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

Abstract

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.