Case: case
| Values: | Core: | Abs | 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 Old 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).
Abs: absolutive case
In Old Georgian, the absolutive, also referred to as the წრფელობითი (crpʻelobitʻi) case by some scholars (Imnaishvili 1956; Shanidze 1976, among others), is considered the base form of the noun, that is, the form without any overt case marking. This case is sometimes labeled differently across the literature: as the absolute (Rayfield 2006), nominal root (Vogt 1968), or nominative without a marker (Sarjveladze 1997). Opinions with regard to the differentiation of the absolutive and nominative cases differ. According to Danelia (1998), the absolutive was used from the fifth century until the ninth, following which it was replaced by the nominative. Other scholars, however, argue that the functions of the absolutive are similar to those of the nominative (Chikobava 1940, 1942; Topuria 1956; Uturgaidze 1986; Sarjveladze 1997 and others) and consider the absolutive to be simply the nominal root or an unmarked nominative, while others (Imnaishvili 1956; Shanidze 1976; Danelia 1998 and others) describe some functions of the absolutive as distinct from or shared with those of the nominative, and the absolutive as having had its markers replaced by nominative case markers (−i with consonant-final and -y with vowel-final nominals) in Old Georgian texts. Despite the variation in terminology, this Old Georgian absolutive should not be confused with the syntactic absolutive found in ergative-absolutive languages, which functions as the subject of intransitive verbs and the object of transitive verbs. In Old Georgian, the so-called absolutive is a morphological notion, not a syntactic one.
Examples
- ქალაქ ‘city’, სძალ ‘daughter-in-law’, ხურო ‘craftsman’, კუ ‘turtle’ etc.
Nom: nominative case
In Old Georgian, the nominative is the case used as the citation form (lemma) of nominals. Nominative case markers have been observed since the seventh century (Danelia, 1998). While the nominative frequently functions as the subject of a clause, but it may be also used as object of clauses and in certain syntactic environments involves copular constructions. It is important to distinguish the nominative from the so-called absolutive form, which refers to the unmarked root form in morphological terms, whereas the nominative serves a syntactic function in clause structure.
Examples
- ქალაქი ‘the city’, სძალი ‘the daughter-in-law’, ხუროჲ ‘the craftsman’, კუჲ ‘the turtle’ etc.
Erg: ergative case
The ergative case marks subject of transitive verb. Ergative case markers have been observed since the ninth century (Danelia, 1998).
Examples
- ქალაქმან ‘the city’, სძალმან ‘the daughter-in-law’, ხურომან ‘the craftsman’, კუმან ‘the turtle’ etc.
Dat: dative case
The dative case marks subject or object of clauses.
Examples
- ქალაქს ‘to the city’, სძალს ‘to the daughter-in-law’, ხუროს ‘to the craftsman’, კუს ‘to the turtle’ etc.
Gen: genetive case
Prototypical meaning of genitive is that the noun phrase somehow belongs to its governor. In Old Georgian the genitive case is generally used to mark the dependent of a nominal and, 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
- ქალაქის ‘of the city’, სძლის ‘of the daughter-in-law’, ხუროჲს ‘of the craftsman’, კუჲს ‘of the turtle’ etc.
Ins: instrumental case
The instrumental case reflects that the noun is used as instrument to do something.
Examples
- ქალაქით ‘with the city’, სძლით ‘with the daughter-in-law’, ხუროჲთ ‘with the craftsman’, კუჲთ ‘with the turtle’ 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
- ქალაქად ‘as a city’, სძლად ‘as a daughter-in-law’, ხუროდ ‘as a craftsman’, კუდ ‘as a turtle’ etc.
Voc: vocative case
The vocative case is a special form of noun used to address someone. Vocative case markers have been observed since the tenth century (Danelia, 1998).
Examples
- ქალაქო ‘O city!’, სძალო ‘ O daughter-in-law!’, ხუროო ‘O craftsman!’, კუო ‘O turtle!’ etc.
Case in other languages: [am] [apu] [arr] [axm] [bej] [bg] [cs] [ctn] [el] [eme] [en] [es] [ess] [et] [fi] [ga] [gn] [gor] [grc] [gub] [hu] [hy] [ka] [kmr] [koi] [kpv] [ky] [mdf] [myu] [myv] [naq] [nmf] [oge] [pcm] [ps] [pt] [qpm] [ru] [sl] [sv] [tl] [tpn] [tr] [tt] [u] [uk] [urb] [urj] [uz] [xcl] [xmf] [yrk]