Why does it appear certain Georgian verbs take preverbs in present forms?

(If you are not familiar with German or Russian verbs, preverbs are a bit like "down" in "cut down" or "up" in "eat up" in English.

Now there is a conflict in the literature which I cannot resolve:

Source after source states that preverbs are only used in future forms and this is what makes the future forms distinguishable from the present forms.

. the main function of a preverb is to distinguish between the present tenses and the future tenses. In order to make a present tense verb into a future tense, one has to add the preverb to the verb compound.

modis = ("he is coming")
midis = ("he is going")

So what am I failing to understand? If preverbs are only for future forms why are they also in present forms?

UPDATES

In my continued reading on this topic I've found two interesting facts:

• The verb base of "to come" / "to go" uses suppletion heavily. Several different roots are used for different screeves or forms of the verb.
• Some sources say preverbs are used for present forms, other sources say they are used for perfective forms. Since "present" and "perfective" are not at all synonyms, these terms might be obscuring a more tricky actual situation.
• The more I learn about Georgian, the more it seems that the "verbs of motion/movement" are exceptional and use the same prefix morphemes that elsewhere are preverbs, but that they are not preverbs in this case! Yet none of my textbooks actually state this so I'm still in doubt.

I fixed the formatting thing you needed. :) By the way, about the first quote, can you add the source?

Both quotes are from the Wikipedia page I linked to in the bold italic preverb but similar things are said all over the place.

I'm struggling to come up with a better title for this question. Any idea how to make the title more descriptive?

So what would the future tense versions of modis and midis look like? How would you say "he'll come" or "he'll go"?

3 Answers 3

It is perhaps worth thinking separately about I. preverbs used with verbs of motion, and II. preverbs used with other verbs.

I. For verbs of motion, the preverb has a strictly lexical function: it shows which direction the motion takes place. For სვლა, change in tense is shown by using a different stem, so, for example, in მოდის (X comes) and მოვა (X will come), we understand which is present and which is future not from the presence or absence of a preverb, but from the choice of stem. Other verbs that use preverbs in this way are "to run", e.g. მორბის (X runs here/X comes running) მოირბინს (X will run here/X will come running), and bring/take/carry/fetch. For example, მომაქვს (I am bringing X here), მოვიტან (I will bring X here).

II. For other verbs, remember that preverbs are only used in the I and II conjugations. The III conjugation forms its future stem by circumfixing ი. ებ, while the IV circumfixes ე. ებ. As for the function of a preverb, its addition changes presents to futures, imperfects to conditionals and imperfective aorists to perfective aorists (however, imperfective, i.e. preverbless, aorists don't seem to be particularly common).

However, to return to your question, it is not only the verb of motion that takes a preverb in the present tense. As an exception to what I wrote above, some III conjugation verbs can take preverbs in the present tense, so from ლაპარაკობს (X speaks), we can derive მოლაპარაკობს (X comes speaking) მილაპარაკობს (X goes speaking). As far as I know, these forms only exist in the present series. It is tempting to think that when used like this, preverbs keep their lexical meaning, but I don't know enough Georgian to know if this is always the case.

Finally, there are also some other verbs that, for some reason, take a preverb in the present series. The only one I can remember at the moment is შე(მო)=ჰ-კივის (X screams at Y) შე(მო)=ჰ-კივლებს (X will scream at Y).

I do apologise for the rather disorganised state of my answer: it reflects my own rather tenuous grasp of the subject, but all the same, I do hope that it will be of some help.