Download On Representations in Morphology Case, Agreement and Inversion

On Representations in Morphology Case, Agreement and Inversion in Georgian
Author(s): Stephen R. Anderson
Source: Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Jul., 1984), pp. 157-218
Published by: Springer
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4047487
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STEPHEN
R. ANDERSON
ON REPRESENTATIONS
CASE, AGREEMENT
IN MORPHOLOGY
AND INVERSION
IN GEORGIAN*
0. INTRODUCTION
As a fundamentalbuildingblock of linguisticstructure,the morphemeis
supposedto be the locus of the phonologicalexpressionof meaningand of
grammatical categories. Traditionally, morpheme-basedtheories construedthese categories as being in a more or less one-to-one relationwith
discrete substringsof phonologicalstructureor FORMATIVES. If this were
an adequateview, it would reduce the 'morphologicalrepresentation'of a
word to the sequence of formativescomposingit, where each formativeis
(uniquely)associated with some semantic materialor grammaticalcategories as its content. Especiallyin the treatmentof inflection,though, the
range of classicalpuzzlesconcerningthe natureof 'morphemes'refusesto
dissolve; and closer analysissuggests a ratherdifferent picture from the
usual 'beads on a string' view of morphologicalstructure.
The observationsof Aronoff (1976) concerning 'morphemes'with no
isolable meaning already recall the literatureof the 1940's and 1950's
(e.g., Hockett 1947 and the controversiesprovoked by this paper). The
currentdevelopment of morphologicaltheories not based on morphemes
can be traced to Matthews'(1972) discussion of these traditionalproblems, and his proposalsfor a WORD AND PARADIGM view of inflectional
structure.Such a view substitutesan inventory of rules modifyingword
* This paper represents a revision of material presented under the same title to the
Workshopon LexicalPhonologyand Morphologyat StanfordUniversity,1 March,1983; to
the GLOW Colloquium at York, England on 30 March, 1983, and to the Caucasian
Colloquiumat the Universityof Hullin July,1983. I have benefitedfromcommentsprovided
on these and relatedissues by MichaelHammondand Alan Timberlake.Specialthanksare
due to Alice Harris and George Hewitt, as well as Frank Heny and several anonymous
refereesfor this journal,for extensive and detailed commentson an earlierversion of this
paper. Informationon Georgiancomes from the sources listed in the referencesbelow, as
well as fromworkwithTamara'Japaridze
at UCLA andclasseswithYolandaMarchevat the
Universityof Zurich. Naturally,none of the above should be held in agreementwith my
views, or responsiblefor my errorsor failure to take their advice. The present paper was
preparedwhile the authorwas supportedby a post-Doctoralfellowshipfrom the American
Council of LearnedSocieties; supportfrom the Committeeon Researchat UCLA is also
acknowledged.
Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 2 (1984) 157-218. 0167-806X/84/0022-0157
? 1984 by D. Reidel PublishingCompany
$06.20
158
STEPHEN R. ANDERSON
structure(by affixation,internalchange, etc.) for the usual inventory of
morphemes.These rules depend on a representationof the inflectional
structureof formswhich is not directlyderivablefrom the constituentsof
phonologicalform, however, and whose natureremainsto be elucidated.
These questions of representation arise particularly clearly in the
inflectionaltheory of Anderson (1977, 1982, 1984a), where a notion of
MORPHOSYNTACTIC REPRESENTATION forms the interface between syntactic and phonological structure. This kind of representationcan be
expected to have its own properties which are worthy of closer investigation.
The representationsin question can be traced to the proposals of
Chomsky (1965), who presents the terminal elements of P-Markersas
complex symbols or internally unstructuredcomplexes of features. In
addition to features of subcategorization(and selection), some of these
features represent inflectional properties (e.g., case, agreement, tense,
etc.), and it is assumed that rules of grammarwhich are not part of the
syntaxper se establisha correspondencebetween these complex symbols
and actual sequences of phonologicallyrealizedformatives.Recent work
in morphologydevelops this picture further,showing that these symbols
have a significantinternalstructurewhich forms the basis of a system of
morphologicaloperationsmappingthem onto phonological form. These
operations are the morphologicalrules which establish correspondences
between morphosyntacticand phonologicalform, and which thus replace
(at least in the domain of inflection) a list or lexicon of 'meaningful'
grammaticalmorphemes.
This paper explores the propertiesof such morphosyntacticrepresentations,the rules that create and modifythem, and the role they play in the
grammar,on the basis of an analysisof case marking and agreement in
Georgian.The interestof Georgianfor such purposeslies in the fact that
the inflectionalmorphologyof this languageis substantiallymore complex
than that of more familiarlanguages,and thus providesa better test of the
expressive power of a proposed morphological theory. Nonetheless,
despite the inherentinterestof the Georgianfacts, the goal of the paperis
not simplyto provide an analysisof Georgian,but to clarify the natureof
morphosyntacticrepresentations.
The structureof the paperis as follows. In section 1, we sketch the basic
propertiesof verbalagreementand case markingin Georgian,limitingthe
discussionto sentences whose verbs appearin one of the two fundamental
tense/aspectseries. We then review the evidence for associatingparticular
grammaticalpositions with particularagreement and case markingmor-
CASE,
AGREEMENT
AND
INVERSION
IN GEORGIAN
159
phology, establishingthe role of the notions of subject, direct object and
indirect object in Georgian. Section 2 discusses the INVERSION constructionwhichis found in the thirdtense/aspectseries, and also in the first
and second series for a specific set of verbs; the relation of this constructionto those discussedin section 1 is treated.An analysisof inversion
proposedby Harris(1981, 1982, 1983) is presented;the explanatoryscope
of this analysis is explored, and arguments are presented against the
syntactic relation-changingprocess on which it depends. An alternative,
purelymorphologicalaccount suggested (butnot arguedfor) by Anderson
(1982) is then introduced.
The discussion in sections 1 and 2 recapitulatesfacts about Georgian
from the literature,as well as Harris'analysis.This duplicationof material
available elsewhere seems necessary for the benefit of the majority of
readers, who will not be familiar with either the facts or their prior
analysis;indulgenceis begged of those readerswho are betterprepared.It
is particularlyimportantto stressfrom the outset the crucialrelianceof the
present paper on Harris' work: her insights into the structure of the
Georgian verbal system are relied on heavily here, and the analysis
eventually arrived at bears close similaritiesto hers (though with some
essentialdifferences).Indeed, the presentpapercan be regardedboth as a
critical response to Harris' work and as an applicationof the theory of
inflectionexplored here.
Section 3 then goes on to explore the morphology of Georgian
agreement in greater detail, on the basis of a discussion of the morphosyntacticrepresentationsthat should be assigned to the various verb
classes in the language. It is concludedthatwhen these representationsare
adequately explicated, no independent rule of Inversion (even a morphological one) is required,though a morphologicalrestructuringoperation analogousto the relationalrule of 'Unaccusative'plays a role in the
account. A comprehensiveset of agreement and case markingrules are
proposed which explicitly accommodate a wide range of apparently
complex phenomena in a simple and natural way. One result of this
analysis is the elimination of arbitrarylexical markers for the various
conjugationclasses in the language. Section 4 then provides conclusions
and a summaryof results.
1.
BASIC
MORPHOLOGICAL
AND SYNTACTIC
CATEGORIES
IN GEORGIAN
Georgian is well-known for the complexity of its inflectional apparatus,
160
STEPHEN
R. ANDERSON
and especiallyfor the dependenceof the case-markingsystemon the tense
of the verb. There are roughly a dozen tense-aspect forms (called
'screeves'in the recent literature)in whichGeorgianverbs can appear;the
exact inventorydependson whetherthe Imperativeis treatedas a separate
form, whether the partiallyobsolete conjunctive perfect is included, and
whetherone includesthe rare imperfectiveaoristform as a distinct tense.
These tense-aspectformscan be divided into threebasic series: Series I or
the 'Present(-future)'series, Series II or the 'Aorist'series, and Series III
or the 'Perfect' series. Of these, Series I and II are conveniently treated
together both because they sharecertainpropertiesand because Series III
is demonstrablysecondary to them in every conceivable way: in morphological structure, in semantics and in usage, and also historically.
Whether there is also a syntactic difference between Series III and the
others will be a matterof considerableinterest below.
1.1 Agreementand case markingin SeriesI and II
For the reasons just discussed, we postpone the discussion of Series III
until section 2 below, and begin by summarizing the properties of
agreementand case markingin the more basic series.
1. 1.1 Agreement
Series I and II show the same morphologicalpatternsof agreementwithin
the verb. Subjects, (direct) objects, and indirect objects can condition
agreementin their clause; however, there are only two positionsin which
this agreement material is found. Agreement is marked either 1) as a
prefix, preceding the verb root (and any pre-radicalor 'version' vowel),
but following a verbal prefix (the latter usually have perfective
significance,and are separatedfrom the rest of the verb in citations with
the boundary'='); or 2) as a suffix,following the rest of the verb stem.
Where more than one agreementprefixmight appearto be motivated,or
more than one such suffix,only one of each appearsovertly (see Anderson
1982, 1984 as well as table I below for some of the details of the
disjunctiverelationshipsinvolved here).
In sketching the agreementsystem at this point, before exemplifyingit,
we run the risk of incomprehensibility.The details of this discussion,
however, are of limited importance:it is only the overall categories of
agreement markersthat need be attended to for what follows. Nonetheless, the details (which are summarized below in table I) must be
introducedat some point.
CASE,
161
IN GEORGIAN
AND INVERSION
AGREEMENT
TABLE I
Basic verbal agreement markers
Series:
Person/Number
lsg
2sg
3sg
lpl
2pl
3pl
a
b
(Subject)
v
(D.O.)
m
v.
0
-s,-a
v-... -t
-t
-enb
Ing0
gvg-
0
(Indirect Object)
e
u
h
migi-
mg-
-t
h_a
u-
gvg-
gvigi '-t
u-
ha
-t
megeegvege- e-
a
-t
mngaagvaga- *-t
a-
h, s, x or 0, depending on the following segment.
-en, -an, -es, -on, or -nen depending on tense and verb class.
Since Georgian is at least prima facie an ergative language (or possibly
more accurately, as Harris 1981 argues at length, an 'active' language: see
section 1.1.2.2 below), one might raise the question of which NP in a
clause is properly called its subject. The syntactic evidence on this point is
quite clear, however (cf. section 1.2 below), and confirms a decision to call
'subject' that NP which usually corresponds to the subject in a translation
into English or other languages with familiar structure.
With this understanding, we can then claim that all and only subjects (of
either transitive or intransitive verbs) are marked on the verb with markers
from what we can call (with Sanije 1980) the v-series. These appear in the
first column of table I: v- marks first person and 0- second person; the
suffix -s or -a (depending on the verb's conjugation class) marks third
singular, and the third plural is indicated by one of the suffixes -en, -an or
-nen (again depending on conjugation class). Examples will appear below
in later sections.
The direct object is marked on the verb with markers from what Sanije
(1980) calls the m-series. These are the prefixes of the second column of
table I: m- for first person singular, gv- for first person plural, or g- second
person, and 0- for third person.
Indirect objects (which may appear with either transitive or intransitive
verbs) are marked on the verb in one of four distinct, but related ways.
Following the terminology of Aronson (1982a, 1982b), we can refer to
these markers as the h-series, the u-series, the e-series and the a-series.
Each of these (shown in the third through sixth columns of table I) can be
regarded as made up of a marker from the (direct object marking)
m-series, followed by 0 (for the h-series) or one of the pre-radical vowels i,
e or a (for the u, e, and a series, respectivelvV
162
STEPHEN
R. ANDERSON
The indirect object markers differ from simple sequences of direct
object markerplus preradicalvowel in the thirdperson. The thirdperson
h-seriesmarkeris s, h, x or 0 (dependingon the following consonant),and
the thirdpersonu-seriesmarkerconsistsin replacingthe pre-radicalvowel
i otherwisecharacteristicof this series by u. Evidence that indirectobject
markingis distinctfrom direct object marking(plus a pre-radicalvowel),
then, consistsof two facts: first,the thirdpersonh-seriesmarkerh-, s- or xhas no parallel in direct object marking; and second, the marker uuniquely marks indirect objects, since a simple combination of third
person directobject markingwith preradicalvowel i (markingsome other
function,such as the futurestem of medial verbs, subjective version, etc.)
yields simplyi ratherthan u.
Whichof the four series will markindirectobjects in a particularverb is
a lexical property of the verb stem (cf. Aronson 1982b for arguments
againstthe traditionalclaim that this differenceis semanticallybased).We
represent this propertyin lexical entries by including the (only partially
predictable)preradicalvowel in the entry for each verb; since the lexical
entriesfor verbs with and withoutindirectobjects must be kept distinctin
any event, there is no loss of generalityentailed in doing this.
One final element in the person markingsystem is the pluralizingsuffix
-t, which appears on a verb (replacing a final third person -s from the
v-series, if the form would otherwisehave one) to markpluralityin either
first or second person subjects or second person (direct or indirect)
objects. The readerwhose head is still above water in this mass of details
will note that these are precisely the cases in which a non-third person
actant'spluralityis not explicitlyindicatedby the form of its corresponding marker(i.e., firstpluralsubject or second pluralsubject or object). At
most one -t appears in a form, even if two would be motivated (in the
event of a firstperson pluralsubject combined with second person plural
object, for example).
Examplesentences and forms cited below will be providedwith glosses
in which these elements are identified.The analysisof agreementmarking
is largely uncontroversial(though we have simplifiedsome points here,
especially with regard to the markingof third person subjects), and the
argumentsbelow should be comprehensiblewithoutcommittingthe facts
just reviewed to memory.
There is one point, however, which requiressome furtherdiscussion.It
will be recalled that the Georgian verb provides room for only one prefix
and one suffix:what, one may ask, of the case in which three distinctNPs
CASE,
AGREEMENT
AND INVERSION
IN GEORGIAN
163
must be overtly agreed with? The problem arises specificallyunder two
sets of circumstances:1) where a firstperson subject (markedby v-) and a
non-nullobject prefixshouldco-occur; and 2) those cases in which both a
direct and an indirect object ought to be markedby prefixes.In the first
case, the markerv- simplyfails to appear;this is effected by making the
rule which would introduce it disjunctive with respect to the other
agreement prefixation rules, as detailed elsewhere (Anderson 1982).
Under these circumstancesthe fact that the subject is first person can
often be deduced from other aspects of the verb's marking.In the case of
co-occurringdirect and indirectobjects, a problemis only presentedwhen
the direct object is other than third person, since third person direct
objects are markedwith no overt affix.
When a non-third person direct object is combined with an indirect
object (of any person),the normalagreementprocess is suspendedand an
alternativeconstruction(called "OBJECT CAMOUFLAGE" by Harris 1981)
is used. This involves replacing the first or second person direct object
pronoun by a form consisting of a possessive plus tavi 'head'. These
tavi-phrases are normally reflexive in meaning, but under the special
circumstances of object camouflage, their anaphoric interpretationis
suspended and they serve as simple pronouns. Their relevance to this
construction lies in the fact that (although their reference is to first or
second person,)they are grammaticallythirdpersonNP, and thus call for 0
direct object agreement; they thereby allow the language to evade the
limitationsof the formalapparatusat the disposalof its agreementsystem.
Furtherdiscussionof the object camouflageconstructionwill be found in
section 3.5.1.
1.1.2 Case marking
The agreementsystemsummarizedin table I appliesequallyto both Series
I and Series II forms. The case marking of Noun Phrases, however,
depends on a number of mutuallyindependent parameters:a) the tense
Seriesof the verb of the clause; b) the lexicalclass of this verb; and c) the
grammaticalrelation which the NP bears. The overall system of case
markingis summarizedbelow in table II (at the end of section 2.1). We
discussthe facts of case markingin non-invertedclauseswhose verb bears
a tense from Series I or II immediately below; the case marking and
agreement properties of the inversion construction which appears with
Series III tenses and with certain verbs (those of lexical class IV) in other
series as well will be treated in section 2.
164
STEPHEN
R. ANDERSON
1.1.2.1 SeriesI. The tenses which make up Series I are the present, the
imperfect, the future, the conditional, and two subjunctives. In the
majorityof cases, the futurediffersfrom the present,the conditionalfrom
the imperfect, and one subjunctive from the other by the addition of a
lexically idiosyncraticperfectivizing pre-verb which we write in parentheses when it has this function, followed by the '=' boundary.
Subjects of all verbs whose tense is from Series I appear in the
NOMINATIVE case, which is markedon a noun either by no suffixor by a
final-i (if the stem ends in a consonant).Transitiveverbs in Series I take a
directobject whichappearsin the ACCUSATIVE case; this is markedon the
noun by the suffix-s. Indirectobjects (regardlessof the transitivityof the
verb) appear in the DATIVE case; this is formally identical with the
accusative, and is also marked by -s. Traditional grammarstreat the
dative/accusativeas a single case on the basis of this formal identity, but
for expository convenience we treat this syncretismas homophony between two distinctcategories. The analysisbelow does not depend in any
essentialway on a difference between 'dative' and 'accusative',and could
easily be reformulatedin more traditionalterms.
The points discussedthus far are illustratedin (1)-(3). The sentences in
(1) exemplify an intransitive verb in the present tense, marked for its
subject by a memberof the v-series. The pronounin (lb) and subsequent
examples appearsin parenthesesto indicate that (as in many languages,
especiallythose with extensive inflectionalagreementsystems),it normally
appears only when emphatic. It should be noted that first and second
person pronounsin Georgiando not-varyfor case; case is indicatedin the
glosses of these elements only by analogy to that which would be formally
markedon a thirdperson NP in the same position.
(1) a.
b.
ivane
c'veba
John (NOM) lies-down-3SBJ
John is lying down, going to bed.
vc'vebi
(me)
I (NOM) 1SBJ-lie-down
I am lying down, going to bed.
The examples in (2) represent a transitive verb, and thus have an
m-series markerto identify their object as well as a v-series markerfor
their subject.These sentences are in the futuretense, indicatedby the fact
that the verb forms are preceded by the appropriate perfectivizing
CASE,
AGREEMENT
AND INVERSION
165
IN GEORGIAN
pre-verb.Note thatthe 3rd personobjects in (2a,b) call for 0 markersfrom
the m-series.
(2) a.
ivane
mo- k'lav-s
mc'er-s
John (NOM) insect-ACC PVB-kill-
3SBJ
John will kill the insect.
b.
(me)
ivane-s
mo- v-
k'lav
I (NOM) John- ACC PVB-lSBJ-kill
I will kill John.
c.
ivane
mo- g-
(sen)
k'lav- s
John (NOM) you(SG., ACC) PVB-2SGDO-kill-
3SBJ
John will kill you.
The examples in (3) contain indirect objects. The verb of (3a) is
intransitive;since this form takes indirectobjects from the u-series, its IO
is markedby u (followingthe preverba= in this future tense form). The
verb in (3b, c) also takes u-series markers;since its direct object is third
person, this is not overtly markedin the form.
ivane-s
au- sendeb-a
(3) a. es saxl- i
this house-NOM John- DAT PVB-3IO-built:
3SBJ
This house will be built for John.
b.
(me)
v-
u-
xat'av deda- s
I (NOM) I SBJ-3 IO-paint mother-DA T
surat- s
picture-A CC (=DAT)
I am paintingmother a picture.
c.
deda c.
mi- xat'av-s
(me)
surat- s
mother (NONf) 1 IO-paint- 3 SBJ me(DAT) picture- ACC
Motheris paintingme a picture.
1.1.2.2 SeriesII. The tenses whichmake up SeriesII consist of the aorist,
the optative, and the imperative(virtuallyalwaysidenticalwith either the
aorist or the optative, depending on person). While the case markingof
NPs associated with verbs whose tense comes from Series I tenses is a
simple and straightforwardexample of a nominative/accusativesystem
parallelto that of familiarEuropeanlanguages,that associatedwith verbs
whose tense comes from Series II is somewhatmore unusual.
166
STEPHEN
R. ANDERSON
It is necessaryfirst of all to distinguishbetween two classes of intransitive verbs: MEDIAL verbs such as qeps '(he) barks', goravs '(he) rolls',
musaohs '(he) works', lap'arak'obs'(he) speaks', and many others; and
NON-MEDLAL intransitivessuch as ic'erebs '(it) gets written', xdeba '(it)
happens', elodeba '(he) is waiting for (him, it)'. The class of medials has
traditionallybeen treated as simply a set of exceptions to the supposedly
normal behavior displayed by non-medial intransitives, but a recent
detailed study by Holisky (1981a) makes it clear that the medial verbs
constitute a large, productive, class whose behavior is morphologically,
syntacticallyand semanticallycoherent (cf. also Harris1981) and no more
'exceptional' than that of the non-medials. Holisky characterizes the
medial verbs semanticallyas the set of verbs denoting agentive, atelic
activities (cf. also Holisky 1981b). We make no attempt to evaluate this
description here, since our concern is to describe morphological and
syntactic differencesbetween medial and non-medial intransitivesrather
than their semantics.
The distinction between medial and non-medial intransitives, and
between both of these and transitiveverbs, is a lexical one whose precise
representationwill be discussed in section 3. As a purely descriptive
convenience, we adopt below the terminology of Harris, according to
which transitive verbs are characterizedas belonging to 'class I', nonmedial intransitivesto 'class II', and medial intransitivesto 'class III'. The
additional category of 'class IV' or 'indirect' verbs will be discussed in
section 2 below.
Given this classification,we can say that the subjects of verbs of both
class I and class III appear in the ERGATIVE case when their tense is a
member of Series II. This case is formallymarkedon nouns by the suffix
-M(a). Subjectsof non-medialintransitives(class II), in contrast,appearin
the NOMINATIVE (exactlyas with Series I tenses). Since directobjects also
appear in the nominative,we would have a system of the ergative type
associated with the tenses of Series II if we confined our attentionto the
non-medialexamplesof intransitiveverbs. Finally,indirectobjects appear
in the DATIVE case in Series II just as in Series I.
In light of the existence (and completely non-marginalstatus) of the
medial intransitives,however, the correct descriptionof the case marking
system in sentences with verbs in Series II tenses is arguably as an
ACTIVE system, as proposed by Harris (1981). We ignore here the
question of whether the semantic difference between medial and nonmedial verbs is precisely that usually associated in the literaturewith the
'active' systemssometimesdescribedfor AmericanIndianlanguagessuch
CASE,
AGREEMENT
AND INVERSION
IN GEORGIAN
167
as Dakota, Choctaw, etc. The label 'active' is used here to mean simply
that there are two classes of intransitiveverbs, one whose subjects share
formal propertieswith the subjects of transitives,and one whose subjects
share formalpropertieswith direct objects.
We illustratebelow the patternof case markingin sentences with Series
II verbs, as well as the pattern of their agreement (which is essentially
identical with that found in Series I examples). (4a, b) contain a nonmedial verb in the aorist; their subjects are therefore in the nominative.
The verb of (4c), in contrast,is a medialintransitive,whose subject is thus
in the ergative.
(4) a.
ivane
mo- k'vd-a
John (NOM) PVB-died-3SBJ
John died.
b.
mo- vk'vdi
(me)
I (NOM) PVB-lSBJ-died
I died.
k'at'a-m ik'navl- a
cat- ERG meowed-3SBJ
The cat meowed.
In (5), the verb is transitive.Its subject is thus ergative, and its object
nominative.
(5) a.
ivane-m
mc'er-i
mo- k'l- a
John- ERG insect-NOM PVB-killed-3SBJ
John killed the insect.
b.
(me)
ivane
mo- vk'ali
I (ERG) John (NOM) PVB-1 SBJ-killed
I killed John.
The sentences in (6) contain indirectobjects, which occur in the dative
regardless of the transitivity of the associated verb. In all of these
exampfes,the indirectobject is reflectedby a markerfrom the u-series. In
(6a, b) the verb is transitive and its subject therefore appears in the
ergative, its direct object in the nominative. The verb of (6c) is a
non-medial intransitive,while that of (6d) is a medial intransitive;the
subject of the former is thus nominative, and the subject of the latter
168
STEPHEN
R. ANDERSON
ergative. These case markingfacts are the same as in the examplesabove
where no IO was present.
(6) a.
da- vu- xat'e deda- s
(me)
I(ERG) PVB- 1SBJ-31O-paintedmother-DAT
surat- i
picture-NOM
I painted mother a picture.
b.
deda- m
da- mi- xat'- a
(me)
mother-JERG
PVB-1 I0-painted-3SBJ me(DAT)
surat- i
picture-NOM
Mother paintedme a picture.
c.
es saxl- i
ivane-s
a-
u-
send-a
this house-NOM John- DAT PVB-3IO-built-3SBJ
This house was built for John.
d.
megobr- is
jayl-ma
ivane-s
u-
qep-
a
neighbor- GEN dog- ERG John- DAT 3IO-barked-3 SBJ
The neighbor'sdog barkedat John.
1.1.3 Summary
In the discussionthat follows, it is not the detailed formal expressionof
particularcategoriesthat will be of interest,but ratherthe extent to which
agreement and case marking are correlated with syntactic categories
defined by structuralpositions (or by grammaticalrelations). We have
observed that verbal agreement marking distinguishes three structural
categories: SUBJECT, DIRECT OBJECT, and INDIRECT OBJECT. These
distinctionsare made regardlessof tense or of the transitivityof the verb.
While case markingdistinguishesthe same three categories, it does so in
different ways depending on tense (Series I vs. Series II) and verb class
(transitive, or class I; non-medial intransitive,or class II; and medial
intransitive,or class III).
1.2 Syntacticpropertiesassociatedwithparticularterms
The morphologicaldifferences between Series I and Series II just sur-
CASE,
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169
veyed naturallylead to the questionof whetherthere exist corresponding
syntactic differences. In order to answer this, we must first establish
syntactic properties that are associated with given positions in grammatical structure, and then determine how the distribution of these
properties is related to morphologicalcharacteristics.With this goal in
mind,Harris(1981) providesan extensive surveyof the syntacticstructure
of Georgian within the frameworkof RelationalGrammar.She isolates a
numberof propertiesof NPs which appearto depend on the grammatical
relation they bear within the sentence; since reference to these grammatical relations can plausibly,be seen as part of the descriptionof the
properties involved (necessarily,in a frameworklike that of Relational
Grammar,but at least implicitlyin other theoriesas well), the propertiesin
question can serve as criteria for the identification of grammatical
relationsborne by NPs in cases where the analysisis in doubt.
Harrisargues that despite the morphologicaldifferences, the syntactic
structureof sentences is the same in Series I and II. That is, the same NP
which serves as 'subject'in a sentence with a verb in Series I is identified
by syntacticcriteriaas the subjectif the verb is put in a SeriesII tense with
its concomitant morphological changes; and the same for direct and
indirect objects. This conclusion is thus an intra-linguisticanalog of the
line of argument in Anderson (1976) that syntactic criteria identify the
same NPs as 'subject', 'direct object', etc. in 'ergative/absolutive'and in
'nominative/accusative'languages.'
Some of the properties identifiedby Harris are common to subjects,
direct objects, and indirectobjects; they thus serve to distinguishthe class
of such 'terms' from other, 'non-term' NPs. Terms, for example, are
reflected in the verb by agreement (as we have seen above), while
non-terms are not. Similarly(and, we will suggest below, closely connected with the facts of agreement),non-emphaticpronounsare generally
' There are two qualifications that must be made to the statement that grammatical relations
in one language correspond in a relatively straightforward way to those in another. On the
one hand, individual lexical items in one language may show exceptional correspondences
with their closest equivalents in some other language. For example, French Mes an_s me
manquentis semanticallybut not structurallyparallelto its Englishgloss I miss my friends:
the subject of naquer corresponds to the object of miss and the indirect object corresponds
to the subject of miss. On the other hand (and more significantly), a small fraction of the
world's languages, of which Dyirbal is by far the most celebrated example, show a quite
different association between grammatical relations and semantic roles than that characteristic of English and most other languages. The existence of such languages, as pointed out
in Anderson (1976), actually increases the significance of the conclusion elsewhere, since it
establishes the point that the correspondence between morphology and syntax which
'ergative' languages suggest is actually a possible one, though incorrect in most instances.
170
STEPHEN
R. ANDERSON
omitted in the position of terms,while non-termpositionssuch as genitive
modifiersand objects of post-positionsmust be filled either by full NPs or
by overt pronouns. Of more interest for our discussion, however, are
propertiesthat distinguishone term position from another.The following
sub-sections note some of the syntactic characteristics of the most
importantterms, the subject and the direct object.
1.2.1 Subjects
An importantdistinguishingpropertyof subjects is the fact that they are
the only NPs that can serve as the antecedentof (non-possessive)reflexive
expressions. Georgian reflexives are formed from the noun stern tav-,
which occurs independently with the sense 'head'. The person of the
reflexiveNP is indicated(alwaysif firstor second person,optionallyif third
person)by a possessive pronounmodifyingtav-. Such 'tav-reflexives'can
occur in direct or indirectobject position, or as objects of postpositions;
they are alwaysinterpretedas coreferentialwith the subjectof theirclause.
Thus sentence (7) below unambiguouslyindicatesthat the paintingwill be
done for the benefit of the painterhimself:
(7)
tav- istvis
mxat'varidaxat'avs vanos
painter will-paint Vano-ACC self- GEN-for
The painteri will paint Vano, for himself i,*j.
An obviously related construction with tavis serves as a possessive
reflexive.In the case of possessives,however, the antecedentis not limited
-to the subject of the clause, and such cases therefore do not provide
evidence for subject-hood.
Another systematic property of subjects is revealed in the morphologically derived causative construction.When an intransitiveverb is
made causative,the subjectof the relatedsimpleverb appearsas the direct
object of the correspondingcausative:
(8)
avari'sa
mama-m mzia
father-ERG Mzia-NOM caused-to-exercise
Father made Mzia exercise.
In causative verbs correspondingto basic transitiveverbs, the indirect
object of the causative correspondsto the subject of the basic verb:
(9)
cecxli
daantebina
mama-m mzia- s
father-ERG Mzia-DAT caused-to-light fire-NOM
Father made Mzia light the fire.
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171
Unfortunately,as Harris(1981: 291) points out in anotherconnection,
the patternof NPs in associationwith causativesshows less than we might
like it to. This is because indirect objects of intransitive verbs also
correspond to indirect objects of the related causatives. Therefore, the
indirect object of the causative in (9) could in theory have that status
either because it correspondsto the subject of a transitive,or because it
corresponds to the indirect object of an intransitive; and since it is
precisely the choice between these two possibilitiesthat is most often in
question, causatives have limited value as evidence in this connection.
1.2.2 Direct Objects
An interesting property of direct objects is the fact that they undergo
raising to subject position when their clause is embedded under advili
'easy' and similarpredicates.This constructionis illustratedin (10) below:
(10)
sarvali advili-a ninos-tvis sesak'eravad
trouserseasy- be Nino-for to-sew
Trousersare easy for Nino to sew. (or 'to sew for Nino')
The fact that only direct objects, and not either subjects or indirect
objects, are availableto be raisedin this constructionis illustratedby the
fact that sentence (11) below is ungrammatical,regardlessof whethernino
is interpreted as underlying subject of esak'erad 'to sew' or as a
benefactive indirect object:
(11)
*nino advili-a sarvl- is
sesak'eravad
Nino easy- be trousers-GEN to-sew
*Nino is easy to sew trousers(for).
Another propertyof direct objects has alreadybeen illustrated:in the
causative of a transitiveverb, the direct object correspondsto the direct
object of the correspondingbasic verb. Sentence (9) above illustratesthis
pattern. Again, however, the value of such facts as evidence is limited:
direct objects of causatives may correspond either to direct objects of
basic transitives,or to subjects of basic intransitives(cf. (8)).
Another propertyof direct objects whichfiguresin Harris'discussionis
the fact that certain transitiveverbs show suppletivestem forms, depending on propertiesof their direct objects. Thus, the verb (gads = )a-gdeb
'throw'only occurs with singulardirect objects, while (gada=)qri 'throw'
is used with plural direct objects; similarly,the verb (da=)ban 'wash' is
used only with personal (human)direct objects, while the corresponding
verb (ga=)recxav 'wash' is used with non-personal (non-humanor in-
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STEPHEN
R. ANDERSON
animate)direct objects. The relevance of this to the status of particular
NPs in the clause is arguedto derive from the apparentlyvalid generalization that if a transitiveverb shows suppletionfor some propertyof one of
its arguments,the relevant argumentis alwaysthe direct object (and not
the subject).
It is by no means clear that these facts are actually relevant to the
syntactic analysis of Georgian, however. When we consider intransitive
verbs, we find a numberthat show similarsuppletionbased on properties
of their subject: thus, (da=)Jdeb 'sit down' is used with singularsubjects,
while (da=)sxdeb is used with plural subjects; and c'evs '(he) is lying
down' is used with personalsubjects,while devs '(it) is lying down' is used
with non-personalsubjects. These facts show that not only direct objects
can cause suppletion, but subjects as well. The full generalizationthus
appears to be that suppletion is governed by the properties of an
intransitivesubject or a transitiveobject.
In fact, we suggest, this generalizationis only indirectlyconnected with
the syntacticrelationsinvolved: the apparentrelationarisesbecause these
are preciselythe positionsoccupied by the NP fillingthe semanticrelation
(or '0-role') of THEME in the interpretationof a clause. We suggest that it
is the propertiesof themes that are relevant to the choice of suppletive
verbs. A similar proposal is made by Hewitt (1983). The importanceof
themes in grammaticalstructureis well known (cf., e.g., Anderson 1977b
and references there); given the semantic nature of the restrictions
involved in suppletion, it is particularlyplausible that they should be
controlledby an aspect of semantic,ratherthansyntacticstructure.But in
that case, the facts of suppletionare not directlyrelevantto identifyingthe
grammaticalrelation a NP bears.
2.
THE
INVERSION
CONSTRUCTION
The facts surveyedto this point are quite straightforward,if a bit complex:
aside from the point that Series I and Series II tenses differ in their
associated case-marking (though not agreement) patterns, the morphologicaland syntacticpropertiesof Georgianare not especiallyunusual
in comparisonwith other languages. But the language also illustratesyet
anotherpatternof case-markingand agreement,which, while by no means
isolated in cross-linguisticterms, is nonetheless remarkable.This is the
'inversion'construction.
CASE,
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173
2.1 Morphologicalpropertiesof 'inverted'forms.
Under certain circumstances(to be described immediatelybelow), the
apparent subject of transitive verbs, as well as of intransitivesof the
'medial'class, appearsin the dative case, ratherthan the nominative(as is
usualwith Series I tenses) or the ergative (as is usualwith Series II). At the
same time, instead of being indicated on the verb with markersfrom the
v-series (which,it will be recalled,normallymarkssubjectagreement),it is
marked with an element from the u-series, or in the case of certain
exceptional verbs, with elements from one of the other sets normally
employed to mark indirect objects. The subject in this constructionthus
behaves morphologicallyin exactly the way indirectobjects behave in the
constructionsdiscussedin section 1. .
At the same time, under the same circumstances,the apparentdirect
object of a transitiveverb appearsin the nominativecase. We can recall
that this is the normal case for direct objects with Series II (though not
Series I) tenses, but in contrast to these, direct objects in the 'inverted'
forms are indicated on the verb by markersfrom the v- (or 'subject')
series. A further complication arises from the fact that the verbs in
questionare followedby a suffixedform of the verb qopna 'be', agreeingin
person with a first or second person direct object. This peculiarity
(considered as a part of 'v-series agreement') is also found in agreement
with the subjects of present.forms of some non-invertedverbs (especially
medials), and so is not isolated within the morphology of Georgian. It
does, however, reinforcethe conclusionthat in the 'inverted'forms,direct
objects have the morphologicalpropertiesof subjects.
As far as the indirect objects of 'inverted'transitiveor medial intransitive verbs are concerned, these can only appear in the form of a
post-positionalphrase markedby -tvis. In its other uses in the language,
this post-position can generally be glossed 'for', and it overlaps in its
semanticswith the range of interpretationsassignedto indirectobjects. In
the 'inverted'forms,(notional)indirectobjects are not markedon the verb
at all, and their appearanceis limited to such -tvis phrases.
Finally, we can note that when non-medial intransitiveverbs appear
under the conditions that call for 'inverted' forms of other verbs, no
correspondingchanges in case markingor agreementare observed. Their
subjects, that is, appearin the nominativeand are markedby the v-series
on the verb;.andtheir indirectobjects (if present)appearin the dative and
are indicated by one of the appropriateseries of markers.
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STEPHEN
R. ANDERSON
There are two sets of circumstancesunderwhich such 'inverted'forms
are found. The firstof these is in the final group of tenses, those classified
in traditionaldescriptionsas Series III and includingthe perfect, pluperfect, and conjunctive perfect. Although Series III is usually called the
'Perfect Series' in the literature, these tenses are not 'perfects' in a
standardsense. They are rathertense formswhose main use is to describe
events the speaker has not actually witnessed, but rather inferred (cf.
Aronson 1982a, Harris 1981, Sanije 1980, and other references cited in
these works for extensive discussion of the semantics of the Georgian
Series III tenses). The perfect is also the basic past tense in negative
contexts corresponding to the (non-negative) aorist. With non-medial
intransitives(whether or not they take an indirect object), as we noted
above, there is no inversion.Although in this case the internalformation
of the SeriesIII tenses is differentfrom that associatedwith transitivesand
medial intransitives, it is nonetheless clear from their syntactic and
semantic distributionthat the same set of tenses is involved.
Invertedforms are also found in Series I and II formsof a particularset
of verbs, mostlyinvolving perception,emotion, ability,or mental attitude.
These we referto as constituting'class IV' following the terminology(due
to Harris)introducedabove for the otherlexical classes of verbs. The class
IV verbs in Georgian(i.e., those that show inversionin all tense series and
not only in Series III) are cognate with verbs that often show similar,
inverted behavior in other languages on a locally idiosyncratic basis.
Compare, for example, archaic English Me thinks, Italian A Giorgio
piacciono le sinfonie di Beethoven 'Georgio likes the symphonies of
Beethoven', or Russian Emu zaxotelos' rabotat' doma 'He felt like
working at home'. In all of these cases the notional subject experiencer
shows the morphologicalcharacteristicsof an indirect object.
An over-emphasison the partialsemanticcoherence of the set of verbs
making up class IV can lead to a mistaken appreciationof the status of
inversionin Georgian. Merlan (1982), for example, effectively limits her
discussionof Georgian inversion constructionsto a considerationof the
class IV examples, and concludes that the cross-linguisticsimilarityjust
noted is sufficientto force us to consider the invertedforms as having (at
all levels) a syntaxwhich is directlyrevealed by their surfacemorphology.
Since her discussion takes none of the relevant syntactic evidence into
account, however, and largely ignores the problemof inversion in Series
III tenses, this conclusion seems unwarranted.The semantic similarities
between class IV verbs in Georgian and those that show some sort of
inverted structure in other languages remain simply suggestive (and
CASE,
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IN GEORGIAN
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175
nothing more) until an adequate and explicit account is available of the
relation between syntactic and semantic categories in the languages
involved. We have nothing to say here about the semanticcharacteristics
of some verbs which make them candidatesfor such 'inverted'syntax in
manylanguages;what is importantabout them in Georgianis the fact that
their constructionis the same as that associatedwith a much wider set of
verbs (i.e., classes I and III as well) under certain systematic conditions
(namely,when their tense is one of those in Series III).
We now illustrate the properties of the inversion construction. The
sentences in (12) below are negatives corresponding to non-negative
sentences in the aorist;their tense is thus the 'perfect',a memberof Series
III:
ar da-
(12) a. (me)
dedis- tvis
mi- xat'av-s
I(DAT) not PERF- 11O- paint- 3SBJ mother-for
surat- i
picture- NOM
I didn't paint a picture for mother.
b. deda-
s
ar da-
u-
xat'av-s
cem-tvis
mother- DAT not PERF- 31O- paint- 3SBJ me- for
surat- i
picture-NOM
Mother didn't paint a picture for me.
The verb in (12) is a basic transitive(class I); its subject thus appearsin
the dative and is markedon the verb by what is normallyan indicatorof
indirectobjects. The directobject is in the nominative,andshowsconcord
with a 'subject' marker,while the indirectobject appearsin a tvis-phrase
and is not markedon the verb at all. The same morphologicalproperties
can also be observed for the subjects of class III (medial intransitive)
verbs, as shown by (13):
(13) a. k'at'a- s
cat-
ar u-
a
k'navli-
DAT not 31O- has meowed- 3 SBJ
The cat has not meowed.
b. (me)
ar mi- k'ivli-
a
I (DAT) not IO- have screamed- 3 SBJ
I didn't scream.
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STEPHEN
R. ANDERSON
Note thatin (13), the medialverbs are inflectedwith a 3sg 'subject'marker
(regardlessof the person of their actual subject, which correspondsto an
'indirect object' marker).They thus behave (by morphologicalanalogy
with class I verbs) as if they had a dummy3sg direct object. This fact will
play a role in the analysisbelow.
In (14) below, we illustratea verb from class IV, the class that shows
'inversion'in all tenses. These sentences have their verbs in the present
tense, which would normallycall for nominativesubjects markedby the
v-series, and accusative objects markedby the m-series; instead we find
dative subjectsmarkedby the u-series, and nominativeobjects markedby
the v-series (plus an enclitic form of the copula, when the object is
non-thirdperson):
ana
(14) a. (me)
mi- qvar-s
I (DAT) Anna (NOM) 1IO- love- 3SG
I love Anna.
vb. ana- s
u- qvar-var
(me)
Anna- DAT me (NOM) 1SG- 3IO- love- am
Anna loves me.
Membershipin class IV, with its associatedinversionin all tenses, is not
limited to transitiveverbs. A few intransitivesbelong to this class as well;
like the Series III forms of intransitivemedials, these verbs appear to be
inflectedfor a dummy3sg direct object.
m- jinav- s
(15) a. (me)
I (DAT) 1IO- sleep- 3 SG
I'm sleeping.
b. vano- s
jinav- s
sVano- DAT 3 IO- sleep- 3 SG
Vano is sleeping.
At this point, we have introducedall of the patternsof case markingand
agreementwhich occur in Georgian as a function of verb class and tense
Series. A summaryof these patternsis presented in Table II below.
2.2 Harris' analysis of inversion
The questionraisedby the inversionconstruction,of course, is whetheror
not the morphological properties of such sentences are an accurate
CASE,
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AND
INVERSION
IN GEORGIAN
177
TABLE II
Case markingand agreementpatterns
PatternA:
Case-Marking
Agreement
Subject
Direct Object
IndirectObject
Nominative
v-series
Accusative
m-series
Dative
h-, etc. series
Subject
Direct Object
IndirectObject
Ergative
v-series
Nominative
m-series
Dative
h-, etc. series
Direct Object
IndirectObject
Nominative
v-series
(tvis-phrase)
(none)
PatternB:
Case-Marking
Agreement
PatternC ('inverted'clauses):
Subject
Case-Marking
Agreement
Dative
h-, etc. series
Distributionof PatternsA, B, and C:
Series:
I
II
III
Verb Class:
1 (Transitive)
2 (Non-MedialIntransitive)
3 (Medial)
4 (Inversionverbs)
A
A
A
C
B
A
B
C
C
A
C
C
indicatorof their syntacticstructure.Is it the case, that is, that in a clause
whose verb has a tense from Series III, the NP correspondingto the
subject of the same clause with a Series I or II tense is in fact a structural
indirectobject? An analysisthat did not posit majorstructuraldifferences
correlatedwith such tense differences would have an immediateappeal.
2.2.1 The syntacticstructureof inversionclauses
Harris(1981) argues that in inversion forms, the dative NP is indeed the
syntacticsubjectand the nominativeNP is the directobject. She bases this
conclusion on the same constructions that she uses to demonstratethe
structuralparallelbetween Series I and Series II (non-inverted)forms.For
178
STEPHEN
R. ANDERSON
example, in Series III clauses (as in Series I and II), only the notional
subject can serve as the antecedentof tav-reflexives.Sentence (16) below,
whose verb is in the 'perfect' tense, illustrates this; note the ungrammaticalityof the variant (16b), in which the reflexive is in the position
whichappearsmorphologicallyto be an indirectobject and the antecedent
in what appearsmorphologicallyto be that of the subject:
(16) a. gela- s
turme da- u- rc'munebi-a
tavisi
Gela-DAT evidentlyPVB-3IO-convince- 3 SBJ self's
tavi
self-NOM
Evidently Gela has convinced himself.
b. *tavis tav- s
da- u- rc'munebi-a
gela
self s self-DAT PVB-3IO-convince- 3SBJ Gela-NOM
(*Evidentlyself has convinced Gela.)
Evidence from other sources bearingone way or the other on this issue
is not easy to obtain. For instance, when we consider -causatives,the
evidence from Series III forms is not immediatelyrelevant, since it is the
causative verb itself that is 'inverted'in such structures(as the bearer of
tense) ratherthan the basic verb from which it is derived. We might then
turn to class IV verbs: since these appear 'inverted'in all tense forms, it
might appearthat they have a basicallyinvertedstructure,which ought to
be reflected in the form of their causative.
a(17) a. vano- m
gela- s
a
sejulVano- ERG Gela- DAT PVB- 31O- caused to hate- 3SBJ
nik'o
Niko-NOM
Vano made Gela hate Nik'o.
b. (mat)
t'usayi
mo- asives
they-ERG prisoner-NOMPVB- caused hunger-3PLSBJ
They let the prisonergo hungry, they starved the prisoner.
Unfortunately,the causativeof a transitiveclass IV verb such as m-jul-s
'I hate him' as in (17a) is of no relevance to the issue at hand. In this
structurethe argument(gela) correspondingto the notionalsubject of the
basic verb 'hate' does appearas an indirectobject, which is whatwe would
CASE,
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AND INVERSION
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179
expect if it were basically the subject of a transitive;and the argument
(nik'o) correspondingto the notional object of 'hate' appearsas a direct
object, again as we would expect for a basic direct object. As noted above
(andby Harris1981, p. 291), this is exactly the same as the resultwe would
predict if the personhated were structurallythe subject of (an intransitive
verb) m-jul-s, and the hater the indirect object. In the case of an
intransitiveinversionverb such as m-sia 'I am hungry',however, the fact
that the NP with morphologicalindirect object propertiesin association
with the basic verb appearsas a directobject with the causativeas in (17b)
confirmsits notional status as a subject.
Turning to raising constructions,there is again no evidence available
from Series III tense forms,since the clause from which an object is raised
(in, e.g., sentence (10) above) is necessarilynon-finite (i.e., appearsin a
form that bears no tense). With regard to class IV verbs, we see that
indeed the notionalobject of such a verb can be raised,and no other NP in
the clause has this possibility:
(18)
direkt'ori
AZvili-a vanos- tvis sesajuleblad
director-NOMeasy- is Vano- for to hate
The directoris easy for Vano to hate.
Harris (1981: 292) notes, however, that this fact is also equivocal in its
bearing, because the verb m-jul-s (like most other inversionverbs) has a
related form (se=) i-juleb 'begin to hate someone', a class I verb built on
the same root. Since non-finiteforms involve the neutralizationof class
differencesamongverbs with the same stem and preverbsuch as this, one
could argue that (18) arises from raising the object of the class I verb,
rather than the (commoner)class IV verb. Of course, sentence (18) is
consistentwith an analysiswhich treatsthe embeddedverb as the class IV
form, and raises its direct object - but it does not provide positive
evidence for this analysis.
Harriscites some additionalfacts in supportof her conclusion,including
suppletionfor number,animacy,and tense with invertedverbs, the facts of
number agreement, and the marking of 'retired terms'. We suggested
above that the facts of suppletion are not directly relevant to the
determinationof syntactic structure,since these are related to semantic
rather than syntactic relations. The facts of number agreement will be
discussed below in section 2.3.4, where they will be seen to reinforcethe
conclusion that NPs with the morphologicalpropertiesof indirectobjects
in inversionconstructionsare in fact subjects. The facts of 'retiredterm'
180
STEPHEN
R. ANDERSON
markingwill not be dealt with separatelyhere, though I do not feel they
provide substantialadditionalsupportfor proposalsabout the underlying
structureof inversionstructures.
We conclude, however,that such facts as there are either supportor are
at least consistent with the claim that 'inverted' clauses (i.e., those
containing Series III tense forms or class IV verbs) have the same
syntacticstructureas others. Given the obvious parallelsbetween Series I
and II, on the one hand,and SeriesIII on the other, we accept here Harris'
claim that the two should be analyzedas having the same basic structure,
in particularthe same subject and object NPs. It remains, however, to
account for the morphologyof the 'inverted'forms.
2.2.2 A syntacticanalysis of inversion
Within the frameworkof Relational Grammar,Harris (1981) provides a
resolution of the apparentlycontradictoryaspects of the inversion construction. The essence of that analysis is the following: since NPs in
inversion clauses have the same subject and object properties as the
correspondingNPs in non-inversionclauses, we can assign all types of
clause a common underlying structure (at least as far as grammatical
relations are concerned). However, in the presence of the two inversiontriggeringfeatures([classIV] as a propertyof the verb, or [Series III] as a
property of its tense), the morphology corresponding to the syntactic
subject is that of an indirectobject; and that correspondingto a syntactic
direct object is that of a subject. Therefore, a rule can be posited which
demotes subjectsto indirectobject; anotherrule then promotesthe direct
object to the status of a subject:
(19) a. Inversion: Subject-> Indirect Object (triggered by class IV
verbs or Series III tense forms)
b. Unaccusative: In the absence of a Subject, a Direct Object
becomes a Subject
The process is split into two rules, Harris argues, because the Unaccusative rule (19b) is necessary independently of the inversion constructionalone. In particular,all clauses with verbs of class II (non-medial
intransitives)have underlyingrepresentationscontaining a direct object,
but no subject; and this direct object is promotedto subject by the same
rule (19b) that functions in the inversion construction.It is beyond the
scope of this articleto evaluate this proposal(equivalentto the suggestion
of a class of 'unaccusative'verbs in a numberof other languages;cf. e.g.
CASE,
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AND INVERSION
IN GEORGIAN
181
Postal 1977, Perlmutter1983 and referencesthere, Burzio 1981, etc.), but
withinGeorgianwe suggest that it does not have independentmotivation
beyondthe facts that a) it providesa descriptionof the differencebetween
class II andclass III;b) it relatesthe structureof class II to that of passives;
and c) it requires no apparatusbeyond that necessary to describe inversion. We returnto these points below.
Given the rules in (19), inversion clauses (such as that in (20),
containinga verb of class IV) will be given a Relationalstructuresuch as
that below:
_
(20)
s-
julebi- a
vano- s
direkt'ori
3IO- hate- 3SBJ Vano- DAT director
Vano hates the director.
In this structure,vano is underlyinglysubject and direkt'ordirect object:
the former undergoes demotion (from '1' to '3') by rule (19a), with the
result that the clause no longer has a subject; and (19b) promotes
direkt'or to subject status. The resulting structure provides a suitable
basis for morphologicalmarkingof the NPs involved.
Harris'relationalanalysisprovides a compact and elegant account of
the facts of inversionconstructions,and their relation to other aspects of
Georgian syntax.The only controversialaspect of this analysisis the fact
that it treats inversion as an essentially syntactic (rather than morphological) phenomenon,by positing a rule which alters syntactic grammatical relations and then treating the morphology as straightforward
given the change made by this rule. The reason this is problematicis the
following:evidence for an initialstructurein which inversionclauses have
the same structure as non-inversion clauses derives from syntactic
phenomena. Morphologicalevidence for this structure is either highly
problematic in theoretical terms (number agreement; cf. section 2.3.4
below) or of unclear status in the grammar ('retired term marking').
Argumentsfor the (derived) indirect object status of the surface dative
NP, on the other hand, are exclusively morphological: they consist
essentiallyof the facts of case markingand verb agreement. An analysis
which expressedthe morphologicalpropertiesof the constructionwithout
requiring (otherwise unmotivated) changes in syntactic structure, and
182
STEPHEN
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which did not lose generalizationscapturedin the syntacticanalysis,would
enjoy at least the advantageof conceptual economy.
Theories other than that of Relational Grammar typically posit a
connection between structuralpositionsand semanticroles such that even
in the presence of a syntactic relation-changing inversion rule, the
descriptionof Georgian inversionmust involve another, essentiallymorphological component. For example, an analysiswithin the frameworkof
Lexical FunctionalGrammar(Bresnan1982) would requirea lexical rule
associating a difference in role assignmentwith the morphology of the
relevant inversion structures,if the grammaticalrelations in the surface
form of inversion structures differ from those in corresponding noninverted forms. On the assumptions of Government/Binding theory
(Chomsky 1981), both direct and indirect object are sub-categorized
positions, and each must thus be assigned a 6-role. In order to avoid a
violationof the 6-criterion,thismeansthat the 6-role normallyassignedto
subjects must be re-assigned to indirect object position instead. A
Government/Bindinginterpretationof Harris'analysisthus requiresus to
posit a lexical rule which (at least) associates this change in 6-role
assignment (as well as the absorption of case from the direct object
position) with inversion morphology,assumingthat there is movement in
such constructions.
Note that the syntacticanalysisrequiresthat Inversion(takingthis term
to refer to the pair of rules in (19), including Unaccusative) essentially
must not interactwith other relation-changingrules. This is because other
rules which change relations (e.g., passive, raising) do not apply to the
output of inversion, and inversiondoes not apply to their output either.
The one exception to this is the formationof causatives,to which inversion
can apply; but this process would be described as lexical rather than
syntactic by grammariansworking in frameworksother than Relational
Grammar,and so cannot be called a clear counterexampleto the claim
that inversion is not fed by genuinely syntactic rules.
The failure of Inversion to feed other rules follows (in Harris' formulation)from the fact that such other rules have structuralrequirements
that are inconsistentwith the output of inversion. The second half of the
generalization,however, is describedby Harrisby imposingthe condition
that "Inversion[i.e., (19a) above] only applies to initial subjects"(Harris
1981, p. 247). As a result, the formulationof Inversionbecomes global in
character (since it must refer simultaneouslyto the fact that a given
argument is a subject, and to the fact that it was initially a subject), a
consequence which most views of syntaxwould reject. On the other hand,
CASE,
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AND
INVERSION
IN GEORGIAN
183
Inversion must precede (and feed) the morphological rules of case
marking and agreement. An alternativeanalysisshould attempt to make
these interactions follow as far as possible from more general considerationsof the inter-relationof morphologyand syntax.
2.3. Problemswith a syntacticanalysis of inversion
In the previoussection, we suggested some reasonsto believe that it might
be preferablea priori to describe the facts of the inversion construction
within the limits of the morphologicalsystem of Georgian, rather than
adoptingan analysisinvolving a change of syntacticstructuresuch as that
posited by Harris.In this section we providesome more explicit arguments
againstthe syntacticapproach.In each case, the thrustof our observations
is that the structureunderlyinginversion constructionsshould be maintained unchanged: either the syntactic rule of Inversion leads to a
structurewhich is in some way ill-formed, or there is evidence that the
posited underlyingstructure(ratherthanthe outputof syntacticInversion)
is appropriate as a derived structure as well. If we assume that no
alteration of the underlyingstructure is involved in an account which
treatsinversionas a fact about the structureof inflectedwordsratherthan
as a fact about the syntax of 'inverted' clauses, these argumentssupport
such an analysis.
2.3.1 The well-formednessof the movementinvolved
Recall the effect of rule (19a) above, the central part of the syntactic
analysis of inversion. This rule demotes subjects (in the presence of an
appropriatetrigger) to indirect objects; the result is a structurewith no
subject NP. In the case of transitiveverbs, this lacunais immediatelyfilled
through the operation of (19b), promoting the former direct object to
subject. Intransitiveverbs can undergo inversion too, however - at least
those like k'navis 'meows',which belong to class III (the medials).In this
case there is no NP availableto occupy subjectposition.WithinRelational
Grammar, this would violate the 'Final-1 Law', which stipulates that
clauses musthave a surfacesubject;it is thus necessaryto posit a syntactic
dummy element which occupies subject position (either directly, or by
advancementfrom direct object position).
Within the Government/Bindingtheory, inversion structureslike (21)
below would violate otherwise valid binding conditions if they involved
genuine syntactic movement, since movement from subject to indirect
184
STEPHEN
R. ANDERSON
object position would leave a subject trace bound only by an NP in
indirect object position. Such a trace would not be c-commanded by its
antecedent, and thus the structurewould not be well formed.
(21)
S
NP
VP
NP
[e]i
'
V
NP
V
0
u-k'navli-a
[kat a-s]i
cat-DAT
3 IO- meowed-3SBJ
The cat has meowed. (perfect tense)
We have representedindirectobject position as a daughterof VP, and
treateddirect objects as daughtersof V; nothing hinges on this detail, so
long as indirect object position is a part of some projection of V within
which the main verb can be subcategorizedfor its complements, while
subject position is externalto the maximumprojectionof V. The analysis
must reflect the fact that direct and indirect objects are independently
subcategorizedby the verb while subjects are not.
The ill-formednessof the antecedent-tracerelation in (21) under the
bindingtheoryof Chomsky(1981) has no obvious resolution;note that we
cannot assumethe trace is simply'covered'by a syntacticdummyelement
(such as English there),since regardlessof the morphologicalindication
on the verb, this position cannot be filled by an overt pronoun or other
element under any circumstances.In contrast, the morphological treatment of inversion involves no movement from subject to indirect object
position, and results in no structurethat is problematicfor the binding
theory.The subject NP continues to fill the subject position, regardlessof
its morphologicalreflection, and no trace in that position must be bound
by an element subordinateto it.
CASE,
AGREEMENT
AND INVERSION
IN GEORGIAN
185
2.3.2 Non-finiteforms and the natureof verbclasses
Verbs which are not marked for tense and agreement must not trigger
syntacticinversion,regardlessof whetheror not they contain roots whose
finite forms can be inflected as belonging to class IV. In sentence (22)
below, we see that the dependentsof sejuleba 'to hate' are markedas they
would be in a normal,active nonfinitestructure:tkven is markedwith the
post-position mier, as is normal for a transitive subject (n.b.: not an
indirectobject), while cemi megobrisis a genitive, the normalform for a
direct object dependent of a non-finiteform:
(21)
tkven mier cemi
cem-tvis gaugebaria
you by my
me-for incomprehensible
megobr- is
sejuleba
friend- GEN hating
For me it is incomprehensiblethat you would hate my friend.
An adequategrammarmust thus ensurethat infinitiveforms like gejuleba
do not trigger inversion,even if they correspondto class IV verbs.
This raises the issue of what it means for a verb to belong to 'class IV'
(or any other class). The evident generalizationhere (suggested to me by
Alice Harris)is that "a non-finiteformhas no class":i.e., that class is a fact
aboutfiniteinflection.Therefore,on an analysisthat treatsinversionnot as
syntactic structuralchange but ratheras a fact about a verb's agreement
morphology,there is nothingfurtherto be said to ensure that inversionis
blocked in non-finiteformseven for those verbs which otherwiseundergo
it everywhere (i.e., class IV): lack of inversionfollows directly from the
fact that such forms have no agreementmorphologyto 'invert'.
An analysisthat treats inversionas syntactic,however, does not derive
this consequenceso directly.This is because the Inversionrule is said to be
triggeredby two conditions:SeriesIII inflection(for verbs of class I or III)
and class IV verbs. Harris shows that no reference to verb class is
necessary on her account to prevent inversion in Series III forms from
applyingto verbs of class II, but the inversionrule must still refer to class
IV forms. While it is true that the notion of 'class IV' is only relevant to
finite forms, and thus that non-finite forms could never be subject to
inversion,it remainsthe case that the referenceto class IV inflectionin the
syntactic Inversion rule is in principle independent of the actual
agreement morphology itself. As we will see below, the morphological
account does not posit any lexical indication of class beyond the
186
STEPHEN
R. ANDERSON
agreement morphology, and the operation of inversion is a completely
predictablesubpartof the developmentof certainfiniteforms (ratherthan
being triggered by a reference to those forms in the syntax), so the
generalization that non-agreeing forms have no 'class' in the relevant
sense is a tautology.
2.3.3 Wordorder
Georgian has considerable freedom of surface word order within the
clause, but the extent of this freedom has sometimes been exaggerated
(e.g. by Hammond1981 who arguesthat the languagehas completelyfree
order, suggesting a 'non-configurational'account of its syntax).There is
fairly clearly a neutral order in declarative sentences, deviations from
which have special stylistic motivations (emphasis, highlighting of new
information, etc.). Based on a study of texts by Pochua, Vogt (1971)
argues that the neutralword order has the subject in initial position; the
direct object is adjacent to the verb (on either side), and the indirect
object (if present) is either on the other side of the verb from the direct
object or separatedfrom the verb by this latter NP. Schematically,the
occurringneutralordersare: S-V-DO-IO, S-DO-V-IO, and S-10-DO-V.
This suggests that a structurealong the lines of that posited in (21) above
is appropriate,with word order being unspecified internal to the projections of V.2 Permutationsbeyond those of the neutralorderwould then
be produced by late stylistic rules, whose operation is irrelevant to the
syntax per se.
What is importanthere is the fact that the central generalizationabout
neutralword order concerns the position of the subject: this is sentence
initial.Furthermore,among the subjects which obey this principleare the
(basic,or underlying)subjectsof sentences thathave undergoneinversion.
This is illustrated below for both types of inversion structure: (23a)
containsa verb of class IV, and (23b) has a verb in the pluperfect(a series
III tense).
2
The account developed here predicts a fourth possible neutral order: S-IO-V-DO. That
this is not cited by Vogt as having the same status as the other three mentioned here shows
that some additional principle(s) are at work in determining Georgian word order: hardly a
remarkable conclusion. In this case, we might propose that a non-subject immediately
preceding the verb is most naturally interpreted as its direct object, if possible. We have no
independent evidence for this claim, but it does not seem implausible; and in any event, what
is at stake is this section is the ordering property of subjects.
CASE,
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AND
INVERSION
IN GEORGIAN
187
tavisi svilebi u- qvar-s
(23) a. mama- s
father- DAT self's children3IO- love- 3 SBJ
Father loves his children.
a
b. deda- s
gogo da- emalmother-DA T girl PVB- 3IO- had hidden- 3SBJ
Mother had hidden (pluperfect)the little girl.
The fact that the notionalsubject occupies the same positionin (neutral)
word order regardlessof whether the constructioninvolves inversion or
not follows triviallyif we assume it continues to be a subject (despite its
morphologicalreflection).On an analysisinvolvingsyntacticinversion,on
the other hand, it is necessary to formulatethe relevant generalizations
about word order in an inherently global fashion. Harris (1981, p. 302)
thus states that the "'first subject that is a final term' regularlyoccupies
the first position"- a formulationwhich is unavoidableif the underlying
subject ceases to be a subject in the surface structures of inversion
constructions,but which requiresreference simultaneouslyto the surface
status of a NP and to its derivationalsource.
2.3.4 Numberagreement
The conditions on number agreement in Georgian are somewhat more
complexthanthose on person agreement.Essentially,the verb agrees with
any first and second person NP in number if it agrees with that NP in
person; but verbs agree with third person NP in numberonly if these are
subjects. The agreement in some cases is by a markerwhich is syncretic
with the personmarker:thus, the thirdpersonpluralv-series markers-en,
etc., represent both person and number; as does the first person plural
m-series markergv-. Where no such syncreticmarkerexists (i.e., for first
or second person v-series markers, and for second person m-series
markers),numberagreement is by means of the suffix-t 'plural'.
Because third person NPs that are marked on the verb with markers
from series other than the v-series are generally non-subjects, nothing
normallyappearson the verb to indicatetheirplurality.The one exception
is in the inversion construction:here a markerof the u-series (or other
'indirectobject series',3when requiredby a particularverb) in the third
3 Note that the labels on the columnsin Table I referto the grammaticalrelationsborneby.
the correspondingNP's in non-invertedformsonly. The essence of the syntacticaccountof
188
STEPHEN
R. ANDERSON
person may be accompaniedby the pluralmarker-t in agreementwith a
3pl NP:
(24)
tavisi mama
u- qvar-t
svileb- s
children-DAT self's father-NOM 31O- love- PL
The childrenlove their father.
Interestingly,a third person plural (direct object) NP marked on the
verb with a v-series marker in the inversion construction cannot show
numberagreement, and must agree as if it were singular:
(25)
mama- s
tavisi svileb- i
uqvar-s/
father- DAT self s children-NOM 3IO- love- 3 SGSBJ/
*u- qvar- en
31O- love- 3PLSBJ
The father loves his children.
Given the generalization that third person NP can trigger plural
agreement if and only if they are subjects4, these facts provide further
supportfor the claim that the subject in an inversion constructionis the
same as that in a non-inversionstructure.
inversion is the claim that these labels are also applicable to (the surface structureof)
inverted clauses. On the analysisbeing developed here, this is not the case; but we will
continue to refer to v-series agreement as 'subject-agreement',to u-, b-, etc. series
agreement as 'indirect-object-agreement',and so on, for want of a better alternative.
Context should make clear the extent to which the 'indirect-object'in a reference to
'indirect-object-agreement',
etc., shouldbe taken seriously.
4 Hewitt (1983) arguesthat in some cases, the indirectobjects of relative intransitiveverbs
can triggerpluralagreement:
ra
mo- u- vid- at mat
what (NOM) PVB- 3IO- came- 3SG- PL 3PL-DAT
What came over them?
(i)
He also notes that,while Harrisdescribesthe verb da-e-k'arg-ain (iia)below as not showing
plural agreementbecause muoblebs'parents'is an indirect object, she also suggests that
e-k'sg-eb-a-t in (iib) does have plural agreement, because here zmnebs 'verbs' is the
subject of an invertedverb:
(ii) a.
b.
da- ebavivi
msobl- eb- s
k'arg- a
parent-PL- DAT PVB-3IO- lost- 3SBJ child
The child was lost to the parents.
v
et
evian
zmn- eb- s
k'argeb-a3SBJ- PL
v-having verb- PL- DAT v (NOM) 3IO- loseVerbs in v lose v.
CASE,
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AND
INVERSION
IN GEORGIAN
189
The problemis that on a syntactic analysisof inversion,these subjects
have ceased to be subjects at the point agreementapplies:Inversionhas
demoted them to indirectobjects. The statementof numberagreementfor
non-subjectsmust thus refer both to the grammaticalrelationborne by a
given NP on the surface, and to the fact that this NP was originally a
subject. The implicitly global formulationprovided by Harris (1981, p.
219) states that "[a] thirdperson nominaltriggersNumberAgreement in
the verb of which it is a finalterm if [...]it is the firstsubject of that verb
that is a final term."
In contrast, on a purely morphological account, the fact that third
person 'indirectobject' agreementis sensitive to numberonly in inversion
constructions (and conversely, third person 'subject' agreement is insensitive to number in exactly the same forms) follows directly and
non-globallyfrom the fact that exactly subjectstrigger plural agreement
with third person NPs. If such subject agreement material eventually
undergoes translation as 'indirect object' markers, it nonetheless can
reflect number. On the other hand, whether a non-subject eventually
Since the verbs in these sentencesappearto be the same (withthe exceptionof their tense),
the claim that the datives in them bear differentrelationsappearsto be an inconsistency.
In fact, the phenomenonin questionis ratherwidespread.Tschenkeli(1958, pp. 484-490)
discussesit at some length, and cites some apparentlynear-minimalpairs:
(iii) a.
kurd-i
ga- ep'ar- a
p'oliciel- eb- s
thief- NOM PVB- 3IO- escape- 3SBJ police- PL- DAT
The thief escapedfrom the police. (emphasis:the thief managedto get away
from the police)
b.
p'oliciel- eb- s
ga- e- p'ar- at kurd-i
police- PL- DAT PVB- 3IO-escape- 3SBJ-PL thief- NOM
The thief escapedfrom the police. (emphasis:the police are the affectedones,
in that they had the misfortuneto have the thief escape from them)
According to Tschenkeli, this apparentlyinverted use of relative instransitiveverbs
(evidenced by word order and especially by the possibilityof plural agreementwith an
'indirectobject')arisesspecificallywhen the indirectobject is interpretednot simplyas a goal
or 'undergoer'of the action described,but as affected by it or an experiencerof it.
This suggeststhe resolutionof the apparentinconsistencyin the sentencescited by Harris:
for a large class of verbs, two interpretationsare availablewhich differ not in their basic
sense, but rather in the way described by Tschenkeli. Since the morphologicalpatterns
associated with relative intransitiveverbs and with inverted (class IV) verbs are almost
identical,shiftsbetweenthese classesusuallyhave no formalreflectionbeyondthatshownas
the differencebetween (iia) and (iib), (iiia) and (iiib). We have to do here then not with an
inconsistentdescription,or with optionalnumbermarkingassociatedwith syntacticindirect
objects, but ratherwith switchesbetween two inflectionalclasses dependingon whetherthe
dative NPs associatedwith certainverbs are interpretedas experiencersubjectsor simplyas
affected goals.
190
STEPHEN
R. ANDERSON
triggers 'subject'or 'object' agreementmarkers,there is no way for it to
reflect number in the third person. Naturally, it remains for us to
substantiatethis claim with an explicit analysisbelow, but it is clear that
essential aspects of the syntactic account (in particular,the need to have
syntactic inversiondemote subjects to indirectobjects before agreement
applies) will necessitate a global statement of number agreement something that might be avoided if subjects in inversion constructions
remainsubjects.
2.4. An alternativeto the syntacticanalysis
In the previoussectionswe have seen that while the syntactictreatmentof
inversion offered by Harris provides an elegant account of most of the
facts, there are some reasons to believe that an alternative might be
preferable. In particular,an analysis which did not involve a syntactic
movement rule could avoid several specific difficulties, including the
necessity to posit global formulationsof certain rules. Further,since the
inversionconstructionnecessitatesa lexical rule linkedto the morphology
of inversioncategoriesin at least some frameworks,it is worth askinghow
much of the work of describingthe inversionconstructioncan be done in
this way.
On the basis of such considerations, a preliminarymorphological
formulationof inversionwas proposedby Anderson(1982) in the context
of a generaldiscussionof inflectionalmorphology.That analysiswas based
on the theoryof EXTENDED WORD AND PARADIGM morphology,originating in proposalsof Anderson (1977), and ultimatelyof Matthews(1972).
As noted in the introductionto the present paper,.the central notion of
that view of inflection is the replacementof specific morphemes(in the
sense of minimalunits pairing sound with meaning)by rules relating the
form of an inflectedwordto its morphosyntacticrepresentation.The latter
is taken to be a complex symbol, containing features indicating the
categories of inflectionalmorphologythat are representedby the form in
question. In these terms, Anderson (1982) proposed that inversion could
be formulatedas an operationon morphosyntacticrepresentationsalone,
makingno change whatsoeverin the syntacticstructureof sentences. Such
an analysisremovesinversionfrom the syntaxin the usualsense, and treats
it as strictlyan aspect of the inflectionalmorphologyof words.
Essentialto the morphologicaldescriptionof inversionis the notion that
morphosyntacticrepresentationshave internal structure, for it is this
structurewhich is to be manipulatedby the proposedrule. This proposal
CASE,
AGREEMENT
AND INVERSION
IN GEORGIAN
191
was originallymade by Anderson(1977), in the context of a descriptionof
the inflectionalmorphologyof the AlgonquianlanguagePotowatomi.Thislanguage, like Georgian, presents a situation in which verbs must agree
with more than one NP (i.e., with both subject and object), and in which
the two sets of agreementfeaturesmust be kept distinct (since e.g. 'I saw
you' and 'you saw me' are inflecteddifferently).It was suggested that the
difference between e.g. subject and object agreementfeatureswithin the
morphosyntacticrepresentationof a single verb could be representedby a
hierarchicalstructure5,in which one of the sets of featuresis treatedas a
unitaryblock co-ordinatedwith membersof anotherset, in a way which is
clearly recursive.
Suppose, for example, we have a language in which verbs must agree
(separately) with both subjects and objects; and in which there are
generalizationsacross the two sets which lead us to believe it would be
inappropriateto treat this by simply duplicatingthe agreement features
(distinguishing a feature [+lsg Subject] from another feature [+lsg
Object], for example). In that case, we might assume that there are two
partsto the agreementrule:one copyingfeaturesfrom the object onto the
verb, and one copying featuresfrom the subject. Assumingfor concreteness' sake that the object agreementrule operatesfirst,once it has applied
the verb will be characterizedfor agreementfeatures. When the subject
agreement rule now comes to apply, its result is determined by the
principle that a rule adding features to a complex already specified for
those features does so by creating a new layer of (hierarchical)structure
within the morphosyntacticrepresentation.The result could thus be
pictured as in (26):
(26)
[Tense, Aspect, etc.; Subject features [Object features]]
Features such as tense and aspect are not affected by the 'layering'
involved, since these are specifiedonly once and thus do not come under
the domain of the convention in question. For furtherdiscussion of the
mechanics of this proposal, see Anderson (1982) and references there.
With reference to Georgian, we see that up to 'three layers of hierar5 Hierarchicalorganizationis not, of course, the only possible way to reflect formallythe
structurewhichmust be attributedto morphosyntacticrepresentations.Orderedn-tuplesof
featuresets, for example,would do as well. Any representationwhichkeeps the varioussets
of inflectionalfeaturesapart, and allows for the statementof a subordinationconvention,
would do as well. We choose hierarchicalstructuresimplyfor concreteness'sake; it is not
clear what sort of evidence would allow us to distinguish among the various formal
possibilitiesavailable.
192
STEPHEN
R. ANDERSON
chical structuremust be recognized and created by the agreement rules,
since the subject, direct object, and indirect object can condition
agreement on the verb. Let us assume that, in this general case, the
outermost layer of structure in the morphosyntacticrepresentationof
verbs corresponds basically to the features of the subject (at least in
non-invertedforms),and thus is used to triggermarkersfrom the v-series.
The innermostlayer, in contrast,can be taken to correspondto the direct
object, and to triggerm-seriesmarkers;an intermediatelayercorresponds
to an indirectobject, and triggersmarkersfrom the h-, u-, e-, or a- series
(dependingon the particularverb).
We could then treatthe basic morphosyntacticrepresentationsof class I
(transitive)verbs as in (27a) below. Drawingon the analogybetween class
I and class III (medial intransitive)verbs in their inflection, we could
suggest that the latter have the same, two-layeredstructure,except that
the innerlayeris necessarilyspecifiedas an 'inflectionaldummy':that is, as
third person singular with no reference. This dummy, note, represents
merely a fact about the verb's inflection:since it does not correspondto
any subcategorizedargument,it does not representa syntacticdependent
of the verb. It also does not correspondto any distinguishableaspect of the
logical form of medialverbs (thoughinsofaras membershipin this class is
semantically predictable, its appearance is deducible from whatever
semantic factors are involved in this prediction).
(27) a. Class I: [tense/aspect, Subject [Direct Object]]
Class III: [tense/aspect, Subject [ 0 (3sg.)] ]
Given this structure;we could then treat inversion as a rule operatingon
morphosyntacticrepresentations,which has the effect of extracting the
innermostlayerof a two-layeredstructure,adjoiningit as a new outermost
layer, and leaving an 'inflectionaldummy'as its trace:
(28)
[ X person/number[ person/number] ]
Inversion:
--
3+[
1
2
1
2
3
[
0,3sg
Condition:X includes "Series III" or "Class IV"
Rule (28), of course, has no effect whatsoeveron the syntacticstructureof
clauses in which the affected morphosyntacticrepresentationsappear
since it appliesonly to the latter.The resultof applyingit to (27a) will be to
convert that structureinto a three layered one like (29):
(29)
[tense/aspect, Direct Object [ Subject [0, 3sg]]]
CASE,
AGREEMENT
AND
INVERSION
IN GEORGIAN
193
Notice that now the features agreeing with the direct object are in a
position to trigger v-series markers, while those associated with the
subject are in a position to trigger 'indirectobject' markers- exactly the
correct result for the agreementpropertiesof the inversion construction.
Rule (28) can thus describe the basic facts of agreement in Georgian
inversion structures without necessitating any alteration of syntactic
structure.It will be seen that this providesa potentialway of resolvingthe
problem which arose on the syntactic analysis.In order to conclude that
this account is adequate,however, we must extend it so that its empirical
coverage approaches that of Harris' description. We must therefore
expandthe range of verb classes covered by the analysis,and also provide
a mechanismof (surface)case markingthat is integratedwith it. It is to
these tasks that we now turn.
3. Developingthe morphologicalanalysis
In the previous section, a preliminaryaccount of inversionwas sketched
that treats this phenomenon as morphological rather than syntactic in
character. As the basis of that analysis, a schematic view of the morphosyntactic representationof Georgian verbs was presented, and a
concrete proposal was made concerning the morphosyntacticrepresentations of class I and class III verbs. In order to give this account enough
substanceto make it a seriouscompetitorwith Harris'syntacticanalysisof
inversion, there are a numberof areas in which it must be developed: a)
the range of verb classes included must be extended to cover all of those
that are distinguishedin the traditionalclassification;b) the assumptions
made about the operationof agreementmust be translatedinto an explicit
set of agreement rules; and c) an account of case marking must be
developed that is appropriately integrated with the description of
agreement.
3.1 Extendingthe analysis to otherverbclasses
The usual classificationsof Georgian verbs (in e.g. Tschenkeli 1958,
Aronson 1982a, and other works listed in the References section below)
are based on several distinctions. First, transitive verbs (those taking a
direct object) with non-invertedstructureare distinguishedfrom others;
following Harris, we refer to these as 'class I'. Secondly, among the
intransitiveverbs the medials are distinguishedfrom the non-medialson
several grounds:in partthese concern the verb-internalmorphology(e.g.,
formationof the futurestem of medialswith preradicalvowel i- and stem
194
STEPHEN
R. ANDERSON
formant-eb, ratherthanwith a preverb),but they also include the fact that
medials take their subject in the ergative in Series II tenses while
non-medials take nominative subjects in all series; and the fact that
medials undergo inversion in Series III while non-medials do not. The
non-medialsare treated as class II, while the medials are assignedto class
III. Finally, the verbs which show inversionin all tense series are treated
separatelyas class IV.
The analysissuggested in the previous section concerns only the basic
forms of verbs from classes I and III. We now extend it to include verbs
from these classes with indirectobjects (section 3.1.1), and verbs of class
II (section 3.1.2). In section 3.1.3 we propose a refinement of the
formulation of Inversion which recognizes the similaritiesbetween inverted verbs and relative verbs of class II.
3.1.1 Relative verbs
In addition to the distinctions among basic classes, there is a further
parameterwhich cross-classifieswith them: the abilityof a verb to govern
syntactically an (agreeing) indirect object. Since the inversion constructiondoes not allow for agreementwith a NP other than the subject
and direct object, this possibilitydoes not arise within class IV; but in
classes I, II, and III we must distinguishRELATIVE verbs (those taking a
syntactic indirect object in addition to their basic argument(s)) from
non-relative forms. Frequently, relative and non-relative variants (i.e.,
formswith and withoutan indirectobject) exist for the same basic verb; as
these differ in their inflection(reflectingthe extra argumentpresentin the
relative form), they must be distinguishedin the morphology.
In the previous section, we introduced the notion of hierarchically
structuredrepresentationsof the agreement features of verbs. Using the
abbreviationsFsbj, FDO, and FlO to represent the features of agreement
with the subject, the direct object, and the indirect object respectively;
'T/A' to indicate the features of tense and aspect; and 0 to indicate a
feature complex appropriatefor agreement with a third person singular
argumentbut uncorrelatedwith any NP in the sentence, we recapitulate
the proposed treatmentof the agreementstructureof class I and class III
verbs in (27) as (30)
(30)
I: [T/A,
FSbj [ FDO]]
III: [T/A,
FSbj [O]]
The morphosyntacticrepresentationsof relative forms of these verbs
CASE,
AGREEMENT
AND INVERSION
IN GEORGIAN
195
ought to differfrom (30) by containingan additionallayer of structure;on
the assumptionsmade above about the operationof the rules spelling out
agreement, the layer showing agreementwith an indirect object ought to
be the middle one of three. This yields the following schematicrepresentations for relative class I and III verbs:
(31)
I: [T/A, FSbj[ FIO[ FDO]]]
III: [T/A, Fsbj[ FIo [ 0 ] ] ]
From the descriptionof inversionin section 2.1, it will be recalled that
inverted verbs cannot show agreement with a syntactic indirect object.
Instead, their indirect object appears as the object of the postposition
-tvis, in a syntacticallyindependentphrase.There are two approacheswe
could take to these facts: either we could assume that inversion,as a side
effect, converts an indirectobject to such a phrase;or we could assume
that inversion is simply not applicable to relative verbs, and that the
relevant forms are supplied from the corresponding non-relative verb
together with a syntacticallyindependentphrase.
Of these two approaches,it is the formerthat is taken in Harris'analysis.
As a generalprincipleof RelationalGrammar,when any rule assignssome
relation to an argument, any other argument that (previously) was
assigned that relation becomes a 'chomeur'. When Harris' rule of Inversion demotes a subject to indirect object, then, any existing indirect
object becomes an indirect object chomeur; such arguments are later
markedwith the post-position-tvis.
Since the morphological account of inversion being developed here
does not involve any re-arrangementof syntactic structure, such an
approachis not open to us. Instead,we claim simplythat relativeverbs do
not as such undergo inversion. In a sentence such as (32a), which has
undergone inversion because its tense is from Series III, the -tvis phrase
must thus be treated as a strictly external argument of the verb. The
verb in such a sentence is not itself relative.
(32) a. turme
rezo- s
u- cukebi- a
samajuricem- tvis
apparentlyRezo- DAT 310- gave- 3SBJ bracelet me- for
ApparentlyRezo gave me a bracelet.
b. rezo- m
macuk- a
samajuri
Rezo- EGR 1SGIO- gave- 3SBJ bracelet
Rezo gave me a bracelet.
196
STEPHEN
R. ANDERSON
But if we thus claim that it is a non-relativeverb which appearsinvertedin
(32a), how do we account for its apparentsynonymy(apartfrom tense and
aspect) with the relativeform in (32b), which is in the aoristand thus does
not show inversion?
The problem, of course, is that a relative verb assigns one more
semantic role than its non-relative counterpart; and yet that role is
apparentlypresentin the interpretationof a sentence like (32a), which we
claim has a non-relative verb. The resolution of this difficulty which
suggests itself is to argue that the role in questionis assigned not directly
by the verb, but indirectlyby the post-position-tvis. The situationis thus
completely analogous to that in the English passive, where both the
Govemment/Bindingtheory and Lexical FunctionalGrammarclaim that
the subject's (agent) semantic (or theta) role is assigned indirectlyby the
preposition by; a similarmove is argued for by Marantz(1981).
The claim that the post-position-tvis can assigna semanticrole whichis
alternativelyassigneddirectlyby a verb to its indirectobject is a necessary
one in Georgiangrammarin any event. For one thing, quite independent
of the inversion construction,it is often (though not always) possible to
paraphrasea relative verb by a non-relative form plus a tvis-phrase
(Tschenkeli 1958, p. 383):
(33) a. me vu- sxam st'umar-s
vino- s
I 1SBJ-3IO-pour guest- DAT wine-ACC
I pour out wine for the guest.
asxamst'umrisa-tvis vino- s
b. me vI 1SBJ- pour guestfor wine- ACC
I pour out wine for the guest.
Secondly, such indirectassignmentof semanticroles is also necessaryin
connection with oblique dependentsof non-finiteforms:
(34) a. vasli viqide masc'avleblis-tvismisacemad
apple 1SBJ- bought teacherfor to-give
I bought an apple to give to the teacher.
b. sacukarijneli- a anzoris-tvismisacemad
gift
difficult-is Anzor- for to-give
Gifts are difficultto give to Anzor.
Sentence (34a) involves a purposeclause, and (34b) a raisedobject. Both
CASE,
AGREEMENT
AND INVERSION
IN GEORGIAN
197
constructionsinvolve a non-finiteform which cannot govern an indirect
object directly; in such a case, the semanticrole of the indirect object is
assigned by the post-position -tvis. These sentences are discussed by
Harris (1981, p. 173) as examples of the marking of 'retired' indirect
objects, but if one does not derive such non-finite verbs from tensed
clauses, the alternativeis simply to recognize -tvis as a potential indirect
assigner of the semantic roles which can be assigned directly by finite
relative verbs to their indirectobjects.
We can conclude from these facts that only non-relativeverbs of classes
I and III need undergo inversion(ignoringclass IV for the present)in the
presence of Series III tenses, but if that is the case, it must be explained
how inversionis blocked in the correspondingrelative forms. We suggest
that this follows from an independentlynecessary constraint:if rule (28)
above appliedto representationssuch as those in (31), the resultwould be
a morphosyntacticrepresentationwith four layers, not three - and such a
representationcould not be translatedby the rules that supply the overt
markersof morphologicalcategories (recall that agreement distinguishes
exactly threecategories of agreeing element). In conformitywith this, we
proposethat the grammarof Georgianeffectively filtersout any representations with more than three layers of structure:
(35)
*[ W[X[ Y[z]]]]
This effect of the morphologyis independentlymotivatedby the need to
block certain other constructions,such as causativesof relative transitive
verbs6, and "version-objects"together with indirect objects (cf. Vogt
6
As noted by Harris(1981, pp. 99f.), Vogt (1971, p. 132), and other authors,occasional
formsare cited in the Georgiangrammaticalliteraturethat seem to call for agreementwith
four NPs, two of which are apparentlyindirectobjects.These are generallynot found in the
standardlanguage,and theirexistence as other than abstractgrammaticalpossibilities(e.g.,
as causativesof causativesof transitiveverbs) is not at all clear. George Hewitt (personal
communication)pointsout a particularlyfascinatingexamplefrom a fairystoryfor children
appearingin the Georgiannewspaperfor GeorgiansabroadSamsoblo:
aramcda aramceg erl'emalixar- eb- s
ar
bull- PL- ACC not
not and not that ram
mo- mik'vlevino- t
PVB- 1SGIO-let-kill- 2PL
Under no circumstancesare you to let the bulls kill that ram for me.
As Hewittnotes, "If 4-place verbs are interpretableby childrenfrom fairy-tales,we should
perhaps be careful about dismissing them from practical grammarsof the language."
Nonetheless,theirmarginalstatusis clear. We have nothingfurtherto say here about these
forms.
198
STEPHEN
R. ANDERSON
1971, Harris 1981); it will also have the effect of blocking inversion in
relative forms of class I and III verbs.
3.1.2 Verbsof class II
We turn now to the non-medial intransitiveverbs, or class II. In their
non-relative forms, these are maximallysimple in structure:they agree
with only one argument (the subject), and show no trace of any purely
formal inflectional element such as the dummy 'object' found with the
medial intransitives.There is thus no reason to attributeany structureto
their morphosyntacticrepresentationbeyond that in (36):
(36)
[T/A, FSbj]
We have remarkedabove that inversionapplies to (non-relative)verbs
of classes I and III but fails to applyto class II; but there is no difficultyin
explainingthis fact. The structuraldescriptionof rule (28) above calls for a
morphosyntacticrepresentationwith (at least) two layersof structure,and
if the structurein (36) is assigned to non-relativeclass II verbs, these will
fail to meet that requirement.Theirfailureto invertthusfollows from (36).
Tuming to the relative forms of class II, we note that these show
agreement with both the subject and the indirect object. On the general
assumptionswe have made thus far about the relation between layers of
structurein a morphosyntacticrepresentationsand classes of agreement
elements, we would like to assign these verbs a representationwith three
layers of structure,the middle one of which is occupied by the featuresof
the indirectobject. This leaves two layers to be filled; we propose that in
these verbs, the subject agreementfeatures are markedin the innermost
layer, and the outermostlayer is filled by an inflectionaldummy:
(37)
[T/A, 0 [ FoI [ Fsbj ]]]
As with other relative verbs, these fail to undergoinversionin Series III
tenses. Representation(37) immediatelyaccounts for that fact, since rule
(28) would convert it into a structureviolating (35).
This representationexpresses the similaritiesbetween subjects of class
II verbs and objects of transitive verbs (capturedin Harris' analysis by
treating class II subjects as underlyingobjects, and having them undergo
the 'unaccusative' rule). In particular,many class II forms are passives
correspondingto transitiveverbs of class I. On the present analysis,what
subjects of class II verbs have in common with direct objects of class I
verbs is agreementwith an innermostlayer of morphosyntacticstructure,
CASE,
AGREEMENT
AND
INVERSION
IN GEORGIAN
199
not the underlyinggrammaticalrelation they bear in their clause.
The most unusualfeatureof (37) is undoubtedlythe fact that it contains
an obligatory inflectional dummy in its outermost structurallayer. We
have already suggested the existence of such dummies in the characterizationwe gave of the inflectionalrepresentationsof medial verbs, but
in fact they must be more widely distributedthan this. For example, the
assumption that the lexical representationsof some (classes of) verbs
require an obligatory dummy morphological element is independently
necessary to account for verbs like da-u-k'ravs 'he plays it (an instrument)'which are inflectedas if they took an indirectobject but with which
no non-dummyindirect object can appear. A numberof other verbs in
Georgian show such purely formal inflection for elements which cannot
appearamong their arguments(Tschenkeliet al. 1960-74); the notion of
inflectionaldummies in morphosyntacticrepresentationprovides an apparatuswhich is necessaryto describe these facts.
3.1.3 A morphological'unaccusative'rule
At this point, we have suggested schematic morphosyntacticrepresentations for Georgian verbs of classes I-III, and also for relative forms. A
problemarisesin connectionwith the representationsuggestedfor relative
verbs of class II, however. If we continue to assumethat the normalverb
agreementrule insertsa subject markerin accord with the featureson the
outermostlayerof structure(as in all other classesof verbs consideredthus
far), this will fail to give the correctresultsfor relativeclass II verbs if their
subjectsfeaturesare indeed located on the innermostlayerof a three-layer
structure.The obvious alternative,thatof treatingrelativeclass II verbs as
having the structure in (38), is unsatisfactorybecause this is the same
representationassignedto relativeverbs of class III, and the two sets must
be kept distinct for inflectionaland case-markingpurposes.
(38)
[FSbj [FIO [ 0 ] ] ]
The other possibilityis to assumethat relative verbs of class II have the
morphosyntacticrepresentation(37) at the time they are inserted into a
structure,and that it is this representationthat is relevant to the assignment of case (see section 3.3 below); but that internal to the set of
morphologicalrules which develop the actual surfaceform of an inflected
verb, these representationsundergo a morphologicalrestructuringso that
their subject featuresappearin the correct position. Such a rule would be
the morphologicalanalog of Harris''Unaccusative':
200
(39)
STEPHEN
R. ANDERSON
'Unaccusative' [ X 0 [ Y Z] ] ]
12
3 4
1 4 [3 [0]]]
Rule (39) substitutes the content of an innermost layer of a threelayeredstructurefor an inflectionaldummyin the outermostlayer,leaving
a dummy as its trace. The effect is to cause specified features in such a
representationto triggerv-series affixes,insteadof m-seriesones. Clearly,
this rule is directly analogous to the Unaccusative rule posited in Harris'
analysis; but with the difference that, since it affects only the morphosyntacticrepresentationof words, it does not entail any movement or
other alterationin syntactic structure.
But now we can observe that rule (39) performs a change which
duplicates part of rule (28) (Inversion):the transferof features from an
innermostlayer of structureto the outermostlayer. We can thus remove
that part of the change from (28), if the latter rule simply inserts an
additional (initially empty) layer of structure in inversion forms. The
resulting simplified rule still applies, like the original morphological
Inversionrule (28), in that part of the syntaxwhich is responsiblefor the
construction of the morphosyntactic representation relevant to case
markingand agreement.
(40)
SeriesIII
Inversion:
[
1
1
X[ Y] ]
2 3
0 [ 2 [ 3]]]
Rule (40) must apply in the syntax,and feeds rule (39), which appliesto
morphosyntacticrepresentationsin the course of the development of
inflected word forms in the phonology. The latter rule will thus perform
the required restructuringon inversion forms as well as on the relative
class II forms for which it was originallymotivated.
The Inversionrule (40) operateson the morphosyntacticrepresentation
of a verb, and has the consequence that a 'dummy'layer of agreementis
presentin the outermostlayer of structurewhen the verb belongs to Class
IV or is in a series III tense. We will see in sections 3.2 and 3.3 that this
dummy plays an important role in the processes of case marking and
agreementin invertedclauses, but there is still somethingunsettlingabout
rule (40). As it stands, it compromisessomewhatour claim that Inversion
should be treated as a fact about inflectionalmorphology,rather than a
syntactic process, since rule (40) crucially applies in the syntax. An
account that avoided this result would be preferable,but before develo-
CASE,
AGREEMENT
AND INVERSION
IN GEORGIAN
201
ping such an alternative (in section 3.4 below), we must first detail our
assumptionsabout the operationof case markingand agreement.
3.2 The descriptionof Georgianverbagreement
At this point, we have presented a picture of Georgian inflectional
morphology that extends to most of the productive verb classes of the
language.It is necessarynow to providea more explicitaccountof the way
in which the necessary morphosyntacticrepresentationsunderlyingthis
morphologyare developed.
We assume,in line with Anderson (1982), that there are two aspects to
this issue. On the one hand, a morphosyntacticrepresentationof inflected
words is developed within the syntax, without direct reference to the
peculiaritiesof individuallexical items that might eventuallybe inflected
in accord with it. Within the lexicon, on the other hand, individualitems
are providedwith some inflectionalspecificationsthat indicate their local
idiosyncrasies.At a minimum,for instance, lexical items in virtually all
languages are characterizedas [+Noun], [+Verb], etc. (or perhaps for
some other set of features which make the same divisions among major
word class).
Individualstems within the lexicon may be more narrowlyspecified:
thus, for example,the stem thoughtin English is characterizedspecifically
as [+Verb, +Past], while think-issimply[+Verb]. We presumethat lexical
stems are grouped together into paradigms of items differing only in
inflectionalproperties.When a lexical item comes to be inserted into a
phrase marker,it is associated with a particularposition; this position is
identifiedinflectionallyby the morphosyntacticrepresentationdeveloped
for it in the syntax.The stem that is insertedin such a position is then that
memberof the relevantparadigmwhich is most specificallycharacterized,
consistent with the morphosyntacticrepresentationof the position in
question.
For concreteness' sake, we assume here that the overall grammarin
which this account is embedded follows the lines of the Government/Binding theory, though an analogous picture could be developed
without significant alteration in other theories such as that of Lexical
Functional Grammar. Consistent with this framework, and with the
morphological assumptionsjust outlined (developed in more detail by
Anderson (1982)), we posit a set of (syntactic) agreement rules that
operate in the syntax to construct an agreement marker in INFL. This
markerreflects the propertiesof a particularstructure;since INFL will
202
STEPHEN
R. ANDERSON
eventually be attached to the main Verb of the clause, an inflected verb
which is inserted into such a structure must itself have an inflectional
representation which is non-distinct from that in INFL. The lexical
representations of individual Georgian verb stems characterize their
inflectionalpropertiesin terms of how many layers of structurethey are
inflected for, and whether any of these layers are requiredto be null.
We assumethat Georgianhas (at least) enough configurationalstructure
to allow subject, direct and indirect object to be distinguished,either
directly in phrase structure representationsor indirectly in functional
structure (on the assumptionsof Bresnan 1982). As we noted above in
section 2.3.3, this is not totally uncontroversial;it is contrary to the
proposal of Hammond (1981), for example, though consistent with
observed word-ordergeneralizations.In any event, it is clear that verbs
must be able to be subcategorized for direct and indirect objects independently, and we assume that whatever structural difference this
reflects is also visible to the agreement rules.
Within this overall picture, we propose that a set of rules operates to
copy inflectionallyrelevantfeaturesfrom the argumentsof a verb in order
to constructthe representationof agreementin INFL.This representation
is initially characterized only for tense and aspect (in terms of an
appropriatefeature system, in particularone that recognizes the division
of Georgian 'screeves' or tense/aspect categories into three series). We
then formulatethe following agreement rules:
(41) a. (obligatory)Copy referentialindexand person/numberfeatures
from Direct Object
or
if there is no Direct Object, copy index and features from the
Subject
b. (optional) Copy referentialindex and person/numberfeatures
from Indirect Object
c. (optional) Copy referentialindex and person/numberfeatures
from Subject
d. (optional)Add null reference and 3sg features
Presumably,rules such as those in (41) should be formulatedwithin an
appropriategeneral notation for agreement processes. In the absence of
such a theory, we simply state them in ordinary language, but some
general properties of agreement which we clarify below are implicit in
them. We assumethat such a set of rules constitutesa scHEMAin that they
interact as a unit with other rules, and that there is a significantinternal
CASE,
AGREEMENT
AND
INVERSION
IN GEORGIAN
203
organizationto the set; though again, in the absence of a comprehensive
theory of agreement,it is difficultto substantiatethese assumptionshere.
Besides these generalproperties,a numberof remarksare calledfor on the
details of this schema.
1) As already remarked in section 2.4, we assume that when an
agreement rule adds features and an index to a complex symbol that
already contains others, the previous materialis organizedinto an inner
layer of structureby general convention (as proposedin Anderson 1977a,
1982). As a result, (41) constructsmulti-layeredstructureswith respect to
the agreementfeatures.The tense/aspectfeaturesremainin the outermost
layer, since no additionalfeatures from this group are assigned beyond
those generatedin the base. Naturally,if (41) were to lead to a structure
with four layers,such a representationwould be blocked by (35). Thus, at
least one of the four sub-rules in (41) must fail to apply in any given
representationif a well-formedstructureis to be obtained.
2) [+Plural]is only copied from non-subjectsin the presence of firstor
second person. This could be accomplishedin at least two ways: either a
rule might make all third person non-subjects [-Plural]; or else the
constraintcould be built into (41) directly.Largelyfor aesthetic reasons,
we preferto assumethat non-subjectthirdpersonNPs are all inflectionally
[-Plural] by rule (or convention), though of course they may be semantically (and internally)plural. In any event, some version of this generalizationmustbe built into any analysis(as noted in section 2.3.4), since the
same plural NP (e.g. bavsv-eb-s 'child-plural-dative')will show plural
agreement if it is a subject (in an inversion construction),but singular
agreementif a non-subject.
3) Finally, we assume that any of the rules in (41) may introduce an
empty referentialindex with 3sg agreement features (i.e., an inflectional
dummy) instead of copying. Note that this operation (equivalent to
applyingrule (41d) instead)will in general only yield well-formedresultsif
the grammaticalposition referred to by the sub-rule in question is not
filled; as we will see in the next section, if an NP in an argumentposition
does not trigger agreement, it will fail to be assigned case, violating a
general requirement.With regard to the subject, either rule (41a) or rule
(41c) can effect the agreement necessaryto allow case-assignmentto this
position.The possibilityof insertinginflectionaldummiesinsteadof actual
agreementmaterialdoes not representa syntacticfact aboutthe language,
but rather reflects the fact that a number of different inflectionaltypes
exist for the verbs in the lexicon, correspondingto the variousclasses we
have discussedabove.
204
STEPHEN
R. ANDERSON
Though we will not demonstratethis fact in detail here, it should be
clear that the rules in (41) allow us to produce morphosyntacticrepresentations correspondingto all of the inflectional classes we have posited
above. Exampleswill be providedbelow of lexical entriesthat correspond
to each of the possibilitiesallowed within this schema.
3.3 Case marking
We mustnow providean accountof the assignmentof case to the NPs that
serve as argumentsof Georgian verbs. It will be recalled from sections 1
and 2 that case marking,like agreement,varies from one constructionto
another;one of the advantagesof Harris'syntacticanalysisof inversionis
the fact that it provides a direct account of the differencesbetween case
marking in inversion and non-inversionstructures.We must thus show
that the morphologicaldescriptioncan do as well.
Implicitin the analysisdeveloped thus far is the claim that case marking
is effected by a set of rules which take into account the morphosyntactic
representationin INFL, which includes the agreement representation
developed by the rules in section 3.2. At least some reference to the
content of INFL is a necessary assumption in any event, since case
marking of subjects and objects is sensitive to the tense series of the
clause. As apart of the process of agreement, not only are inflectional
features copied from NP into INFL, but also a relation is established
between the referentialindexof such NPs and this element. Let us call this
relation 'co-superscripting',and assume that it forms a subcase of the
relationof PROPER GOVERNMENT (cf. Chomsky 1981 and related work).
Using the ad hoc notation '/pg' to mean 'when properly governed by', we
can formulatethe case-markingrules as follows:
(42) a. NPi
[+Ergative]
/pg [+Series II, i [X]]
b. NPi
[+Dative]
/pgI X[ i [ Y ]] ]
c. NPi
[+Accus.]
/pg [-Series II, j [ i]]
/pg [-Series II, j [ X[ i]]]
/pg [+V]
or
d. NPi --)[+Nominative]
Rule (42a) assigns ergative case to NPs that are co-super-scriptedwith
the outer layerof a representationwhich contains(at least) two layers,and
which bears a tense from Series II. The rule thus appliesto the subjectsof
Class I and Class III verbs in these tenses; note that it does not affect the
subject of a class II verb, since either a) the verb is non-relative,and thus
has only one layer, or b) the featuresof such a subject NP with a relative
CASE,
AGREEMENT
AND
INVERSION
IN GEORGIAN
205
class II verb only come to be in the outer layerof structurein the course of
the operationof the rulesdeveloping the inflectionalform of verbs within
the phonology. At the point the case markingrules apply (essentially,at
the end of the syntax),these features are still in the innermostlayer of the
morphosyntacticrepresentation.
Rule (42b) assignsdative case to a NP which is co-super-scriptedwith
the middlelayerof a three-layerrepresentation.This class includesexactly
the indirect objects of relative verbs (of any class), and the subjects of
inversionverbs (whichcome to occupy the middle layer as a result of the
operation of rule (40)).
Rule (42c) assignsaccusativecase (syncretic,it will be recalled,with the
dative).Thisrule appliesonly in tenses other thanthose of Series II (in fact,
only in Series I, thoughthis fact does not have to be separatelynoted), and
affects NPs that are co-superscriptedwith a layer of the morphosyntactic
representationwhich is not the outermost.This rule furtherrequiresthat
the outermost layer be co-superscripted with some argument; this
prevents the assignmentof accusative to the subjects of relative class II
verbs and the direct objects of 'inverted'verbs. The two sub-casesof this
rule could be unified as '/pg [-Series II, j[(X)[i]]]' under some convention to the effect thatwheneveran (X) option is not taken,the vacuous
layer of bracketsdisappears.
Rule (42d) is the 'elsewhere'case of the schema. It assigns nominative
case to NPs that are not assigned some other case, but which are
co-superscriptedwithsome layer of morphosyntacticagreementstructure.
this includes: a) subjects of Series I verbs, regardlessof their class; b)
subjects of non-inverted(i.e., class II) verbs in Series III; c) direct objects
of Series II verbs, which cannot be assigned accusative because of the
restrictionin rule (42c); and d) direct objects of (inverted)Series III or
class IV verbs. In order for this rule to apply correctly, we assume a
convention of disjunctiveorderingthat appliesto the schema:withrespect
to a given NP, the rulesare appliedin sequence, and once a given rule has
applied no furtherrules are examined.
This mechanism(or somethinglike it) is a necessarypartof the grammar
of Georgian, since the occurring differences of overt (or 'surface')case
must be describedin some way. Given it, however, no additionaldevice of
'abstract'Case (cf. Chomsky 1981) is necessary:we need only say that
every overt NP must be assigned a surface case. As we remarkedin the
preceding section, it is this requirementthat ensuresthat every argument
of a verb will be markedin its agreementrepresentation,since if some NP
were not so marked,rule (42) could not apply to assign it a surface case,
206
STEPHEN
R. ANDERSON
and the 'case filter'just alluded to would block the structure.This is one
instance (among others; cf. Anderson 1984b for a rather different
example) in which the apparatusnecessary to account for the surface
distribution of elements in a rich inflectional (case marking) system
obviates an appealto the rathermore abstractnotion Chomskymakes use
of for English and other languages with minimalovert markingof NPs.
Further investigation is clearly warranted of the difference between
languages in which the notion of abstractCase is motivated and those in
which it can be dispensedwith.
3.4 A refinementof the Inversionrule
Returningto the Inversionrule (40), we can note that it operates on the
morphosyntacticrepresentation in INFL, and that its consequence is
effectively to render 'dummy agreement' in the outermost layer of
structure(rule (41d) above) obligatorywhen the verb belongs to Class IV
or is in a series III tense.
Thus far we have said nothing about the morphosyntacticrepresentations of class IV verbs. We know that they must undergo inversion,
which we now see consists in the addition of an outer-layerinflectional
dummyto a representationwhich is otherwisethat of a class I or III verb.
We could ensureexactly this effect if we were to representClass IV verbs
lexically with an inflectionalstructurecontaining a dummy outer layer:
[0 [-{-]]] (where'0' indicatesa specifieddummyand '-' indicatesa position
whose content is not furtherspecified). A verb with such an inflectional
representationcould not be inserted unless (41d) had applied.
This is preciselythe same as the representationgiven to relativeverbs of
class II (reflectingthe fact that both are inflected precisely with 'subject'
and 'indirectobject' markers);the two differ in that relative class II verbs
are subcategorizedto take an indirect object, while class IV verbs are
subcategorizedfor a direct object. As a consequence of this difference in
argumentstructure,and its effect on the operationof rule (41), the same
inflectionalmaterialwill correspondto very differentpositionsin syntactic
structure. This difference, however, falls out automatically from the
system developed above.
But now the same treatment can be extended to Series III forms,
eliminatingaltogetherthe need for a distinctInversionrule in the syntax.
Since the Perfect stem is formallyidiosyncraticto a certainextent, it must
in any case be entered in the lexicon. We want the Perfect stem to
correspond to an 'inverted' representation:i.e., one with an additional
CASE,
AGREEMENT
AND INVERSION
IN GEORGIAN
207
outer-layerinflectionaldummysuperimposedon the representationof a
class I or III verb. We can accomplishthis by including,in the lexical rule
which forms the Perfect stem, the following systematicrelation between
the inflectionalrepresentationsof the Perfect and non-Perfect stem:
(43)
[+V Xt Y]I 4?
[+V, +Series III, 0 [ X [ Y ] ] ]
Recall that on the syntactic analysis of inversion, a lexical rule was
requiredin order to specify the redistributionof semantic roles between
inverted and non-inverted structures (at least on the assumptions of
Government/Bindingtheory or of Lexical Functional Grammar).This
function of the rule is not necessaryon the analysisdeveloped here, since
semanticroles are in general associatedwith a constantsyntacticposition.
All we need say is that Perfect stems differ in their inflectionalrepresentation from the other stems of a given verb in the way specifiedin (43). Of
course, we must also include the fact that a semanticrole which would be
assignedto an indirectobject of a relative verb can be indirectlyassigned
by the postposition -tvis in association with the Perfect stem of a
correspondingnon-relativeverb.
We must also include whatever informationcan be systematizedabout
the formal characteristicsof the Perfect stem; for instance, the fact that
the Perfect stem involves replacementof any pre-radicalvowel by i- (and
the additionof this vowel to stems that otherwisedo not have a pre-radical
vowel). As an example, the verb (da=)a+nt+eb 'light (a fire)', with
subcategorizationframe[
DO] and inflectionalrepresentation[-[-] ]
(i.e., a member of class I), has a Perfect stem da=i+nt+i with the same
subcategorization frame, but the inflectional representation [0[-[-]]].
As advocated at the end of section 3.1.3, we have thus eliminated
'inversion'as a distinct rule in either the syntax or the morphology:what
remains of it is the fact that 'inversion' structures are inflectionally
characterizedby a three-layermorphosyntacticrepresentation,the outer
layer of which is an inflectional dummy. This comes about either as a
lexical property of the verb as a whole (for 'class IV' verbs), or of its
Perfect stem (which is used in all series III tenses). Inversionverbs share
this propertywith relative verbs of class II, as well as the applicabilityof
rule (39), Unaccusative,in the course of the phonologicaldevelopmentof
the surface form of such verbs.
3.5 Residual issues
Before concluding, there are some points which require additionaldis-
208
STEPHEN
R. ANDERSON
cussion. Among these are the phenomenonof object camouflage,the way
in which the several partsof the morphologicalanalysisinteractwith each
other, the resolution of problems raised by the syntactic analysis, and
finally an illustrationof the lexical characteristicsattributedto various
sorts of verbs under the present analysis.
3.5.1 ObjectCamouflage
We noted in section 1 that there is one set of circumstancesunderwhich
the morphologyof verb agreementin Georgian is unable to manifestthe
relationbetween a verb and all of its arguments.This problemariseswhen
the verb has a non-thirdperson direct object (calling for a non-0 marker
from the m-series), and also an indirect object (calling for a non-zero
marker from one of the four indirect object series). The facts are
illustratedby the sentences in (44):
agivi- s
(44) a. vano anzor- s
dareb- s
Vano Anzor- ACC 3IO- compare-3SBJ Givi- DAT
Vano is comparing Anzor to Givi.
ab.*vano (sen) gdareb- s
givi- s
Vanoyou 2DO- 3IO- compare-3SBJ Givi- DAT
(Vano is comparingyou to Givi.)
adareb- s
givi- s
c. vano sens tav- s
Vano your self- ACC 3IO- compare-3SBJ Givi- DAT
Vano is comparingyou to Givi.
Sentence (44a) shows that the verb (se=) a-dareb'compare'takes both
a direct and an indirectobject; but from the ungrammaticalityof (44b) we
can see thatwhen the indirectobject is present,the directobject cannotbe
second person. Parallel examples would show the same thing for first
persondirectobjects. Instead,the constructionthat is used is that in (44c):
the expressionsens tavs (ceemstavs for first person singular,and similar
forms for first or second person plural), normally a reflexive pronoun,
substitutes for the impossible form. Since these reflexives, although
referring to second (or first) person are grammaticallythird person, the
constraintis not violated.
In the courseof her analysis,Harris(1981, pp. 48ff.) proposesto account
for these facts by generatingfirstand second person direct objects freely,
but then converting them to possessive pronoun+ tavi phrases if the
CASE,
AGREEMENT
AND
INVERSION
IN GEORGIAN
209
clause contains an indirect object. Within a theory (such as Government/Bindingor Lexical Functional Grammar)that disallows structurebuilding rules, pronominalizationtransformations,and the like, such an
analysiswould be excluded. The only availablealternativeis to generate
the possessive+ tavi phrasesdirectly, and then account separatelyfor a)
the absence of normal first and second person direct objects in the
presence of an indirectobject; and b) the non-reflexiveinterpretationof
the possessive+ tavi phrase.
In fact, the grammarmust generate possessive+ tavi phrases in any
event, to wit, the tav-reflexiveswe referredto in earlier sections of this
paper. The problem is that these are normallyinterpreted as reflexive
anaphors, and must be c-commanded by a coreferentialsubject within
their clause. This latter property(on the assumptionsof Chomsky 1981,
for example)is a consequenceof their lexical statusas [+Anaphor];but in
the object camouflageconstruction(44c), no such antecedent is present
(or necessary).
What we need to say, then, is that first and second person anaphorsare
(exceptionally)[-Anaphor] underthe conditionsof the object camouflage
construction. Since possessive+ tavi phrases are not possible with
[-Anaphor] interpretationoutside of these circumstances,we propose
that a special rule of interpretationis involved:
(45)
+m
possessive+ tavi ]i /pg[ X [ Y [ i]]]
.+you
Optionally , [-Anaphor]
(where X, Y are non-null)
[NP
Although this rule allows us to generate the correct interpretationfor
(44c), it does not yet account for the ungrammaticalityof (44b). The
reasonfor the absenceof such sentences is apparent:they directlyreflecta
limitation of the expressive possibilities of the morphology of verb
agreement, since a non-null m-series marker and an indirect object
markerwould compete for the same 'slot' in the morphologyof the verb
form. The situationis thus the same as for the filter (35), which prevents
verbs inflectedfor more than three arguments:there is simplynot enough
formalapparatusavailableto accommodatesuch cases. The grammarthus
behaves as if the following filter applied to morphosyntacticrepresentations:
(46)
+me
210
STEPHEN
R. ANDERSON
Ideally,we shouldbe able to derive both (35) and (46) as theoremsfrom
general constraints on the operation of the rules of morphological
expression;but since the purposeof this paper is to examine the syntactic
side of agreementmorphologyratherthan its phonological side, we leave
open the issue of how this should be done.
This subsection is intended simply to show that the facts of object
camouflage can be incorporated into our a7nalysiswithout excessive
difficulty. It might be objected that we have decomposed a single
phenomenon into two separate,complementaryparts: rule (45), and the
constraintin (46). This does not seem an implausiblemove, however,since
we maintainthat there are indeed two aspects to the phenomenon:a) the
impossibility of certain verb forms, and b) a special interpretationof
otherwise-reflexiveexpressionswhich allows the missing meanings to be
expressed. Only by decomposingthe facts in the above way does it seem
possible, for instance, to look for an explanationof the constraintin (46)
along the lines suggested in the preceding paragraph.
3.5.2 Interactionof agreement,case marking, and inversion
The account presented above involves several distinct components:a) a
set of case-markingrules; b) a set of agreement rules; c) a set of lexical
representations,includinglexical rules which express systematicrelations
among these; and d) a set of ruleswhich formallyrealize the verbal forms
correspondingto the morphosyntacticrepresentationsof the inflectional
categories of words (in particular,verbal agreement morphology). It is
necessaryto say a few wordsaboutthe waysin which these elementsof the
analysisinteract.
We note firstthat the case markingrules (42) cannot (intrinsically)apply
until after the creation of an indexed morpho-syntacticrepresentationin
INFLby meansof the Agreementrules(41). Since the only syntacticreflex
of 'inversion' is the necessity to apply agreement rule (41d) in order to
insert an 'inverted' verb (Class IV or Series III) from the lexicon, the
relative orderingof 'Inversion'and Case markingthus follows automatically.
Within the phonology, surface forms of words are developed. A
preliminarystep in this process is the re-arrangementof morphosyntactic
representations performed by Unaccusative (39); this is followed by
(morphological)verb agreement marking. Morphological agreement is
the schema (still withinthe phonology)which introducesv-series markers
in agreement with the outermost layer of morphosyntacticstructure,
CASE,
AGREEMENT
AND INVERSION
IN GEORGIAN
211
h-,u-,e- or a-series markersin agreementwith a middle layer (second of
three), and m-series markersin agreementwith the innermostof two or
three layers. Since the rules of Case markingapply in the syntax,they are
naturallyinsensitive to the effects of Unaccusative (which applies in the
phonology).
3.5.3 Resolutionof the problemspresentedby a syntacticview
It is worth reviewing briefly the advantages presented by the morphological view of inversion, agreement, and related phenomena advocated here in comparison to the syntactic analysis of the same
phenomena.A numberof problemsarose on that view, it will be recalled,
which related to the central claim of the syntactic inversion analysisthat
the surface grammaticalrelationsof inversionclauses were differentfrom
the underlying grammaticalrelations. Since the morphological analysis
does not posit any such reorganization of grammatical relations in
inversion clauses, such problemsas those of improperlybound traces and
the statement of word order and rule interactionswithout recourse to
global formulationsobviouslydo not arise on this account. Similarly,the
fact that non-finite forms of otherwise class IV verbs do not show
inversion follows directly from the treatment of inversion as a part of
agreement marking(i.e., of finite inflection).
The case of number agreement in inversion clauses is a particularly
interestingone. Recall that on the syntacticanalysis,a global formulation
of this rule was inevitable:agreementcannot operate until after Inversion
(and Unaccusative);but at this point it is necessaryto say that thirdperson
indirect objects trigger plural agreement only if they were originally
subjects. On the morphological analysis, no such global reference is
necessary: the Agreement rule (41) copies the morphologicalfeature of
number in third person NPs if and only if they are subjects. This can be
determined on a strictly local basis, and refers only to the grammatical
relations borne by an NP in s-Structure.
Subsequently,within the phonological component, Unaccusative (39)
may have the effect of relocating subject agreement features which are
not on an outermost layer of structure;indeed, the only way the feature
[+Plural] can appearin conjunctionwith [3rd Person]on a non-outermost
layer is by first being placed in an outer layer by subject agreement,and
then having a new outer layer created by dummy-agreement.None of
these processes require reference to more than one representationat a
time, however. The limited circumstancesin which plural markingcor-
212
STEPHEN
R. ANDERSON
relates with a thirdperson markerfrom an indirectobject series are thus
describedwithoutthe use of global rules;indeed, there is no possible role
for globality to play in this phenomenon, since no structurallydistinct
syntactic representationsare involved in the analysis.
TABLE III
Sample lexical entries for verbs of various types
Subcateg.
Inflection
[_
[
[
[
[
[-[-]
Class I (transitive verbs):
(da=)c'er 'write'
da=i+c'er+i [perfect stem]
(no=)p'ar+av 'steal s.t. from s.o.'
(da=)i+mat'+eb 'add s.t. to s.t.'
(da=)i+k'r+av 'play (an instrument)'
DO]
DO]
[+Ser. III 0[-[-D]
DO, IO]
DO, 10]
DO]
[-[- [-m
[-[- [-m
[-[0 [H
Class II (non-medial intransitives):
(mo=)xd+eb 'happen, occur'
(da=)i+c'er+eb 'be written'
(0=)e+lod+eb
'wait for s.o., s.t.'
(mi=)e+c'er+eb 'be written to s.o.'
[ ]
[.]
[ 10]
[ 10]
[-]
[-]
[0 [4-]]
[0[-[-]
[-]
[]
[ IO]
[_]
[ IO]
[]
[-[0D]
[+Ser. III 0 [-[0]]]
[-[-[0]
[-[0]]
Class III (medial intransitives):
qep 'bark'
i+qepn+i [perfect stem]
(da=)i+qep 'bark at s.o.'
i+cin+i 'laugh'
(da=)cin+i 'laugh at s.o.'
c vim 'rain'
[-[-[0]D
[0 [0]]
Class IV ("Indirect" verbs)
i+qvar 'love'
a+k'l+i 'lack'
gon+i 'think, seem
[
[
[
jin+av 'sleep'
[-]
DO]
DO]
(DO)]
[0 [-[-]]
[0 [-[-]]
[0 [-[-]1
[0 [-[0]]
CASE,
AGREEMENT
AND INVERSION
IN GEORGIAN
213
3.5.4 Examplesof lexical representations
Recall that in order for a specificverb to be lexicallyinsertedinto a given
syntacticstructure,it is necessarythat the structurein which it is to appear
a) satisfy its subcategorization requirements, and b) contain a morphosyntacticcomplex symbol that is consistentwith its lexically assigned
inflectionalrepresentation.The various classes of verbs distinguishedin
the traditionalschema differin respectof these properties;however, there
are also differencesamong verbs withinthe same class. Examplesof some
lexical specificationsare given in table III above. Note in particularthat
althoughwe have only provideda smallnumberof Perfect stem entries,as
examples,this does not implythat other verbs do not have such additional
stems in theirlexical representations.Quite independentof the questionof
such additional stems characterizedfor a particulartense or series of
tenses, most verb roots in Georgianare capableof serving as the bases of a
large number of somewhat idiosyncratic formations, and a glance at
Tschenkeliet al. (1960-74) will quicklyconvince the readerof how much
more there is to be said about any Georgian verb.
4.
CONCLUSIONS
In the precedingsections, we have developed the principalcomponentsof
an analysis of verbal agreement, case-marking, inversion, and related
phenomena in Georgian. The most importantaspect of this treatment
throughout has been the extent to which it is a description of the
.morphologyof the language, employing mechanisms necessary for the
description of inflectional morphology rather than the mechanisms of
syntax. In particular,no alterationsof syntactic structureare posited to
account for the inversion construction (or for the difference between
Series I and Series II tenses). To the extent to which this account is
well-motivated, it establishes our basic descriptive points: 'Inversion'in
Georgian is a fact about morphology,not a rule of the syntax.
While the morphologicalanalysisof this paper differs in fundamental
ways from the syntactic treatmentof Harris(1981, 1982, 1983), there are
also many obvious similarities.For example, both analysesmake use of a
rule of 'Unaccusative',with somewhatsimilarfunctions.Both differentiate
the subjectsof class II and class III verbs by treatingthe formeras having
similaritiesto direct objects of other verbs, where the subjects of class III
verbs are similarto transitivesubjects.Otherparallelscould be added;the
major difference remains the fact that the present analysis locates these
214
STEPHEN
R. ANDERSON
parts of the grammarof Georgian in the inflectionalmorphologyof the
language, while Harrislocates them in syntactic rules and structures.
This differenceis hardlysurprising.The theoryof RelationalGrammar,
within which her analysis is formulated, cannot be said to contain an
explicit theory of morphology, in the sense of a set of systematic
mechanismsfor relatingthe inflectionalpropertiesof wordsand their role
in a syntactic structure to their surface form. Once we provide a
morphological frameworkin which to discuss these issues we see that
Harris' insights about the structure of the language are fundamentally
correct, and can be maintainedin largerpart, but that they pertainto the
morphologyratherthan to the syntax.
Beyond the basic descriptiveissue of how to treat inversion, however,
the analysisabove justifiesa certain numberof broaderconclusions, not
limited to Georgian.We take up some of these below, in increasingorder
of their generality.
4.1 Class markers
In the analysisdefended here, the several classes of Georgian verbs are
differentiatedlexically in terms of independentlymotivated morphosyntactic (or inflectional) representations,rather than by arbitrary'conjugation-class'markers.For example, a 'class IV' diacritic is no longer
necessary,since such verbs are uniquelyidentifiedby the combinationof
subcategorizationrequirementsand inflectionalpropertiesfor which they
are lexicallyspecified.In fact, all of the variousGeorgianverb classes are
now uniquelyspecified in this way, and no separate arbitrarymarkersof
conjugation class membershipare necessaryat all in the lexicon.
On Harris'analysis,she argues (1981, pp. 228ff.) that conjugationclass
markersare similarlyunnecessary,though they are used throughouther
descriptionas a purelyexpositoryconvenience. The inflectionalpatternof
a given verb is supposed to follow from the set of argumentsit takes,
together with the locations of these in (underlyingthe surface) syntactic
structure.While this is surely true (given her syntactic assumptions)for
membershipin classes 1, 2, and 3, the fact that a verb belongs to class 4 is
not similarlydeducible from the pattern of its arguments:rather, this is
relatedto the fact that it undergoesinversion.The morphologicalproperty
of class 4 inflection must thus be accessible to the syntactic rule of
Inversion,or else the specificderivationalhistoryof the structurein which
a verb appearsmustbe accessible to the rules of inflection.Either of these
is a varietyof interactionbetweenword formationprocesses and syntactic
CASE,
AGREEMENT
AND INVERSION
IN GEORGIAN
215
structure which a restrictive theory would like to exclude; they are
unnecessaryon an analysislike the present one, in which the locality of
reference of inflectionalpropertiesis preserved.
Naturally, the elimination of arbitrarymarkers of inflectional class
membership(other than structurallymotivated aspects of the form of
wordsbelongingto such classes) is defendedhere only for Georgian;but it
remainsto be seen whether,in other languageswhere arbitrarypartitions
of the lexicon are generally posited to account for differences in
inflectionalproperties,it may not be possibleto reduce this arbitrarinessin
light of independentlymotivated propertiesof lexical entries. For example, in those Romance languages where verbs are traditionallyorganized
into arbitraryclasses ('first conjugation', 'second conjugation', etc.), it
seems quite likely that representationsof verb stems provided with a
thematic vowel in the lexicon could eliminate the need for such an
unilluminatingdivision (cf. Platt 1981 for one such attempt).
The point is a moderatelysubtle one, since it could be maintainedthat
the theme vowels simply act as diacriticson such an analysisof Romance
verb classes. It can be argued,however,that the morphologymust contain
some principleto insertthese vowels in any event, and that prohibitingany
subdivisionof verb stems other thanone which is substantivelymotivated
in such a way yields a more restrictive theory than one which allows
explicit diacriticsunrelatedto any unitarystructuralcharacteristicof the
forms they categorize. Naturally, the validity of this suggestion is impossible to assessclearlyuntil it has been exploredin more concrete detail
in actual analyses.
4.2 The natureof agreement
The rules above make crucial use not only of agreement in inflectional
features between a verb and its arguments,but also of (some sort of)
'co-indexing' relation between the morpho-syntacticrepresentationsin
INFL, which eventuallydetermineagreementin verbs, and the NPs they
agree with. Such co-indexing is familiarin the case of subject agreement,
and in fact plays a crucial role in the Government/Bindingtheory in
governing the subject position in finite clauses; it is less obvious for
non-subjects. Stowell (1981), however, has proposed that verbs are
co-indexed with all of their subcategorizedargumentsin order to yield a
unified definition of 'proper government'. In the case of Georgian, one
prediction which results from this is that all positions reflected in
agreement are automaticallyproperly governed, from which it follows
216
STEPHEN
R. ANDERSON
(correctly) that such positions may be unfilled phonetically. One could
express this in current idiom by saying that Georgian is a generalized
'Pro-drop'language.
A further instance in which coindexing between non-subjects and
agreementis necessaryis cited in Anderson(1974). In the Abkhaz-Abaza
languages, a verb-initial agreement marker /y/ (marking third person
plural or neuter singular intransitive subjects or transitive objects) is
deleted if and only if the verb is immediatelypreceded in linear order by
the NP with which it is co-indexed. In fact, when one considersinflectional
systems of even moderatecomplexity,the plausibilityof the position that
all agreeing arguments(and not only the subject) are co-indexed in the
verb is considerable.
The relation of co-indexing that is involved, however, is clearly
differentfrom that obtainingbetween freely occurringNPs. In sentences
containinga reflexivephrase,it is clear that the agreementelement related
to the subject must be kept separate from that relating to the object,
despite the fact that the 'reference'of the two is the same. If the subject is
first or second person, for example, the reflexive will have different
agreement features (namely, third person singular) from those of its
antecedent, and the two must be kept separatedin the morpho-syntactic
representationof the verb. It is for such reasonsthat we have referredto
'co-superscripting'rather than 'co-indexing' as the relation obtaining
between an argument and the morphosyntactic representation of
agreementin the clause.
4.3 The natureof morphosyntactic
representations
Finally,we conclude that analysessuch as that presentedhere validatethe
notion of a morphosyntacticrepresentationwith significantinternalstructure, and of rules which create and manipulate such representations
withouteffecting other syntactic structure.As long as one confines one's
attention to languages with relatively simple inflection, it is possible to
sweep inflectional morphology under the rug to a considerable extent,
assuming that the formal categories of inflected words bear a rather
straightforwardrelation to the syntactic structuresin which they appear.
Just as it would be extremelydangerousto generalizeabout the theoryof
segmentalphonology on the basis solely of analysesof Chinese (however
extensive), though, it is unlikely that an adequate picture of inflectional
morphology can be derived from the study of lanauages like English,
German, and French in which this aspect of grammaticalstructure is
CASE,
AGREEMENT
AND
INVERSION
IN GEORGIAN
217
relatively impoverished. A closer study of a language like Georgian
suggests richer possibilitiesfor the apparatusdescribing the traditional
domain of inflection- possibilitieswhich might be productivelyexplored
even in languages like English, where the data are not rich enough to
motivate them by themselves.
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Dept. of Linguistics
University of California
Los Angeles, CA 90024
U.S.A.