u/DoisMaosEsquerdos

გვფრცქვნი "you peel us" is notorious for being a word with a high number of initial consonants: so famous in fact, it might just be the very first Georgian word I ever learned!

Because of that, I tried to trace where it actually comes from. Wiktionary says its masdar form is ფრცქვნა, all good so far: but I cannot seem to find any more information on that verb: what are its preverbs, its full conjugations, is it derived from a noun?

Of course, this isn't the most commonly used word so not the easiest to find information about: some online dictionaries do list a verb for "peel", but what they list is ფცქვნის, with no internal რ, and no mention of ფრცქვნის anywhere!

What gives? Is this a dialectal, temporal variation?

I guess my question is: do you actually know/use this word? How does it conjugate in other screeves? Also, are there other words related to it, or is it really a large, isolated verb root we're dealing with?

Hello! I have miscellanenous questions:

- regarding nouns in the dative case: when the noun stem ends in an s sound, do the two s sounds merge or are they pronounced distinctly: for instance კაცს, თბილისს, how are the endings of these words pronounced?

- I know that იცის is anomalous in that its present series has an ergative subject/nominative object instead of nominative and dative. Are there any other verbs with this particularity, or more generally that don't conform to the expected case marking of each series?

- I understand უსმენს takes an indirect object (as in English "I listen to him"), but can it also have a direct object? Or is it one of those "fake" transitive verbs with no actual object?

Thank you!

Hello everyone!

I have two questions regarding details about verb conjugation:

1. Some verbs have distinct singular and plural stems, notably ზი-ს vs სხედ-ან. On the Wikipedia page for pluractionality mentions such Georgian verbs, and most importantly, says that this distionction is not exactly parallel to -ს vs -ენ verb endings, and that a grammatically singular but truly plural subject (such as a noun introduced by a number) triggers a "mixed" form, which in this case I assume would be "სხედა".

This is quite interesting, but looking up such a form as სხედა on the Georgian Wikipedia leads no results, and სხედს gives only one result, which I don't understand too well but seems untrustworthy. Moreover, when generating Georgian sentences on Google Translate, I consistenly get ზის for sentences like "Two people are sitting over there". Further to that, googling theoretically impossible forms like "ვზივართ" gives a decent number of hits.

What is the explanation for this? When would you follow Wikipedia's rules of singular-plural matching? Does it not apply to this verb in particular? Any comments on this peculiar type of verbs?

2. My second question is about a verb I encountered in the wild while looking for instances of the word "ვინა" as a variant of "ვინ". Nearly all of the relevent results I found on Wikipedia where sentences starting with "ვინა სთქვა?", and the verb form surprised me, as I was expecting თქვა.

I heard of similar ს vs no-ს alternations in words like თხოვს vs სთხოვს, which apparently have a distinction in meaning. I also heard the initial ს- is generally disappearing in verbs, and so that difference in meaning is weakening. Yet in this case, I don't see a difference between სთქვა and თქვა, and translating "'who said that..." in Google gives back "ვინ თქვა": is სთქვა then simply an older/archaic form?

While we're at it, anyone knows when exactly to add -ა to subject pronouns like ვინ(ა), თქვენ(ა) etc. ? I understand that it is probably optional in any case. Could it be when they are in direct contact with a personal prefix?

Hello!

I am currently investigating how the infamous version vowel affects the meaning of a verb. I am currently looking at the verb დგას specifically, as I am curious how intransitive verbs interact with version vowels.

From what I understand, ა- makes it mean "standing on X" and have a dative indirect object that corresponds to the location: X-ს ადგას presumably has a more emphatic, but otherwise identical meaning to X-ში/-ზე დგას.

Is this understanding correct? My only comprehensive source says the ა- version has personal forms like გადგას. Are these correct? If so, what do they mean, "it is standing on you"?

უ- and ე- seem to be about standing for the sake of something, as in managing a household or governing a country (these are some of the examples I found on the Georgian Wikipedia).

What is the difference between these two versions? I can't sense any so far. My source says they both allow personal objects too. I found examples on Wikipedia that suggests უდგას can mean standing by someone [to help them], as in "standing by mother to help mother with something", so it seems clear enough what გიდგას would mean.

What about ე- however? What would its personal forms mean?

Here's something that would really help me if I could get it from fluent speakers: when you close your eyes and hear ადგას. უდგას. ედგას. as standalone sentences, what mental image of the situation appears in your head?

Sorry if this post is a bit fuzzy, I'm still trying to make it all "click" in my head the right way! Thank you for all of your help!