Kartvelian Languages Research Articles

Toward a historical grammar of elevation in Kartvelian

This paper in detail addresses and, for the first time in the field, presents linguistic evidence related to the expression of elevational semantics in the Kartvelian languages. The domains of its expression include a wide range of parts of speech, such as adverbs, adjectives, postpositions, and verbs. Provided with a broad synchronic illustrative base, as well as with respective diachronic commentaries, the material under discussion is meant to lay the groundwork for the establishment of a diachronic grammar of elevation in Kartvelian.

G. A. Dzagurov and the Japhetic theory of academician N. Ya. Marr: Commented re-edition of the text

The present work introduces to the annotated re-edition of an article written by the prominent Ossetian scientist, folklorist and teacher Grigory Alekseevich Dzagurov (1888–1979), which was published in 1924 under the title “The Japhetic Theory of Academician N. Ya. Marr and the Question of the Origin of the Ossetians”. The text, reproduced in a new annotated version with identification of the sources used by the author, introduces to the new linguistic theory promoted by Academician N. Ya. Marr (1864–1934), postulating the relationship between Hamito-Semitic and Kartvelian languages as well as the idea of linguistic mixing and crossing. By deliberately overusing direct quotations from the works of the creator of Japhetic linguistics, Dzagurov gives a brief overview of the main provisions of Marr’s linguistic theory, showing its direct relation to the question of the dual nature, Indo-European (Iranian) and Japhetic, of Ossetic. At that time, as is well known, linguistic arguments were readily provided when discussing thorny questions about the ethnogenesis of peoples. Overall, Dzagurov’s article has historical significance in many respects. Firstly, it testifies to the reception of the Japhetic stage of Marr’s linguistic theory (that is, before the emergence of the New Doctrine of Language) with respect to the study of the Iranian linguistic world in the Northern Caucasus. Secondly, such ideas about the phenomena of the Caucasian substrate and language mixing were skillfully developed over the following decades by one of the best students of Marr, V. A. Abaev (1900–2001), who identified numerous Caucasian elements in the Ossetian language at all language levels. Finally, it is interesting to notice that it was Dzagurov who gave a recommendation on Abaev’s application for admission to the Petrograd State University, thus indirectly contributing to the onset of an important stage in the history of Ossetian studies and, in general, Soviet linguistics.

The Category of Evidentiality and the Mechanisms of its Expression in Kartvelian Proverbs

Evidentiality is a universal morphosyntactic category of text that can be expressed by morphological, syntactic and lexical means. However, its linguistic expression is diverse not only in non-related but also in related languages (Margiani, Kurdadze, Lomia 2019: 427). Evidentiality as a universal grammatical category “is directly linked to the semantics of the utterance, expressing the attitude of the speaker to the provided information and pointing to the reliable source (direct or indirect) of information“ (Margiani, Kurdadze, Lomia 2019: 17). The category of evidentiality is expressed on the levels of text and discourse by various means, of which the construction with indirect speech is of utmost importance. Special literature has proved that “indirect speech is historically secondary. It is obtained as a result of processing-transformation of direct speech“ (Kvachadze 1977:441). An empirical analysis has yielded proverbs of simple structure that are expressed by means of subordinate clauses only. Such proverbs are especially productive in the Kartvelian languages. The main clause in such proverbs implies the present and past tense forms of verbs of saying (‘they say’, ‘it is said’, ‘they have said’ and so on). These verbs are omitted due to ellipsis. Such proverbs mention neither a speaker nor an addressee. In such cases, the omitted part (i.e. the main clause) is compensated by particles like Georgian o which indicate indirect speech.Indirect speech particles are distributed among the Kartvelian languages as follows: It should be underlined that in Kartvelian proverbs the indirect speech particles of the 3rd person are used systematically while the particles of the 1st and 2nd persons are extremely rare. This can be explained by the fact that the indirect speech particle of the 3rd person in the Kartvelian proverbs generalises the expressed viewpoint and enhances the reliability of the context.The use of the indirect speech particles in Georgian, Megrelian, Laz and Svan can also be analysed from the viewpoint of evidentiality. As it is known from the scholarly literature, evidentiality is expressed both morphologically and semantically in the Kartvelian languages. Different types of evidentiality are expressed differently on various language levels. For instance, in Georgian, evidentiality is expressed by perfect forms of verbs, by lexical means, by indirect speech markers, by evidential particles, etc. (Topadze-Gäumann 2011). Interestingly enough, in the Kartvelian proverbs evidentiality can have single (morphological or syntactic), double, and even multiple markers. In the latter case, it is simultaneously expressed by indirect speech particles and by evidential tenses. However, it should be noted that the natural structure of Georgian paremiological units is represented by evidential forms with single markers (mostly indirect speech particles).

The time and place of origin of South Caucasian languages: insights into past human societies, ecosystems and human population genetics

This study re-examines the linguistic phylogeny of the South Caucasian linguistic family (aka the Kartvelian linguistic family) and attempts to identify its Urheimat. We apply Bayesian phylogenetics to infer a dated phylogeny of the South Caucasian languages. We infer the Urheimat and the reasons for the split of the Kartvelian languages by taking into consideration (1) the past distribution ranges of wildlife elements whose names can be traced back to proto-Kartvelian roots, (2) the distribution ranges of past cultures and (3) the genetic variations of past and extant human populations. Our best-fit Bayesian phylogenetic model is in agreement with the widely accepted topology suggested by previous studies. However, in contrast to these studies, our model suggests earlier mean split dates, according to which the divergence between Svan and Karto-Zan occurred in the early Copper Age, while Georgian and Zan diverged in the early Iron Age. The split of Zan into Megrelian and Laz is widely attributed to the spread of Georgian and/or Georgian speakers in the seventh-eighth centuries CE. Our analyses place the Kartvelian Urheimat in an area that largely intersects the Colchis glacial refugium in the South Caucasus. The divergence of Kartvelian languages is strongly associated with differences in the rate of technological expansions in relation to landscape heterogeneity, as well as the emergence of state-run communities. Neolithic societies could not colonize dense forests, whereas Copper Age societies made limited progress in this regard, but not to the same degree of success achieved by Bronze and Iron Age societies. The paper also discusses the importance of glacial refugia in laying the foundation for linguistic families and where Indo-European languages might have originated.

Less-known pages of the history of Georgian-Baltic scientific relations: George Akhvlediani and Jānis Endzelīns

Professor George Akhvlediani (1887-1973) was the great Georgian scholar with multiple interests. He worked in several areas of linguistic inquiry. He wrote major works on general linguistics, general and experimental phonetics, speech therapy, Indo-Europeanand Kartvelian languages, some of them being seminal. After having received higher education at Kharkiv and Petrograd universities, Akhvlediani returned to his homeland and became one of the founders of Tbilisi University (26/1/1918). He pioneered in such disciplines as general linguistics and general phonetics. He was in charge of the Department of General Linguistics which played a historical role in the emergence and development of the linguistics thought in Georgia. It should be noted that Jānis Endzelīns (1873-1961), the great Latvian philologist and linguist, immensely contributed to Akhvlediani’s training as a scholar. He has been aknowledged as a major expert of the Baltic languages and an ornament in the field of comparative-historical linguistics. George Akhvlediani was awarded a gold medal for his oeuvre “An essay of the history of liquid and nasal consonants in Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, and Slavic languages”. Professor Endzelīns wrote a comprehensive review on the work and highly appreciated it. George Akhvlediani always recalled the consideration and care shown by Jānis Endzelīns with great gratitude, evidenced by their correspondence. Five letters, sent by Endzelīns to Tbilisi, addressed to Akhvlediani, are kept in the Museum of Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University.

Documentation and annotations of Megrelian texts in FLEx

Megrelian is an unwritten Kartvelian language subdivided into two dialects Zugdidi-Samurzaqano and Senaki-Martvili. Following the approaches widely used in language documentation, the Megrelian texts are described and analyzed by means of FieldWorks Language Explorer (FLEx). The FLeX provides interlinear glossing of data. At this moment the Megrelian database includes 49 analyzed texts (38510 tokens, 26610 unique forms, 3480 sentences). Dialogues and monologues are recorded in both dialect areas and include information about the beliefs, traditions, rituals etc. All texts are represented with free translations in Georgian and English. The analysis includes the following: Wordbase - division into words done automatically; Wordipa - representation of Megrelian text in IPA done by the online converter (Gersamia, Lobzhanidze 2022) developed to convert Megrelian based on Georgian script into the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), the ISO 9984 romanization scheme, the Gamkrelidze-Machavariani transliteration system (1965) and vice versa; Morphemes - morphological segmentation of words is done manually. The word is subdivided into root and affixes representing fixed linguistic data; The information on morphemes is given in Lex. Entries, the morphological glossing - in Lex. Gloss, while Lex. Gram. Info describes PoS-es and their appropriate categories. Glossing is done following the Leipzig Glossing Rules and Eurotyp Guidelines; Wordcat - information on PoS-es is given separately as well. The morphosyntactic annotation of Megrelian texts collected during the fieldwork and annotated by means of FLEx will be used as a base for the grammar and online dictionary.

Lexical Repetition in the Hypotactic Constructions of Kartvelian Languages

In the Georgian folk literature, repetition has a profound psychological basis. The paper focuses on lexical repetition in hypotactic constructions. Stylistically used lexical repetition forms a kind of hypotactic construction which becomes more comprehensible based on the preceding context. Research of the functional styles of oral folklore and written literary texts is topical. The methods used are as follows: statistical, historical-comparative and distributional (syntagmatic and paradigmatic). Such attitude reveals diverse linguistic capacity of structuring (shaping and transfer) of information. The research outcomes will be of interest for linguists, specialists in the theory of literature, professionals working in other related fields as well as students.

ქართველურ ენათა ლინგვისტური ანოტაცია: I. სახელები (პრობლემები და მათი გადაჭრის გზები)

The international standards of morphemic analysis of texts have outlined completely new prospects of research for the languages with rich morphological structurebecause typological linguistics systematizes and classifies language facts and phenomena based on the structural content and the number of structural markers. The unity of these markers is relevant for the definition of the essence of language as such, the very phenomenon of language. Morphologically, of great interest with regard to any language are the noun and the verb, because they are structural units of ample syntagmatic data. This proves the importance of the outcomes of morphemic analysis, as well as the vast grammatical capacity of these parts of speech. Kartvelian languages embrace the empirical material of four languages (Georgian, Megrelian, Laz and Svan) with diverse and multifunctional morphemic data. Their systemic research is urgent, important and vital for the definition of the typology of Kartvelian languages as well as for the general typological research. Modern challenges have created the need for the new,reliable and knowledge-based research product that will meet contemporary international standards. Linguistic morphological analysis is carried out based on the synchronic data. Due to the morphonological changes peculiar of nominal stems, we should take into account the diachronic-etymological factors in order to identify the original forms and meanings of words. The problems of linguistic annotation of the nominal parts of speech in Kartvelian languages are analyzed based on the grammatical categories of case and number:The issues of segmentation and qualification of the nominal parts of speech with postpositions are discussed with reference to all the four Kartvelian languages.In Megrelian and Laz, especially in Megrelian, the definition-identification of the nominal stem is specific with regard to the following:a. The former genitive cases (secondary cases).b. Due to the phonetic insertion in the singular and plural forms (the insertion that separates consonants or vowels).c. Due to the phonetic transformation of the stem and the case-marker.d. Due to the changes in some case-markers caused by phonetic rules.In Megrelian anthroponyms (maiden names) a gender suffix -ხე /xe/ is usually found.It is traditionally considered that Svan nouns are more complex than Svan verbs. This opinion is based on the existence of two/three stems in the Svan declension system and the existence of double declension paradigm. The empirical material is diverse, taking into account the dialectal data as well. Out of Kartvelian languages, only Svan has the so-called “prepositional-postpositional“ cases. Such forms express semantic nuances, and, in this, they are close to double local cases found in the highland dialects of the Svan language. The lexical-grammatical patterns denoting names of clans-families are also extremely diverse in the Svan langauge.In the process of annotation (segmentation-marking) of the nominal lexemes, alongside with formal data, we should take into account the semantic peculiarities. Besides, description-qualification of the formal mechanisms of nominal parts of speech will be complete and accurateonly if it reflects the outcomes of the phonetic transformation of forms. Annotation, including morphological annotation, is conventional (achieved on the basis of agreement). However, the theoretical foundation should be consistent, especially in condition of diverse opinions.

Relationship between the Kartvelian Roots *γwn- ‘wine’ and *γun - ‘creep, curve, twist’ Rusudan Asatiani, Marine Ivanishvili & Ether Soselia

Thomas Gamkrelidze &Viacheslav Ivanov’s fundamental work, based on lexical borrowings and structural-typological similarities of the Indo-European, Kartvelian, and Semitic Proto-Languages, confirms that the Georgians (Kartvelian tribes) together with the representatives of ancient civilizations (Indo-Europeans and Semites) historically belong to the same chronological stage. In this respect, the lexical units denoting ‘wine’ in the above-mentioned languages, being the subject of much research, seem very notable. The views on the Kartvelian origin of the respective stems are as old as that of considering the Kartvelian form as an Indo-European borrowing. Various viewpoints exist because the reasonable etymology of the stem has not been established based on Kartvelian data. The paper examines the Common-Kartvelian stem *γvin- ‘wine’, reconstructed by the comparison of Georgian, Megrelian, Laz, and Svan (resp. Kartvelian languages) linguistic data. Taking into account that the root represents a regular form defined by the rules of Kartvelian ablaut alternations, it is possible to regard this form as a Kartvelian stem derived from the verb *γun- denoting ‘creep, curve, twist’, and not as an Indo-European borrowing, as it used to be accepted. Thus, another linguistic-typological parallel between Kartvelian and Indo-European languages has been revealed at the lexical level. Keywords: Kartvelian languages, Indo-European languages, Semitic languages, Comparative-Historical linguistics, Kartvelian ablaut patterns, the lexeme wine

A New Look at Old Armenisms in Kartvelian

The present paper is concerned with the most ancient layer of Armenian loanwords (armenisms) in the Kartvelian languages. Due to the relatively conservative historical phonology of Kartvelian, compared to Armenian, it appears that more archaic forms have occasionally been preserved. These forms can be identified on the basis of the comparative method. Here, six of the previously proposed armenisms and one new proposal, a word for ‘crane’, are discussed. It is proposed that this stratum of loans probably dates to the latter half of the 2nd millennium BC and prior to the breakup of Proto-Georgian-Zan.

Onomastic Material in the Proverbs of Kartvelian Languages: Marking and Generalization

Analysis of the vocabulary of proverbs and identification of the existing thematic fields is extremely important, because the lexical fund of paremic units is very close to everyday speech. Due to the social nature of proverbs, the form and content of a concrete word may point to the place of origin and/or spreading of the proverb. Analysis of the empirical material has proved that even within the related Kartvelian languages there may be thematically diverse paremic units, marked by the influence of local peculiarities. In this regard, special focus should be made on the onomastic material represented in proverbs. Since understanding locally marked proverbs is linked to additional problems for language learners, the issues raised in the article are equally relevant in the context of teaching a second language.

The Kartvelian Languages as Morphologically Rich Ones

The consideration of the languages of the Kartvelian branch, as agglutinating and those pertaining to satellite typology, as morphologically rich languages (MRL) should be based on the following criteria: number of grammatically marked categories; number of free and bound morphemes within a word-form; a number of word-form for each lexemes; fusional morphonology.Kartvelian substantives are inflected only for two grammatical categories, whereas the Kartvelian verb may be inflected for 11-13 categories being classified as those of conjugational and derivational.   In the Kartvelian languages, nominal and verbal structures are made of bound morphemes. A general number of morphemic markers in morphological structures of the Kartvelian substantives and verbs are more or less varied; simultaneous representations of combinations are based on morphological rules. Initial patterns of a verbal paradigm vary with respect to the categories of version, voice, causation, to a kind of subject-object order; these also facilitate an occurrence of a great number of inflected verbs. In the verbal structure of the unwritten Kartvelian languages, phonology hardly counts with morphology; therefore, fusional morphemes occur as a result of phonetic transformations at morpheme boundaries.  In verbal inflections, numbers of homoforms vary with respect to a language; abundant inflection is a condition for considering the Kartvelian languages as morphologically rich ones.      &nbsp

A PFM approach to the verb inflection system of Georgian dialects: example of Gurian

The verb inflection system of Kartvelian languages is characterized by the interaction of morphosyntactic features, morphosemantic features and inflection-class traits. Thus, an incremental and morpheme-based approach might fail to seize the multilevel interactions as well as the systemic complexity within Kartvelian verb inflection. However, Paradigm Function Morphology (PFM, Stump 2016) could provide a realizational and paradigm-based approach to verb inflection. Recently, linguists have adopted PFM model in the analyses of different Kartvelian languages and have obtained plausible results (Makharoblidze & Léonard 2020; Tran Ngoc 2020; She 2021). By applying PFM analysis model in Gurian verb inflection, we demonstrate the compatibility of the realizational and paradigm-based approach with traditional templatic analyses. At the same time, we also show that PFM model, by highlighting the paradigmatic dimension of verb inflection, could describe the systemic complexity in a parsimonious way.

The subalpine and alpine vegetation of the Georgian Caucasus - a first ethnobotanical and phytosociological synopsis

Background: The Republic of Georgia is part of the Caucasus biodiversity hotspot, and human agricultural plant use dates back at least 6000 years. Over the last years lots of ethnobotanical research on the area has been published. In this paper we analyze the use of food plants in the 80% of Georgia not occupied by Russian forces. We hypothesized that, (1) given the long tradition of plant use, and the isolation under Soviet rule, plant use both based on home gardens and wild harvesting would be more pronounced in Georgia than in the wider region, (2) food plant use knowledge would be widely and equally spread in most of Georgia, (3) there would still be incidence of knowledge loss despite wide plant use, especially in climatically favored agricultural regions in Western and Eastern Georgia. The alpine vegetation of the Caucasus hotspot has fascinated botanists for centuries. Given the very complicated biogeographic setting, a concise classification of vegetation communities has however eluded science so far. Methods: The present work, based on 619 plots, is the first study to attempt a concise phytosociological classification. Even given this large number of samples a complete vegetation classification still proved difficult, and more releveés are needed for a detailed assessment, following Braun-Blanquet. It is also the first attempt to give an overview on plant uses in the alpine and subalpine areas of Georgia. For plant uses we employed the very large dataset that we gathered all over Georgia interviewing over 300 participants from 2014-2019. For the vegetation analysis we employed traditional phytosociological table work combined with an analysis based on species composition, coverage and abiotic factors using "R", compared to a classification using "Twinspan". From 2013 to 2019 we also interviewed over 380 participants in all regions of Georgia not occupied by Russian forces. All interviews were carried out in the participants’ homes and gardens by native speakers of Georgian and its dialects (Imeretian, Rachian, Lechkhumian, Tush, Khevsurian, Psavian, Kakhetian), other Kartvelian languages (Megrelian, Svan) and minority languages (Ossetian, Ude, Azeri, Armenian, Greek). Results: We found that 183 species of the subalpine and alpine flora, representing about 33% of all species encountered in the vegetation survey, had reported uses. The usage of alpine and subalpine species in Georgia is mostly focused on the use of the plants as fodder, which is unsurprising. Green crops such as Lactuca sativa, Phaseolus vulgaris, Ocimum basilicum, Mentha x piperita, Allium cepa, and Artemisia dracunculus are grown virtually everywhere. Cucurbita pepo, Cucumis sativus, Solanum melongena, and Zea mays, all introduced species, were discovered to be popular elements in local cuisine. In human and veterinary medicine, however, Matricaria chamomilla, Berberis vulgaris, and Juniperus hemisphaerica are still used. There are two vegetation classes: Bromopsis variegatae - Festucaetea ovinea (Class. nov.) (Subalpine pastures), which has seven orders and twelve alliances/eighteen associations, and Sympoholoma graveolensis - Saxifragetea exaratae (Class. nov.) (Alpine pastures), which has one order, two alliances, and four associations. Conclusions: The alpine and subalpine vegetation of the Greater Caucasus and its uses were assessed in detail for the first time, highlighting the still existing gaps in both phytosociological and ethnobotanical work. Given the establishment of borders in post-soviet independence, it will be interesting to see how long this original cross-cultural knowledge will remain, given that the actual use of the traditional knowledge, as well as cross-border high altitude pastoralism are declining. Keywords: Republic of Georgia, Caucasus, Traditional Knowledge

English–Georgian Parallel Corpus and Its Application in Georgian Lexicography

The Georgian language, the official language of Georgia, is the only written member of the Kartvelian language family, the indigenous language family of the Caucasus region. Georgian philology and lexicography have long-standing tradition, English–Georgian lexicography being no exception. Given the increasing use of ample electronic text corpora for lexicographical purposes, the team of Georgian lexicographers, working on the Comprehensive English–Georgian Dictionary (CEGD), subsequently the Comprehensive English–Georgian Online Dictionary (CEGOD), decided to compile an English–Georgian Parallel Corpus (EGPC). The aim of the project was to develop the methodology of building a parallel corpus of Georgian and assess its efficiency for Georgian bilingual lexi­cog­raphy. The work on the corpus is going on for over a decade. The ultimate aim is to create a standard for Georgian bilingual corpora that will be compiled in future. The article describes the content and composition of the EGPC, its structure, functionalities, search engines and so on. The article also deals with various studies conducted over years in order to assess and enhance the value, applicability and efficiency of the EGPC for the automatic or semi-auto­matic recognition, tagging and extraction of terminology, the compilation of terminological entries, as well as the entries for the English–Georgian Dictionary and those for the Georgian–English Learner's Dictionary, etc. Particular emphasis is laid upon the actual or potential applicability of the corpus for the lexi­cographical activities and for the machine translation projects. The findings of the study may be interesting for other under-resourced languages like Georgian. Keywords: parallel corpus, terminological entries, English–Georgian dictionary, Georgian–English dictionary

Unity in diversity\u2014food plants and fungi of Sakartvelo (Republic of Georgia), Caucasus

BackgroundThe Republic of Georgia is part of the Caucasus biodiversity hotspot, and human agricultural plant use dates back at least 6000 years. Over the last years, lots of ethnobotanical research on the area has been published. In this paper, we analyze the use of food plants in the 80% of Georgia not occupied by Russian forces. We hypothesized that (1) given the long tradition of plant use, and the isolation under Soviet rule, plant use both based on home gardens and wild harvesting would be more pronounced in Georgia than in the wider region, (2) food plant use knowledge would be widely and equally spread in most of Georgia, (3) there would still be incidence of knowledge loss despite wide plant use, especially in climatically favored agricultural regions in Western and Eastern Georgia.MethodsFrom 2013 to 2019, we interviewed over 380 participants in all regions of Georgia not occupied by Russian forces and recorded over 19,800 mentions of food plants. All interviews were carried out in the participants’ homes and gardens by native speakers of Georgian and its dialects (Imeretian, Rachian, Lechkhumian, Tush, Khevsurian, Psavian, Kakhetian), other Kartvelian languages (Megrelian, Svan) and minority languages (Ossetian, Ude, Azeri, Armenian, Greek).ResultsThe regional division was based primarily on historic provinces of Georgia, which often coincides with the current administrative borders. The total number of taxa, mostly identified to species, including their varieties, was 527. Taxonomically, the difference between two food plant groups—garden versus wild—was strongly pronounced even at family level. The richness of plant families was 65 versus 97 families in garden versus wild plants, respectively, and the difference was highly significant. Other diversity indices also unequivocally pointed to considerably more diverse family composition of wild collected versus garden plants as the differences between all the tested diversity indices appeared to be highly significant.The wide use of leaves for herb pies and lactofermented is of particular interest. Some of the ingredients are toxic in larger quantities, and the participants pointed out that careful preparation was needed. The authors explicitly decided to not give any recipes, given that many of the species are widespread, and compound composition—and with it possible toxic effects—might vary across the distribution range, so that a preparation method that sufficiently reduces toxicity in the Caucasus might not necessary be applicable in other areas.ConclusionsRelationships among the regions in the case of wild food plants show a different and clearer pattern. Adjacent regions cluster together (Kvemo Zemo Racha, and Zemo Imereti; Samegrelo, Guria, Adjara, Lechkhumi and Kvemo and Zemo Svaneti; Meskheti, Javakheti, Kvemo Kartli; Mtianeti, Kakheti, Khevsureti, Tusheti. Like in the case of the garden food plants, species diversity of wild food plants mentioned varied strongly. Climate severity and traditions of the use of wild food plants might play role in this variation. Overall food plant knowledge is widely spread all-across Georgia, and broadly maintained.

C’anarta c’armomavlobisatvis /წანართა წარმომავლობისათვის [For the Structure of The Noun c̕anar

According to the factual material of the Kartvelian, Abkhazian, Ossetian, Armenian, Greek, and Arabic languages, it is possible to reconstruct the common Georgian ethnic term *tsen-, which was historically one of the Kartvelian ethnic groups, whose residence was called Tsane / Tsanja, and the community from there was referred to as tsanar-. It was the people who settled mainly in the territory of the modern Kazbegi-Tianeti region, whose traces of life in the Mtskheta-Tianeti region also were to be confirmed by the Georgian surnames formed with the suffixes -ish / -sh- of the Laz-Megrelian kinship, cf. Kai-sh-aur-i, Ghudu-sh-aur-i, Ghan-ish-ashvil-i and many others. In the ancient historical period, we see the unmistakable traces of occurrence of the Georgian term Tsan-ar- used to denote Georgian in the Dagestanian language data as well, where the ethnic term *Tsonor- was equal to Georgian man and which chronologically precedes the Gurji / Gurzhi allomorphs of modern and oriental origin. საკვანძო სიტყვები: ქართველური ლექსიკა, ეთნონიმი, ეტიმოლოგია. keywords: Kartvelian vocabulary, ethnonym, etymology.

On derivatives

The question of derivates has been repeatedly raised in the teaching processes of language grammar and general linguistics. This circumstance became the basis for creating this short article. It is well known that a word-form can be changeable or unchangeable, and this fact is determined by the parts of speech. Form-changing words can undergo two types of change: inflectional and derivative. During the inflectional change, the form of the word changes, but the lexical and semantic aspects of the word do not change, i.e. its semantic and content data do not change. A classic example of this type of change is flexion of nouns.Derivation is the formation of a word from another word by the addition of non-inflectional affixes. Derivation can be of two types. The first is lexical derivation, in which the derivative affix produces a word with a different lexical content. A word-form can be another part of speech or the same part of speech but with a different lexical content. The second type of derivation is, first of all, grammatical derivation, when grammatical categories are produced. The grammatical category in general (and a word-form in general as well) includes the unity of morphological and semantical aspects. There is no separate semantics without morphology. Any semantic category and/or content must be conveyed in a specific form, so only a specific form has a specific morphosemantics, which can be produced by the grammatical derivatives. The main difference between the two types of derivation mentioned above (and therefore between the two types of derivatives) is the levels of the language hierarchy. The first type of affixes works at the lexical level of the language, while the second type derivatives produce forms at the morphological and semantic levels. The second type derivatives are inter-level affixes, because they act on two hierarchical levels. Any grammatical category includes specific morphosemantic oppositional forms. Thus, unlike inflectional affixes, the rest of the morphological affixes are all other types of inter-level derivatives. It should be noted that the preverb in Kartvelian languages ​​is the only linguistic unit with all possible functions of affix. DOWNLOADS

Spatial Features Encoded in the Preverbs of Zan Languages Group

Preverb in Zan language groups (Megrelian and Laz languages) is a principal prefix which, in combination with verb roots and stems referring to dynamicity and stativity (in association with other functional elements), is involved in organizing of space, and by means of which we establish spatial relations.Similarly to other Kartvelian languages, spatial features, encoded in the Zan preverb, in fact describe a direction (landmark, path) of movement of a subject (figure) of motion and its relation with other im/mobile objects in space (person, thing). As different from simple ones, Zan derived preverbs provide information about topological or landscape features of a place; therefore, we refer to them as locative, while to simple ones – as orienting.

ON THE RESTORATION OF THE PRE-NOSTRATIC LANGUAGE

The given work addresses the problem of the origin of speech and Pre-Nostratic language, which the linguists regard unsolved to this day. Here our studies of the following issues are presented: 1. How the early men began to speak and on which basis they gave relevant names to the objects and the phenomena; 2. How did they manage to express their views? 3. What proof and the data of Pre-Nostratic language has been preserved by the Kartvelian language. We pursue the aim of the reconstruction of the lexis of the Pre-Nostratic language, for which reason it has become necessary to study the basic words consisting of word sounds and harmonious sound complexes proved in the Kartvelian language, in other words consonants and neutral vowel O[ǝ], as well as harmonious sound complexes and a neutral vowel. The work includes the Pre-Nostratic language vocabulary, as well as the method of restoration of the archetypes of the Pre-Nostratic words through the reconstruction of the Kartvelian words; these archetypes represented the word sounds and sound harmonious complexes prompted by the nature, which, for the expression of certain idea, formed on its part non-grammatical sentences. Here are presented the examples of forming modern words, as a result of uniting the archetypes forming part of the non-grammatical sentences and the following phonetic changes.