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On derived inceptives in GeorgianDee Ann HoliskyPublished online: 22 May 2009.

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147

ON DERIVED INCEPTIVES IN GEORGIAN

Dee Ann Holisky

Linguists pay much lip service to the importance of the relation

between form and meaning, but all too few studies offer explicit in-

sight into the nature of this relation. This is not surprising,

given the complexities of formal categories on the one side and the

poorly-charted territory of semantic ones on the other. The

Intricate way in which languages connect these two labyrinths often

seems to defy systematlzation and most linguists, understandably,

work only one side of the street.

In the recent history of American linguistics there has been

an instructive shift of interest from form toward meaning. Prior to

1957 the main focus of linguistic inquiry was on morphology, to the

explicit exclusion of semantics. The late fifties and sixties saw

the emphasis turn to formal syntax, which, in turn, brought about an

increasing awareness of the importance of semantics to an understand-

ing of language structure. A corresponding growth of research in

linguistic semantics has followed, and insights gained from such

work can ultimately provide us with semantic motivation for those

linguistic categories once believed to be arbitrary, purely formal

ones. Once we are armed with semantic insight, if we turn back to

formal categories, we are better prepared to piece together the

system which links them. Following such a course of action, this

paper proposes a semantic analysis for one form class in the Georgian

language.

In Georgian there are many intransitive verbs which have the

morpheme -<i- immediately following the root: gaket-d-eba,

gamep-d^eba» atlr-d-eba, sesrlal-d-eba.2 The -d- is generally

considered to be a marker of passive voice, used for those passives

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148

formed from active verbs which have the circumfix a-.•.-eb (Sanije

1973:412, Vogt 1971:112). Frequently cited examples of such active-

passive pairs are given in (1).

(l)(a) ga-a-fcet eb-s He will do it.ga ket-d-eba It will get done.

(b) a-a-Sen eb-s He will build it.a—Sen-d-eba It will be built.

(c) ga-a-mep—eb-s He will make her king,ga—mep-d-eba She will become king.

(d) ga-a-çitl eb-s She will make him red.

ga—çitl-d-eba He will become red.

Some doni passives, as these forms are called» are said to

function as the Future Tense (and all tenses based on the Future) for

certain other types of Georgian verbs. Typical examples of such

pairs are giver, in ( 2 ).

(2) Activity Verbs(a) tJTrTs He is crying.

a$ir-d-eba He will begin to cry.(b) ljankalebs He is trembling,

afcanfcal-d-eba He will begin to trem-ble.

Motion Verbs(c) bajbajebs He lumbers.

gabajbaj-d-eba Ke will lumber out.(d) srialebs It slithers.

Sesrial-d-eba It will slither in.

Stative Verbs(e) civa It is cold,

aciv-d-eba It will become cold.

(f) cuxs He is worried.Seçux-d-eba He will become worried.

The m&in purpose of this paper is to demonstrate that there is

a direct relationship between the affix -d- and the semantic cate-

gory of inceptive (defined below). To account for this relationship

a rule of inceptive derivation is assumed for Georgian. This is a

word formation rule which forms an inceptive verb from a base word

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149by means of the affix -d- (details are discussed in II). Following

Georgian grammatical tradition, these derived inceptives will be

called 'doni forms'.

This paper will focus specifically on the semantics of the

inceptive derivation. I will demonstrate that 'arbitrary gaps' in

the morphology of doni forms can be ruled out by clear semantic

principles: they are derived from contradictory semantic structures

Apparent semantic differences between the types of doni forms (see

glosses in (1) and (2)) can be shown to be due to differences in the

base words which have undergone this derivation. Whether these doni

forms are at the same time syntactically passives, transformed from

actives (as in (1)), or paradigmatlcally filling gaps in the para-

digms of other Georgian verbs (as in (2)), are issues which will

not be dealt with directly.

In Section I the meaning of inception is taken up. Section II

presents first a discussion of the four kinds of base words which

undergo inceptive derivation in Georgian and second, an analysis of

doni forms which were derived historically but can no longer be

considered to be derived synchronically. In III advantages of this

analysis of doni forms are detailed, while in IV, problems for

future research are pointed out.

I. The Semantics of Inception. Generally speaking, an incep-

tive expresses the inception, or beginning, of a new state of

affairs. It depicts a change of state or an entrance into a new

activity. In Georgian and English, as well as in many other lan-

guages, an inceptive may be a basic verb (mofcvdeba 'he will die',

davardeba 'he will fall down'), it may be a morphologically derived

verb (gacivdeba 'it will get cold', Eng.harden), or it may be a

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150syntactically complex expression (daçeras daicqebs 'he will begin to

write1, lamazi gaxdeba fhe will become beautiful')•

Dowty 1972 proposes a semantic structure for the two types of

inceptive verbs which is similar to the syntactic structure of these

syntactically complex expressions. Specifically, Dowty claims that

Inceptive verbs have semantic structures in which some proposition

(expressing the new state of affairs) is subordinate to a logical

predicate, represented as COME ABOUT.

In order to provide an interpretation for COME ABOUT» It is

necessary to Introduce the notion of a sentence being true in time.

Accordingly, a semantic model for such a system consists of fa set

of possible worlds t^ ... tn with a transitive, symmetrical relation

defined on them (the "earlier than" relation)1 (Dowty 1972:30).

Dowty1s truth conditions for COME ABOUT relative to points of time

are given in (3).

(3) COME ABOUT (S) is true at t iff S is true at tand not S is true at t-1

is false at t iff S is false at tand not S is true at t-1

is undefined otherwise.5

Here t represent* any time (temporally orderedworld-state) and t-1 represents the world-stateimmediately prior to the first world state.CDowty 1972:44)

This formal statement is equivalent to claiming that 'one can

utter felicitously a sentence like "the soup cooled" when one first

observes that the soup is not cool and thereafter that it is; con-

versely, the meaning of the sentence is that those two states of

affairs were true in temporal succession, no more and no less.1

(Dowty 1972:43).6

The difference between basic inceptive verbs and doni verbs is

that COME ABOUT is a part of the basic verb (lexical root) in the

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151

former, but derivative in the latter. Doni verbs are the formal

and semantic output of the rule of inceptive derivaiton, which

relates the base word to a semantic structure in which it is sub-

ordinate to the logical predicate COME ABOUT and to a morphological

form in which -d- is affixed to the root.

What unifies all doni verbs is the semantic structure

COME ABOUT (S). The interesting differences between the different

types of doni verbs lie in the nature of the subordinate sentences,

which are explored in II.

II. Derived Inceptives in Georgian. .0 General "Remarks.

Inceptive derivation with the marker -d- is relatively recent in the

history of Georgian, lacking correspondance in the other Kartvelian

languages (MaÇavarianl 1973:107)« Although much of the Georgian

verbal system is rife with formal irregularity, virtually every doni

formation and conjugation is completely, regular. ' At the present

state of our knowledge, for example, there is no way to predict

generally which preverbs occur with which verbs, but for doni verbs,

the correct preverb can be predicted four times out of five (see

II). This derivational pattern is also extremely productive: Any

new word (with the appropriate meaning) can undergo inceptive

derivation.

Of the basic lexical categories in Georgian, a large number of

8nouns, adjectives, and stative verbs undergo inceptive derivation.

These derivations are discussed in II.1. Nonstative verbs are

semantically either telic (denoting actions marked for having en<*

points) or atelic (neutral with respect to end points) (see Holisky

1979). Telle verbs never undergo inceptive derivation. Most atelic

verbs which are not derived themselves (see Holisky to appear b:

Chapter II and III) do derive inceptive counterparts; details of the

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derivation will depend on whether the atelic is a verb of motion or

not. These are discussed in II.2. In II.3 doni forms which cannot

be considered to be derived via the inceptive derivation rule are

discussed.

II.1.1 Nouns and adjectives. The overwhelming majority of

derived inceptives in Georgian are formed from nouns and adjectives

A representative sample is given in (4).

(4) Nounsmepe kinggamepdeba she becomes king

uprosl bossgauprosdeba she becomes boss

biurokraÇi bureaucratgabluro^ratdeba she becomes a bureaucrat

mgloviare mournerdamglovlardeba he becomes a mourner

Adjectivesçltell redgaçltldeba ne turnes red» blushes

lamazl beautifulgalamazdeba he becomes beautiful

avad illdaavaddeba he becomes ill

orsull pregnant

daorsuldeba she gets pregnant

As is clear from the glosses, the meaning of these derived

inceptives is quite straightforward: gamepdeba 'she becomes king1

denotes an event where the state 'she is not king1 is replaced by

the state fsho is king*. In Georgian perfective tenses, which in

general are those with preverbs, most inceptives derived from nouns

and adjectives have the preverb ga-, a smaller number have da- or

some other preverb, often in some lexically specialized meaning.10

Moreover, most inceptive verbs formed from nouns and many formed

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153from adjectives oocur only in perfective forms, i.e. the forms with-

out preverbs are not used (*mepdeba 'he is becoming king',

»orsuldeba 'she is becoming pregnant').

This gap is readily explained if we consider what such a form

would mean relative to our interpretation of COME ABOUT. Taking the

form *mepdeba as an example, note that it is a Present Tense form

and like all Present Tense forms denotes an ongoing, durative event.

It states that the event of becoming king is taking place over a

period of time. Let's take the arbitrary period of time 'three days'

and see what the truth conditions or the Georgian sentence (5)

would be.

(5) *sami d^is ganmavlobasi mepdeba.

He is becoming king for three days.

If we pick any arbitrary moment within the time period, t ,

(5) asserts that one state of affairs (»he is king', call it !p') is

true at t± and its negative ('he is not king' or -p) is true at t j ^ .

If we then pick t j ^ as an arbitrary moment within the time period,

it must be the case at t^_^ that p is true and at t^_2 t n a t -P *s

true. But this is a contradiction: Both p and -p are true simultan-

eously at t T. If we compute the truth conditions for all t's in

the interval in question, three days, the contradiction will be

present at each moment in the interval except the last one. (This

discussion Is from Dowty 1972:50-51).

This formal description accords with the intuition of native

speakers of Georgian. When asked about »mepdeba, they reject the

form saying that either one is or is not king; becoming king can't

take place over a period of time. By similar reasoning, It could be

explained why almost no other doni forms can occur with durative

adverbials. The subset of those which can is discussed below.

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One subset of doni forms derived from adjectives can occur in

inperfective forms and with durative adverbials. Some examples are

given in (6).

(6)(a) didxans scivdeba. (Present Tense)for a long time it is getting coldIt has been getting cold for a long time.

(b) nelnela bneldeboda. (Imperfect Tense)It was slowly becoming dark.

(c) im dros, rodesac eubneboda, gogo çitldeboda.While he was talking to her, the girl was

blushing.

Note that adjectives like clvi »cold», bneli »dark», and citeli »red»

are degree words (Bolinger 1972). They are not absolute properties,

but relative ones. Inceptives formed from degree words in Georgian

can occur in imperfective forms and with durative adverbials. One

test for degree words is that they can be compared. One may say

upro civi 'colder1, upro çiteli 'more red', but not *upro mepe 'more

king, more a king', *upro orsuli 'more pregnant' and so on.

The inceptive derivations for degree words are clearly more

complex than those for nondegree words, and I have no formal proposal

to make as t*o their semantic structure. It is instructive to note,

however, that in so far as cold denotes a relative property, civdeba

fit is becoming cold' denotes a progression roughly paraphrasable as

'more and more cold'. At each moment in the interval in question

what is being asserted is not that x is cold, but that x is more cold

relative to the previous moment (Dowty 1972:57-9).

II.1.2 Stative verbs. A fair number of Georgian Stative verbs

have inceptive derivations. Some are given in (7).(7)(a) dums ne is silent

dadumdeba ne becomes silent

(b) cuxs she is worriedSecuxdeba sne becomes worried

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C7)(c) civa it is coldacivdeba it becomes cold

(d) uqvars he loves herSeuqvardeba he falls in love with her

(e) u]£virs he is astonishedgaukvirdeba he becomes astonished

Most inceptives derived from statives cannot occur without

preverbs. Forms such as *uqvardeba !he is falling in love with

her*, #dumdeba fhe is becoming silent* are completely unacceptable.

Although this restriction may not seem motivated from the function

of the English counterpart, if we consider again the semantics of

this derivation in Georgian, it can be more easily understood. In

Georgian certain states are classified as absolute, thus, entry into

the state of loving can only take place at one point in time, never

over an interval of time. It is also not possible to use durational

adverbs or expressions such as tandatan »gradually1 or nelnela

'slowly1 with such inceptives.

Other states, like some adjectives, are classified in Georgian

as relative. One may, for example, be more or less worried; conse-

quently entry into the state of being worried may take place over an

Interval of time. Such inceptives are acceptable with durational

adverbials and in imperfective form:

(8) tandatan çuxdeboda. (Imperfect Tense)

Gradually she was becoming more and more worried

In the inceptives discussed in this section, the verb which

is subordinate to COME ABOUT is a stative one (Holisky 1978). For

gamepdeba 'she becomes king1 what comes about is the state 'she is

king1, for gacitldeba, the state 'he is red1 and for seuqvardeba.

the state fhe loves her'. In the next section the verb is not

stative, but atelie. What 'comes about' for these inceptives is not

a state, but an atelic activity.

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156II.2 Atelic Verbs. Atelic verbs denote activities which are

neutral with respect to having end points (see Holisky 1979 for

detail and justification). Many atelics have inceptive derivations,

but in order to specify which atelic verbs can undergo this deriva-

tion, it is necessary to make several distinctions within the class

of atelics. First, it is necessary to distinguish atelics which are

derived from those which are basic. This division is discussed and

defended in Holisky to appear b (Chapters II and III) and will be

assumed here. Only basic atelic verbs have corresponding Inceptives.

Within the group of basic atelics, it is also necessary to distin-

guish those which denote motion from one place to another from those

which do not. Inceptives derived from verbs of motion are discussed

in II.2.2; inceptives from other basic atelics are covered in II.2.1.

II.2.1 Basic (non-motional) Atelic Verbs. Virtually every

basis* atelic verb can have a derived inceptive. Some examples for

non-motional verbs are given in (9).

(9)(a) Çiris he criesafcirdeba he begins to cry

(b) ?ivis he complainsaSivldeba he begins to complain

(c) gizgizebs it flickers (e.g. fire)agizgizdeba it begins to flicker

(d) laklakebs he blabbersalaklakdeba he begins to blabber

(e) kankalebs he tremblesâkankaldeba he begins to tremble

(f) duys it boilsaduydeba it begins to boil

These inceptives denote entrance into an activity. The verb

afrlrdeba, for example, glossed 'he begins to cry', is true at a time

tj if at t^ it is true that he is crying and at t j ^ it is not true

he is crying. In terms of the semantic structure of the sentence,

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this transition is viewed as instantaneous.

Almost all of these derived inceptives have the preverb a- in11 1P

perfective tenses, and never appear in imperfective ones.

Imperfective forms *Çlrdeba3 *gizgizdeba, and so on, are absolutely

not used. This morphological gap accords with the semantic structure

discussed just above (see also p.7). Because the transition is

instantaneous, forms used to denote it must be grammatically

instantaneous; durative forms (imperfective ones) are not allowed.

(See Holisky to appear a for further discussion of the distinction

instantaneous—durative in Georgian.)

II,2.2 Atellc Verbs of Motion. A fair number of basic atelic

verbs denote motion from one place to another. Many cf these have

derived inceptive counterparts, some of which are given in (10).(10)(a) bajfbajfebs he lumbers (e.g. bear)

gabajbajcleba he lumbers out

(b) goravs it rollsik migordeba it rolls there (to there)

(c) srialebs it slithers (e.g. snake)à'esrialdeba it slithers in

(d) cocavs she crawls (e.g. baby)acocdeba she crawls up

(e) cunculebs he trips along (with light,Secunculdeba he trips in little steps)

These inceptives have a semantic structure which is far more

complex than the structures considered thus far. The inceptive

gabajbaj'deba fhe lumbers out1, for example, means roughly fhe comes

to be in a new location which is spacially Hout" relative to his

former location and this new location is reached by lumbering1. I

have no proposal for how these parts of the meaning are put together;

an adequate analysis of the structure of the motion atelics them-

selves would shed light on the more complex structure of th*

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derived inceptives.

Most of the inceptives derived from verbs of motion allow a

very wide number of preverbs, which retain their directional

meaning.

(11)(a) xeze asrlaldeba.It slithers up the tree.

(b) gasrlaldeba.It slithers out.

(c) balaxXi Sesrialdeba.It slithars into the grass.

(d) otaxSi Semosrialdeba.It slithers into the room (speaker is in

the room).

Moreover, these inceptives, like most others considered here, occur

only in perfective forms, i.e. with preverbs. The forms *bajfbajdeba,

*cocdeba, *cunculdeba» and so on are all rejected by informants.

Once again, this gap is consistent with a semantic structure in which

the new state (a locational one) is viewed as coming about instantan-

eously, as Dowty's interpretation of COME ABOUT specifies. The

inceptive itself picks out the moment in which the new state is

attained, regardless of how long a tine is spent in trying to attain

it. The inceptive can almost never be used to refer to the time

leading up to the change.

This analysis of the semantics of the doni forms provides an

explanation for why some verbs of motion do not have derived incep-

tives at all, or allow only a restricted inventory of preverbs.

The verb agordeba, for example, would mean 'come to be up by rolling1

but informants reject it, saying it is not possible to reach anywhere

by rolling upwards.

The verb xetialobs 'he wanders around aimlessly' according to

most speakers does not have a derived inceptive. We would expect

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159it to be semantically odd to choose a lexical root which emphasizes

the goal-less nature of the motion, but a grammatical form which

requires specification of a goal. Some speakers allow this to be

used in inceptive form with only the preverb £a- faway!, which results

in less semantic conflict: caxetialdeba 'he wanders away'.

II.3 Non-derived Doni Forms. In addition to the large, open-

ended number of Georgian verbs with doni form which are derived from

other words, there is a small and non-pTroductive group of doni forms

which are not derived. A near-exhaustive list is given in (12).

(12) (a) gagulisdeba he beconies angry(b) gatavdeba it will end(c) s'egrovdeba it collects (garbage)(d) gaketdeba it gets done(e) gamovlindeba it appears(f) dalagdeba it gets put in order (house)(g) damtavrdeba it is completed(h) ddrcmundeba he is convinced(i) gaçàrdeba it is collected, taken in

(e.g. papers at registration)(j) çakezdeba he gets incited (to fight)(k) daqovndeba he stops (a little)(m) a£endeba it gets built(n) gaSveldebian they are separated (when(o) gaSerdeba it stops fighting)(p ) gaXaydeba it begins to burn (fire)(q ) se£vendeba he is cursed(r) gaçendeba it gallops (horse)

These verbs may have been derived historically, but synchroni-

cally, they must be considered primary verbs. There are no corres-

ponding nouns, adjectives, or verbs from which to derive these verbs

15either formally or semantically.

It should be noted that although these non-derived doni forms

are very common verbs, they are by no means typical members of the

doni group. They are frequently cited as main examples of doni

verbs, however, which unfortunately obscures the tremendous semantic

regularity of this open-ended derivational process (Cikpbava 1950:

59-60, 68; Sanije 1973:289; Tschenkeli 1958:281-2).

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In addition to the seventeen common verbs listed in (12),

many other doni forms have undergone partial or complete semantic

shifts; these alse are considered non-derived. Some examples are

given in (13)» where the meaning expected in terms of the inceptive

derivation is added in parentheses.

(13)(a) tvini brainsgamofcvindeba he becomes stupid (from fatigue)

( it becomes a brain)

(b) fcqavi skin, hidegaçqavdeba it is skinned

it becomes skin)

(c) saxll housedasaxldeba he becomes settled

it becomes a house)

(d) meore secondgameordeba it is repeated

( it becomes second)

Ce) laka fleck, spot (of dirt)dalakavdeba it becomes dirty, spotty

( it becomes a spot)

(f) imedi hopedaimeddeba he will have hope

( he will become hope)

(g) grjeli longgagrjeldeba it is extended (in time)

( it becomes long)

These inceptives are verbs which have come into being via the

word formation rule of inceptive derivation, but they have under-

gone lexical semantic shifts. The result is that the meaning of

the inceptive has ceased to be transparent, and must be learned

separately for each of these and similar verbs.

III. Advantages of this Analysis. In Section I I presented

a particular analysis of the semantics of Inceptive verbs and in II,

proposed that this analysis could account for the meanings of most

Georgian doni verb f orras. In particular, I argued that the morpheme

-d- is a marker of the word formation rule of inceptive derivation;

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161

a direct reflex, as it were, of the logical predicate COME ABOUT.

The core of these claims is a well-known fact about Georgian.

Nearly every linguist who has discussed doni verbs has pointed out

that many are denominal and many have inceptive meaning (Sikobava,

Deeters, Maçavariani, Sanije, Tschenkeli, Vogt). To my knowledge,

however, no one has claimed that all regular dcni forms are

derived, nor has anyone discussed details of the different types of

doni verbs.

The major advantage of the analysis of dcni forms proposed here

is that, if correct, it provides a uniform account of the entire

class. Given the explicit statement in II of the relationship be-

tween the derivational morpheme -d- and the lexical roots to which

it may attach, we can predict in all regular cases what the meaning

of the derived verb will be. An analysis which derives all doni

forms from the same source, shows this to be semantically consistent,

and predicts the meanings of new doni forms, must be considered to

be superior to one which accounts for the various doni forms in

various ways, and has no way to predict the meanings of new forns.

Moreover, as detailed in Section II, this analysis provides

an account of a number of hitherto unexplained morphological gaps .

The fact that doni forms rarely occur without preverbs has been

noted (Maçavariani 1974:118, Sikobava 1950:61), but not explained.

No other analysis has attempted to specify which doni forms do occur

in imperfective forms, much less why.

Many Georgian verbs never have doni derivations. Although

it remains to be shown how this can be explicitly ruled out, at

least we have been able to characterize semantically for the firs

time the verb types which do not have inceptive derivations. As

mentioned in II. verbs which are. aemaajticalJjr telle.

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162having end points, do not have corresponding doni inceptives.

On the level of individual words, the doni derivation corres-

ponding to a particular word will provide evidence by which to

classify the lexical root of that word in Georgian. Because nominal

roots in Georgian have derivational patterns different from verbal

roots and vice versa, because telic verbs have possibilities of

conjugation and derivation not shared by atelics, because verbs of

motion allow preverbs in ways not allowed by other verbs, and so on,

each root in Georgian must be lexically marked for certain semantic

categories (this claim was made also in Holisky to appear a). From

one form alone it is not always possible to know the lexical class

to which it belongs, but the form and meaning of the corresponding

doni provides some of the clearest evidence.

For example, the word limp in English can easily be used as

a verb of motion (he limped into the room, he limped out, etc.). A

Georgian word which at first glance seems like a counterpart

'he limps') does not behave like a verb of motion in terms

of the doni derivation. Forms like sefro^ldeba 'he will limp in1,

gaiEO&ldeba 'he will limp out* are completely unacceptable. The

correct doni derivation is gakoffldeba 'he will become lame'. Closer

inspection reveals that there are many other properties of verbs of

motion not shared by fco$lobs. This verb is not a basic verb, but a

derived one; the root is nominal: froffli flame, lame person', from

which is derived the verb froçlobs, best glossed as 'do as a lame

person, limp*. In this case, and others, knowing the doni form leads

to correct classification,and better understanding of the

meaning of the lexical root.

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163

IV. Additional Notes on Doni Forms. In addition to specific

problems of this analysis pointed out in the body of this paper,

there remain naturally many other gaps in our understanding of the

inceptive derivation in Georgian. Listed in this final section are

a few of the most conspicuous, which are offered in the spirit of

topics for further research.

1. Most notably lacking from this proposal is a syntactic

derivation from the underlying semantic structure COKE ABOUT (S) to

the surface form of the derived verb. A most reasonable proposal

would be to have a two clause underlying structure, with COME ABOUT

as the main predicate with a sentential object and the relevant new

state or activity ('he is king1, fhe is crying* or whatever) in the

position of sentential object. A clause union rule would apply,

converting this into a one clause structure. As there is no subject

of the main clause, a rule called unaccusative would then apply,

which converts the direct object (in this case 'he') into the subject

(Details of these syntactic rules of Georgian are given in Harris

to appear.) Because I have no support for the details of this

proposal, it is mentioned as a topic for research.

2. Related to the question of the syntactic structure of

derived inceptives is the fact that they are always intransitive.

In Georgian one may say çadrafri ltamaSa fhe played chess1 with fchess

a direct object, and atamasda The began to play', but never

*çadra^i atamasda or *çadraks (Pat.) atamasda 'he began to play

chess1. Formally, the verbal category to which doni's belong and

the category of direct object are mutually exclusive, but I know

of no semantic or syntactic structural reason this should be so.

3. Next to the large number of basic atelic verbs in Georgian

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164which have derived inceptives (II.2), there are some basic atelics

which do not. Is there any way to predict which basic verbs will

undergo inceptive derivation?

4. In this presentation I have ignored the problems of the

form of the lexical root, which may undergo certain changes in the

derivation from a noun or adjective. If the noun or adjective

Is a syncopating one, the form of the root used in the derived

inceptive is usually syncopated, as shown in

(a) martal-i true, just, innocentmartI-is Gen. (syncopated form)

(b) gamartldeba it is justified, he is found"" innocent

(syncopated form)

This is not always the case, however, as the example in (15) indica-

tes.(15)(a) mtver-1 dust

mtvr-is Gen. (syncopated form)(b) amfrverdeba it becomes dusty

"" (non-syncopated form)

ft. similar discrepancy exists regarding the presence or absence

of a root final -a or -£. When the vowel is truncated in the

nominal, it is usually also truncated in the derived inceptive,

but not always. (For details see Uturgaije 1976; these examples

are from that article.)

5. It is worth noting that some basic atelic verbs in Georgian

have two causative forms, one with the preverb a- and another with

fio preverb. For example, next to the atelic frirls The cries', there

are the two causatives aafrirefas and afclrebs (both Future Tense forms)

The second is the regular causative of th atelic, glossed 'she makes

him cry1, while the former with the preverb a- is a causative of

the inceptive (itself derived froxn the basic atelic) afrlrdeba. It

should be glossed 'she makes him begin to cry1.

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165

6. Should the derived inceptives which do not occur in

imperfective form be translated into languages like English with the

present or the future? That is, for a form like afrlrdeba, is it

best glossed: fhe begins to cry* or fhe will begin to cry1? In this

paper I have chosen the former, mostly for reasons of brevity.

7. It is not clear whether the subject of doni forms can be

an agent or not. (The meaning of the term 'agent1 and agentivity

tests for Georgian are presented in Holisky 1978.) There is some

evidence that these are not agentive, as illustrated by the follow-

ing sentences (from Harris to appear:

(16)(a) vano ayiYinda. (Aorist; doni form)Vano began to croon.

(b) Äaidani ayiyinda.(Aorist; doni form)The teakettle began to croon (i.e. whistle).

(17)(a) vanom ïaiYiYina. (Aorist; basic atelic)Vano began to croon.

(b)*jSaidanmaJ ftaiYiyina. (Aorist; basic atelic)fcaidani )The teakettle began to croon.

The doni form in (16) expresses that the action of crooning was in-

voluntary and noncontrollable, indicating that the subject is not an

agent. Either an animate (Vano) or inanimate object (teakettle) may

be the subject of this verb. This is in contrast to the verbs of

(17) which denote controlled, voluntary activity. Here the subject

is an agent. The animate (Vano) in (17a) is acceptable; the in-

animate (teakettle) in (17b) is not.

There is other evidence, however, that doni forms may be

agentive. Like agentive verbs they may be impered:

(I8)(a) galamazdi! Get beautiful!(b) atirdi! Begin to cry!(c) imis kveS gecocdi!

Crawl under that! (e.g. an order to fetchsomething under a chair)

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166(18)(d) roca vano otaxsi Seraova, uceb alaparakdit!

When Vano comes Into the room, suddenlybegin talking!

Also like agentive verbs, some doni forms co-occur with adverbs

like intentionally, deliberately.

(19) bavXvi ganzrax acocda £ibebze.The child intentionally crawled up the stairs.

FOOTNOTES

1 I am speaking here of general trends, of course, and not ofall linguistic work of the time, while leaving aside other areasof linguistics such as phonetics, phonology, historical linguistics,and so on, which were studied then as now.

2 In transliteration of the Georgian alphabet a dot over orunder a letter indicates a member of the glottal series of conson-ants, and a háček, a member of the alveopalatal series. Unless otherwise indicated, forms cited will be in the Future Tense, with athird person singular subject. As there is no grammatical gender inGeorgian this third singular subject may be glossed in English with'he', 'she', or 'it'. The Georgian data in this paper is from fieldwork in Tbilisi, Georgia, 1974-75.

3 It should be noted that Dowty uses 'logical structure' forwhat I call 'semantic structure'. In the semantic framework Dowty isusing, a model-theoretic one, each logical predicate is given asemantic interpretation. An interpretation can be viewed as anexplicit statement of the conditions under which a proposition con-taining the predicate will be true or false. For example, seeDowty's interpretation for COME ABOUT given below. Following generaltradition, the logical predicate is capatalized. Clear expositionsof model-theoretic semantics for the lay reader can be found inDowty (1972: Chapter I) and Cochrane (9-12) and the bibliographiestherein.

4 In later research, reported in Dowty 1977, this analysis ismodified to assign truth values to all sentences relative tointervals rather than moments of time. The truth conditions ofCOME ABOUT are revised accordingly to allow sentences with COMEABOUT to be interpreted over intervals. Cochrane proposes that weneed to distinguish between two types of verbs which denote a changein state: "One denoting an instantaneous change in state and onedenoting a gradual change which takes place over an interval"(145). Because the behavior of Georgian doni forms confirms theneed to distinguish an instantaneous change of state and becauseDowty' s later analysis for the semantics of intervals of time ismore complex and motivated by considerations not directly relevantto our discussion, I present the clearer discussion of the semanticsof COME ABOUT from Dowty's earlier work (Dowty 1972). The readeris referred to Cochrane 1977: 148-9 for a proposal to distinguishinstantaneous verbs from durative ones.

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1675 T h i s t h i r d c o n d i t i o n i s n e c e s s a r y t o a c c o u n t f o r t h e f a c t t h a t

n o t S i s n o t an a s s e r t i o n * b u t a p r e s u p p o s i t i o n of i n c e p t i v es e n t n e c e s . I n t h o s e c a s e s where n o t S i s n o t t r u e a t t - l , i t i sn o t t h e c a s e t h a t COME ABOUT (S) i s f a l s e , b u t t h a t i t i s w i t h o u ta t r u t h v a l u e (Dowty 1 9 7 2 : 4 4 - 4 8 ) .

6 Note t h a t a f o r m a l s t a t e m e n t of t h e s e m a n t i c s i s i m p o r t a n ti n s o f a r a s i t p r o v i d e s us w i t h an a c c o u n t of i n c e p t i o n which i sr e l a t i v e l y i n d e p e n d e n t of s p e c i f i c E n g l i s h words ( s u c h as becomeo r b e g i n ) and t h e i r l i m i t a t i o n s . I t e n a b l e s us t o s e e t h e s i m i l a r i t yi n a l l G e o r g i a n d o n i forms, o t h e r w i s e o b s c u r e d by d i f f e r e n c e s i nt r a n s l a t i o n i n t o E n g l i s h . I t was i n f a c t p r e c i s e l y t h i s s t a t e m e n tof t h e m e a n i n g of i n c e p t i o n from Dowty 1972 which l e d me t o r e c o g -n i z e t h e m a n i f e s t a t i o n of t h i s c a t e g o r y i n t h e v a r i o u s s u b t y p e s ofd o n i f o r m s .

7 A f r e q u e n t l y - c i t e d e x c e p t i o n t o t h i s g e n e r a l i z a t i o n i s t h ev e r b g a t q d e b a 'it w i l l b r e a k ' . The - d - of t h i s v e r b i s u n l i k e t h e- d - of the v e r b s formed v i a t h e d o n i d e r i v a t i o n i n t h a t t h e formerb u t n o t t h e l a t t e r show up i n t h e masdar (tqdoma ' b r e a k i n g ' ) , andt h e p e r f e c t ( g a m t q d a r a ' a p p a r e n t l y i t b r o k e ' ) . The tq d o e s n o to c c u r a l o n e i n any form w i t h r e l a t e d meaning w i t h o u t t h e - d - . Iwould c o n s i d e r t h e - d - i n t h i s c a s e t o be a p a r t of t h e verb r o o tand n o t a m a r k e r of i n c e p t i v e d e r i v a t i o n . The verb tqdoma e x h i b i t so t h e r p r o p e r t i e s of b a s i c v e r b s as w e l l .

8 R a r e l y , t h e r e i s an i n c e p t i v e d e r i v a t i o n f o r an a d v e r b :mzad ' r e a d y * -- momzaddeba 'it g e t s p r e p a r e d ( e . g . f o o d ) ' .

9 B e c a u s e t e l i c v e r b s a r e marked f o r hav ing end p o i n t s , t h el a c k of i n c e p t i v e d e r i v a t i o n s , whose f u n c t i o n i s t o p i c k o u t t h eb e g i n n i n g p o i n t , i s n o t s u r p r i s i n g .

10 On p e r f e c t i v e v e r s u s i m p e r f e c t i v e i n Georg ian and i t s r e l a t i o nt o t h e u s e o f p r e v e r b s s e e M a č a v a r i a n i 1974, Š a n i j e 1 9 7 3 : 2 6 2 - 3 ,Vogt 1 9 7 1 : 1 8 0 - 7 .

11 O c c a s i o n a l l y a d i f f e r e n t p r e v e r b o r an a d d i t i o n a l p r e v e r b i sp o s s i b l e , o f t e n w i t h s p e c i a l i z e d m e a n i n g . Although a d d i t i o n a lp r e v e r b s a r e l i s t e d from t i m e t o t i m e as p o s s i b i l i t i e s i n T s c h e n k e l i1 9 6 0 - 7 4 , t h e y a r e f r e q u e n t l y r e j e c t e d by i n f o r m a n t s i n f a v o r of( j u s t ) t h e p r e v e r b a - .

1 2 The o n l y e x c e p t i o n t o t h i s s t a t e m e n t I am aware of i s t h ev e r b a d u y d e b a 'it b e g i n s t o b o i l ' . T h i s v e r b i s r e g u l a r l y used i ni m p e r f e c t i v e form t o d e n o t e t h e c o n d i t i o n of w a t e r from t h e t i m e i ti s p u t on t h e s t o v e t o h e a t u n t i l t h e moment when i t b e g i n s t ob u b b l e on t h e s u r f a c e , o r as one i n f o r m a n t p u t i t :

( i ) t u Jer k i d e v c q a l i a r d u y s , duydeba h k v i a .I f t h e w a t e r i s n ' t b o i l i n g y e t , t h a t i s c a l l e d

' d u y d e b a ' .T h i s v e r b must be l e x i c a l l y marked t o a l l o w f o r i n t e r p r e t a t i o n r e l a -t i v e t o an i n t e r v a l of t i m e and n o t f o r j u s t an i n s t a n t ( s e e f o o t -n o t e 4).

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16813 I t should be noted t h a t t h e s e verbs are c o n s i d e r e d b a s i c

(non-der ived ) because I have no d e r i v a t i o n t o propose for them.This does not p r e c l u d e f i n d i n g a p l a u s a b l e d e r i v a t i o n at somefuture t i m e , which s u r e l y would prov ide e v i d e n c e as t o t h e s t r u c t u r eof the der ived i n c e p t i v e s as w e l l .

14 There i s a s m a l l number of i n c e p t i v e s d e r i v e d from verbs ofmotion which occur r e g u l a r l y i n i m p e r f e c t i v e form. I am aware o fonly the f o l l o w i n g ( P r e s e n t T e n s e ) : brundeba 'it t u r n s ' , gordeba' i t r o l l s ' , s r i a l d e b a 'it s l i t h e r s , s l i p s ' , t r i a l d e b a ' i t t u r n s ' ,pr indeba 'it f l i e s ' , and curdeba ' i t s l i p s , s l i d e s ' . There i s ag r e a t d e a l o f speaker v a r i a t i o n on the use and meaning of t h e s ei m p e r f e c t i v e i n c e p t i v e s . T h e o r e t i c a l l y , they should denote t h emotion l e a d i n g up t o a change of s t a t e , and be s e m a n t i c a l l y opposedt o t h e corresponding a t e l i c verbs of mot ion, which I would e x p e c tt o be n e u t r a l w i t h regard t o whether the motion i s l e a d i n g t o somechange i n s t a t e o r n o t . The on ly c o n s i s t e n t d i f f e r e n c e i n usagebetween the two which I found, however, i s t h a t the l a t t e r but notthe forner can r e f e r t o a g e n e r a l p r o p e r t y , as i n ( i i ) and ( i i i ) .

( i i ) s a e r t o g v e l i f { s r i a l e b s . * s r i a l d e b a . }In g e n e r a l the snake s l i t h e r s .

( i i i ) s a e r t o dedamiça {brunavs . *brundeba.}In g e n e r a l the e a r t h r o t a t e s .

15 I do not c o n s i d e r the correspond ing c a u s a t i v e forms ( e . g .gaatavebs 'he ends i t ' t o be a p o s s i b l e d e r i v a t i o n a l source f o rt h e s e doni forms. In some c a s e s t h e r e are nouns i n s y n c h r o n i c a l l yu n r e l a t e d meanings. For example, next t o gatavdeba ' i t w i l l e n d ' ,t h e r e i s the noun t a v i ' h e a d ' . In o t h e r c a s e s , the noun may oncehave been used i n Georgian, but i s no l o n g e r . ( S e e Uturga i je 1976:192 for an etymology of the nominal from which ašendeba ' i t g e t sb u i l t ' was d e r i v e d . )

16 See Dowty 1978 f o r a model of t h e l e x i c o n and the r o l e o fword formation r u l e s and l e x i c a l semant ic s h i f t assumed h e r e . Notet h a t I do not mean t o imply t h a t the verbs o f (12) are d i f f e r e n tfrom t h o s e o f ( 1 3 ) . They are merely d i f f e r e n t extremes o f the samep r o c e s s o f l e x i c a l semant ic s h i f t .

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Čikobava, Arnold. 1950. Kartul i Enis Ganmartebit i Leksikoni [Explan-atory D i c t i o n a r y of the Georgian Language]. T b i l i s i : Mecnier-eba.

D e e t e r s , Gerhard. 1930. Das K h a r t v e l i s c h e Verbum. L e i p z i g :Kommissionsverlag von Markert & P e t t e r s .

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H o l i s k y , Dee Ann. 1978. " S t a t i v e verbs i n Georg ian, and e l s e w h e r e . "I n t e r n a t i o n a l Review of S l a v i c L i n g u i s t i c s 3 .1-2:139-62.

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. t o appear a . "Aspect t h e o r y and Georgian a s p e c t . "Syntax and S e m a n t i c s , ed . by P h i l i p T e d e s c h i and Annie Zaenen.New York: Academic P r e s s .

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