სონორ თანხმოვანთა ფონოტაქტიკური მახასიათებლები (ქართულ-მეგრული კონსონანტური კომპლექსების მიხედვით)

Abstract

As it is known, in the Common-Kartvelian, alongside with vowel and consonant phonemes, sonant phonemes */j, w, m, n, r, l/ are reconstructed, which, depending on their positions, appear either as syllabic *[i, u, Ý, Þ, Õ, ß] or non-syllabic *[j, w, m, n, r, l] allophones. Reflexes of */m, n, r, l/ sonant phonemes are different in Georgian and Megrelian. The different reflexes led to the fact that the distributions of sonorant consonants in consonant clusters diff er in those two languages, and there is a noticeable difference in terms of the number of consonant clusters or the length of the clusters as well. The maximum length of the cluster in Megrelian equals to 4, and in Georgian it equals to 6. The fact is that in Common-Kartvelian the sonant phoneme between the consonants or in the position following the consonant (in CSC or CS sequences, where C stands for a consonant, and S for a sonant) was realized as a syllabic allophone. As far as the reflexes of the */m, n, r, l/ sonants are sonorant consonants in Georgian, these sequences were preserved as consonant clusters; in Megrelian, the mentioned sequences have been divided by inserting a vowel, as the reflexes of the sonants’s syllabic allophones [Ý, Þ, Õ, ß] are VS type sequences in Megrelian (a vowel before the sonorant is developed at the expense of syllabicity). It is clear that in Megrelian consonant clusters, /r, l, m, n/ sonorants are not found at all in the C– position (following the consonant), regardless of whether it is the first or any internal member of the cluster. Unlike Megrelian, the distribution of sonorants in the Georgian consonant clusters is quite wide, and among them, /r/ sonorant (attested in all positions) is distinguished by its distributional power. Finally, it is natural that a cluster with two sonorants is not allowed for Megrelian at all, but it is attested in the Georgian multi-member clusters.