issues of linguistics - Tbilisi State University

Georgian and in the dialects of Svan and Megrelian languages. The digital acoustic analysis
of the ejectives of the Kartvelian, Caucasian and Indo-European languages of the Caucasian
area was carried out by the computer programs: Praat and Wave Surfer. The following units
were studied: Standard Georgian, the Gurian and Khevsur dialects of the Georgian
language, the Upper Bal, Lower Bal and Lentekh dialects of the Svan language, the
Zugdidi-Samurzakano (North-West) and Khopa dialects of Laz, the Beslenei dialect of
Kabardian, the Andalal dialect of Avar, the Tapanta dialect of Abaza, the Oguz dialect of
Udi, the Iron dialect of Ossetic and the eastern dialect of Armenian.
The functional study revealed that the transformations in the distributional and
phonostatistic systems of the Kartvelian languages have taken place. The universal
dissimilative restriction of combining ejectives (Greenberg) was active in Common
Kartvelian. This tendency acted in Old Georgian and is still functioning in Svan, but no
more in Modern Georgian and Megrelian-Laz. In the mountain dialects of Georgian there
are weak traces of this rule. These changes must be the result of transformations which
have taken place in their articulation.
The regularities of borrowing of plain unvoiced phonemes from foreign languages were
also studied. Georgian and Megrelian-Laz substitute the voiceless unaspirated consonants
in the borrowed material mainly with ejectives; this shows that the ejectives are perceived
as less specific than the aspirates. Svan renders the voiceless unaspirated consonants more
often with aspirated phonemes. By this it stands close to the North Caucasian languages and
reveals a higher degree of glottalization.
The acoustic analysis of the occlusive consonants of the Kartvelian languages shows that
the majority of the glottalized consonants of the Kartvelian languages can be ascribed to the
slack glottalization type. According to the VOT, the Upper Bal, Lower Bal and Khevsur
can be considered “the stiff glottalized ones”, Gurian and Standard Georgian – “the slack
glottalized ones,” and the Megrelian-Laz and the Lentekh can be considered to be “the
moderate (medium) glottalized consonants”. Taking into consideration the parameters – the
f0 perturbation, the jitter perturbation, the rise of the vowel intensity to the peak of energy,
voice quality and VOT – the Kartvelian languages can be divided into three groups: to the
comparatively stiff category of languages which have glottalized consonants can be
ascribed Upper Bal, Lower Bal; Khevsur, Lentekh and Laz are in the moderate group, and
Standard Georgian, Gurian and Megrelian are in the category of languages having slack
glottalized consonants.
202