Case: case
| Values: | Core: | Nom | Erg | Dat | |||
| Non-core: | Gen | Ins | Ess | Voc | |||
Case is an inflectional feature of nouns, proper nouns, pronouns, adjectives, numerals and verbs that mark agreement with nouns or verbs.
Case can also be a lexical feature of adpositions and describe the case meaning that the adposition contributes to the nominal in which it appears.
Case helps specify the role of the noun phrase in the sentence. In Georgian, with regards to noun-verb concord, nominative and dative cases mark either subject or oblique grammatical functions, while the ergative case always marks subjects. In addition to their use to mark the agent of an action, the nominative and dative cases are also used to mark the patient.
On the level of morphosyntactic features the case expressed morphologically is always represented by bound morphemes (suffixes).
Nom: nominative case
The base form of the noun, typically used as citation form (lemma). This is the word form used for subject or object of clauses.
Examples
- ბავშვი წერს წერილს ‘A child writes a letter’ etc.
- ბავშვმა დაწერა წერილი ‘A child has written a letter’ etc.
Erg: ergative case
The ergative case marks subject of transitive verb.
Examples
- ბავშვმა დაწერა წერილი ‘A child has written a letter’ etc.
Dat: dative case
The dative case marks subject or object of clauses.
Examples
- ბავშვს დაუწერია წერილი ‘Probably, a child has written a letter’ etc.
Gen: genetive case
Prototypical meaning of genitive is that the noun phrase somehow belongs to its governor. In Modern Georgian the genitive case is generally used to mark the dependent of a nominal, while in Old Georgian it was also used as a base for secondary cases (so-called ‘Suffixaufnahme’) to indicate its attributive relationship together with agreement with other nouns in number and case.
Examples
- ბავშვის წერილი ‘a letter of the child’ etc.
Ins: instrumental case
The instrumental case reflects that the noun is used as instrument to do something.
Examples
- ბავშვი ერთობა წერით ‘A child enjoys writing’ etc.
Ess: essive case
The forms in the essive case express a relation of place, time, manner, etc. and meet the often-given definition of adverbs as words or phrases used to modify and/or qualify nouns, adjectives and verbs. The language-specific term used in Georgian is adverbial case.
Examples
- ბავშვი ცუდად გახდა ‘The child became ill’ etc.
Voc: vocative case
The vocative case is a special form of noun used to address someone.
Examples
- ბავშვებო, გააგრძელეთ წერა_ ‘Children, continue writing’ etc.
Abs: absolutive case
The absolutive case is in Modern Georgian used for participles in periphrastic constructions in a formal style.
Examples
- ბოლოს და ბოლოს, საკითხი გადაწყვეტილ იქნა ‘finally, the question was decided upon’
Case in other languages: [am] [apu] [arr] [bej] [bg] [cs] [el] [eme] [en] [es] [ess] [et] [fi] [ga] [gn] [grc] [gub] [hu] [hy] [ka] [kmr] [koi] [kpv] [ky] [mdf] [myu] [myv] [pcm] [ps] [pt] [qpm] [ru] [sl] [sv] [tl] [tpn] [tr] [tt] [u] [uk] [urb] [urj] [uz] [xcl]