Grammar

What sets a verb form

Four things decide which form a verb takes:

• Screeve: when it happens and how. English uses helper words: “is drawing”, “drew”, “should draw”. Georgian changes the verb. Each meaning has its own set of forms, called a screeve.
• Class: verbs fall into four groups by the kind of action: doing something to something (Class I, transitive), changing (II, intransitive), an ongoing activity (III, medial), a feeling (IV, experiencer). Each group has its own endings and noun cases.
• Person: who does it. Each screeve has six forms: I, you, he/she, we, you all, they.
• Object: the verb also marks “me”, “you” or “us” as the one it is done to: გხედავ, I see you; მხედავ, you see me.

These show up as pieces in fixed slots around the root.

Take გავაკეთებთ, “we will do it”:

Screeves and series

A screeve is one set of six forms of a verb. Each screeve answers three questions at once:

• When? Past, present or future. This is called tense.
• Ongoing or finished? “Was drawing” versus “drew”. This is called aspect.
• A plain fact, or something else? A wish, a possibility, an instruction, or something you only heard about. This is called mood.

There are eleven screeves. They fall into three groups called series. A series is worth knowing for two reasons:

• Same stem. The screeves in a series are built from one form. Learn a verb’s present, future, aorist and perfect, and the other screeves follow.
• Same cases. For Class I and III verbs, the series decides the case of the doer and the object. Class II and IV keep theirs in every series. Know the class and the series and you know how to write the nouns around it.

All eleven on one verb, ხატვა “drawing”:

How the cases follow the series: one verb per class, the same sentence in each series.

With a verb like “draw”, the complete forms carry the preverb და-: ხატავდა was drawing, დახატა drew. The perfect turns the doer into a dative, marked on the verb like a Class IV feeler: დაუხატავს.

Object markers

A verb agrees with the doer and with the one it is aimed at. “Me”, “you” and “us” get a prefix: მ-, გ-, გვ-. “Him”, “her” and “them” as the thing acted on get none; as the one asked, told or felt by, some verbs add ს- or ჰ-: სთხოვა, asked him for it; ჰკითხა, asked him. The prefix takes the slot of ვ-, so “I see you” is გხედავ, not ვგხედავ. One form can stand for a whole sentence.

• მხედავ?Can you see me?
• დაგირეკავ.I’ll call you.
• ის გვეხმარება.He helps us. / She helps us.

-თ marks a plural on either side, so გხედავთ can mean “I see you all”, “he/she sees you all”, “we see you” or “we see you all”. Context decides.

Version

The vowel right before the root is the version. ა- is neutral. ი- means for or on yourself. უ- brings in someone else, the one you do it for or to, who then goes in the dative. When that someone is me, you or us, the vowel is ი- after the prefix: მიკეთებს, he makes it for me. Many verbs simply come with one of these vowels and it carries no extra meaning.

• ვაკეთებ.I make it.
• ვიკეთებ.I make it for myself.
• დედას ვუკეთებ.I make it for Mom.
• მეგობარს ვუწერ.I’m writing to a friend.

Sentence patterns

Pick a verb, or a class’s bare pattern, and a screeve. The frame shows what each word must look like; the sentence fills it. The verb is laid out in its slots, each in its own colour; tap a slot to see what it does.

The screeves in detail

What each screeve means and when to use it, in the order of the table above. The rare subjunctives come last.

Commands

A command is the aorist “you” form: დაწერე!, write it! Add -თ for more than one person, or to be polite to one. For “let’s”, use the optative. For “don’t”, use ნუ with the present.

• გააკეთე!Do it!
• დაჯექით.Please sit down. · polite
• წადი!Go! · irregular; also მოდი, come!
• ნუ ნერვიულობ.Don’t worry.

“To be”

“To be” is irregular, so learn it as a set.

• სად ხარ?Where are you?
• გუშინ სად იყავი?Where were you yesterday?
• ყველაფერი კარგად იქნება.Everything will be fine.

არის usually shrinks to -ა: კარგია, it’s good; after a consonant, to -აა: სადაა, where is it?