Relativism and Universalism in Linguistics - Fachbereich 10 ...

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Preverbs in Modern Georgian and Russian:
Semantic and Grammatical Functions
Apridonidze, Shukia
Tbilisi, Georgia
shapri40@yahoo.co.uk
In Modern Georgian, several functions of preverbs can be distinguished:
1. coding direction: “thither” vs. “hither” (mi-/ts’a- – mo-), upwards vs. downwards
(a- – da-/cha-), outwards from within and vice versa (ga- – she-);
2. orientation along with direction (by adding mo- ‘hither’ to the cited preverbs), where
some languages show suppletion (cp. ts’a-vla ‘go’ – mo-svla ‘come’, ts’agheba ‘take’
– mot’ana ‘bring’);
3. formation of the perfective aspect: khat’a ‘was drawing’, dakhat’a – ‘drew’);
4. formation of the future (khat’av ‘you are drawing’ – dakhat’av ‘you will draw’);
5. derivation (a-geba ‘construct’, da-geba ‘spread’, ga-geba ‘understand’, mo-geba
‘win’, ts’a-geba ‘lose’ /’be defeated’, mi-geba ‘reply’).
Old Georgian preverbs had the functions 1. and 5. The aspectual and temporal functions are
comparatively new and and some scholars (e.g. A. Shanidze) ascribe their rise to the influence of
European languages, especially Russian, where the same aspectual-temporal system seems to
operate (cf. писал ‘was writing’ – на-писал ‘wrote’, пишет ‘is writing’– на-пишет ‘will write’).
However, there are some differences between the Georgian and the Russian systems of
preverbs.
1. While simple relations of orientation are characteristic of European languages in verbs denoting
movement (cf. Russian у- mi-/ ts’a- – при- mo-), the coding of complex relations seems to absent
in Russian. Georgian (like German), on the other hand, possesses compound preverbs to serve this
purpose: ga+mo- (from inside outwards + hither, or towards 1 st or 2 nd person), she+mo- (from
outside inwards + hither), a+mo- (from below upwards + hither), etc.
2. There are cases where Russian has a purely aspectual marking, while a specific directional
marking (in its broader, metaphorical sense) wins in Georgian. Consider e.g. inchoative forms
such as: a-tsivda ‘it has grown cold’, a-grilda ‘it has got cool’, da-tskha ‘it has grown hot’,
da-tba ‘it has grown warm’ vs Russian: по-холодало ‘it has grown cold’ – по-теплело ‘it has
grown warm’.
3. Orientational preverbs differ from directional preverbs in that the latter, but not the former
have an aspectual value. Both mi- and ts’a- denote a movement “thither”, but ts’a- is
aspectually marked (it marks perfective forms (*ts’a-dis ‘is going’, *ts’a-dioda ‘was going’,
*ts’a-akvs ‘takes away (sth)’, *ts’a-hkonda ‘took away (sth)’, ts’a-hqavs ‘takes (away)
(sb)’, ts’a-hqavda ‘took away (sb)’), whereas mi- occurs with both perfective and
imperfective forms (mi-dis ‘is going’, mi-dioda ‘was going’ and mi-va‘will arrive’, mivida
‘arrived at’, misula ‘has arrived at’, misuliqo ‘had arrived at’).
4. The only preverb that does not combine with the directional preverb mo- is da-. da- has
several functions that are of interest here.
a. One is its so-called “intensity function”, which refers either to the habitualness of a movement
(dadis ‘walks (usually)’, darbis ‘runs about’, daakvs ‘carries about’, dahqavs ‘takes sb.
somewhere habitually’) or the multiplicity of its object with same-stem verb pairs(cf. gach’ris
‘will cut a single thing’ – dach’ris ‘will cut many things’ and ‘wounds’, gatlis ‘will whittle a