Non-lexical Modifications of Turkish Interference in Some Georgian Dialects

Abstract

Due to a number of historical circumstances, two segments of the Georgian language – Ingilo and Southern dialects – have developed in the environment of Anatolian Turkish and Azerbaijani, which are close to each other.  In addition to the borrowing of lexical units, other parameters – phonological, morphological – have also changed to some extent in the same or different ways. In particular: both Ingilo and Southern dialects have adopted the vowels /ö/ and /ü/ from Turkish and Azerbaijani.          In Shavshetian, Tao dialect, Georgian of Chvene­buris and Ingilo dialects /ʒ/ has been replaced by /z/ almost everywhere under the influence of Turkish languages: /zvali/(bone), /zveli/ (old), /zapi/ (thread), /biza/ (uncle); The consonant /ʒ/ has been preserved only in Nigali dialect.  In Turkic languages, two consonants are not found at the head of a syllable. In the above-men-tioned dialects, the following forms are fixed precisely under the influence of Turkish or Azerbaijani: in Tao dialect: kilde</klde/ (rock), bize </bze/ (chaff), khobo < /khbo /(calf), kibili< /kbili/ (tooth);in Ingilo dialect: shito </shto/ (branch), in Imerkhevi dialect: Tibet < /tbeti/ toponym, village name. The use of a stem-consonant noun as a stem instead of the expected nominative is widespread, which is a result of the analogy with the affix-free nominative turnover of affix-rich Turkic languages, both in Ingilo and in the Southern dialects. A striking example of morphological interference is the production of the intensive in Ingilo dialect: the model is Azerbaijani, the material is national. This Turkic-derived form of reduplication has not been activated in the southern dialects of Georgian. Under the influence of Turkish, the adverbs /aq/ ‘here’ and /iq/’ there’ have been replaced by the forms /akshi/, /ikshi/, /agze/, /ikze/, which are a calque of the Turkish burada/ orada. The Ingilos do not use these forms.