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On Representations in Morphology Case, Agreement and Inversion in GeorgianAuthor(s): Stephen R. AndersonSource: Natural Language & Linguistic Theory, Vol. 2, No. 2 (Jul., 1984), pp. 157-218Published by: SpringerStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4047487Accessed: 26/10/2009 15:57

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STEPHEN R. ANDERSON

ON REPRESENTATIONS IN MORPHOLOGY

CASE, AGREEMENT AND INVERSION

IN GEORGIAN*

0. INTRODUCTION

As a fundamental building block of linguistic structure, the morpheme is supposed to be the locus of the phonological expression of meaning and of grammatical categories. Traditionally, morpheme-based theories con- strued these categories as being in a more or less one-to-one relation with discrete substrings of phonological structure or FORMATIVES. If this were an adequate view, it would reduce the 'morphological representation' of a word to the sequence of formatives composing it, where each formative is (uniquely) associated with some semantic material or grammatical categories as its content. Especially in the treatment of inflection, though, the range of classical puzzles concerning the nature of 'morphemes' refuses to dissolve; and closer analysis suggests a rather different picture from the usual 'beads on a string' view of morphological structure.

The observations of Aronoff (1976) concerning 'morphemes' with no isolable meaning already recall the literature of the 1940's and 1950's (e.g., Hockett 1947 and the controversies provoked by this paper). The current development of morphological theories not based on morphemes can be traced to Matthews' (1972) discussion of these traditional problems, and his proposals for a WORD AND PARADIGM view of inflectional structure. Such a view substitutes an inventory of rules modifying word

* This paper represents a revision of material presented under the same title to the Workshop on Lexical Phonology and Morphology at Stanford University, 1 March, 1983; to the GLOW Colloquium at York, England on 30 March, 1983, and to the Caucasian Colloquium at the University of Hull in July, 1983. I have benefited from comments provided on these and related issues by Michael Hammond and Alan Timberlake. Special thanks are due to Alice Harris and George Hewitt, as well as Frank Heny and several anonymous referees for this journal, for extensive and detailed comments on an earlier version of this paper. Information on Georgian comes from the sources listed in the references below, as well as from work with Tamara 'Japaridze at UCLA and classes with Yolanda Marchev at the University of Zurich. Naturally, none of the above should be held in agreement with my views, or responsible for my errors or failure to take their advice. The present paper was prepared while the author was supported by a post-Doctoral fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies; support from the Committee on Research at UCLA is also acknowledged.

Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 2 (1984) 157-218. 0167-806X/84/0022-0157 $06.20 ? 1984 by D. Reidel Publishing Company

158 STEPHEN R. ANDERSON

structure (by affixation, internal change, etc.) for the usual inventory of morphemes. These rules depend on a representation of the inflectional structure of forms which is not directly derivable from the constituents of phonological form, however, and whose nature remains to be elucidated. These questions of representation arise particularly clearly in the inflectional theory of Anderson (1977, 1982, 1984a), where a notion of MORPHOSYNTACTIC REPRESENTATION forms the interface between syntactic and phonological structure. This kind of representation can be expected to have its own properties which are worthy of closer investigation.

The representations in question can be traced to the proposals of Chomsky (1965), who presents the terminal elements of P-Markers as complex symbols or internally unstructured complexes 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 grammar which are not part of the syntax per se establish a correspondence between these complex symbols and actual sequences of phonologically realized formatives. Recent work in morphology develops this picture further, showing that these symbols have a significant internal structure which forms the basis of a system of morphological operations mapping them onto phonological form. These operations are the morphological rules which establish correspondences between morphosyntactic and phonological form, and which thus replace (at least in the domain of inflection) a list or lexicon of 'meaningful' grammatical morphemes.

This paper explores the properties of such morphosyntactic representations, the rules that create and modify them, and the role they play in the grammar, on the basis of an analysis of case marking and agreement in Georgian. The interest of Georgian for such purposes lies in the fact that the inflectional morphology of this language is substantially more complex than that of more familiar languages, and thus provides a better test of the expressive power of a proposed morphological theory. Nonetheless, despite the inherent interest of the Georgian facts, the goal of the paper is not simply to provide an analysis of Georgian, but to clarify the nature of morphosyntactic representations.

The structure of the paper is as follows. In section 1, we sketch the basic properties of verbal agreement and case marking in Georgian, limiting the discussion to sentences whose verbs appear in one of the two fundamental tense/aspect series. We then review the evidence for associating particular grammatical positions with particular agreement and case marking mor-

CASE, AGREEMENT AND INVERSION IN GEORGIAN 159

phology, establishing the role of the notions of subject, direct object and indirect object in Georgian. Section 2 discusses the INVERSION construction which is found in the third tense/aspect series, and also in the first and second series for a specific set of verbs; the relation of this construction to those discussed in section 1 is treated. An analysis of inversion proposed by Harris (1981, 1982, 1983) is presented; the explanatory scope of this analysis is explored, and arguments are presented against the syntactic relation-changing process on which it depends. An alternative, purely morphological account suggested (but not argued for) by Anderson (1982) is then introduced.

The discussion in sections 1 and 2 recapitulates facts about Georgian from the literature, as well as Harris' analysis. This duplication of 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; indulgence is begged of those readers who are better prepared. It is particularly important to stress from the outset the crucial reliance of 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 similarities to hers (though with some essential differences). Indeed, the present paper can be regarded both as a critical response to Harris' work and as an application of the theory of inflection explored here.

Section 3 then goes on to explore the morphology of Georgian agreement in greater detail, on the basis of a discussion of the morphosyntactic representations that should be assigned to the various verb classes in the language. It is concluded that when these representations are adequately explicated, no independent rule of Inversion (even a morphological one) is required, though a morphological restructuring operation analogous to the relational rule of 'Unaccusative' plays a role in the account. A comprehensive set of agreement and case marking rules 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 arbitrary lexical markers for the various conjugation classes in the language. Section 4 then provides conclusions and a summary of results.

1. BASIC MORPHOLOGICAL AND SYNTACTIC CATEGORIES

IN GEORGIAN

Georgian is well-known for the complexity of its inflectional apparatus,


and especially for the dependence of the case-marking system on the tense of the verb. There are roughly a dozen tense-aspect forms (called 'screeves' in the recent literature) in which Georgian verbs can appear; the exact inventory depends on whether the Imperative is treated as a separate form, whether the partially obsolete conjunctive perfect is included, and whether one includes the rare imperfective aorist form as a distinct tense. These tense-aspect forms can be divided into three basic 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 share certain properties and because Series III is demonstrably secondary 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 matter of considerable interest below.

1.1 Agreement and case marking in Series I 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 agreement and case marking in the more basic series.

1. 1.1 Agreement

Series I and II show the same morphological patterns of agreement within the verb. Subjects, (direct) objects, and indirect objects can condition agreement in their clause; however, there are only two positions in which this agreement material is found. Agreement is marked either 1) as a prefix, preceding the verb root (and any pre-radical or 'version' vowel), but following a verbal prefix (the latter usually have perfective significance, and are separated from 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 agreement prefix might appear to be motivated, or more than one such suffix, only one of each appears overtly (see Anderson 1982, 1984 as well as table I below for some of the details of the disjunctive relationships involved here).

In sketching the agreement system at this point, before exemplifying it, we run the risk of incomprehensibility. The details of this discussion, however, are of limited importance: it is only the overall categories of agreement markers that need be attended to for what follows. Nonethe- less, the details (which are summarized below in table I) must be introduced at some point.


TABLE I Basic verbal agreement markers

(Subject) (D.O.) (Indirect Object) Series: v m h u e a

Person/Number

lsg v. In- m- mi- me- mn- 2sg 0 g- g- gi- ge- ga- 3sg -s,-a 0 h_a u- e- a- lpl v-... -t gv- gv- gvi- gve- gva- 2pl -t g- -t g- -t gi '-t ge- - -t ga- *-t 3pl -enb 0 ha u- e- a-

a h, s, x or 0, depending on the following segment. b -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


The indirect object markers differ from simple sequences of direct object marker plus preradical vowel in the third person. The third person h-series marker is s, h, x or 0 (depending on the following consonant), and the third person u-series marker consists in replacing the pre-radical vowel i otherwise characteristic of this series by u. Evidence that indirect object marking is distinct from direct object marking (plus a pre-radical vowel), then, consists of two facts: first, the third person h-series marker h-, s- or x- has no parallel in direct object marking; and second, the marker u- uniquely marks indirect objects, since a simple combination of third person direct object marking with preradical vowel i (marking some other function, such as the future stem of medial verbs, subjective version, etc.) yields simply i rather than u.

Which of the four series will mark indirect objects in a particular verb is a lexical property of the verb stem (cf. Aronson 1982b for arguments against the traditional claim that this difference is semantically based). We represent this property in lexical entries by including the (only partially predictable) preradical vowel in the entry for each verb; since the lexical entries for verbs with and without indirect objects must be kept distinct in any event, there is no loss of generality entailed in doing this.

One final element in the person marking system is the pluralizing suffix -t, which appears on a verb (replacing a final third person -s from the v-series, if the form would otherwise have one) to mark plurality in either first or second person subjects or second person (direct or indirect) objects. The reader whose 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's plurality is not explicitly indicated by the form of its corresponding marker (i.e., first plural subject or second plural subject or object). At most one -t appears in a form, even if two would be motivated (in the event of a first person plural subject combined with second person plural object, for example).

Example sentences and forms cited below will be provided with glosses in which these elements are identified. The analysis of agreement marking is largely uncontroversial (though we have simplified some points here, especially with regard to the marking of third person subjects), and the arguments below should be comprehensible without committing the facts just reviewed to memory.

There is one point, however, which requires some further discussion. 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 distinct NPs


must be overtly agreed with? The problem arises specifically under two sets of circumstances: 1) where a first person subject (marked by v-) and a non-null object prefix should co-occur; and 2) those cases in which both a direct and an indirect object ought to be marked by prefixes. In the first case, the marker v- simply fails 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 circumstances the fact that the subject is first person can often be deduced from other aspects of the verb's marking. In the case of co-occurring direct and indirect objects, a problem is only presented when the direct object is other than third person, since third person direct objects are marked with no overt affix.

When a non-third person direct object is combined with an indirect object (of any person), the normal agreement process is suspended and an alternative construction (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 interpretation is 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 grammatically third person NP, and thus call for 0 direct object agreement; they thereby allow the language to evade the limitations of the formal apparatus at the disposal of its agreement system. Further discussion of the object camouflage construction will be found in section 3.5.1.

1.1.2 Case marking

The agreement system summarized in table I applies equally to both Series I and Series II forms. The case marking of Noun Phrases, however, depends on a number of mutually independent parameters: a) the tense Series of the verb of the clause; b) the lexical class of this verb; and c) the grammatical relation which the NP bears. The overall system of case marking is summarized below in table II (at the end of section 2.1). We discuss the facts of case marking in non-inverted clauses whose 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.


1.1.2.1 Series I. The tenses which make up Series I are the present, the imperfect, the future, the conditional, and two subjunctives. In the majority of cases, the future differs from the present, the conditional from the imperfect, and one subjunctive from the other by the addition of a lexically idiosyncratic perfectivizing 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 marked on a noun either by no suffix or by a final -i (if the stem ends in a consonant). Transitive verbs in Series I take a direct object which appears in the ACCUSATIVE case; this is marked on the noun by the suffix -s. Indirect objects (regardless of the transitivity of the verb) appear in the DATIVE case; this is formally identical with the accusative, and is also marked by -s. Traditional grammars treat the dative/accusative as a single case on the basis of this formal identity, but for expository convenience we treat this syncretism as homophony between two distinct categories. The analysis below does not depend in any essential way on a difference between 'dative' and 'accusative', and could easily be reformulated in more traditional terms.

The points discussed thus far are illustrated in (1)-(3). The sentences in (1) exemplify an intransitive verb in the present tense, marked for its subject by a member of the v-series. The pronoun in (lb) and subsequent examples appears in parentheses to indicate that (as in many languages, especially those with extensive inflectional agreement systems), it normally appears only when emphatic. It should be noted that first and second person pronouns in Georgian do not-vary for case; case is indicated in the glosses of these elements only by analogy to that which would be formally marked on a third person NP in the same position.

(1) a. ivane c'veb- a John (NOM) lies-down-3SBJ John is lying down, going to bed.

b. (me) v- c'vebi 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 marker to identify their object as well as a v-series marker for their subject. These sentences are in the future tense, indicated by the fact that the verb forms are preceded by the appropriate perfectivizing


pre-verb. Note that the 3rd person objects in (2a,b) call for 0 markers from the m-series.

(2) a. ivane mc'er-s mo- k'lav- 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 (sen) mo- g- 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 indirect objects from the u-series, its IO is marked by u (following the preverb a= 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 marked in the form.

(3) a. es saxl- i ivane-s a- u- sendeb-a 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 painting mother a picture.

c. deda c. mi- xat'av-s (me) surat- s mother (NONf) 1 IO-paint- 3 SBJ me(DAT) picture- ACC

Mother is painting me a picture.

1.1.2.2 Series II. The tenses which make up Series II consist of the aorist, the optative, and the imperative (virtually always identical with either the aorist or the optative, depending on person). While the case marking of NPs associated with verbs whose tense comes from Series I tenses is a simple and straightforward example of a nominative/accusative system parallel to that of familiar European languages, that associated with verbs whose tense comes from Series II is somewhat more unusual.


It is necessary first of all to distinguish between 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 intransitives such as ic'erebs '(it) gets written', xdeba '(it) happens', elodeba '(he) is waiting for (him, it)'. The class of medials has traditionally been 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, syntactically and semantically coherent (cf. also Harris 1981) and no more 'exceptional' than that of the non-medials. Holisky characterizes the medial verbs semantically as 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 differences between medial and non-medial intransitives rather than their semantics.

The distinction between medial and non-medial intransitives, and between both of these and transitive verbs, is a lexical one whose precise representation will be discussed in section 3. As a purely descriptive convenience, we adopt below the terminology of Harris, according to which transitive verbs are characterized as belonging to 'class I', non- medial intransitives to 'class II', and medial intransitives to '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 formally marked on nouns by the suffix -M(a). Subjects of non-medial intransitives (class II), in contrast, appear in the NOMINATIVE (exactly as with Series I tenses). Since direct objects 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 attention to the non-medial examples of intransitive verbs. Finally, indirect objects appear in the DATIVE case in Series II just as in Series I.

In light of the existence (and completely non-marginal status) of the medial intransitives, however, the correct description of 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 non- medial verbs is precisely that usually associated in the literature with the 'active' systems sometimes described for American Indian languages such


as Dakota, Choctaw, etc. The label 'active' is used here to mean simply that there are two classes of intransitive verbs, one whose subjects share formal properties with the subjects of transitives, and one whose subjects share formal properties with direct objects.

We illustrate below the pattern of case marking in 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 non- medial verb in the aorist; their subjects are therefore in the nominative. The verb of (4c), in contrast, is a medial intransitive, whose subject is thus in the ergative.

(4) a. ivane mo- k'vd-a John (NOM) PVB-died-3SBJ

John died.

b. (me) mo- v- k'vdi 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- v- k'ali I (ERG) John (NOM) PVB-1 SBJ-killed

I killed John.

The sentences in (6) contain indirect objects, which occur in the dative regardless of the transitivity of the associated verb. In all of these exampfes, the indirect object is reflected by a marker from 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


ergative. These case marking facts are the same as in the examples above where no IO was present.

(6) a. (me) da- v- u- xat'e deda- s I(ERG) PVB- 1 SBJ-3 1O-painted mother-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 painted me 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. megobris jayl-ma ivane-s u- qep- a neighbor- GEN dog- ERG John- DAT 3IO-barked-3 SBJ

The neighbor's dog barked at John.

1.1.3 Summary

In the discussion that follows, it is not the detailed formal expression of particular categories that will be of interest, but rather the extent to which agreement and case marking are correlated with syntactic categories defined by structural positions (or by grammatical relations). We have observed that verbal agreement marking distinguishes three structural categories: SUBJECT, DIRECT OBJECT, and INDIRECT OBJECT. These distinctions are made regardless of tense or of the transitivity of the verb. While case marking distinguishes the 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 Syntactic properties associated with particular terms

The morphological differences between Series I and Series II just sur-


veyed naturally lead to the question of whether there 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 morphological characteristics. With this goal in mind, Harris (1981) provides an extensive survey of the syntactic structure of Georgian within the framework of Relational Grammar. She isolates a number of properties of NPs which appear to depend on the grammatical relation they bear within the sentence; since reference to these grammatical relations can plausibly, be seen as part of the description of the properties involved (necessarily, in a framework like that of Relational Grammar, but at least implicitly in other theories as well), the properties in question can serve as criteria for the identification of grammatical relations borne by NPs in cases where the analysis is in doubt.

Harris argues that despite the morphological differences, the syntactic structure of 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 syntactic criteria as the subject if the verb is put in a Series II tense with its concomitant morphological changes; and the same for direct and indirect objects. This conclusion is thus an intra-linguistic analog 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 identified by Harris are common to subjects, direct objects, and indirect objects; they thus serve to distinguish the 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-emphatic pronouns are 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 manquent is semantically but not structurally parallel to its English gloss 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.


omitted in the position of terms, while non-term positions such as genitive modifiers and objects of post-positions must be filled either by full NPs or by overt pronouns. Of more interest for our discussion, however, are properties that distinguish one term position from another. The following sub-sections note some of the syntactic characteristics of the most important terms, the subject and the direct object.

1.2.1 Subjects

An important distinguishing property of subjects is the fact that they are the only NPs that can serve as the antecedent of (non-possessive) reflexive expressions. Georgian reflexives are formed from the noun stern tav-, which occurs independently with the sense 'head'. The person of the reflexive NP is indicated (always if first or second person, optionally if third person) by a possessive pronoun modifying tav-. Such 'tav-reflexives' can occur in direct or indirect object position, or as objects of postpositions; they are always interpreted as coreferential with the subject of their clause. Thus sentence (7) below unambiguously indicates that the painting will be done for the benefit of the painter himself:

(7) mxat'vari daxat'avs vanos tavis- tvis 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 antecedent is 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 intransitive verb is made causative, the subject of the related simple verb appears as the direct object of the corresponding causative:

(8) mama-m mzia avari'sa father-ERG Mzia-NOM caused-to-exercise

Father made Mzia exercise.

In causative verbs corresponding to basic transitive verbs, the indirect object of the causative corresponds to the subject of the basic verb:

(9) mama-m mzia- s daantebina cecxli father-ERG Mzia-DAT caused-to-light fire-NOM

Father made Mzia light the fire.


Unfortunately, as Harris (1981: 291) points out in another connection, the pattern of NPs in association with causatives shows 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 corresponds to 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 possibilities that 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 similar predicates. This construction is illustrated in (10) below:

(10) sarvali advili-a ninos-tvis sesak'eravad trousers easy- be Nino-for to-sew

Trousers are easy for Nino to sew. (or 'to sew for Nino')

The fact that only direct objects, and not either subjects or indirect objects, are available to be raised in this construction is illustrated by the fact that sentence (11) below is ungrammatical, regardless of whether nino 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 property of direct objects has already been illustrated: in the causative of a transitive verb, the direct object corresponds to the direct object of the corresponding basic verb. Sentence (9) above illustrates this 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 property of direct objects which figures in Harris' discussion is the fact that certain transitive verbs show suppletive stem forms, depending on properties of their direct objects. Thus, the verb (gads = )a-gdeb 'throw' only occurs with singular direct 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-human or in-


animate) direct objects. The relevance of this to the status of particular NPs in the clause is argued to derive from the apparently valid generalization that if a transitive verb shows suppletion for some property of one of its arguments, the relevant argument is always the 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 number that show similar suppletion based on properties of their subject: thus, (da=)Jdeb 'sit down' is used with singular subjects, while (da=)sxdeb is used with plural subjects; and c'evs '(he) is lying down' is used with personal subjects, while devs '(it) is lying down' is used with non-personal subjects. These facts show that not only direct objects can cause suppletion, but subjects as well. The full generalization thus appears to be that suppletion is governed by the properties of an intransitive subject or a transitive object.

In fact, we suggest, this generalization is only indirectly connected with the syntactic relations involved: the apparent relation arises because these are precisely the positions occupied by the NP filling the semantic relation (or '0-role') of THEME in the interpretation of a clause. We suggest that it is the properties of themes that are relevant to the choice of suppletive verbs. A similar proposal is made by Hewitt (1983). The importance of themes in grammatical structure is well known (cf., e.g., Anderson 1977b and references there); given the semantic nature of the restrictions involved in suppletion, it is particularly plausible that they should be controlled by an aspect of semantic, rather than syntactic structure. But in that case, the facts of suppletion are not directly relevant to identifying the grammatical relation a NP bears.

2. THE INVERSION CONSTRUCTION

The facts surveyed to 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 morphological and syntactic properties of Georgian are not especially unusual in comparison with other languages. But the language also illustrates yet another pattern of case-marking and agreement, which, while by no means isolated in cross-linguistic terms, is nonetheless remarkable. This is the 'inversion' construction.


2.1 Morphological properties of 'inverted' forms.

Under certain circumstances (to be described immediately below), the apparent subject of transitive verbs, as well as of intransitives of the 'medial' class, appears in the dative case, rather than the nominative (as is usual with Series I tenses) or the ergative (as is usual with Series II). At the same time, instead of being indicated on the verb with markers from the v-series (which, it will be recalled, normally marks subject agreement), 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 construction thus behaves morphologically in exactly the way indirect objects behave in the constructions discussed in section 1. .

At the same time, under the same circumstances, the apparent direct object of a transitive verb appears in the nominative case. 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 markers from the v- (or 'subject') series. A further complication arises from the fact that the verbs in question are followed by a suffixed form of the verb qopna 'be', agreeing in 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-inverted verbs (especially medials), and so is not isolated within the morphology of Georgian. It does, however, reinforce the conclusion that in the 'inverted' forms, direct objects have the morphological properties of subjects.

As far as the indirect objects of 'inverted' transitive or medial intransitive verbs are concerned, these can only appear in the form of a post-positional phrase marked by -tvis. In its other uses in the language, this post-position can generally be glossed 'for', and it overlaps in its semantics with the range of interpretations assigned to indirect objects. In the 'inverted' forms, (notional) indirect objects are not marked on the verb at all, and their appearance is limited to such -tvis phrases.

Finally, we can note that when non-medial intransitive verbs appear under the conditions that call for 'inverted' forms of other verbs, no corresponding changes in case marking or agreement are observed. Their subjects, that is, appear in the nominative and are marked by the v-series on the verb;.and their indirect objects (if present) appear in the dative and are indicated by one of the appropriate series of markers.


There are two sets of circumstances under which such 'inverted' forms are found. The first of these is in the final group of tenses, those classified in traditional descriptions as Series III and including the perfect, pluperfect, and conjunctive perfect. Although Series III is usually called the 'Perfect Series' in the literature, these tenses are not 'perfects' in a standard sense. They are rather tense forms whose 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 internal formation of the Series III tenses is different from that associated with transitives and medial intransitives, it is nonetheless clear from their syntactic and semantic distribution that the same set of tenses is involved.

Inverted forms are also found in Series I and II forms of a particular set of verbs, mostly involving perception, emotion, ability, or mental attitude. These we refer to as constituting 'class IV' following the terminology (due to Harris) introduced above for the other lexical classes of verbs. The class IV verbs in Georgian (i.e., those that show inversion in 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 morphological characteristics of an indirect object.

An over-emphasis on the partial semantic coherence of the set of verbs making up class IV can lead to a mistaken appreciation of the status of inversion in Georgian. Merlan (1982), for example, effectively limits her discussion of Georgian inversion constructions to a consideration of the class IV examples, and concludes that the cross-linguistic similarity just noted is sufficient to force us to consider the inverted forms as having (at all levels) a syntax which is directly revealed by their surface morphology. Since her discussion takes none of the relevant syntactic evidence into account, however, and largely ignores the problem of 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


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 semantic characteristics of some verbs which make them candidates for such 'inverted' syntax in many languages; what is important about them in Georgian is the fact that their construction is the same as that associated with 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 member of Series III:

(12) a. (me) ar da- mi- xat'av-s dedis- tvis 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 appears in the dative and is marked on the verb by what is normally an indicator of indirect objects. The direct object is in the nominative, and shows concord with a 'subject' marker, while the indirect object appears in a tvis-phrase and is not marked on the verb at all. The same morphological properties can also be observed for the subjects of class III (medial intransitive) verbs, as shown by (13):

(13) a. k'at'a- s ar u- k'navli- a cat- 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.


Note that in (13), the medial verbs are inflected with a 3sg 'subject' marker (regardless of the person of their actual subject, which corresponds to an 'indirect object' marker). They thus behave (by morphological analogy with class I verbs) as if they had a dummy 3sg direct object. This fact will play a role in the analysis below.

In (14) below, we illustrate a verb from class IV, the class that shows 'inversion' in all tenses. These sentences have their verbs in the present tense, which would normally call for nominative subjects marked by the v-series, and accusative objects marked by the m-series; instead we find dative subjects marked by the u-series, and nominative objects marked by the v-series (plus an enclitic form of the copula, when the object is non-third person):

(14) a. (me) ana mi- qvar-s I (DAT) Anna (NOM) 1IO- love- 3SG I love Anna.

b. ana- s (me) v- u- qvar- var Anna- DAT me (NOM) 1SG- 3IO- love- am

Anna loves me.

Membership in class IV, with its associated inversion in all tenses, is not limited to transitive verbs. A few intransitives belong to this class as well; like the Series III forms of intransitive medials, these verbs appear to be inflected for a dummy 3sg direct object.

(15) a. (me) m- jinav- s I (DAT) 1IO- sleep- 3 SG

I'm sleeping.

b. vano- s s- jinav- s Vano- DAT 3 IO- sleep- 3 SG

Vano is sleeping.

At this point, we have introduced all of the patterns of case marking and agreement which occur in Georgian as a function of verb class and tense Series. A summary of these patterns is presented in Table II below.

2.2 Harris' analysis of inversion

The question raised by the inversion construction, of course, is whether or not the morphological properties of such sentences are an accurate


TABLE II Case marking and agreement patterns

Pattern A: Subject Direct Object Indirect Object

Case-Marking Nominative Accusative Dative Agreement v-series m-series h-, etc. series

Pattern B: Subject Direct Object Indirect Object

Case-Marking Ergative Nominative Dative Agreement v-series m-series h-, etc. series

Pattern C ('inverted' clauses): Subject Direct Object Indirect Object

Case-Marking Dative Nominative (tvis-phrase) Agreement h-, etc. series v-series (none)

Distribution of Patterns A, B, and C:

Series: I II III

Verb Class: 1 (Transitive) A B C 2 (Non-Medial Intransitive) A A A 3 (Medial) A B C 4 (Inversion verbs) C C C

indicator of their syntactic structure. Is it the case, that is, that in a clause whose verb has a tense from Series III, the NP corresponding to the subject of the same clause with a Series I or II tense is in fact a structural indirect object? An analysis that did not posit major structural differences correlated with such tense differences would have an immediate appeal.

2.2.1 The syntactic structure of inversion clauses

Harris (1981) argues that in inversion forms, the dative NP is indeed the syntactic subject and the nominative NP is the direct object. She bases this conclusion on the same constructions that she uses to demonstrate the structural parallel between Series I and Series II (non-inverted) forms. For


example, in Series III clauses (as in Series I and II), only the notional subject can serve as the antecedent of tav-reflexives. Sentence (16) below, whose verb is in the 'perfect' tense, illustrates this; note the ungrammaticality of the variant (16b), in which the reflexive is in the position which appears morphologically to be an indirect object and the antecedent in what appears morphologically to be that of the subject:

(16) a. gela- s turme da- u- rc'munebi-a tavisi Gela-DAT evidently PVB-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

(*Evidently self has convinced Gela.)

Evidence from other sources bearing one 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 immediately relevant, since it is the causative verb itself that is 'inverted' in such structures (as the bearer of tense) rather than 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 appear that they have a basically inverted structure, which ought to be reflected in the form of their causative.

(17) a. vano- m gela- s se- a- jul- a Vano- ERG Gela- DAT PVB- 31O- caused to hate- 3SBJ

nik'o Niko-NOM

Vano made Gela hate Nik'o.

b. (mat) t'usa yi mo- asiv- es they-ERG prisoner-NOM PVB- caused hunger- 3PLSBJ They let the prisoner go hungry, they starved the prisoner.

Unfortunately, the causative of a transitive class IV verb such as m-jul-s 'I hate him' as in (17a) is of no relevance to the issue at hand. In this structure the argument (gela) corresponding to the notional subject of the basic verb 'hate' does appear as an indirect object, which is what we would


expect if it were basically the subject of a transitive; and the argument (nik'o) corresponding to the notional object of 'hate' appears as a direct object, again as we would expect for a basic direct object. As noted above (and by Harris 1981, p. 291), this is exactly the same as the result we would predict if the person hated were structurally the subject of (an intransitive verb) m-jul-s, and the hater the indirect object. In the case of an intransitive inversion verb such as m-sia 'I am hungry', however, the fact that the NP with morphological indirect object properties in association with the basic verb appears as a direct object with the causative as in (17b) confirms its 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 necessarily non-finite (i.e., appears in a form that bears no tense). With regard to class IV verbs, we see that indeed the notional object 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-NOM easy- is Vano- for to hate The director is 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 inversion verbs) has a related form (se=) i-juleb 'begin to hate someone', a class I verb built on the same root. Since non-finite forms involve the neutralization of class differences among verbs with the same stem and preverb such 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 consistent with an analysis which treats the embedded verb as the class IV form, and raises its direct object - but it does not provide positive evidence for this analysis.

Harris cites some additional facts in support of her conclusion, including suppletion for number, animacy, and tense with inverted verbs, 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 determination of 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 reinforce the conclusion that NPs with the morphological properties of indirect objects in inversion constructions are in fact subjects. The facts of 'retired term'


marking will not be dealt with separately here, though I do not feel they provide substantial additional support for proposals about the underlying structure of inversion structures.

We conclude, however, that such facts as there are either support or 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 syntactic structure as others. Given the obvious parallels between Series I and II, on the one hand, and Series III on the other, we accept here Harris' claim that the two should be analyzed as having the same basic structure, in particular the same subject and object NPs. It remains, however, to account for the morphology of the 'inverted' forms.

2.2.2 A syntactic analysis of inversion

Within the framework of Relational Grammar, Harris (1981) provides a resolution of the apparently contradictory aspects 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 corresponding NPs in non-inversion clauses, 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 inversion- triggering features ([class IV] as a property of the verb, or [Series III] as a property of its tense), the morphology corresponding to the syntactic subject is that of an indirect object; and that corresponding to a syntactic direct object is that of a subject. Therefore, a rule can be posited which demotes subjects to indirect object; another rule then promotes the 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 Unac- cusative rule (19b) is necessary independently of the inversion construction alone. In particular, all clauses with verbs of class II (non-medial intransitives) have underlying representations containing a direct object, but no subject; and this direct object is promoted to subject by the same rule (19b) that functions in the inversion construction. It is beyond the scope of this article to evaluate this proposal (equivalent to the suggestion of a class of 'unaccusative' verbs in a number of other languages; cf. e.g.


Postal 1977, Perlmutter 1983 and references there, Burzio 1981, etc.), but within Georgian we suggest that it does not have independent motivation beyond the facts that a) it provides a description of the difference between class II and class III; b) it relates the structure of class II to that of passives; and c) it requires no apparatus beyond that necessary to describe inversion. We return to these points below.

Given the rules in (19), inversion clauses (such as that in (20), containing a verb of class IV) will be given a Relational structure such 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 underlyingly subject and direkt'or direct 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 morphological marking of the NPs involved.

Harris' relational analysis provides a compact and elegant account of the facts of inversion constructions, and their relation to other aspects of Georgian syntax. The only controversial aspect of this analysis is 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 problematic is the following: evidence for an initial structure in which inversion clauses have the same structure as non-inversion clauses derives from syntactic phenomena. Morphological evidence 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'). Arguments for the (derived) indirect object status of the surface dative NP, on the other hand, are exclusively morphological: they consist essentially of the facts of case marking and verb agreement. An analysis which expressed the morphological properties of the construction without requiring (otherwise unmotivated) changes in syntactic structure, and


which did not lose generalizations captured in the syntactic analysis, would enjoy at least the advantage of conceptual economy.

Theories other than that of Relational Grammar typically posit a connection between structural positions and semantic roles such that even in the presence of a syntactic relation-changing inversion rule, the description of Georgian inversion must involve another, essentially morphological component. For example, an analysis within the framework of Lexical Functional Grammar (Bresnan 1982) would require a lexical rule associating a difference in role assignment with the morphology of the relevant inversion structures, if the grammatical relations in the surface form of inversion structures differ from those in corresponding non- inverted 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 violation of the 6-criterion, this means that the 6-role normally assigned to subjects must be re-assigned to indirect object position instead. A Government/Binding interpretation of Harris' analysis thus requires us 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, assuming that there is movement in such constructions.

Note that the syntactic analysis requires that Inversion (taking this term to refer to the pair of rules in (19), including Unaccusative) essentially must not interact with other relation-changing rules. This is because other rules which change relations (e.g., passive, raising) do not apply to the output of inversion, and inversion does not apply to their output either. The one exception to this is the formation of causatives, to which inversion can apply; but this process would be described as lexical rather than syntactic by grammarians working in frameworks other than Relational Grammar, and so cannot be called a clear counterexample to 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 structural requirements that are inconsistent with the output of inversion. The second half of the generalization, however, is described by Harris by imposing the condition that "Inversion [i.e., (19a) above] only applies to initial subjects" (Harris 1981, p. 247). As a result, the formulation of Inversion becomes global in character (since it must refer simultaneously to 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 syntax would reject. On the other hand,


Inversion must precede (and feed) the morphological rules of case marking and agreement. An alternative analysis should attempt to make these interactions follow as far as possible from more general considerations of the inter-relation of morphology and syntax.

2.3. Problems with a syntactic analysis of inversion

In the previous section, we suggested some reasons to believe that it might be preferable a priori to describe the facts of the inversion construction within the limits of the morphological system of Georgian, rather than adopting an analysis involving a change of syntactic structure such as that posited by Harris. In this section we provide some more explicit arguments against the syntactic approach. In each case, the thrust of our observations is that the structure underlying inversion constructions should be maintained unchanged: either the syntactic rule of Inversion leads to a structure which is in some way ill-formed, or there is evidence that the posited underlying structure (rather than the output of syntactic Inversion) is appropriate as a derived structure as well. If we assume that no alteration of the underlying structure is involved in an account which treats inversion as a fact about the structure of inflected words rather than as a fact about the syntax of 'inverted' clauses, these arguments support such an analysis.

2.3.1 The well-formedness of the movement involved

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 appropriate trigger) to indirect objects; the result is a structure with no subject NP. In the case of transitive verbs, this lacuna is immediately filled through the operation of (19b), promoting the former direct object to subject. Intransitive verbs 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 available to occupy subject position. Within Relational Grammar, this would violate the 'Final-1 Law', which stipulates that clauses must have a surface subject; it is thus necessary to posit a syntactic dummy element which occupies subject position (either directly, or by advancement from direct object position).

Within the Government/Binding theory, inversion structures like (21) below would violate otherwise valid binding conditions if they involved genuine syntactic movement, since movement from subject to indirect


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 structure would not be well formed.

(21) S

NP VP

NP V

[e]i NP V

' [kat a-s]i

cat-DAT 0 u-k'navli-a

3 IO- meowed-3 SBJ

The cat has meowed. (perfect tense)

We have represented indirect object position as a daughter of VP, and treated direct objects as daughters of 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 subcategorized for its complements, while subject position is external to the maximum projection of V. The analysis must reflect the fact that direct and indirect objects are independently subcategorized by the verb while subjects are not.

The ill-formedness of the antecedent-trace relation in (21) under the binding theory of Chomsky (1981) has no obvious resolution; note that we cannot assume the trace is simply 'covered' by a syntactic dummy element (such as English there), since regardless of the morphological indication 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 structure that is problematic for the binding theory. The subject NP continues to fill the subject position, regardless of its morphological reflection, and no trace in that position must be bound by an element subordinate to it.


2.3.2 Non-finite forms and the nature of verb classes

Verbs which are not marked for tense and agreement must not trigger syntactic inversion, regardless of whether or not they contain roots whose finite forms can be inflected as belonging to class IV. In sentence (22) below, we see that the dependents of sejuleba 'to hate' are marked as they would be in a normal, active nonfinite structure: tkven is marked with the post-position mier, as is normal for a transitive subject (n.b.: not an indirect object), while cemi megobris is a genitive, the normal form for a direct object dependent of a non-finite form:

(21) cem-tvis gaugebaria tkven mier cemi me-for incomprehensible you by my

megobris sejuleba friend- GEN hating

For me it is incomprehensible that you would hate my friend.

An adequate grammar must thus ensure that infinitive forms like gejuleba do not trigger inversion, even if they correspond to 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 generalization here (suggested to me by Alice Harris) is that "a non-finite form has no class": i.e., that class is a fact about finite inflection. Therefore, on an analysis that treats inversion not as syntactic structural change but rather as a fact about a verb's agreement morphology, there is nothing further to be said to ensure that inversion is blocked in non-finite forms even for those verbs which otherwise undergo it everywhere (i.e., class IV): lack of inversion follows directly from the fact that such forms have no agreement morphology to 'invert'.

An analysis that treats inversion as syntactic, however, does not derive this consequence so directly. This is because the Inversion rule is said to be triggered by two conditions: Series III 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 applying to verbs of class II, but the inversion rule 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 remains the case that the reference to class IV inflection in 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


agreement morphology, and the operation of inversion is a completely predictable subpart of the development of certain finite forms (rather than 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 Word order

Georgian has considerable freedom of surface word order within the clause, but the extent of this freedom has sometimes been exaggerated (e.g. by Hammond 1981 who argues that the language has completely free 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 neutral word 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 separated from the verb by this latter NP. Schematically, the occurring neutral orders are: S-V-DO-IO, S-DO-V-IO, and S-10-DO-V. This suggests that a structure along the lines of that posited in (21) above is appropriate, with word order being unspecified internal to the pro- jections of V.2 Permutations beyond those of the neutral order would then be produced by late stylistic rules, whose operation is irrelevant to the syntax per se.

What is important here is the fact that the central generalization about neutral word order concerns the position of the subject: this is sentence initial. Furthermore, among the subjects which obey this principle are the (basic, or underlying) subjects of sentences that have undergone inversion. This is illustrated below for both types of inversion structure: (23a) contains a 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.


(23) a. mama- s tavisi svilebi u- qvar- s father- DAT self's children 3IO- love- 3 SBJ

Father loves his children.

b. deda- s gogo da- e- mal- a mother- DA T girl PVB- 3IO- had hidden- 3SBJ

Mother had hidden (pluperfect) the little girl.

The fact that the notional subject occupies the same position in (neutral) word order regardless of whether the construction involves inversion or not follows trivially if we assume it continues to be a subject (despite its morphological reflection). On an analysis involving syntactic inversion, on the other hand, it is necessary to formulate the 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' regularly occupies the first position" - a formulation which is unavoidable if the underlying subject ceases to be a subject in the surface structures of inversion constructions, but which requires reference simultaneously to the surface status of a NP and to its derivational source.

2.3.4 Number agreement

The conditions on number agreement in Georgian are somewhat more complex than those 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 number only if these are subjects. The agreement in some cases is by a marker which is syncretic with the person marker: thus, the third person plural v-series markers -en, etc., represent both person and number; as does the first person plural m-series marker gv-. Where no such syncretic marker exists (i.e., for first or second person v-series markers, and for second person m-series markers), number agreement 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 normally appears on the verb to indicate their plurality. The one exception is in the inversion construction: here a marker of the u-series (or other 'indirect object series',3 when required by a particular verb) in the third

3 Note that the labels on the columns in Table I refer to the grammatical relations borne by. the corresponding NP's in non-inverted forms only. The essence of the syntactic account of


person may be accompanied by the plural marker -t in agreement with a 3pl NP:

(24) svileb- s tavisi mama u- qvar- t children- DAT self's father-NOM 31O- love- PL

The children love 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 number agreement, and must agree as if it were singular:

(25) mama- s tavisi svileb- i u- qvar-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 support for the claim that the subject in an inversion construction is the same as that in a non-inversion structure.

inversion is the claim that these labels are also applicable to (the surface structure of) inverted clauses. On the analysis being 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., should be taken seriously. 4 Hewitt (1983) argues that in some cases, the indirect objects of relative intransitive verbs can trigger plural agreement:

(i) ra mo- u- vid- a- t mat what (NOM) PVB- 3IO- came- 3SG- PL 3PL-DAT

What came over them?

He also notes that, while Harris describes the verb da-e-k'arg-a in (iia) below as not showing plural agreement because 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 inverted verb:

(ii) a. msobl- eb- s da- e- k'arg- a bavivi parent- PL- DAT PVB-3IO- lost- 3SBJ child

The child was lost to the parents.

b. evian zmn- eb- s v e- k'argeb- a- t v-having verb- PL- DAT v (NOM) 3IO- lose- 3SBJ- PL Verbs in v lose v.


The problem is that on a syntactic analysis of inversion, these subjects have ceased to be subjects at the point agreement applies: Inversion has demoted them to indirect objects. The statement of number agreement for non-subjects must thus refer both to the grammatical relation borne by a given NP on the surface, and to the fact that this NP was originally a subject. The implicitly global formulation provided by Harris (1981, p. 219) states that "[a] third person nominal triggers Number Agreement in the verb of which it is a final term if [...]it is the first subject of that verb that is a final term."

In contrast, on a purely morphological account, the fact that third person 'indirect object' agreement is sensitive to number only in inversion constructions (and conversely, third person 'subject' agreement is insensitive to number in exactly the same forms) follows directly and non-globally from the fact that exactly subjects trigger 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 sentences appear to be the same (with the exception of their tense), the claim that the datives in them bear different relations appears to be an inconsistency.

In fact, the phenomenon in question is rather widespread. Tschenkeli (1958, pp. 484-490) discusses it at some length, and cites some apparently near-minimal pairs:

(iii) a. kurd- i ga- e- p'ar- a p'oliciel- eb- s thief- NOM PVB- 3IO- escape- 3SBJ police- PL- DAT The thief escaped from the police. (emphasis: the thief managed to get away from the police)

b. p'oliciel- eb- s ga- e- p'ar- a- t kurd- i police- PL- DAT PVB- 3IO-escape- 3SBJ-PL thief- NOM The thief escaped from the police. (emphasis: the police are the affected ones, in that they had the misfortune to have the thief escape from them)

According to Tschenkeli, this apparently inverted use of relative instransitive verbs (evidenced by word order and especially by the possibility of plural agreement with an 'indirect object') arises specifically when the indirect object is interpreted not simply as a goal or 'undergoer' of the action described, but as affected by it or an experiencer of it.

This suggests the resolution of the apparent inconsistency in the sentences cited by Harris: for a large class of verbs, two interpretations are available which differ not in their basic sense, but rather in the way described by Tschenkeli. Since the morphological patterns associated with relative intransitive verbs and with inverted (class IV) verbs are almost identical, shifts between these classes usually have no formal reflection beyond that shown as the difference between (iia) and (iib), (iiia) and (iiib). We have to do here then not with an inconsistent description, or with optional number marking associated with syntactic indirect objects, but rather with switches between two inflectional classes depending on whether the dative NPs associated with certain verbs are interpreted as experiencer subjects or simply as affected goals.


triggers 'subject' or 'object' agreement markers, there is no way for it to reflect number in the third person. Naturally, it remains for us to substantiate this claim with an explicit analysis below, but it is clear that essential aspects of the syntactic account (in particular, the need to have syntactic inversion demote subjects to indirect objects before agreement applies) will necessitate a global statement of number agreement - something that might be avoided if subjects in inversion constructions remain subjects.

2.4. An alternative to the syntactic analysis

In the previous sections we have seen that while the syntactic treatment of 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 formulations of certain rules. Further, since the inversion construction necessitates a lexical rule linked to the morphology of inversion categories in at least some frameworks, it is worth asking how much of the work of describing the inversion construction can be done in this way.

On the basis of such considerations, a preliminary morphological formulation of inversion was proposed by Anderson (1982) in the context of a general discussion of inflectional morphology. That analysis was based on the theory of EXTENDED WORD AND PARADIGM morphology, originat- ing in proposals of Anderson (1977), and ultimately of Matthews (1972). As noted in the introduction to the present paper,.the central notion of that view of inflection is the replacement of specific morphemes (in the sense of minimal units pairing sound with meaning) by rules relating the form of an inflected word to its morphosyntactic representation. The latter is taken to be a complex symbol, containing features indicating the categories of inflectional morphology that are represented by the form in question. In these terms, Anderson (1982) proposed that inversion could be formulated as an operation on morphosyntactic representations alone, making no change whatsoever in the syntactic structure of sentences. Such an analysis removes inversion from the syntax in the usual sense, and treats it as strictly an aspect of the inflectional morphology of words.

Essential to the morphological description of inversion is the notion that morphosyntactic representations have internal structure, for it is this structure which is to be manipulated by the proposed rule. This proposal


was originally made by Anderson (1977), in the context of a description of the inflectional morphology of the Algonquian language Potowatomi. This- language, 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 agreement features must be kept distinct (since e.g. 'I saw you' and 'you saw me' are inflected differently). It was suggested that the difference between e.g. subject and object agreement features within the morphosyntactic representation of a single verb could be represented by a hierarchical structure5, in which one of the sets of features is treated as a unitary block co-ordinated with members of another set, 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 generalizations across the two sets which lead us to believe it would be inappropriate to treat this by simply duplicating the agreement features (distinguishing a feature [+lsg Subject] from another feature [+lsg Object], for example). In that case, we might assume that there are two parts to the agreement rule: one copying features from the object onto the verb, and one copying features from the subject. Assuming for concreteness' sake that the object agreement rule operates first, once it has applied the verb will be characterized for agreement features. 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 morphosyntactic representation. 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 specified only once and thus do not come under the domain of the convention in question. For further discussion of the mechanics of this proposal, see Anderson (1982) and references there.

With reference to Georgian, we see that up to 'three layers of hierar-

5 Hierarchical organization is not, of course, the only possible way to reflect formally the structure which must be attributed to morphosyntactic representations. Ordered n-tuples of feature sets, for example, would do as well. Any representation which keeps the various sets of inflectional features apart, and allows for the statement of a subordination convention, would do as well. We choose hierarchical structure simply for concreteness' sake; it is not clear what sort of evidence would allow us to distinguish among the various formal possibilities available.


chical structure must 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 morphosyntactic representation of verbs corresponds basically to the features of the subject (at least in non-inverted forms), and thus is used to trigger markers from the v-series. The innermost layer, in contrast, can be taken to correspond to the direct object, and to trigger m-series markers; an intermediate layer corresponds to an indirect object, and triggers markers from the h-, u-, e-, or a- series (depending on the particular verb).

We could then treat the basic morphosyntactic representations of class I (transitive) verbs as in (27a) below. Drawing on the analogy between class I and class III (medial intransitive) verbs in their inflection, we could suggest that the latter have the same, two-layered structure, except that the inner layer is necessarily specified as an 'inflectional dummy': 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 correspond to any subcategorized argument, it does not represent a syntactic dependent of the verb. It also does not correspond to any distinguishable aspect of the logical form of medial verbs (though insofar as membership in 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 operating on morphosyntactic representations, which has the effect of extracting the innermost layer of a two-layered structure, adjoining it as a new outermost layer, and leaving an 'inflectional dummy' as its trace:

(28) Inversion: [ X person/number [ person/number ] ] 1 2 3

-- 3+[ 1 2 [ 0,3sg Condition: X includes "Series III" or "Class IV"

Rule (28), of course, has no effect whatsoever on the syntactic structure of clauses in which the affected morphosyntactic representations appear since it applies only to the latter. The result of applying it to (27a) will be to convert that structure into a three layered one like (29):

(29) [tense/aspect, Direct Object [ Subject [0, 3sg]]]


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 'indirect object' markers - exactly the correct result for the agreement properties of 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 provides a potential way of resolving the 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 expand the range of verb classes covered by the analysis, and also provide a mechanism of (surface) case marking that is integrated with it. It is to these tasks that we now turn.

3. Developing the morphological analysis

In the previous section, a preliminary account of inversion was sketched that treats this phenomenon as morphological rather than syntactic in character. As the basis of that analysis, a schematic view of the morphosyntactic representation of Georgian verbs was presented, and a concrete proposal was made concerning the morphosyntactic representations of class I and class III verbs. In order to give this account enough substance to make it a serious competitor with Harris' syntactic analysis of inversion, there are a number of areas in which it must be developed: a) the range of verb classes included must be extended to cover all of those that are distinguished in the traditional classification; b) the assumptions made about the operation of agreement must be translated into 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 Extending the analysis to other verb classes

The usual classifications of 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-inverted structure are distinguished from others; following Harris, we refer to these as 'class I'. Secondly, among the intransitive verbs the medials are distinguished from the non-medials on several grounds: in part these concern the verb-internal morphology (e.g., formation of the future stem of medials with preradical vowel i- and stem


formant -eb, rather than with 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-medials are treated as class II, while the medials are assigned to class III. Finally, the verbs which show inversion in all tense series are treated separately as class IV.

The analysis suggested 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 indirect objects (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 similarities between 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 parameter which cross-classifies with them: the ability of a verb to govern syntactically an (agreeing) indirect object. Since the inversion construction does not allow for agreement with a NP other than the subject and direct object, this possibility does not arise within class IV; but in classes I, II, and III we must distinguish RELATIVE 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., forms with and without an indirect object) exist for the same basic verb; as these differ in their inflection (reflecting the extra argument present in the relative form), they must be distinguished in the morphology.

In the previous section, we introduced the notion of hierarchically structured representations of the agreement features of verbs. Using the abbreviations Fsbj, 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 appropriate for agreement with a third person singular argument but uncorrelated with any NP in the sentence, we recapitulate the proposed treatment of the agreement structure of class I and class III verbs in (27) as (30)

(30) I: [T/A, FSbj [ FDO]]

III: [T/A, FSbj [O]]

The morphosyntactic representations of relative forms of these verbs


ought to differ from (30) by containing an additional layer of structure; on the assumptions made above about the operation of the rules spelling out agreement, the layer showing agreement with an indirect object ought to be the middle one of three. This yields the following schematic representations for relative class I and III verbs:

(31) I: [T/A, FSbj [ FIO [ FDO]]]

III: [T/A, Fsbj [ FIo [ 0 ] ] ]

From the description of inversion in 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 syntactically independent phrase. There are two approaches we could take to these facts: either we could assume that inversion, as a side effect, converts an indirect object 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 syntactically independent phrase.

Of these two approaches, it is the former that is taken in Harris' analysis. As a general principle of Relational Grammar, when any rule assigns some relation to an argument, any other argument that (previously) was assigned that relation becomes a 'chomeur'. When Harris' rule of In- version demotes a subject to indirect object, then, any existing indirect object becomes an indirect object chomeur; such arguments are later marked with the post-position -tvis.

Since the morphological account of inversion being developed here does not involve any re-arrangement of syntactic structure, such an approach is not open to us. Instead, we claim simply that relative verbs 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 samajuri cem- tvis apparently Rezo- DAT 310- gave- 3SBJ bracelet me- for

Apparently Rezo gave me a bracelet.

b. rezo- m m- acuk- a samajuri Rezo- EGR 1 SGIO- gave- 3SBJ bracelet

Rezo gave me a bracelet.


But if we thus claim that it is a non-relative verb which appears inverted in (32a), how do we account for its apparent synonymy (apart from tense and aspect) with the relative form in (32b), which is in the aorist and 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 apparently present in the interpretation of 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 question is assigned not directly by the verb, but indirectly by the post-position -tvis. The situation is thus completely analogous to that in the English passive, where both the Govemment/Binding theory and Lexical Functional Grammar claim that the subject's (agent) semantic (or theta) role is assigned indirectly by the preposition by; a similar move is argued for by Marantz (1981).

The claim that the post-position -tvis can assign a semantic role which is alternatively assigned directly by a verb to its indirect object is a necessary one in Georgian grammar in any event. For one thing, quite independent of the inversion construction, it is often (though not always) possible to paraphrase a relative verb by a non-relative form plus a tvis-phrase (Tschenkeli 1958, p. 383):

(33) a. me v- u- sxam st'umar-s vino- s I 1SBJ-3IO-pour guest- DAT wine-ACC

I pour out wine for the guest.

b. me v- asxam st'umrisa- tvis vino- s I 1 SBJ- pour guest- for wine- ACC

I pour out wine for the guest.

Secondly, such indirect assignment of semantic roles is also necessary in connection with oblique dependents of non-finite forms:

(34) a. vasli v- iqide masc'avleblis-tvis misacemad apple 1SBJ- bought teacher- for to-give I bought an apple to give to the teacher.

b. sacukari jneli- a anzoris-tvis misacemad gift difficult- is Anzor- for to-give

Gifts are difficult to give to Anzor.

Sentence (34a) involves a purpose clause, and (34b) a raised object. Both


constructions involve a non-finite form which cannot govern an indirect object directly; in such a case, the semantic role 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 alternative is simply to recognize -tvis as a potential indirect assigner of the semantic roles which can be assigned directly by finite relative verbs to their indirect objects.

We can conclude from these facts that only non-relative verbs of classes I and III need undergo inversion (ignoring class IV for the present) in the presence of Series III tenses, but if that is the case, it must be explained how inversion is blocked in the corresponding relative forms. We suggest that this follows from an independently necessary constraint: if rule (28) above applied to representations such as those in (31), the result would be a morphosyntactic representation with four layers, not three - and such a representation could not be translated by the rules that supply the overt markers of morphological categories (recall that agreement distinguishes exactly three categories of agreeing element). In conformity with this, we propose that the grammar of Georgian effectively filters out any representations with more than three layers of structure:

(35) *[ W[X[ Y[z]]]]

This effect of the morphology is independently motivated by the need to block certain other constructions, such as causatives of 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 forms are cited in the Georgian grammatical literature that seem to call for agreement with four NPs, two of which are apparently indirect objects. These are generally not found in the standard language, and their existence as other than abstract grammatical possibilities (e.g., as causatives of causatives of transitive verbs) is not at all clear. George Hewitt (personal communication) points out a particularly fascinating example from a fairy story for children appearing in the Georgian newspaper for Georgians abroad Samsoblo:

aramc da aramc eg erl'emali xar- eb- s ar not and not that ram bull- PL- ACC not mo- mi- k'vlevino- t PVB- 1SGIO-let-kill- 2PL Under no circumstances are you to let the bulls kill that ram for me.

As Hewitt notes, "If 4-place verbs are interpretable by children from fairy-tales, we should perhaps be careful about dismissing them from practical grammars of the language." Nonetheless, their marginal status is clear. We have nothing further to say here about these forms.


1971, Harris 1981); it will also have the effect of blocking inversion in relative forms of class I and III verbs.

3.1.2 Verbs of class II

We turn now to the non-medial intransitive verbs, or class II. In their non-relative forms, these are maximally simple 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 attribute any structure to their morphosyntactic representation beyond that in (36):

(36) [T/A, FSbj]

We have remarked above that inversion applies to (non-relative) verbs of classes I and III but fails to apply to class II; but there is no difficulty in explaining this fact. The structural description of rule (28) above calls for a morphosyntactic representation with (at least) two layers of structure, and if the structure in (36) is assigned to non-relative class II verbs, these will fail to meet that requirement. Their failure to invert thus follows 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 assumptions we have made thus far about the relation between layers of structure in a morphosyntactic representations and classes of agreement elements, we would like to assign these verbs a representation with three layers of structure, the middle one of which is occupied by the features of the indirect object. This leaves two layers to be filled; we propose that in these verbs, the subject agreement features are marked in the innermost layer, and the outermost layer is filled by an inflectional dummy:

(37) [T/A, 0 [ FoI [ Fsbj ]]]

As with other relative verbs, these fail to undergo inversion in Series III tenses. Representation (37) immediately accounts for that fact, since rule (28) would convert it into a structure violating (35).

This representation expresses the similarities between subjects of class II verbs and objects of transitive verbs (captured in Harris' analysis by treating class II subjects as underlying objects, and having them undergo the 'unaccusative' rule). In particular, many class II forms are passives corresponding to transitive verbs of class I. On the present analysis, what subjects of class II verbs have in common with direct objects of class I verbs is agreement with an innermost layer of morphosyntactic structure,


not the underlying grammatical relation they bear in their clause. The most unusual feature of (37) is undoubtedly the fact that it contains

an obligatory inflectional dummy in its outermost structural layer. We have already suggested the existence of such dummies in the charac- terization we gave of the inflectional representations of medial verbs, but in fact they must be more widely distributed than this. For example, the assumption that the lexical representations of 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 inflected as if they took an indirect object but with which no non-dummy indirect object can appear. A number of other verbs in Georgian show such purely formal inflection for elements which cannot appear among their arguments (Tschenkeli et al. 1960-74); the notion of inflectional dummies in morphosyntactic representation provides an apparatus which is necessary to describe these facts.

3.1.3 A morphological 'unaccusative' rule

At this point, we have suggested schematic morphosyntactic representations for Georgian verbs of classes I-III, and also for relative forms. A problem arises in connection with the representation suggested for relative verbs of class II, however. If we continue to assume that the normal verb agreement rule inserts a subject marker in accord with the features on the outermost layer of structure (as in all other classes of verbs considered thus far), this will fail to give the correct results for relative class II verbs if their subjects features are indeed located on the innermost layer of a three-layer structure. The obvious alternative, that of treating relative class II verbs as having the structure in (38), is unsatisfactory because this is the same representation assigned to relative verbs of class III, and the two sets must be kept distinct for inflectional and case-marking purposes.

(38) [FSbj [FIO [ 0 ] ] ]

The other possibility is to assume that relative verbs of class II have the morphosyntactic representation (37) at the time they are inserted into a structure, and that it is this representation that is relevant to the assignment of case (see section 3.3 below); but that internal to the set of morphological rules which develop the actual surface form of an inflected verb, these representations undergo a morphological restructuring so that their subject features appear in the correct position. Such a rule would be the morphological analog of Harris' 'Unaccusative':


(39) 'Unaccusative' [ X 0 [ Y Z] ] ] 12 3 4 1 4 [3 [0]]]

Rule (39) substitutes the content of an innermost layer of a three- layered structure for an inflectional dummy in the outermost layer, leaving a dummy as its trace. The effect is to cause specified features in such a representation to trigger v-series affixes, instead of m-series ones. Clearly, this rule is directly analogous to the Unaccusative rule posited in Harris' analysis; but with the difference that, since it affects only the morphosyntactic representation of words, it does not entail any movement or other alteration in syntactic structure.

But now we can observe that rule (39) performs a change which duplicates part of rule (28) (Inversion): the transfer of features from an innermost layer of structure to the outermost layer. 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 Inversion rule (28), in that part of the syntax which is responsible for the construction of the morphosyntactic representation relevant to case marking and agreement.

(40) Inversion: Series III X[ Y] ] 1 2 3

[ 1 0 [ 2 [ 3]]]

Rule (40) must apply in the syntax, and feeds rule (39), which applies to morphosyntactic representations in the course of the development of inflected word forms in the phonology. The latter rule will thus perform the required restructuring on inversion forms as well as on the relative class II forms for which it was originally motivated.

The Inversion rule (40) operates on the morphosyntactic representation of a verb, and has the consequence that a 'dummy' layer of agreement is present in the outermost layer of structure when 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 agreement in inverted clauses, but there is still something unsettling about rule (40). As it stands, it compromises somewhat our claim that Inversion should be treated as a fact about inflectional morphology, 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-


ping such an alternative (in section 3.4 below), we must first detail our assumptions about the operation of case marking and agreement.

3.2 The description of Georgian verb agreement

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 necessary now to provide a more explicit account of the way in which the necessary morphosyntactic representations underlying this morphology are developed.

We assume, in line with Anderson (1982), that there are two aspects to this issue. On the one hand, a morphosyntactic representation of inflected words is developed within the syntax, without direct reference to the peculiarities of individual lexical items that might eventually be inflected in accord with it. Within the lexicon, on the other hand, individual items are provided with some inflectional specifications that indicate their local idiosyncrasies. At a minimum, for instance, lexical items in virtually all languages are characterized as [+Noun], [+Verb], etc. (or perhaps for some other set of features which make the same divisions among major word class).

Individual stems within the lexicon may be more narrowly specified: thus, for example, the stem thought in English is characterized specifically as [+Verb, +Past], while think -is simply [+Verb]. We presume that lexical stems are grouped together into paradigms of items differing only in inflectional properties. When a lexical item comes to be inserted into a phrase marker, it is associated with a particular position; this position is identified inflectionally by the morphosyntactic representation developed for it in the syntax. The stem that is inserted in such a position is then that member of the relevant paradigm which is most specifically characterized, consistent with the morphosyntactic representation of the position in question.

For concreteness' sake, we assume here that the overall grammar in which this account is embedded follows the lines of the Govern- ment/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 assumptions just 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 marker reflects the properties of a particular structure; since INFL will


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 inflectional properties in terms of how many layers of structure they are inflected for, and whether any of these layers are required to be null.

We assume that Georgian has (at least) enough configurational structure to allow subject, direct and indirect object to be distinguished, either directly in phrase structure representations or indirectly in functional structure (on the assumptions of 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-order generalizations. 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 inflectionally relevant features from the arguments of a verb in order to construct the representation of agreement in INFL. This representation is initially characterized only for tense and aspect (in terms of an appropriate feature system, in particular one that recognizes the division of Georgian 'screeves' or tense/aspect categories into three series). We then formulate the following agreement rules:

(41) a. (obligatory) Copy referential index and person/number features from Direct Object or if there is no Direct Object, copy index and features from the Subject

b. (optional) Copy referential index and person/number features from Indirect Object

c. (optional) Copy referential index and person/number features from Subject

d. (optional) Add null reference and 3sg features

Presumably, rules such as those in (41) should be formulated within an appropriate general 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 assume that such a set of rules constitutes a scHEMA in that they interact as a unit with other rules, and that there is a significant internal


organization to the set; though again, in the absence of a comprehensive theory of agreement, it is difficult to substantiate these assumptions here. Besides these general properties, a number of remarks are called for 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 material is organized into an inner layer of structure by general convention (as proposed in Anderson 1977a, 1982). As a result, (41) constructs multi-layered structures with respect to the agreement features. The tense/aspect features remain in the outermost layer, since no additional features from this group are assigned beyond those generated in the base. Naturally, if (41) were to lead to a structure with four layers, such a representation would be blocked by (35). Thus, at least one of the four sub-rules in (41) must fail to apply in any given representation if a well-formed structure is to be obtained.

2) [+Plural] is only copied from non-subjects in the presence of first or second person. This could be accomplished in at least two ways: either a rule might make all third person non-subjects [-Plural]; or else the constraint could be built into (41) directly. Largely for aesthetic reasons, we prefer to assume that non-subject third person NPs 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 generalization must be 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 agreement if a non-subject.

3) Finally, we assume that any of the rules in (41) may introduce an empty referential index with 3sg agreement features (i.e., an inflectional dummy) instead of copying. Note that this operation (equivalent to applying rule (41d) instead) will in general only yield well-formed results if the grammatical position referred to by the sub-rule in question is not filled; as we will see in the next section, if an NP in an argument position 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 necessary to allow case-assignment to this position. The possibility of inserting inflectional dummies instead of actual agreement material does not represent a syntactic fact about the language, but rather reflects the fact that a number of different inflectional types exist for the verbs in the lexicon, corresponding to the various classes we have discussed above.


Though we will not demonstrate this fact in detail here, it should be clear that the rules in (41) allow us to produce morphosyntactic representations corresponding to all of the inflectional classes we have posited above. Examples will be provided below of lexical entries that correspond to each of the possibilities allowed within this schema.

3.3 Case marking

We must now provide an account of the assignment of case to the NPs that serve as arguments of Georgian verbs. It will be recalled from sections 1 and 2 that case marking, like agreement, varies from one construction to another; one of the advantages of Harris' syntactic analysis of inversion is the fact that it provides a direct account of the differences between case marking in inversion and non-inversion structures. We must thus show that the morphological description can do as well.

Implicit in the analysis developed thus far is the claim that case marking is effected by a set of rules which take into account the morphosyntactic representation in 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 referential index of such NPs and this element. Let us call this relation 'co-superscripting', and assume that it forms a subcase of the relation of PROPER GOVERNMENT (cf. Chomsky 1981 and related work). Using the ad hoc notation '/pg' to mean 'when properly governed by', we can formulate the case-marking rules as follows:

(42) a. NPi [+Ergative] /pg [+Series II, i [X]] b. NPi [+Dative] /pg I X [ i [ Y ]] ] c. NPi [+Accus.] /pg [-Series II, j [ i]]

or /pg [-Series II, j [ X[ i]]] d. NPi --)[+Nominative] /pg [+V]

Rule (42a) assigns ergative case to NPs that are co-super-scripted with the outer layer of a representation which contains (at least) two layers, and which bears a tense from Series II. The rule thus applies to the subjects of 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 features of such a subject NP with a relative


class II verb only come to be in the outer layer of structure in the course of the operation of the rules developing the inflectional form of verbs within the phonology. At the point the case marking rules apply (essentially, at the end of the syntax), these features are still in the innermost layer of the morphosyntactic representation.

Rule (42b) assigns dative case to a NP which is co-super-scripted with the middle layer of a three-layer representation. This class includes exactly the indirect objects of relative verbs (of any class), and the subjects of inversion verbs (which come to occupy the middle layer as a result of the operation of rule (40)).

Rule (42c) assigns accusative case (syncretic, it will be recalled, with the dative).This rule applies only in tenses other than those of Series II (in fact, only in Series I, though this fact does not have to be separately noted), and affects NPs that are co-superscripted with a layer of the morphosyntactic representation which is not the outermost. This rule further requires that the outermost layer be co-superscripted with some argument; this prevents the assignment of accusative to the subjects of relative class II verbs and the direct objects of 'inverted' verbs. The two sub-cases of this rule could be unified as '/pg [-Series II, j[(X)[i]]]' under some convention to the effect that whenever an (X) option is not taken, the vacuous layer of brackets disappears.

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-superscripted with some layer of morphosyntactic agreement structure. this includes: a) subjects of Series I verbs, regardless of 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 restriction in 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 disjunctive ordering that applies to the schema: with respect to a given NP, the rules are applied in sequence, and once a given rule has applied no further rules are examined.

This mechanism (or something like it) is a necessary part of the grammar of Georgian, since the occurring differences of overt (or 'surface') case must be described in some way. Given it, however, no additional device of 'abstract' Case (cf. Chomsky 1981) is necessary: we need only say that every overt NP must be assigned a surface case. As we remarked in the preceding section, it is this requirement that ensures that every argument of a verb will be marked in its agreement representation, since if some NP were not so marked, rule (42) could not apply to assign it a surface case,


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 apparatus necessary to account for the surface distribution of elements in a rich inflectional (case marking) system obviates an appeal to the rather more abstract notion Chomsky makes use of for English and other languages with minimal overt marking of NPs. Further investigation is clearly warranted of the difference between languages in which the notion of abstract Case is motivated and those in which it can be dispensed with.

3.4 A refinement of the Inversion rule

Returning to the Inversion rule (40), we can note that it operates on the morphosyntactic representation in INFL, and that its consequence is effectively to render 'dummy agreement' in the outermost layer of structure (rule (41d) above) obligatory when the verb belongs to Class IV or is in a series III tense.

Thus far we have said nothing about the morphosyntactic representations of class IV verbs. We know that they must undergo inversion, which we now see consists in the addition of an outer-layer inflectional dummy to a representation which is otherwise that of a class I or III verb. We could ensure exactly this effect if we were to represent Class IV verbs lexically with an inflectional structure containing a dummy outer layer: [0 [-{-]]] (where '0' indicates a specified dummy and '-' indicates a position whose content is not further specified). A verb with such an inflectional representation could not be inserted unless (41d) had applied.

This is precisely the same as the representation given to relative verbs of class II (reflecting the fact that both are inflected precisely with 'subject' and 'indirect object' markers); the two differ in that relative class II verbs are subcategorized to take an indirect object, while class IV verbs are subcategorized for a direct object. As a consequence of this difference in argument structure, and its effect on the operation of rule (41), the same inflectional material will correspond to very different positions in 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, eliminating altogether the need for a distinct Inversion rule in the syntax. Since the Perfect stem is formally idiosyncratic to a certain extent, 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


outer-layer inflectional dummy superimposed on the representation of a class I or III verb. We can accomplish this by including, in the lexical rule which forms the Perfect stem, the following systematic relation between the inflectional representations of 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 required in order to specify the redistribution of semantic roles between inverted and non-inverted structures (at least on the assumptions of Government/Binding theory or of Lexical Functional Grammar). This function of the rule is not necessary on the analysis developed here, since semantic roles are in general associated with a constant syntactic position. All we need say is that Perfect stems differ in their inflectional representation from the other stems of a given verb in the way specified in (43). Of course, we must also include the fact that a semantic role which would be assigned to an indirect object of a relative verb can be indirectly assigned by the postposition -tvis in association with the Perfect stem of a corresponding non-relative verb.

We must also include whatever information can be systematized about the formal characteristics of the Perfect stem; for instance, the fact that the Perfect stem involves replacement of any pre-radical vowel by i- (and the addition of this vowel to stems that otherwise do not have a pre-radical vowel). As an example, the verb (da=)a+nt+eb 'light (a fire)', with subcategorization frame [ DO] and inflectional representation [-[-] ] (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 characterized by a three-layer morphosyntactic representation, 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). Inversion verbs share this property with relative verbs of class II, as well as the applicability of rule (39), Unaccusative, in the course of the phonological development of the surface form of such verbs.

3.5 Residual issues

Before concluding, there are some points which require additional dis-


cussion. Among these are the phenomenon of object camouflage, the way in which the several parts of the morphological analysis interact with each other, the resolution of problems raised by the syntactic analysis, and finally an illustration of the lexical characteristics attributed to various sorts of verbs under the present analysis.

3.5.1 Object Camouflage

We noted in section 1 that there is one set of circumstances under which the morphology of verb agreement in Georgian is unable to manifest the relation between a verb and all of its arguments. This problem arises when the verb has a non-third person 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 illustrated by the sentences in (44):

(44) a. vano anzor- s a- dareb- s givi- s Vano Anzor- ACC 3IO- compare- 3SBJ Givi- DAT

Vano is comparing Anzor to Givi.

b.*vano (sen) g- a- dareb- s givi- s Vano you 2DO- 3IO- compare- 3SBJ Givi- DAT

(Vano is comparing you to Givi.)

c. vano sens tav- s a- dareb- s givi- s Vano your self- ACC 3IO- compare- 3SBJ Givi- DAT

Vano is comparing you to Givi.

Sentence (44a) shows that the verb (se=) a-dareb 'compare' takes both a direct and an indirect object; but from the ungrammaticality of (44b) we can see that when the indirect object is present, the direct object cannot be second person. Parallel examples would show the same thing for first person direct objects. Instead, the construction that is used is that in (44c): the expression sens tavs (ceems tavs 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 grammatically third person, the constraint is not violated.

In the course of her analysis, Harris (1981, pp. 48ff.) proposes to account for these facts by generating first and second person direct objects freely, but then converting them to possessive pronoun + tavi phrases if the


clause contains an indirect object. Within a theory (such as Govern- ment/Binding or Lexical Functional Grammar) that disallows structure- building rules, pronominalization transformations, and the like, such an analysis would be excluded. The only available alternative is to generate the possessive + tavi phrases directly, and then account separately for a) the absence of normal first and second person direct objects in the presence of an indirect object; and b) the non-reflexive interpretation of the possessive + tavi phrase.

In fact, the grammar must generate possessive + tavi phrases in any event, to wit, the tav-reflexives we referred to in earlier sections of this paper. The problem is that these are normally interpreted as reflexive anaphors, and must be c-commanded by a coreferential subject within their clause. This latter property (on the assumptions of Chomsky 1981, for example) is a consequence of their lexical status as [+Anaphor]; but in the object camouflage construction (44c), no such antecedent is present (or necessary).

What we need to say, then, is that first and second person anaphors are (exceptionally) [-Anaphor] under the conditions of the object camouflage construction. Since possessive + tavi phrases are not possible with [-Anaphor] interpretation outside of these circumstances, we propose that a special rule of interpretation is involved:

(45) [NP + m

possessive + tavi ]i /pg [ X [ Y [ i]]] .+you Optionally , [-Anaphor] (where X, Y are non-null)

Although this rule allows us to generate the correct interpretation for (44c), it does not yet account for the ungrammaticality of (44b). The reason for the absence of such sentences is apparent: they directly reflect a limitation of the expressive possibilities of the morphology of verb agreement, since a non-null m-series marker and an indirect object marker would compete for the same 'slot' in the morphology of the verb form. The situation is thus the same as for the filter (35), which prevents verbs inflected for more than three arguments: there is simply not enough formal apparatus available to accommodate such cases. The grammar thus behaves as if the following filter applied to morphosyntactic representations:

(46) +me


Ideally, we should be able to derive both (35) and (46) as theorems from general constraints on the operation of the rules of morphological expression; but since the purpose of this paper is to examine the syntactic side of agreement morphology rather than 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 a7nalysis without excessive difficulty. It might be objected that we have decomposed a single phenomenon into two separate, complementary parts: rule (45), and the constraint in (46). This does not seem an implausible move, however, since we maintain that there are indeed two aspects to the phenomenon: a) the impossibility of certain verb forms, and b) a special interpretation of otherwise-reflexive expressions which allows the missing meanings to be expressed. Only by decomposing the facts in the above way does it seem possible, for instance, to look for an explanation of the constraint in (46) along the lines suggested in the preceding paragraph.

3.5.2 Interaction of agreement, case marking, and inversion

The account presented above involves several distinct components: a) a set of case-marking rules; b) a set of agreement rules; c) a set of lexical representations, including lexical rules which express systematic relations among these; and d) a set of rules which formally realize the verbal forms corresponding to the morphosyntactic representations of the inflectional categories of words (in particular, verbal agreement morphology). It is necessary to say a few words about the ways in which these elements of the analysis interact.

We note first that the case marking rules (42) cannot (intrinsically) apply until after the creation of an indexed morpho-syntactic representation in INFL by means of the Agreement rules (41). Since the only syntactic reflex 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 ordering of 'Inversion' and Case marking thus follows automatically.

Within the phonology, surface forms of words are developed. A preliminary step in this process is the re-arrangement of morphosyntactic representations performed by Unaccusative (39); this is followed by (morphological) verb agreement marking. Morphological agreement is the schema (still within the phonology) which introduces v-series markers in agreement with the outermost layer of morphosyntactic structure,


h-,u-,e- or a-series markers in agreement with a middle layer (second of three), and m-series markers in agreement with the innermost of two or three layers. Since the rules of Case marking apply in the syntax, they are naturally insensitive to the effects of Unaccusative (which applies in the phonology).

3.5.3 Resolution of the problems presented by a syntactic view

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 number of problems arose on that view, it will be recalled, which related to the central claim of the syntactic inversion analysis that the surface grammatical relations of inversion clauses were different from the underlying grammatical relations. Since the morphological analysis does not posit any such reorganization of grammatical relations in inversion clauses, such problems as those of improperly bound traces and the statement of word order and rule interactions without recourse to global formulations obviously do 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 interesting one. Recall that on the syntactic analysis, a global formulation of this rule was inevitable: agreement cannot operate until after Inversion (and Unaccusative); but at this point it is necessary to say that third person 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 morphological feature 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 appear in conjunction with [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 representation at a time, however. The limited circumstances in which plural marking cor-


relates with a third person marker from an indirect object series are thus described without the use of global rules; indeed, there is no possible role for globality to play in this phenomenon, since no structurally distinct syntactic representations are involved in the analysis.

TABLE III Sample lexical entries for verbs of various types

Subcateg. Inflection Class I (transitive verbs):

(da=)c'er 'write' [_ DO] [-[-] da=i+c'er+i [perfect stem] [ DO] [+Ser. III 0[-[-D] (no=)p'ar+av 'steal s.t. from s.o.' [ DO, IO] [-[- [-m (da=)i+mat'+eb 'add s.t. to s.t.' [ DO, 10] [-[- [-m (da=)i+k'r+av 'play (an instrument)' [ DO] [-[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.' [ 10] [0 [4-]] (mi=)e+c'er+eb 'be written to s.o.' [ 10] [0[-[-]

Class III (medial intransitives):

qep 'bark' [-] [-[0D] i+qepn+i [perfect stem] [] [+Ser. III 0 [-[0]]]

(da=)i+qep 'bark at s.o.' [ IO] [-[-[0] i+cin+i 'laugh' [_] [-[0]] (da=)cin+i 'laugh at s.o.' [ IO] [-[-[0]D c vim 'rain' [] [0 [0]]

Class IV ("Indirect" verbs)

i+qvar 'love' [ DO] [0 [-[-]] a+k'l+i 'lack' [ DO] [0 [-[-]] gon+i 'think, seem [ (DO)] [0 [-[-]1 jin+av 'sleep' [-] [0 [-[0]]


3.5.4 Examples of lexical representations

Recall that in order for a specific verb to be lexically inserted into a given syntactic structure, it is necessary that the structure in which it is to appear a) satisfy its subcategorization requirements, and b) contain a morphosyntactic complex symbol that is consistent with its lexically assigned inflectional representation. The various classes of verbs distinguished in the traditional schema differ in respect of these properties; however, there are also differences among verbs within the same class. Examples of some lexical specifications are given in table III above. Note in particular that although we have only provided a small number of Perfect stem entries, as examples, this does not imply that other verbs do not have such additional stems in their lexical representations. Quite independent of the question of such additional stems characterized for a particular tense or series of tenses, most verb roots in Georgian are capable of serving as the bases of a large number of somewhat idiosyncratic formations, and a glance at Tschenkeli et al. (1960-74) will quickly convince the reader of how much more there is to be said about any Georgian verb.

4. CONCLUSIONS

In the preceding sections, we have developed the principal components of an analysis of verbal agreement, case-marking, inversion, and related phenomena in Georgian. The most important aspect of this treatment throughout has been the extent to which it is a description of the .morphology of the language, employing mechanisms necessary for the description of inflectional morphology rather than the mechanisms of syntax. In particular, no alterations of syntactic structure are 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 morphological analysis of this paper differs in fundamental ways from the syntactic treatment of Harris (1981, 1982, 1983), there are also many obvious similarities. For example, both analyses make use of a rule of 'Unaccusative', with somewhat similar functions. Both differentiate the subjects of class II and class III verbs by treating the former as having similarities to direct objects of other verbs, where the subjects of class III verbs are similar to transitive subjects. Other parallels could be added; the major difference remains the fact that the present analysis locates these


parts of the grammar of Georgian in the inflectional morphology of the language, while Harris locates them in syntactic rules and structures.

This difference is hardly surprising. The theory of Relational Grammar, within which her analysis is formulated, cannot be said to contain an explicit theory of morphology, in the sense of a set of systematic mechanisms for relating the inflectional properties of words and their role in a syntactic structure to their surface form. Once we provide a morphological framework in which to discuss these issues we see that Harris' insights about the structure of the language are fundamentally correct, and can be maintained in larger part, but that they pertain to the morphology rather than to the syntax.

Beyond the basic descriptive issue of how to treat inversion, however, the analysis above justifies a certain number of broader conclusions, not limited to Georgian. We take up some of these below, in increasing order of their generality.

4.1 Class markers

In the analysis defended here, the several classes of Georgian verbs are differentiated lexically in terms of independently motivated 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 uniquely identified by the combination of subcategorization requirements and inflectional properties for which they are lexically specified. In fact, all of the various Georgian verb classes are now uniquely specified in this way, and no separate arbitrary markers of conjugation class membership are necessary at all in the lexicon.

On Harris' analysis, she argues (1981, pp. 228ff.) that conjugation class markers are similarly unnecessary, though they are used throughout her description as a purely expository convenience. The inflectional pattern of a given verb is supposed to follow from the set of arguments it takes, together with the locations of these in (underlying the surface) syntactic structure. While this is surely true (given her syntactic assumptions) for membership in classes 1, 2, and 3, the fact that a verb belongs to class 4 is not similarly deducible from the pattern of its arguments: rather, this is related to the fact that it undergoes inversion. The morphological property of class 4 inflection must thus be accessible to the syntactic rule of Inversion, or else the specific derivational history of the structure in which a verb appears must be accessible to the rules of inflection. Either of these is a variety of interaction between word formation processes and syntactic


structure which a restrictive theory would like to exclude; they are unnecessary on an analysis like the present one, in which the locality of reference of inflectional properties is preserved.

Naturally, the elimination of arbitrary markers of inflectional class membership (other than structurally motivated aspects of the form of words belonging to such classes) is defended here only for Georgian; but it remains to be seen whether, in other languages where arbitrary partitions of the lexicon are generally posited to account for differences in inflectional properties, it may not be possible to reduce this arbitrariness in light of independently motivated properties of lexical entries. For example, in those Romance languages where verbs are traditionally organized into arbitrary classes ('first conjugation', 'second conjugation', etc.), it seems quite likely that representations of verb stems provided with a thematic vowel in the lexicon could eliminate the need for such an unilluminating division (cf. Platt 1981 for one such attempt).

The point is a moderately subtle one, since it could be maintained that the theme vowels simply act as diacritics on such an analysis of Romance verb classes. It can be argued, however, that the morphology must contain some principle to insert these vowels in any event, and that prohibiting any subdivision of verb stems other than one which is substantively motivated in such a way yields a more restrictive theory than one which allows explicit diacritics unrelated to any unitary structural characteristic of the forms they categorize. Naturally, the validity of this suggestion is impossible to assess clearly until it has been explored in more concrete detail in actual analyses.

4.2 The nature of 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-syntactic representations in INFL, which eventually determine agreement in verbs, and the NPs they agree with. Such co-indexing is familiar in the case of subject agreement, and in fact plays a crucial role in the Government/Binding theory 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 subcategorized arguments in 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 automatically properly governed, from which it follows


(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 agreement is necessary is 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 immediately preceded in linear order by the NP with which it is co-indexed. In fact, when one considers inflectional systems of even moderate complexity, the plausibility of 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 different from that obtaining between freely occurring NPs. In sentences containing a reflexive phrase, it is clear that the agreement element 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 separated in the morpho-syntactic representation of the verb. It is for such reasons that we have referred to 'co-superscripting' rather than 'co-indexing' as the relation obtaining between an argument and the morphosyntactic representation of agreement in the clause.

4.3 The nature of morphosyntactic representations

Finally, we conclude that analyses such as that presented here validate the notion of a morphosyntactic representation with significant internal structure, and of rules which create and manipulate such representations without effecting 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 straightforward relation to the syntactic structures in which they appear. Just as it would be extremely dangerous to generalize about the theory of segmental phonology on the basis solely of analyses of 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 grammatical structure is


relatively impoverished. A closer study of a language like Georgian suggests richer possibilities for the apparatus describing the traditional domain of inflection - possibilities which might be productively explored even in languages like English, where the data are not rich enough to motivate them by themselves.

REFERENCES

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Dept. of Linguistics University of California Los Angeles, CA 90024 U.S.A.

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