by Alice Harris). The article on
Modern Georgian by Howard Aronson there is concise and not excessively
loaded with theoretical baggage.  Aronson is also the author of the
best textbook in English, _Georgian: a Reading Grammar_.  (The other
common textbook, by George Hewitt, I have found to be both irritating
in content and pedagogically hopeless.)  For a more advanced student,
Aronson has also published a second year volume _Georgian Language and
Culture_ which has extensive selections from well-known Georgian authors,
along with extensive grammatical commentary.  For those who can read
German, Tschenkeli's grammar-textbook _Einführung in die Georgische
Sprache_  is the classic text in any language, and is still reliable
but out of date in places. (One misleading thing about it is that it
always uses pronouns in paradigms, even though Georgian is a 'pro-drop' language.)

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Dept. of Linguistics    because our secret police don't get it right
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