Pre-Greek-Caucasian Hypothesis at the Modern Stage of Research

Abstract

Linguistic correspondences between the Kartvelian languages and Pre-Greek are demonstrated at the phonological, morphological and lexical levels, which have a systematic character. Three types of lexical correspondences are discussed: A. Pre-Greek formatives made from Kartvelian stems and affixes show close semantic affinity with their Kartvelian counterparts; B. Kartvelian stems and affixes make up words that are formally identical with the Pre-Greek formatives, but the semantic correspondence is somewhat remote; and C. Kartvelian stems partly preserved their meaning in Pre-Greek but are subject to semantic transformation, generating terms that have no analogy in Kartvelian.