Svan Verbs. Screeves, Evidentials and Preverbs

Table of contents

1. Introduction

2. Overview of the different prefixes and preverbs

3. The different screeves
3.1 The Present Screeve
3.2 The Imperfect Screeve
3.3 The Perfect Screeve
3.4 Further screeves

4. Evidentials
4.1. The Masdar

5. Further observations

6. Conclusion

References

1. Introduction

This paper can be understood as the second part of a first term paper dealing with Svan verbs (Kochem 2020). While the previous one aimed to the theoretical analysis of verbs in order to describe them accurately and group them into respective classes, this work attempts to approach the matter more practically by classifying and describing all the given verbs from the set of data into the patterns outlined in the first paper. The focus lies on the morphology and the classification of verbs and not on its usage or frequency.

All the verb forms used in this paper are either elicited by a native speaker of Svan with whom a class of students from the University of Bamberg worked for two continuous terms, or sorted out of a few hours long recorded dialogue between this very speaker of the Svan language and an elderly woman from and in a Svan village, accessible as an ELAN-file (cf. ELAN 2020). The Svan-English Dictionary by Gudjedjiani and Palmaitis (cf. Gudjedjiani & Palmaitis 1985) serves as a scientific aid, for research topics sparsely outlined in the first term paper, especially.

2. Overview of the different prefixes and preverbs

As the following sections will illustrate, Svan morphology makes proof of several different morphemes attached to the verb stem and mostly put in an initial position. These augments can be divided into prefixes and preverbs. Prefixes on the one hand, are (already known from the first term paper and) directly attached to the verb stem and do not show any temporal or aspectual specification but rather conceal a semantic field. On the other hand, each preverb and prefix (cf. Aronson 1989: 40f.) does have a particular semantic meaning, comparable with the German prefixes an-, be-, ent-, mit-, um-, ver-, zer- and so on. The preverb always precedes the prefix as, in some cases, a verb form is preceded by both (e. g. kötkwTca or ka-ot-kwTca (1.15)^{1 2} ). Zi is the only preverb that can also stand in final position, after the³ conjugated verb form, e. g. esnekwa-zi (1.14); its position does not change anything regarding the meaning. The following definitions (List (1)) are all taken from Gudjedjiani & Palmaitis 1985: 275; 265; 254; 132. The translations are meant to enhance the semantic understanding of these preverbs.

List (1): The different preverbs with example verbs and translations

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List (2): The different prefixes with example verbs (own definitions)

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3. The different screeves

As tenses in Kartvelian languages do not necessarily⁴ or not only have a temporal, but rather an aspectual or modal meaning, another term to designate "a set of six forms of a given verb differing only in person and number" (Aronson 1989: 41) is needed. Kartvelologists agreed on the term ,screeve', originating from the Georgian word m'c'krivi ('row') (cf. Aronson 1989: 41). According to Gudjedjiani and Palmaitis, Svan distinguishes 13 screeves, further classified into three groups or series (cf. Gudjedjiani & Palmaitis 1985: iii).⁵

List (3): The different screeves according to Gudjedjiani & Palmaitis 1985

Group 1: Present, Present Conjunctive, Narrative Present, Narrative Conjunctive;

Imperfect, Narrative Imperfect; Imperfective Conditional, Perfective Conditional; Imperfective Future, Perfective Future.

Group 2: Aorist (simple past), Aorist Conjunctive.

Group 3: Perfect, Perfect Conditional; Pluperfect.

Further screeve: ,Injunctive' (formal present)

This classification remains a proposal as there is, indeed, no definitive agreement or standard upon how many screeves exist and the most accurate terms to designate them. Opinions vary about the narrative or evidential screeves, especially (see Section 4).

In the following, I will present and analyze those screeves to which verbs from the set of data can be categorized. Some entries will be deduced and explained through morphological patterns, while some could be easily classified by their prevalence in the Svan-English Dictionary.

3.1The Present Screeve

Present screeve forms are not frequently elicited in the set of data due to its story-telling character. As I gave an ample outline about this screeve and the different options to categorize verbs in the first term paper, the aim of this section is thus to enumerate the present screeve forms provided in the ELAN-files and to group them into these categories, if applicable.

The so-called regular present screeve constitutes of the following morphemes: personal prefix - stem - stem augment - personal suffix (cf. Kochem 2020: 3). The personal prefixes are xw- for the first, x- for the second, and zero (0) for the third person; personal suffixes are solely added to plural forms, -t for the first and second and -x for the third person. Both the stem and the stem augment usually consist out of one syllable, formed of a vowel and a consonant. Furthermore, a prefix (see Section 2.) can be added between the personal prefixes and the stem, e. g. &t-k&ci (1.33). A table to illustrate a present screeve conjugation (cf. Kochem 2020: 3) is not needed here as almost every form is stated in the third person SG.

List (4): Utterances from the ELAN-files in the present screeve considered 'regular'⁶

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List (5): Utterances from the ELAN-files in the present screeve belonging to the verb (masdar) Uzi ('to be)

li (1.42), lix (third p. PL) (2.6)

'Object verbs' are verbs belonging to a certain semantic field ("some kind of perception, possession, need, emotion, physical sensation or involuntary action" (Kochem 2020: 9)) that are realized by a verb form (similar to a regular third p. SG), a personal object employed as personal prefixes and the regular personal suffixes. The personal objects are m- for the first p. SG and n- for the first p. PL, j- for the second and (s)x- for the third p. translations are added to better approach the matter.

List (6): Utterances from the ELAN-files in the present screeve considered 'Object Verbs' (cf. Kochem 2020: 9f.).

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Both regular verbs and 'object verbs' do have a usual masdar (see Section 4.1). While some verbs do solely exist as 'object verbs', e. g. all verbs describing a possession or kinship, i. e. sxöri and sxuwa (cf. Kochem 2020: 10) with the masdar lire (see Section 4.1)^{7 8 9}, other verbs can be made 'object verbs': jehnarni (1.52) derives from ihnari (masdar: lihnari (cf. Kochem 2020: 5) - 's/he hears/listens'). It is added the personal second p. object j- and, apparently, the stem augment is inserted an extra phoneme, -rni- instead of -ri-. Whether this change of the stem augment follows a certain pattern cannot be further analyzed due to lack of material.

3.2 The Imperfect Screeve

As pointed out in the first term paper, almost every verb is added a copula in to build a past tense. Thanks to the Svan-English Dictionary, we do now know that almost every verb elicited by the mother speaker for the previous work was formed in the Imperfect Screeve.

The copula appears in two different forms: detached and attached (elided). For the detached copula there are two variations for the vowels, the elided version consists of an attached consonant only. These are the different possibilities:

Table (1): The different copula types with an example verb (excerpt from the Kochem 2020: 14) in the third p. SG

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According to this scheme, several verbs provided in the set of data shall be considered ,Imperfect':

List (7): Utterances from the ELAN-files in the Imperfect Screeve¹⁰ sorted by the different copula types and segmented into preverb, prefix, stem, copula.

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[...]

¹ The utterances originating from the ELAN files are annotated as the following: 1.15 (i. e. ELAN-file 1, utterance 15).

² The preverb per se is cu. Due to phonetic reasons it might in some cases be realised cë. In fact, most vowels of prefixes and preverbs vary and are annotated like this.

³ Context: 'Dead tissue went out of the wound' (1.31).

⁴ The context might illustrate the usage better: '[he] sat down to eat' (1.10).

⁵ The term series is evoked by Aronson 1989: 40.

⁶ The forms are usually stated in the third p. SG. Any exception will be marked. This applies to all the subsequent lists and tables in this paper.

⁷ German: 'dir gefällt'.

⁸ German: 'heißt'.

⁹ Unfortunately, the set of data states forms in past screeves only, so that present screeve forms are borrowed from the first term paper.

¹⁰ If not mentioned differently, the verb forms are in the third p. SG.