Why does the Georgian adverb მწარედ (mtsared) “bitterly” end in -ედ rather than -ად?

Question

According to the materials I possess or can find on the Internet, Georgian adverbs derived from nouns end in -ად (-ad) (unless the noun in the nominative ends in -ო (-o) or -უ (-u), in which case the adverb will end in -ოდ (-od) or -უდ (-ud), respectively.

This is in fact the adverbial case of the noun. Adjectives also have an adverbial case which is just the bare stem without an ending.

However I've just come across the word მწარედ (mtsared) "bitterly" which is related to the word მწარე (mtsare) "bitter". As you can see it ends in -ედ (-ed).

Is this just an irregular inflection peculiar to this word, or is there a regular adjective → adverb process that I just haven't been able to find?

Answer 1

-ედ (or perhaps we should just say -დ) is the normal adverbial ending for noun or adjective stems ending in ე. So you have the following forms:

• consonant stems

  • წიგნ-ი > წიგნ-ად

• vowel stems

  • დედა > დედა-დ
  • მეპურე > მეპურე-დ
  • გოგო > გოგო-დ
  • ყრუ > ყრუ-დ
  • here should also be included the rare i stem nouns such as the example Tschenkeli gives: ტრამვაი > ტრამვაი-დ (although I think that most of these have a tendency to be declined like consonant stems in the contemporary language).

Adverbial forms such as ჩქარა and ნელა are exceptional and can be interpreted as having lost the final დ as per ჩქარ-ი > *ჩქარ-ად > ჩქარ-ა, ნელ-ი > *ნელ-ად > ნელ-ა. Most adjectives form their adverbial as would be expected, e.g. კარგ-ი > კარგ-ად. However, it must be borne in mind that the above only applies when the adjective is not modifying a noun in the adverbial, i.e. when it is being used as an adverb in its own right. If the adjective is modifying a noun, then it will take no ending, as you say. Compare კარგ სტუდენტად (as a good student) with კარგად წერს (he writes well).

Hope this helps!