Georgian: ქევინს ანგარიში აქვს "ქართულ ბანკში

[winenous]

The dialogue of lesson 8 in Beginner's Georgian has the introductory sentence:
ქევინს ანგარიში აქვს "ქართულ ბანკში"
which supposedly translates as Kevin has an account at the Georgian Bank.

But to me it looks like the subject of the sentence is Kevin's account, and the sentence has no direct object. Can someone please explain what I am missing? Later in the dialogue there is a similar sentence that works more as I would expect, with account seemingly being the direct object:
შენც ამ ბანკში გაქვს ანგარიში?

 

[AndrasBP]

I don't think I know more Georgian than you do, but maybe I can help with this sentence because both Hungarian and Russian, my two native languages use similar structures to express possession (also Latvian and Celtic languages).

Instead of "I have" + an object, the literal translation would be "at me / to me / on me" + "there is" + a noun (in the nominative case).

As far as I understand, "ქევინს ანგარიში" does not mean "Kevin's account", which would be "ქევინის ანგარიში".
"ქევინს" is in the "dative/accusative" case, which is used with the verb აქვს and the other personal forms მაქვს, გაქვს, etc.
The sentence could be understood as:

ქევინს = "at Kevin", "in Kevin's possession"
ანგარიში = "an account"
აქვს = "there is", "exists"
ქართულ ბანკში = "at the Georgian Bank"

შენც ამ ბანკში გაქვს ანგარიში?

Take a look at the conjugation chart on page 284.

In the "dative/accusative" case, the personal pronouns მე, შენ, ჩვენ, თქვენ remain the same, but the 3rd person pronouns ის and ისინი change to მას and მათ.

I hope this helps.

 

[winenous]

It does help, thank you. I totally failed to spot that ქევინს was not genitive. I did think that probably აქვს somehow translated as exists, but could not see that translation in the places I looked. So you are saying that ანგარიში is the subject in both sentences, and შენ is dative/accusative in the second sentence, like ქევინს in the first. Is that right?

The final mystery for me is that the verb აქვს/გაქვს seems to conjugate according to the dative/accusative noun or pronoun, rather than the subject. But I seem to remember reading something about that, even if I have not found and read a full explanation yet.

I think that feature of Georgian was also the source of some of my earlier confusion about the informal and polite forms of thank you გმადლობ and გმადლობთ - the გ- and -თ indicate who is being thanked, not the thanker.

Thank you again for your help with the various Georgian questions I have posted here.

 

[AndrasBP]

So you are saying that ანგარიში is the subject in both sentences, and შენ is dative/accusative in the second sentence, like ქევინს in the first. Is that right?

Yes, that's right.

The final mystery for me is that the verb აქვს/გაქვს seems to conjugate according to the dative/accusative noun or pronoun, rather than the subject.

The Georgian verbal system is definitely a challenge.
Extreme suppletion doesn't help learners either:
"For example, in Georgian, the paradigm for the verb "to come" is composed of four different roots (di-, -val-, -vid-, and -sul-). "

 

[Ruzanna]

Kevin has an account.
This is the correct translation that you have provided and it has the subject and direct object too.
Just in Georgian it is reversed: Kevin account has, which sounds correct in Georgian and is a normal structure along with Kevin has an account. Both sound good in Georgian.

By the way, can you tell me what book is it or a link to that book? I would appreciate it.

 

[winenous]

Thank you Ruzanna. The book is Beginner's Georgian by Dodona Kiziria, Hippocrene Books.

It is not without faults, but seems to be the best available for starting to learn Georgian.

 

[Ruzanna]

Thanks.

 

[winenous]

Having got more into the language, I now see that to have is a Type 4 (or 4th Conjugation) verb in Georgian. And as a Type 4 verb the verb's subject takes the dative/accusative case, and the verb's object takes the nominative case. (Also, the verb conjugates according to the subject of the sentence, rather than the noun in the nominative case.)

@AndrasBP was quite right to point me to p284 of Beginner's Georgian for information on Type 4 verbs, but unfortunately there is an error on that page. The author writes "Subjects of [4th congugation] verbs are in the nominative, while direct objects are in the dative/accusative". That is, she gets it the wrong way round - which did not help!

 

[entangledbank]

That error has been fixed in the second printing, but it's an annoying book with many insulting things about the author written by hand in the section on phonetics . . . that's my handwriting. Then there's 'this' and 'that' the wrong way round on p.90, and numerous other places where I've fixed little things including the author's wrong ideas about other languages.

 

[Olaszinhok]

That error has been fixed in the second printing, but it's an annoying book with many insulting things about the author written by hand in the section on phonetics . . . that's my handwriting

I have been told that Dodona's textbook is probably the best one to learn Georgian for beginners. It is not that easy to find good learning materials, after all. Do you have any suggestions? Thank you in advance.
I don't actually know whether my request may be considered beyond the scope of this forum...

 

[winenous]

I would be happy to read and contribute to a discussion of Georgian learning material. I am not a moderator, but from my understanding of the site rules, that topic is OK in this forum, but we should stick to the original topic in this particular thread. Do you fancy kicking off a new topic?

 

[entangledbank]

Perhaps some errors were added in a later edition. To clarify: my edition is marked 'Second printing, 2010', and in it 'this' and 'that' are wrong on p.90, but the 4th Conjugation cases are correct on p.284: the sentence is exactly as you quote it, except with the correct case names! That doesn't give confidence in the revision, but I never did have much.

Yes, as a beginner's book you have to start with this, not with George Hewitt's Learner's Grammar in the Routledge series, which would have been very valuable as a reference grammar, but is much too complicated for beginners to work through. If I want to understand something I have to combine the two - and wish they'd always used the same terminology.

 

[winenous]

Perhaps some errors were added in a later edition. To clarify: my edition is marked 'Second printing, 2010', and in it 'this' and 'that' are wrong on p.90, but the 4th Conjugation cases are correct on p.284: the sentence is exactly as you quote it, except with the correct case names! That doesn't give confidence in the revision, but I never did have much.

Apologies to you, and the author of the book. Long story, but I effectively have 2 different printings which I wrongly assumed were the same. My comment about it not being fixed in the 5th printing was simply wrong, and I have now deleted it. But I am afraid that makes this comment of yours look odd.

 

[AndrasBP]

but it's an annoying book with many insulting things about the author written by hand in the section on phonetics . . . that's my handwriting.

Insulting? Written by hand?
What do you mean?

(feel free to send me a private message - I couldn't send you one)

 

[entangledbank]

Sorry, I just meant written by me because I got so exasperated with the author.

I have a very strict rule of never writing on books. I only do it to make factual corrections - like when 'this' and 'that' are in the wrong places, or the author has forgotten to mention 'I know nothing about phonetics and shouldn't have written all this rubbish.' I write in corrections like that.