Georgian

Georgian is spoken in Georgia in the Caucasus; it is a member of the Kartvelian (South Caucasian) family. The main purpose of this chapter is to give an impression of the wealth of natural language by highlighting those typological facts that distinguish Georgian (and the Kartvelian family) from other languages. We may note from the outset that Modern Georgian is a typical SOV language, that it is non-configurational and is a candidate for ergativity, and that it has complex morphosyntax, partially inflectional, but predominantly agglutinative. An additional goal of section 1 of the chapter is to illustrate the application of relational grammar. Section 1 of this chapter treats the syntax of simple sentences, while section 2 discusses complex sentences. All the material presented in the paper is from Georgian.