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Final-Vowel Truncation in the Forms of Address in Modern Spoken Georgian

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Language, Logic, and Computation (TbiLLC 2019)

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Abstract

This paper studies a relatively new development in modern spoken Georgian (Kartvelian) – the truncation of the final vowel in vocative forms of disyllabic nouns. It considers a similar rule, operating both in some of the Georgian dialects and also in the former contact language Russian and argues between the language-family-internal vs. external contact scenarios, to find out the origin of the new pattern.

The work was done within the project FR-19-18557, supported by the Shota Rustaveli National Science Foundation of Georgia.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The following abbreviations are used in this paper: adv = adverbial; dat = dative; erg = ergative; ev = epenthetic vowel; gen = genitive; H = high; imp = imperative; inst = instrumental; L = low; narr = narrative; neg = negation; nom = nominative; part = particle; pl = plural; sg = singular; tam = Tense, aspect, mood; voc = vocative.

  2. 2.

    In Georgian, vowel quantity is not a phonological feature [55, p. 53], [7, p. 81].

  3. 3.

    Posted on February 27, 2020 at https://forum.ge/?showtopic=35132192&view=findpost&p=55902429.

  4. 4.

    The narrative case has also been referred to as ergative (erg) in the Kartvelian literature [23]. There has been some debate, whether Georgian is an ergative language or not [3, 19, 21, 22]. Here, I will be using the term narrative instead of ergative to avoid the bias towards the ergative alignment type.

  5. 5.

    The voc ending -v originates from the voc ending -o. According to [44, p. 60], the voc -o, when immediately following a vowel, historically lost syllabicity and went through the stages of impoverishment such as -o \(\gg \) -w/-v \(\gg \) -\(\emptyset \). In spoken language, both v- and -\(\emptyset \) are found and both are accepted by normative grammars as variants [17, p. 62].

  6. 6.

    See footnote 5.

  7. 7.

    Consonant-final proper nouns do not get the epenthetic vowel (ev) -a in gen (cf. ((12b)) vs. (11b)), inst (cf. (12c) vs. (11c)) (or dat [45, p. 41], [41, p. 32]).

  8. 8.

    Nouns with consonant-final stems get syncopated but I am not going to discuss the rules governing that operation in this paper. For more information see [14, 41, 45].

  9. 9.

    Consonant-final proper nouns are represented by their stem in nom (14a), narr, and voc (14d) forms [45, p. 41], [41, p. 32].

  10. 10.

    The difference from the old Georgian is that proper nouns start resembling common nouns by developing case endings in nom, narr, and voc.

  11. 11.

    https://www.kvirispalitra.ge/2011-03-31-07-00-04/11031-qarthveli-msakhiobebi-dudukhana-tserodze.html.

  12. 12.

    The dates like 1950s for the start of the spread of truncated voc forms of tri- and quadrisyllabic names in the Tbilisi variety, as well as the 1980s for the start of the spread of truncated voc forms of disyllabic names are an approximation (see the Tables 2 and 3). In the absence of actual documented data of informal spontaneous speech of those decades, I exclusively rely on impressions and reports of a limited number of individuals as well as on address forms that sporadically occur in published interviews/recollections (see, for instance, the source interview for Example (17d)). A more thorough investigation will be needed to locate more precise dates.

  13. 13.

    Examples (23b) and (23d) are taken from the Russian National Corpus, http://www.ruscorpora.ru/.

  14. 14.

    In Russian, vowel quantity is not a phonological feature [50, p. 41].

  15. 15.

    Taken from https://forum.ge/?showtopic=35090121&view=findpost&p=54687325.

  16. 16.

    Taken from https://forum.ge/?showtopic=34490350&view=findpost&p=34939035.

  17. 17.

    Taken from https://forum.ge/?showtopic=34890421&view=findpost&p=48809259.

  18. 18.

    Taken from https://forum.ge/?showtopic=34656179&view=findpost&p=41084605.

  19. 19.

    Taken from https://forum.ge/?showtopic=34620382&view=findpost&p=39679738.

  20. 20.

    Taken from https://forum.ge/?showtopic=35155595&view=findpost&p=56352277.

  21. 21.

    Taken from http://karavi.ge/viewtopic.php?t=3228&start=15.

  22. 22.

    One of the anonymous reviewers suggest that truncating non-conventional proper names is common in Russian as well.

  23. 23.

    https://www.facebook.com/Ekarochikashvilii/posts/10211427432799934

  24. 24.

    Taken from https://eva.ru/forum/mobile/topic/3478053.htm#m94519819.

  25. 25.

    Taken from https://www.labuhov.net/modules.php?name=Files&op=view_file&lid=1460#27862.

  26. 26.

    See footnote 2.

  27. 27.

    The fact that, apart from the simple truncation, the lengthening of the vowel (characteristic of the Russian pattern) got also copied, might reflect the frequent code switching and parallel use of Georgian and Russian, especially in the speech of the Georgian intelligentsia of the Soviet period.

  28. 28.

    I am following here the terminology of [30, 31, 40]. Note that different terms have been used in the contact linguistics literature to describe essentially the same main distinction between replicating an actual matter and a rule/pattern (e.g., importation vs. substitution [20]; transfer of elements vs. interference without outright transfer [54]; global copying vs. partial copying [25], material borrowing vs. loan-translation [35], diffusion of forms vs. diffusion of patterns [2] among other terms).

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Acknowledgements

I am grateful to two anonymous reviewers for criticism and useful suggestions. Special thanks to Zurab Baratashvili, Winfried Boeder, Boyd H. Davis and Margaret Maclagan for reading and commenting on the paper. The editors, Aybüke Özgün and Julia Zinova, have been very supportive during the editing process. All possible shortcomings are mine. Additionally, I am forever grateful to my Kutsias for their love, to Ursula Pröll-List and Simone Greul for bringing peace and to the fellow Late-Discovery Adoptees for understanding and validation.

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  1. Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University, Tbilisi, Georgia

    Nino Amiridze

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  1. University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Aybüke Özgün

  2. Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany

    Yulia Zinova

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Amiridze, N. (2022). Final-Vowel Truncation in the Forms of Address in Modern Spoken Georgian. In: Özgün, A., Zinova, Y. (eds) Language, Logic, and Computation. TbiLLC 2019. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13206. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-98479-3_1

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