Linguistic Papers

Towards the Issue of Reflexive Verbs in Megrelian and Laz

2022-08-23T16:08:08+04:00

In scholarship mophosemantics of reflexive verbs is quite understudied. The opinions about the genesis and functions of the prefix e differ. According to the traditionally accepted view, at present the given prefix is regarded as a marker of more newly-formed categories, namely, of subjective version and passive voice, whereas with the reflexive function it is evidenced only in a small group of verbs.

The paper examines some samples of the prefix e used with the reflexive function in Megrelian and Laz.

On the basis of the synchronic and diachronic analysis it has been assumed that in Megrelian and Laz reflexives with the prefix e are the result of the reflexivization of simple predicate structures: R-u-n,Cf. tqob -un>itqobun.

The paper argues that because of the specificity of their grammatical pattern reflexives in Megrelian and Laz should be separated from the category of voice; similar to potential, causatives and version, reflexives form a category closely linked with the voice. In reflexives the action of the subject is concentrated on the subject itself, i.e. the subject and the deep structure object are identical.

Conceptual Metaphors in Linguistics Discourse

2022-08-23T16:13:32+04:00

On the material of English the paper aims at identifying and investigating conceptual metaphors in linguistics discourse. Different versions of conceptual metaphor theory (Lakoff & Johnson,1980, 1993; Kovecses 2008, 2017; Reddy 1979) form the theoretical basis of the study. The empirical data embrace 11 textbooks in different branches of linguistics - historical linguistics, phonetics, lexicology, pragmatics, stylistics and sociolinguistics. The observations have shown that linguistics discourse is quite understudied from the standpoint of conceptual metaphor theory.

As a result of the study a number of conceptual metaphors, mainly of ontological and structural type, have been identified and examined. The following ontological metaphors have been attested in the data: Language is a Mirror; Language is a Container; Language is Female. The most frequently encountered structural metaphors are as follows: Language is a Code; Language is a Living Organism; Language has a Family; Language Relations are Family Relations.

The metaphors in question are employed with the purpose of describing language from different perspectives.

Some Points on Dialectalisms in Literary Works

2022-08-23T16:17:56+04:00

Dialectalisms in the bookish style is an ever-relevant issue for any Standard language. Similar to other Standard Languages, Standard Georgian in any period of its historical development could not avoid dialectal elements.

The second half of the 19th century is known for its normalization tendencies in New Georgian; on the other hand, special emphasis is placed upon dialectalisms-dialectal elements are amply employed in literary works with the purpose of achieving certain stylistic effects. Ilia Chavchavadze is considered the first writer to use dialectalisms in his works. In literary criticism and linguistics discussions on the given issue start in the 20th century. The terms ‘linguistic realism/naturalism/ particularism’ are introduced. The term ‘linguistic particularism’ often linked with political particularism (i.e,: narrow national interests) triggered negative processes- many authors faced banning.

The issue under discussion is of particular relevance for Standard Georgian.

Third Person Pronouns in the Speech of Georgian Jews

2022-08-23T16:20:32+04:00

Determining the speech status of Georgian Jews and stating its place in the Kartvelian language space is one of the important issues of modern Kartvelology and Jewish Studies. In this reference investigation of the usage of third-person pronouns in the speech of the Jews living in Georgia is of particular relevance.

The empirical data include samples of spoken as well as written discourse genres (the latter is represented by the religious texts - the first book of the Pentateuch of Moses).

The study has shown that in the speech of Georgian Jews third person pronouns es, eg, is , igi, are mainly evidenced in their archaic forms ese,isi.

isi variant is encountered In the texts recorded by R. Tavdidishvili (1937-1938); however, the frequency of its usage is not high in the materials reflecting speech peculiarities of Kutaisi, Akhaltsikhe and Racha Jews recorded in 1998 and 2005, 2013-2019. The field work carried out recently has proved that Georgian Jews employ the pronoun Isi both independently as well as with the function of a determiner.

In the speech of Georgian Jews, is is most frequently encountered with the function of the 3rd person personal pronoun. igi is employed rarely. The pronouns es, is, eg, igi in the oblique case are replaced by their variants ama,ima, maga/mage, ma.

Social Network and Neologisms

2022-08-23T16:23:18+04:00

On the material of social media the paper examines different types of word formation processes that lead to the coinage and establishment of neologisms in urban as well as Standard English vocabulary. The most frequently employed types of word formation evidenced in the empirical data are: abbreviation, acronym, blending, clipping, conversion, affixation, reduplication.

The author argues that the emergence of neologisms in the social networking sites under discussion is determined by the restrictions imposed upon users: the number of symbols for updating a status or personal information is limited. As a result of the study two large groups of neologisms have been singled out: lexical items that have undergone a semantic change and newly coined units.

General Linguistic Peculiarities of Modernist Verbal Portrait

2022-08-23T16:25:07+04:00

The paper examines general linguistic peculiarities of modernist verbal portrait on the material of “Winesburg, Ohio” by Sherwood Anderson. The first five short stories (Hands, Paper Pills, Mother, The Philosopher, Nobody Knows ) have been analyzed from the standpoints of conceptual metaphor theory, semantics, linguo-stylistics, discourse analysis and literary studies. The research has shown that a modernist verbal portrait differs considerably from the character portraits evidenced in literary works of previous epochs. Anderson, as one of the founders of literary modernism, does not provide the reader with detailed physical descriptions of his characters; instead, he singles out a couple of relevant (in his viewpoint) features and by using them recurrently throughout the narrative displays character personalities. It has been observed that one particular physical feature may serve a number of purposes: show a character’s mood, reveal his/her inner world or emotional state. Anderson places special emphasis on the emotional and cognitive processes of his characters and by turning physical details into symbols he achieves his goal.

Spread and Dominance of French in Alsace

2022-08-23T16:27:56+04:00

Schiffman and Spolski point to the relationship between language policy and language culture. Alsace is a clear example how the two can effect each other. In different periods of its history Alsace witnessed dominance and decline of French, German as well as the Alsatian dialect and the cultures linked to the three, As a result, nowadays the Alsatian culture is a mixture of the above-mentioned three. During the Prussian period, when French was not easily available, Alsace-Lorraine’s resistance to Germanization and the Alsatians’ growing devotion to their dialect suggest that the Alsatians were neither French nor German, but “a small nation who did not allow their identity to be violated in any way“. Thus, the culture of modern Alsatians should be perceived as a mixture of French, German and Alsatian elements.

As a result of the language policy of France and the influence of French culture,, French is considered a prestigious language in the 21st century Alsace. The Alsatian dialect has survived only in the speech of older generation, mainly in rural areas; instances of its transmission to the younger generation is poor.There has been a recent increase in the use of German due to the influx of tourists from Germany, which has led some young people to start learning German. A sample of the passive usage of German is evidenced in the media, as German television can easily be received in Alsace and certain part of the population finds it interesting. The fact that sometimes Alsatians can get better paid jobs in Germany and German-speaking Switzerland than in France is the third reason for learning German.

On the Linguistic Realization of Coherence in Different Genres of English

2022-08-23T16:30:43+04:00

The paper aims at investigating linguistic realization of coherence in three discourse genres – news report, poster and talk-show. Discourse analysis, conversation analysis and text linguistics form the theoretical framework of the study. The empirical data embrace the following:

· 15 internet news stories from the screen newspaper Newser;
· 10 samples of poster covering the period from the second half of
the 20th c. up to the present day;
· 2 episodes of the talk-show: Variety Studio-Actors on Actors;

The research has shown that in the three genres under discussion all 5 types of cohesive devices (reference, substitution, conjunction, ellipsis and lexical ties) are evidenced, however, the frequency of their usage differ across the genres in question. Reference and lexical ties are of equal importance for news reports, talk-shows and posters. Ellipsis and substitution are poorly represented in news reports, whereas in posters and talk-shows the percentage of their usage is quite high. Conjunction is amply employed in talk-shows and news reports, but hardly encountered in posters. Unlike talk-shows and posters rhetorical cohesion is not evidenced in news reports. Special emphasis is placed on the fact that the peculiarities of the employment of cohesive ties are genre-specific.

The paper also examines some other relevant means of achieving coherence in the genres in question.

Paradigmatic Models of Noun Declension in Current Georgian

2022-08-23T16:33:49+04:00

In current Georgian nouns have different declension paradigms. Every noun has its own place within the system; the question is to find this place and present a full picture. One unique property (a semantic peculiarity may serve as such) that differentiates a particular noun of one group from that of another, is sufficient for the purpose of classification. A group may be represented just by one member; e.g.: dro (time) has a unique paradigm with no analogy in any of the paradigms.

Stating declension types means identifying different existing paradigms; i.e.: there are as many declension types as there are paradigms.

The paper argues that in current Georgian there are around 20 varieties of noun declension.

Towards the Issue of Thematic Markers in the Documents of the 1812 Kakheti Rebellion

2022-08-23T16:36:10+04:00

In the Kakhetian dialect thematic markers are expressed in a peculiar and interesting way. The documents of 1812 give us an idea about the linguistic situation of two centuries ago and the usage of thematic markers in the Kakhetian dialect of that time. The paper focuses on some points of the issue in question:

1. Historically, single-themed verbs with no thematic markers take one in current Kakhetian dialect (xocavt ).In the documents under discussion these verbs have no thematic markers. However, there are instances when they take thematic markers in the Present Tense, but in the Past Imperfect they preserve an archaic form. In the empirical data the following forms are evidenced: (xocdnen, Signaghi), (gvjeJdnen - Qandaura).

2. Of particular interest is the formation of the third person in the verbs of the Present Screeve. In Old Georgian, in the third subjective person, plural, the thematic marker av lost its vowel. Similar forms are attested in the documents under analysis (daipicven-Telavi). The formation of the third person in verbs was similar to that of Old Georgian (daipicven, Telavi). Such forms are no longer attested in the Kakhetian dialect; the formation evidenced is similar to that of Standard Georgian. However, the dialectal norm being daipicamen, the thematic marker -av is replaced by-am.

3. According to the data, the imperfect paradigm of the verbs with -av and -am thematic markers is mostly similar to that of Old Georgian; the first person forms are also attested (movqnevdit -Vezhini, Gurjaani); due to the text content the imperfect screeve is not encountered in the second person of the verbs with a similar formation, though in the third person the variants with the vowel e are encountered (gvrisxevda -Sighnaghi: stibevdnen, Mashnaari).

4. At present the thematic marker –av is replaced by the marker - am. In the documents the former prevails, though the verbs with the thematic marker-am are also encountered (vrecxamt, vkrepavt -Manavi).

5. In the documents in Resultative 1 of Series 3 the parallel formation of the verbs with -av and -am thematic markers is attested. The form gvizidavs is typical of Standard Georgain , whereas gvizidams is a dialectal norm. In current Kakhetian dialect the verbs in Resultative 1 generally take no thematic markers, however, if there is any exception it is the thematic marker -am which is employed mizidnia mizidam.

The History of the Formation of the Faculty of Linguistics, its Fields and Educational Programmes at Tbilisi State University

2022-08-23T16:40:09+04:00

The Tbilisi State University Fund at the National Archive of Georgia preserves archival materials, namely, the minutes of the sessions presenting the history of the formation of the Faculty of Linguistics at Tbilisi State University in 1926, the names of the scientists (commission members) participating in the process and the programmes compiled by them.

According to the archival materials obtained by the author, in 1926 Prof. K. Kekelidze was entrusted with founding the faculty of linguistics by the People’s Commissariat of Education The paper examines the minutes of the sessions reflecting the preparatory work carried out by the professors of Tbilisi State University (three minutes in total, the morning and evening sessions of July 2 and 3, 1926).

The materials analyzed have shown that the commission members working on the issue formed two departments at the Faculty of Linguistics that of 1. Linguistics and 2.Archaeology and Ethnography. Apart from Kartvelological Studies the linguistics department aimed at studying linguistic, cultural and historical aspects of the national minorities and the countries of the Near East. The Department of Archaeology and ethnography aimed at preparing personnel and equipping them with the skills for: carrying out studies in local history, forming museums, archives, and libraries; trainees were to matser linguistic, literary, historical, archaeological and ethnographic issues of the Soviet Union and the Caucasus.

In total, in 1926, the objective of the Faculty of Linguistics was to study and teach about 30 languages (Georgian (Megrelian, Svan), Russian, Armenian, Greek, Abkhazian, Ossetian, Dido, Avar, Tabasarian, Dagestanian, Tsova-Tushian, Gligurian, Chechen, Circassian, Ubykh, Arabic, Persian, Ottoman, Azerbaijani, Semitic, Turkish, Hebrew, Syriac, Assyrian, Indian, Latin) and their dialects alongside a variety of disciplines.

Admittedly, initially the Faculty faced certain difficulties linked with the preparation of qualified pedagogical staff as well as appropriate textbooks for teaching the above-listed languages. Nevertheless, the establishment of the Faculty of Linguistics at Tbilisi State University was of particular significance: in later years as a result of the scientific achievements of the University scholars and the fundumental works carried out by them the University became the main linguistic center for Kartvelological and Caucasiological studies in the region.

Lonely Souls

2022-08-23T16:44:03+04:00

Galaction’s poem Elegy with its lyrical intimacy, tropology and lexico phraseological peculiarities is close to Nikoloz Baratashvili’s poetic world; just this one poem reveals a spiritual and creative resemblance between the two poets - it echoes the spirit of Baratashvili’s masterpieces Merani, O, Evil Spirit!, Soul Forlorn, Meditations by the Mtkvari River etc.

An acute feeling of loneliness is the main motif in Goderdzi Chokheli’s works as well- individuals, houses, rivers, plants and animals and the whole country suffer from loneliness. The characters in his works seem to be caged in this overwhelming solitude.

The paper argues that Chokheli’s postulate Loneliness is the Mother of Thought befits Baratashvili’s as well as Galaktion’s poetic worlds. In the works of the three authors spiritual tragism of human loneliness and solitude is emphasized.