ninkaakanino wrote:So many questions. i'll try to answer some of them (sorry for long pauses, i'm busy with my studies..)
Heh, that's okay. I'm not in a hurry
ninkaakanino wrote:HoneyBuzzard wrote:What about the form მოვლოდნივარ? I guess it could be an obsolescent form.
this is not a georgian verb form at all
but feel free to coin new words
This is the form I would have expected going from the example of other class II verbs in the first perfect (cf. დავმალვივარ
I have hidden from him), and it
does occur in at least one text:
http://titus.uni-frankfurt.de/texte/etca/cauc/mgeo/visr/visrg/visrg017.htm (about half way down the page)
The text is too hard for me, but it does feature that form. It's a translation of an old Persian text, so it's probably old - that's why I suggested the form might be obsolescent.
ninkaakanino wrote:HoneyBuzzard wrote:Well, Georgian has a number of verbs where the indirect object marks what would be a possessive in English, e.g.,
ამ ოსტატს მარჯვენა მოუჭრეს.
They cut off this master's right hand. (with "ოსტატს" as an indirect object corresponding to the English possessive)
actually the english translation is not that correct, that's why you confuse georgian indirect object with english possessive. the literal translation would be - they cut off (to) the Master - (he being a patient in terms of semantics) a right hand. if you speak German, it becomes even clearer why "ostats" is an indirect object, and "marjvena" - a direct one - Sie haben dem Master die rechte Hand abgeschnitten (dem Master - dative/indirect object, die rechte Hand - accusative - direct object).
I'm not sure I see what you're getting at. The translations aren't supposed to be literal, and the indirect object clearly is functioning as a possessive in both the German and Georgian (as well as in several other languages that have these kinds of constructions). Here, let me quote you from
Hammer's German Grammar and Usage, section 2.5.4, p. 43:
(a) The dative case often indicates possession
This is especially frequent with parts of the body or articles of clothing, but it is also found with close relatives and prized possesssions (like vehicles or houses). The definite article is used rather than a possessive determiner, see 4.6; the dative usually precedes the item possessed.And I don't know how much of a hypothesis it is; the possessive use of the dative is a common and well documented construction in many languages.
Oh well, I guess it doesn't really matter anyway since this clearly isn't what's going on in our sentence with მოსმენა.
ninkaakanino wrote:HoneyBuzzard wrote:So what I was thinking was that maybe the არ ვუსმენდი above was actually (პროფესორს ნათქვამს) არ ვუსმენდი with პროფესორს as an indirect object of possessive meaning and ნათქვამს as the direct object. I guess it doesn't work that way, but something must be triggering the switch to an indirect object. And if the indirect object in sentence 11.28 is პროფესორს (i.e., listening to him), what is the direct object?
პროფესორს არ ვუსენდი, and in that case პროფესორს is a direct object.
Is it really? Let me see if I can show you my problem:
The aorist of a verb like "send" marks a direct object with the nominative and has no verbal marker for a 3rd person direct object. Like so:
წერილი | გაგზავნა |
letter-NOM | he sent it |
direct object | |
He sent the letterWe can throw an indirect object into the mix with a verbal indirect object marker (usually უ for the 3rd person) and optionally a noun in the dative. Like so:
მას | წერილი | გაუგზავნა |
him-DAT | letter-NOM | he sent it to him |
indirect object | direct object | |
He sent the letter to himNote how the indirect object is marked on the verb with უ. We can remove the noun in the dative, but there will still be an indirect object, and the direct object will still be წერილი. Like so:
წერილი | გაუგზავნა |
letter-NOM | he sent it to him |
direct object | |
He sent the letter to himWe can't see the indirect object because we've dropped the მას, but because of the უ we still know that it's there.
Now let's compare this to მოსმენა:
მუსიკა | მოისმინა |
music-NOM | he listened to it |
direct object | |
He listened to musicBut now look what happens when we throw an indirect object in there:
პროფესორს | მოუსმინა |
professor-DAT | he listened to him |
indirect object | |
He listened to the professorWhere did the direct object go? And if პროფესორს is the direct object as you say (in which case it would be პროფესორი because this is an aorist), where is our indirect object? (and there
must be one because of the უ in მოუსმინა)
Let me put it another way:
If you push პროფესორს ვუსმენდი back to the aorist, would you get "პროფესორს მოვუსმინე" or "პროფესორი მოვუსმინე"? If the პროფესორს in "პროფესორს ვუსმენდი" is really a direct object, it should convert into an aorist as "პროფესორი მოვუსმინე" with a left-over indirect object, and if it's actually the indirect object corresponding to the უ on the verb, it should convert into an aorist as "პროფესორს მოვუსმინე" apparently with a left-over direct object. It looks like this verb simply loses its direct object when it gets an indirect object.