Western Armenian Research Articles

V. Davtyan as the Interpreter of Western Armenian Poetry of the Beginning of the 20th century

The results of the research allow us to outline the following conclusions; In the history of Armenian poetry V. Davtyan newly evaluates and underlines the importance of Western Armenian lyric poetry of the beginning of the 20th century, which differs with its high artistry, intertwinement of the national and universal and upgrades Armenian literature to the level of the world literature. The articles of V. Davtyan reveal him as a literary critic of Western Armenian poetry. They illustrate the philosophical-aesthetic, theoretical understandings and principles of the theorist, which clearly define the aesthetic creed and the worldview of the writer. Davtyan's articles are the generalizations of profound analysis distinguished with subtle observations, brief and accurate descriptions, high literary value and relevance. The articles are differentiated with a stunning imagery based on individual and national dramas. Davtyan supports the continuous reverberation of the classical poetry created in Western Armenia from generation to generation. The Armenian critic reveals the artistic value and the hidden beauty of the tiny masterpieces of Western Armenian lyrical poetry of the beginning of the century, The critic touches upon the question of the identity of the Western Armenian poet, his national image and socio-political activities. The personal tragedy of the Western Armenian poets was accompanied by their creative accomplishments which acquired universal significance. The literary greatness of the Western Armenian poet is measured by his individualism, national and universal perception, love and understanding. Davtyan in his research juxtaposes the ideal and the reality. The critic focuses on the essence of the Armenian writer, aiming at preservation of the literary traditions and intertwining them with the modern periods.

Fluctuations in allomorphy domains: Applying Stump 2010 to Armenian ordinal numerals

Numerals and ordinals occupy a special place in the typology of suppletion. In generative work, one basic cross-linguistic parameter is whether ordinal allomorphy displays internal vs. external marking. Internal marking is when irregular forms propagate from lower ordinals to higher ones (English ‘first’$ \to $‘twenty-first’), whereas external marking is the lack of propagation. We catalog ordinal formation in Armenian dialects through both formal-generative and functional-typological perspectives. We find that Eastern Armenian and Early Western Armenian are uniformly external-marking systems for the ordinals of ‘1–4’. However, Modern Western Armenian is a mixed system: ‘1’ displays external-marking while ‘2–4’ display internal-marking. Simultaneously, the ordinal of ‘1’ uses a suppletive portmanteau, while the ordinals of ‘2–4’ use agglutinative allomorphs. We formalize these differences in a derivational approach to morphology (Distributed Morphology). We argue that mixed systems arise from allomorphy rules that are sensitive to either constituency or linearity. The Western mixed system seems typologically rare and novel. Given our formal analysis, we then uncover other asymmetries in the propagation of irregular ordinals and the retention of portmanteau morphology across 35 Armenian varieties. The end result is a strong functional correlation between suppletion, external marking, and lower numerals.

Dikran Tchouhadjian’s Opera Arif՚s Ruse (dedicated to the 150th anniversary of creating the first Armenian comic opera)

On December 9, 1872, Dikran Tchouhadjian’s Arif’s Ruse, the first Armenian comic opera, was staged at the Getik Pasha Theatre in Constantinople, simultaneously marking the beginning of the Turkish musical theatre. The author of the opera libretto was an Armenian opera singer, the first Western Armenian singer who received his professional education in Europe, tenor Hovhannes Achemian (1838-1905), who performed the title role of Arif. The Ottoman stage primadonna Shazik Keuyluyian (born Sevadjian, Lusnak Sargsi Keuyluyian, 1854- 1905) played the main character, Meriem. The performance of Arif was the first occasion in the Armenian musical reality when an Armenian composer’s opera was on stage, performed by Armenian artists. This was not only the birthday of the Armenian comic opera, but also it marked the beginning of the Armenian musical theatre. In the present study on Tchouhadjian’s music, presented to the English-speaking readers for the first time, the results of the opera’s comprehensive research are substantiated, defining the genre of Arif as a comic opera, revealing its musical language and dramaturgical features, and putting forward the necessity of staging it in Armenia, as well as publishing an academic edition of the opera score and claviers. The clavier of the opera prelude has been introduced into scientific circulation for the first time, the computer composition of which was carried out by assistant professor Anna Tamiroghlyan, Doctor of Arts.

Амиан Марцелин и западноарменският консонантизъм

If not the most essential, but at least the most noticeable difference between the two forms of the modern Armenian language – the Eastern and the Western – is the difference in the pronunciation of a large part of the consonants. In initial position and within the word, the voiceless consonants of Eastern Armenian language have voiced pronunciation in Western Armenian and the voiced consonants of the Eastern Armenian, especially the explosive ones, have voiceless pronunciation in Western Armenian. The devoicing has been already found in Old Armenian texts from the 10th – 11th centuries, but a similar case has been discovered much earlier – in the 7th century, in a text of the so-called ‘Anonymous interpreter’ (Armenian: Անանուն մեկնիչ), a commentator of ‘The Art of Grammar’ of Dionysius Thrax (170 – 90 BC), whose work had been translated into Old Armenian in the 5th century AD. In the commentaries of the Anonymous Interpreter there is an alternating use of the forms bazuk ~ pazuk ~ p'azuk (‘hand, arm’), which suggests that the devoicing of the explosive consonants in the Armenian language was a very old phenomenon. An even earlier and neglected example of devoicing of the explosive consonants in the Old Armenian language (Grabar) could be found in the Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus, a Latin speaking author who worked in the second half of the 4th century. Writing about the events of 368 – 369 AD, Ammianus mentions an Armenian eunuch named Cylaces, which name was a Greco-Latin form of the Syriac-Armenian personal name Glak, but in its Western Armenian pronunciation, Klak. This example not only lowers the timeline of this typical Western Armenian phonetic phenomenon by as much as three centuries, but also supports the existing hypothesis that the devoicing of the explosive consonants in the Armenian language already existed in the preliterate period, that is, before 405 AD.

ՊԵՏԱԿԱՆՈՒԹՅԱՆ ԳԱՂԱՓԱՐԻ ՀՈԼՈՎՈՒՅԹՆ ԱՐԵՎՄՏԱՀԱՅ ԻՐԱԿԱՆՈՒԹՅԱՆ ՄԵՋ ԱԶԳԱՅԻՆ ՍԱՀՄԱՆԱԴՐՈՒԹՅԱՆ ՎԱՎԵՐԱՑՄԱՆ 160-ԱՄՅԱԿԻ ԱՌԹԻՎ

The 30s-50s of the 19th century in the history of Ottoman Empire are known as "Tanzimat", the period of reforms. In that historical period, a group of enlightened Western Armenian intellectuals, influenced by European progressive revolutions and highly educated there, and inspired by liberating ideas, based on the difficult and disastrous situation of the Western Armenians, as well as taking advantage of the difficult external military-political situation created for Turkey in the middle, started the constitutional movement, as a result of which 1860 was developed over the years. On May 24, the National General Assembly after lengthy discussions, editing and reductions adopted a document called "National Constitution" aimed at improving the national-spiritual life of the Western Armenians, which was submitted to the Sultanate government (Bardzr Daran) for ratification, and finally on March 17, 1863, it is approved by the government and became a state law.

Թէոդիկի «Ամէնուն տարեցոյցը»՝ իբրեւ նամակագրական ժառանգութեան սկզբնաղբիւր

The article refers to one of the most visible names of the Western Armenian press of the beginning of the 20th century, to Theodig’s “Amenun Taretsuytsy” (1907-1929), particularly the correspondental heritage found in its pages. It is emphasized the fact, that the author considered the letter as one of the important columns of his journal. This is evidenced by hundreds of published letters, for many of which the periodical continues to be a source. The letters of Eghia Temirchipashyan, Hrant Asatur, Krikor Odian, Ruben Sevak and others are separated by combining and clarifying them with their later editions and creative works of the writers.

ԿԵՆԴԱՆԻՆԵՐԻ ԵՎ ԲՈՒՅՍԵՐԻ ԱՆՁՆԱՎՈՐՈՒՄԸ ՀԱԿՈԲ ՄՆՁՈՒՐՈՒ ՍՏԵՂԾԱԳՈՐԾՈՒԹՅՈՒՆՆԵՐՈՒՄ

Hakob Mndzuri is one of the famous figures of the Armenian classical literature. Like many other Western Armenian miraculously rescued writers he has had a complicated and tragic fate. He dedicated his whole life to the people and nature of his native province, to the revival of the animal world and national customs and anything that is called homeland. Most of Mnzuri's works are about the relationship of people with animals that describe everyday life, where the only goal is hard work, which human beings would not be able to accomplish without the help of domestic animals.

The Sociology of Female Characters in the Novels of Western Armenian Female Authors in the Late 19th Century

The aim of the research is to reveal the sociology of building women characters (their vocabulary) in the novels of two Armenian female authors, namely novelist-publicist Srbuhi Tyusab and novelist-poet Sipil, who lived and worked in the Ottoman Empire, Constantinople in particular, in the second half of the 19th century. The problem of the study is the literary-sociological and linguistic generalizations of female characters’ vocabulary in Srbuhi Tyusab’s novel “Araksia or the Governess” and Sipil’s “A Girl’s Heart” from the perspectives of comparative analysis of linguistic features, vocabulary and semantic commonalities of the texts. A comparative analysis of female characters in the novels “Araksia or the Governess” (1887) by Tyusab and “A Girl’s Heart” (1891) by Sipil, has been attempted from the perspectives of literary and sociological studies. The actuality of the study lies in its interdisciplinarity, according to which the material was analyzed in the context of mutual connections between literary studies, linguistics, social and computer sciences with the application of the methods of literary and linguistic comparison, sociological statistics, as well as the graph-based semantic representation method. This kind of study has been attempted for the first time. It is important and actual not only in terms of interdisciplinarity, but also in terms of the analysis of women’s issues in Armenian Studies.

Philosophical-Anthropological Concepts of Subject and Subjectivity as a Genesis of Women’s Emancipation

The study examine the problems existing in the Ottoman Empire of the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, which are related to the philosophical-antropological categories of subject and subjectivity in male-female relationships, the identification of female-male identities, to the internal domains of their coverage, as well as the possibilities of women’s emancipation and realization of their rights in a patriarchal society. The philosophical concepts of woman-subject and subjectivity were studied based on the philosophical-anthropological-feminist contexts of the works of Western Armenian female authors who were engaged in literary activities in the second half of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century, as well as the contexts of socio-cultural and conceptual transformations of women’s emancipation. Their manifestations and changes in society are viewed as the genesis of women’s emancipation. This is an interdisciplinary study, so the material has been analyzed in the context of mutual connections and relationships between Philosophy, Literary Studies and Anthropology. The research is unprecedented since analysis of this kind has been attempted for the first time. It is also important and up-to-date in terms of analyses of women’s issues in the scope of Armenological Studies.

Output-conditioned and non-local allomorphy in Armenian theme vowels

AbstractCross-linguistically, it is difficult to tease apart allomorphy from readjustment rules. But regardless, both tend to respect locality and are sensitive to information that is present in the input, not the output. We document a counter-example to these tendencies from Western Armenian, and we discuss how the data falsifies such restrictive models of allomorphy. The Western Armenian theme vowel-i-changes to the theme vowel-e-due to two types of triggers. The first type of trigger is phonological: the change happens when the theme vowel is unstressed in the output. This is a type of allomorphy that is conditioned by output phonology. The second type of trigger is morphological: the change happens when the verb is in the past tense. The+Pastmorpheme can be either in the verb (adjacent to the theme vowel) or on a separate auxiliary in periphrasis. This amounts to a case of long-distance allomorphy that is conditioned across words, even in suspended affixation. For suspended affixation, I provide semantic and prosodic evidence that suspended affixation is created via base-generation and not via ellipsis. The inability to use ellipsis acts as additional evidence that the allomorphy is long-distance.

About /on/ the relationship between the formation of new words in western Armenian

New formations /new words / have a special role in vocabulary enrichment. The study of neologisms has always been the subject of linguists' attention. The material of the study was the words taken out from the Western Armenian press /Hayrenik, Nor Yaraj, Horizon/ published in 2018-2021, which are not fixed in the dictionaries. In the majority of Western Armenian complex (complicated) words, the main semantic center is the last component. The latter expresses such a meaning that is concretized by the first component. Moreover, the superior component can be nominal or verbal. In the case when the root of the verb acts as a root, it is manifested mainly by the root of the verb and the root of the adverbial modifier. It should be noted that in the case of the stem root, it is more rarely compared to being in the compound root, because the verb rarely becomes a compliment to other parts of speech. As we have seen, among the independent verbs of the Western Armenian (including Eastern Armenian) the indefinite, subjective compounds (complex and derivational words) also participate in word formation without change, preserving not only infinitives but also the verbal word-forming suffix-endings (-el, -al, -ogh) , (ing), (to do, doing). The study of the material allows us to conclude that the verb base, as a stemming base, participates less in word formation than as a compound base. Indefinite and subjunctive verb bases are more often found in the role of seed bases, sometimes preserving verb endings as well.

Neologisms with the Prefix փոխ (pokh) in Western Armenian

In the course of time, vocabulary units of a language are bound to undergo various changes, being influenced by up-to-date concepts and phenomena. Word-forming units such as prefix, infix and suffix are likely to undergo functional changes, thus being transformed froma productive unit into a non-productive one and the other way round. The semantic analysis of the prefix փոխhas revealed that it has become a productive unit due to the recent geopolitical changes, for example: փոխհանդուրժողականություն, փոխահաբեկչություն, փոխանվստահություն, փոխբացառում, փոխ­ընդունելի, փոխինտեգրացվել and others. The analysis has also clarified the list of words formed with the prefix փոխա.Thus, in the range of words with the derivational meaning “the second in order” փոխարքա, փոխգնդապետ, փոխծովակալ, փոխհյուպատոս, փոխնախագահ and some others, the word փոխգնդապետ is not justified, since it is a separate military title in the range մայոր- փոխգնդապետ – գնդապետ – գեներալ – գեներալ մայոր – գեներալ լեյտենանտ – գեներալ գնդապետ, where none of the units is subordinate to the following one. The same refers to the noun “vice-admiral”, which is а military title in Navy, a rank between «admiral» and «subadmiral». This implies that military titles should be presented in a different scales.

The declaration “I am a woman” in the autobiographical novel “The gardens of Silihtar” by Zapel Yesayan

The study examines the semantic ranges of the vocabulary of the autobiographical novel “The Gardens of Silihtar” by Western Armenian writer Zapel Yesayan. It also provides ways of interpreting the male-female problem. The aim of the study is to analyze the declaration “I am a woman” in the semantic domain of the vocabulary that determines the phenomenon of femininity. This is realized in the chain of verbal-semantic open subcategories of unconsciousness. The problem of the study is to present the explicit manifestations of the expression of the feminine, including the autonomies and affiliations, which are realized in the semantic domain of the declaration I am a woman as a phenomenon, through highlighting the main lexical-semantic subcategories of the language. The direct form of expression of linguistic features, which is realized in the novel “The Gardens of Silihtar” via verbal-semantic subcategories, is summarized in the subcategories - family, home, friends (collectively), children's toys, nationality, religion, gender, education, residence, of the novel, and contains - woman, girl, maiden, virgin, lady, grandmother, mother, aunt, cousin, with feminine energy, so their relationship with the feminine is based on logical and sensual links. The linguistic means identified in this type of autobiographical text serve to emphasize the fact that the writer identifies herself with the female gender and self-constitutes. For Yesayan, literature is a way to overcome boundaries. And in that reality, her position sounds more radical, although the war with women in society continues by other means, more directly, with the expression I am a woman, on the tongue.

Հ. Թումանյանի ուղևորությունը Պոլիս. մտավորականության արձագանքը

The article presents some details of Hov. Tumanyan’s officially sanctioned by the Armenian Aid Committee visit to Constantinople in 1921, lasting more than a month and a half, in particular, the publications of the Western Armenian criticism and of Constantinople press, which essentially systematize the approaches and assessments of the Western Armenian critical thought regarding the national identity of the poetic world of Hov. Tumanyan. The purpose and details of the visit to Constantinople, of course, are well known to us from the literary references to Tumanyan’s life. But there is one reason why these two months are of particular interest and we will consider it in the context of this study. From time to time, Western Armenian critics turned to the works of Hov. Tumanyan. But during this short period, the publications in Constantinopole Armenian press essentially generalize and systematize the approaches of the Western Armenian critical thought regarding Eastern Armenian poetry in general.

Ժամանակակից գրական արևելահայերենի և գերմաներենի ենթակայական ու հարակատար դերբայների քերականական տիպաբանություն

Subject participles of modern German and literary Eastern Armenian maintain the uniformity of composition. Resultative participle of German, due to the peculiarities of the verb, appears in two different forms of composition, by revealing certain peculiarities over composition of the Resultative participle in the Armenian language. Resultative participle is closely connected with the German verb system. Being one of the three main forms of the verb, it participates in the composition of compound finite tense forms and the Simple Past. In the modern literary Eastern Armenian language, resultative tense forms, unlike German, are not formed, and past tenses with the Resultative participle of literary Western Armenian have a predominant role over the perfect tenses in the frequency with which they are used. As the Perfect tenses are of the same form and there is no semantic difference between them (in Grabar = Old Armenian the Past participle was translated to Modern Armenian = Ashkharabar as Perfect or Resultative), the choice of the participle comes from the meaning of the sentence. The Resultative participle form in German used in the formation of the compound finite tenses of the Past is necessarily transformed into the Perfect tense form. Subject participle and Resultative participle, by combining verbal and noun features, appearing in corresponding syntactic positions in paralleled languages, become more capacious and practical, expressing also the functions of disappeared forms and participles.

Bare Singulars and Pseudo-Incorporation in Western Armenian

This paper is concerned with the way the denotation of the bare singular and the process of Pseudo-Incorporation (PI) interact in Western Armenian (WA). We argue that bare singulars in WA unambiguously denote properties of kinds, thus differing significantly from languages like English and Turkish, where they are ambiguous between object-level and kind-level properties (Dayal 2004, Sağ 2019). Our argument comes from Pseudo-Incorporation. WA allows PI of [Num (CLF) Nsg] elements (covert plurals) which denote object-level properties. At the same time, PI-ed NPs (either bare singulars or covert plurals) accept only kind- level modification. This cannot be accounted by restricting PI to kind-denoting NPs (like in Turkish, Sağ 2019), as object-level properties (i.e. covert plurals) are also PI-ed. We derive the pattern by building an analysis of PI where the bare singular is unambiguously kind-denoting.

ՄԻՋԻՆ ՀԱՅԵՐԵՆ-ԱՐԵՎՄՏԱՀԱՅԵՐԵՆ ՓՈԽԱՆՑՈՒՄՆԵՐԸ ԸՂՁԱԿԱՆ ԵՂԱՆԱԿԻ ՀԱՄԱԿԱՐԳՈՒՄ / MIDDLE ARMENIAN-WESTERN ARMENIAN TRANSITIONS IN OPTATIVE MOOD

The examination of the language systems of the Middle Armenian and Western Armenian languages shows that Western Armenian inherited many realities from Middle Armenian. The study of optative mood confirms that the formal and semantic characteristics of Western Armenian coincide with that of Middle Armenian, where this mood was formed on the basis of the verbs of the indicative mood of Grabar. The endings of the verbs of optative mood were changed in Middle Armenian, then they were transferred to Western Armenian. The polysemy of verbs of subjunctive mood of Grabar was also inherited by the new optative mood, formed by the present and imperfect past in Middle Armenian. However, in the course of the historical development of the language, the formation of new resulted in monosemantic optative mood. This process of monosemantization started from the middle Armenian language. It was generalized in the early period of the New Armenian language and then transferred to the Western Armenian language. The verbs of operative mood are used with թէ (that), երբ (when), եթէ (If), թող (let) and other connectives and modal words in order to emphasize the optative meaning. The word նէ is used in the Western Armenian spoken language. It was also transferred to Western Armenian language from Middle Armenian. The use of նէ is not recommended in modern literary Western Armenian.

Гевонд Алишан в оценке Акопа Ошакана / Ghevond Alishan appraised by Hakob Oshakan

The phenomenon of the life and work of the great Armenologist, writer Ghevond Alishan has always been in the center of attention of Armenian public thought. A considerable amount of work has been done by researchers over time, much has been revised, evaluated, re-evaluated, and it is a fact that the work done generally provides comprehensive coverage of Alishan's encyclopedic merits. Among those references, Hakob Oshakan's "comparative" study is of particular interest, taking into account comprehensive and deep analytical horizons, specific methods and criteria for a comprehensive analysis of the material. The purpose of the study is to present Ghevond Alishan in the assessment of the great Western Armenian critic Hakob Oshakan. Our task is to showcase and appreciate the unique and valuable examples of Oshakan's critical thought that complement the literary significance of Alishan's work. The “Oshakan” study of Alishan's heritage, with its typological, structural new interpretation and the highlighting of hitherto unobserved features, has not yet become the subject of a separate study, which determines the scientific novelty and relevance of the article. The article uses both special literary (hermeneutical, axiological) and general scientific (analytical) research methods. As a result of the study, we came to the conclusion that, although Oshakan's critical views are distinguished by a sharp ideological orientation and some uncompromisingness, they masterfully reveal the key elements that characterize the creative world and the principles of Ghevond Alishan, which can become the material of a separate study.

Agglutination underlies superficial fusion in Western Armenian verbal inflection

Verbs in Western Armenian (Indo-European) inflect for both subject agreement and tense. Subject and tense marking is often fused, which makes segmentation difficult. We show that, despite surface fusion, verbal inflection in Western Armenian is fundamentally agglutinative. By segmenting subject and tense suffixes across the verbal paradigm, we capture syncretic patterns and other interactions between inflectional slots that a fusional account does not. Our analysis requires limited but systematic use of zero morphs. Our agglutinative model of Western Armenian verbs reveals that inwardly-sensitive morphologically-conditioned allomorphy has priority over its outwardly-sensitive counterpart.

Առած-ասացվածքների լեզվաոճական առանձնահատկությունները Նշան Պեշիկթաշլյանի երգիծավեպերում

Armenian satirical literature has rich traditions and deep roots. The genre of satire reached its apogee in the 19th – 20th centuries, particularly in the works of such Western Armenian writers as Hagob Paronian and Yervand Otian. Being one of the most brilliant satirists in the Diaspora literature, Nshan Peshiktashlian followed the legacy of the Western Armenian writers.