Mingrelian grammar

Mingrelian is a Kartvelian language that is mainly spoken in the Western Georgian regions Samegrelo and Abkhazia. In Abkhazia the number of Mingrelian speakers declined dramatically in the 1990s as a result of heavy ethnic cleansing of ethnic Georgians, the overwhelming majority of which were Mingrelians.
Mingrelian has two dialects: Zugdidi-Samurzaqano (northwestern) and Senaki-Martvili (southeastern). The dialects are extremely close to each other.
Grammatical cases.
Mingrelian has nine grammatical cases: nominative, ergative, dative, genitive, lative, ablative, instrumental, adverbial and benefactive. For pluralization the suffix "-ep" is used, which is inserted between stem and case marker.
Nouns.
Mingrelian shares a noun classification scheme with other Kartvelian languages and classifies objects as:
Noun declension.
Declension of noun stem "ḳoč" ("man") in comparison to corresponding Laz "ḳoč" (id.), Georgian "ḳac" (id.) and Svan "č'äš" (husband) forms:
Adjectives.
Adjectives in Mingrelian are declined like nouns.
Example of adjective declension.
Declension of stem "ǯveš" ("old") in comparison to corresponding Laz ("mǯveš"), Georgian ("ʒvel") and Svan ("ǯwinel") forms:
Numerals.
The Mingrelian numerals are almost identical to Laz with minor phonetic differences. The number system is vigesimal like in Georgian.
Cardinal numbers.
The most of Mingrelian cardinal numbers are inherited from Proto-Kartvelian language, except "arti" (one) and "eči" (twenty), which are considered as a Karto-Zan heritage, since there are no regular equivalents in Svan.
Ordinal numbers.
In Mingrelian the circumfix "ma-...-a" produces ordinal numbers, which is a Common-Kartvelian heritage, since it has regular phonetical equivalents in Svan and Georgian ("me-...-e" in both)
Fractional numbers.
The fractional numbers derivation rule in Mingrelian is akin to Old Georgian and Svan.
Verbs.
The Mingrelian verb has the categories of person, number, version, tense, mood, aspect, voice, and verbal focus.
Personality and number.
In Mingrelian the verbs can be monovalent, bivalent or trivalent. This feature is also shared with other Kartvelian languages.
Table of verb personality.
The person may be singular or plural.
Subject and object markers in Mingrelian are roughly the same as in Laz.
Object markers.
In pre-consonant position the markers "v-" and "g-" may change phonetically:
Version.
In Mingrelian there are four types of version marking like in other Kartvelian languages:
Tenses.
In total there are 20 screeves in Mingrelian. They are grouped in four series.
Mood.
Indicative
Indicative statement claims that the proposition should be taken as an apparent fact.
Interrogative
There are two ways to express interrogative mood:
Imperative
Indicates a command or request. The aorist form is used when addressing 2nd person (singular/plural) and aorist optative in all other cases.
Subjunctive
Expresses possibility, wish, desire. The subjunctive mood in Mingrelian is provided by optative screeves.
Conditional
Indicates condition in contrary to a fact. It is produced by adding a verbal suffix "-ḳo(ni)" to the end of a verb.
Aspect.
In Mingrelian the verbs may have two aspects depending on the completeness of action ("perfective aspect") or the lack of it ("imperfective aspect"). The "perfective aspect" is derived by adding a preverb to the verb.
In 2nd, 3rd, 4th series the verbs equally have both aspect forms, while in the 1st series the screeves are distributed between two aspects.