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Damana Melikishvili
On the Grammatical Principle of Classification of Inflective Forms
of the Georgian Verb
Summary
In 1928 Arnold Chikobava in his doctoral thesis The Problem of Simple Sentence
in Georgian posed a question of "methodological immanentism" in linguistics
(grammar), which requires proceeding from the object under study, the nature of a
particular language, the evidence of that language.
The scholarly study of a language naturally implies the study of the structure as
well as the function, but a structure cannot be described according to functional
categories. Structural concepts must be formulated on the basis of structural
features, and functional – according to functional features. A.Chikobava in
principle defended his theses – those against logicism and psychologism in
Grammar, as he regarded these theses to be scholarly correct.
The object of grammar is the study of the word structure – form and the
relationship with another word, the structure – mechanism of word-combination.
Proceeding from this, the classification feature of inflective forms of the verb must
be the verb structure and construction.
In the classification of inflective forms of the Georgian verb A.Chikobava, like
Akaki Shanidze, followed the model of Thracian (hence, European grammars).
However, as is known, A.Chikobava had a totally different opinion concerning the
Medium and verbs of the Tbeba type, because he could see that they failed to fit
into the established frame of the grammatical category of voice.
In the paper the weak sides of the classification of verb forms on the basis of the
category of voice are shown, the morphological-syntactic criterion is offered and
according to it three diatheses are singled out. The basis of the identification of
each is the verb structure and construction (similarly as that of united groups of
tenses and mood – series).
Thus, diathesis is a grammatical category of the Georgian verb, as well as series
and screeves singled out by A.Shanidze according to the verb structure and construction.
The classification according to diathesis answers the questions and
overcomes the obstacles the explanation of which is impossible within the
generally accepted definition of voice.
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