Georgian Grammar - Verbal System

Verbal System

The Georgian verbal system is extremely complex, especially when compared to those of most Indo-European languages. Rather than using the terms "tense", "aspect", "mood", etc. separately, linguists prefer to use the term "screeve" to distinguish between different time frames and moods of the verbal system. A screeve is a set of six verb forms inflected for person and number.

Verbs are traditionally divided into four classes: transitive verbs, intransitive verbs, verbs with no transitive counterparts (medial verbs) and indirect verbs. There are numerous irregular verbs in Georgian, but they all belong to one of these classes. Each class uses different strategies to build the verb complex, irregular verbs employing somewhat different formations.

See Georgian verb paradigm for an extensive list of verb forms and examples of usage.

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