First Person and Second Person Markers as Representatives of a Case in a Verb Form

Abstract

There are many various opinions regarding the definition of the person category in the scientific literature. A. Shanidze defines person category in three aspects: ”which person”, “what kind of person” and “quantity” - how many persons are represented in one form of the verb. There are two types of markers in Georgian- v- order and m-.order. They are basically divided as follows: v –order markers mainly express the markers of the subjective person and the m- order markers – the markers of the objective person. There are many cases in the language when the objective person is expressed by the subjective person marker and the subjective person is expressed by the objective person markers. This is called inversion and the verbs of these types are called inversion verbs. It is very difficult to understand and study inversion for non-Georgian students. In Georgian Linguistic Literature it is known that there is internal relationship in formation of nouns and verbs. The interrogative pronoun (who) refers only to the human and what- to all others-animate and inanimate subjects. Perhaps the v- prefix was an ancient sign of expressing the category of human and it expressed the first person in the verb, because the first person can only be human and the action of the first person means only human. He is both – the initiator of the action and the speaker. The same form of the interrogative pronoun “Who” in Nominative and Ergatrive cases makes us think that v- prefix was the representative of the Nominative and Ergative cases in the verb form. As has been noted, in the Georgian language nouns linked to a verb create constructions. There are three constructions identified in a language (based on two-person verbs): nominative construction, ergative construction and dative construction. Constructions are built according to the basic person’s cases forms (the term - basic person has been introduced by us, since the use of subjective and objective persons often cause confusion. We denote basic and non-basic person. Basic person is whom the action is mainly concerns, it either acts or is experiencing an action, is either an initiator, etc. A non-basic is a person who has a certain role in an action).