SIMPLE WORDS IN ANCIENT ARMENIAN LANGUAGE (GRABAR), COMBINING ADJECTIVE/NOUN MEANINGS

Abstract

In grabar there are words with morphological meaning that is split between different parts of the speech. Combinations of more than one speech category represent those words. Those words are referred to as multiple-meaning words. Morphologically polysemantic words in diachronic reality, in the synchronic aspect of the language, can equally combine more than one morphological meaning with the associated syntactic functions. Units belonging to different parts of speech, being in one group or another (noun, adjective, etc.), i.e. grouped according to some common semantic, morphological and syntactic features, nevertheless undergo changes to one degree or another in the course of the historical development of language, because language is a constantly developing phenomenon. In this article, we examined the simple words in grabar, that combine the adjective/noun morphology, and acquired multiple meaning as a result of speech part transitions. Syntactic use of such terms expresses their morphological meanings. According to syntactic application, an adjective becomes a noun when it receives a suffix and a declension and takes on the subject meaning of the complimentary word. Frequent use of adjectives as nouns can split their basic partial meaning and undergo substantiation. Particularly, adjectives that go with personal nouns are entrenched in the language as characteristic terms as well as personal nouns since they are used interchangeably. Words that combine adjective/noun meanings are met in grabar grammar books under the term "medium". Due to their lexical features, these words express: a) personality and personality characteristics, b) personality and characteristics of the person and subject.