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Maia Lomia
About the Emergence of i Vowel
in the Paradigm of Noun Declension
Summary
In Megrelian, in the paradigm of the declension of nouns with consonant stems
emerges the vowel i, which has been known to the scientists for a long time. Nouns
can be classified into two groups: the first group always adds i vowel between the
stem and the case ending (e.g. borþ-i-k “time” (erg.), borþ-i-s “to the
time”(dat.); the other group sometimes adds i vowel to the stem , at other times
they don’t add it (k’oÄ-k || k’oÄ-i-k, k’o-s || k’oÄ-i-s “to the man”). The issue is
given a great importance by both the existence of the parallel forms of one and the
same stem (k’oÄ-k || k’oÄ-i-k), and the representation of one and the same
consonant clusters with the lexical items with i and without i (E.g. dutk
“head”{erg.}, but k’it-i-k “finger” {erg.}. I. Kipshidze, A. Chikobava, E. Gigiberia,
T. Gudava, T. Gamkrelidze, G. Klimov, K. Danelia, Ts. Janjghava and M.
Maduashvili emphasize the phonetic basis of the emergence of the vowel i in the
ergative and dative cases of the nouns with consonant stems. The conducive factor
to the merging of the vowel i with the stem means overcoming the non-canonical
consonant clusters by different means, such as: assimilation, the simplification of
the cluster, including the insertion of the vowel i between the stem and the case
ending; Compare the similar phenomenon in Georgian dialects. Thus, I is the
divisor of the consonants in two cases-ergative and dative; as there is no other
phonetic reason to insert i in other cases (E. Gigiberia, K. Danelia); paradigms
with different segmentation (I. Kipshidze; A. Chikobava; A. Lomtadze; A. Oniani).
The vowels added to the forms of ergative and dative cases are considered one of
the other k’oÄki||u||Ê “man” {erg.} (Ts. Janjghava, M. Maduashvili). We maintain
the traditional view that the final vowels of this type are emphatic ( I. Kipshidze, A.
Chikobava, G. Klimov, A. Lomtadze, G. Kartozia).I-the divisor of the consonants,
in spite of the fact that it doesn’t have morphological function and is the phonetic
insertion, never narrows. For a different point of view see Ts. Janjghava, M.
Maduashvili.Much has been written on the distribution of the merging of the vowel
i with the stem (A. Lomtadze, G. Klimov), the length of the two-part, three-part
and four-part consonant clusters has been established, according to which,
Mingrelian in auslaut avoids the clustering of consonants in (T. Gudava, T.
Gamkrelidze); in addition, the combining of the -k and -s suffixes with each of
the consonants ending the stem has been thoroughly studied. As a result, canonical
(sonorant+ k/s), weak (pk, ck, tk, Äk) and non-canonical consonant clusters
emerge. It is assumed that the breaking started with the weak consonant clusters
(K. Danelia).
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