Appendix:Georgian noun declension

There are seven grammatical cases: nominative, ergative, dative, genitive, instrumental, adverbial, and vocative. Although the inclusion of the vocative case in this list is questioned by and others for the reason that in Georgian a word in the vocative case is never involved in a syntactic collocation with either a verb or a noun.

In Georgian, there is no accusative; instead, that syntactic function is served by the nominative (ex. მხატვარმა დახატა სურათი) and dative (ex. მხატვარი ხატავს სურათს) cases.

There is only one type of noun declension in Georgian, though some phonetic changes may happen during the inflection.

The declension of a noun depends on whether the root of the noun ends with a vowel or a consonant. Stems may end with any of the vowels, though ი is very uncommon, and is chiefly restricted to borrowings (such as , , , , ) and personal names (such as , , , and ). Stems ending with a consonant have as a nominative case marker. In Old Georgian all nouns ended with ი/ჲ (for example, , and ). Some dialects of Georgian preserved this (for example, , and ).

The roles of noun cases
Georgian has seven cases as described below. Adjectives and pronouns can also be inflected in these cases.

Nominative

 * The nominative case marker:

The nominative case is used for the subjects of intransitive verbs in all screeves, for the subjects of transitive verbs in the present series, for the direct objects of transitive verbs in the other series, and for the direct objects of indirect verbs. It is also the case in which nouns are cited.

Ergative

 * The narrative case marker:

The ergative case, also known as the narrative, is used for the subjects of transitive verbs in the aorist series.

Dative

 * The dative case marker:

The dative case is used for subjects of indirect verbs and of transitive verbs in the perfect series. It is also used for the direct object of transitive verbs in the present series, and to mark the indirect objects of transitive verbs (except in the perfect series) and of intransitive verbs. The dative is also found in expressions of place and time.

Genitive

 * The genitive case marker:

The genitive case is used for possession and to mark other close relationships.

Instrumental

 * The instrumental case marker:

The instrumental case expresses means, and corresponds to the English, as in this example:

Adverbial

 * The adverbial case marker:

The adverbial case is found in contexts such as the following:

This case can often be translated using (‘They appointed him as secretary’, ‘He works as a teacher.’).

Vocative

 * The vocative case marker:

The vocative case is used in direct address, as in ჩემო კარგო! (čemo k'argo!) (‘my dear’, ‘darling’).

Declension
Phonetically there are three forms of declension:
 * 1) Neither case marker nor stem affects the other.
 * This is the simplest and most common form. Stems of the words pertaining to this category end with a consonant.
 * Examples:, , , , , , , , , ,
 * 1) Case marker that starts with a vowel affects a stem and either:
 * 2) Stem's interior vowel is dropped (called syncope)
 * Comment: there is no strict rule, but usually, stems ending with -ალ-, -არ-, -ან-, -ელ-, -ოლ- or -ორ- are affected. However, there are exceptions (such as, , , ).
 * Examples: სოფ(ე)ლი, რძ(ა)ლი, აკვ(ა)ნი, მუც(ე)ლი
 * 1) Stem's interior vowel weakens and changes into
 * Comment: either &rarr;  or  &rarr;  happens.
 * Examples: &rarr;
 * &rarr;
 * 1) Stem's last vowel gets truncated
 * Comment: this applies to only stems ending with and  that do not denote a personal name or surname.
 * Examples:, , , ,
 * 1) Stem's last and some interior vowels drop
 * Comment: this can be seen as a combination of the first and third cases.
 * Examples: →,  →
 * 1) Stem's last vowel affects case marker
 * Case marker's first vowel is dropped.
 * Comment: obviously this applies to only nouns that end in a vowel. The genitive and instrumental cases are affected. There are four situations where this type of declension happens:
 * When a noun's stem ends in, or :
 * Examples:, ,
 * When stems ending with vowel denote a personal name or surname:
 * Examples:, , , ,
 * When a noun is formed by the suffix -ა:
 * Examples:, , , ,
 * When the word is a borrowing:
 * Examples:, , ,
 * When certain words (such as or ) is used to refer not to the general concept that the noun represents, but rather to the a specific one relevant to the speaker:
 * Examples: means (my) mother's apple.
 * means mother's apple.