მაკროკონცეპტი „ნათესავი“ ქართულ ლინგვოკულტურაში/ The Macro-concept “Relative” in the Georgian Linguoculture

Abstract

The contemporary culturological and linguoculturological approach to a concept, above all, considers the latter as a component of spiritual values. This proves a change in the paradigm of humanitarian sciences, as a result of which, the systemic-structural paradigm dominant in the past century has been replaced by the anthropocentric paradigm. Kinship terms pertain to one of the most ancient lexical layers. They are of utmost importance for the description of the linguocultural space of the Georgian language, because they comprise the key lexical fund of the language. The most ancient literary monument which has reached our times contains lexemes denoting concrete kinship terms (over ten terms denoting blood relationship and also relatives acquired as a result of marriage) as well as general terms denoting kinship – close relations and family members „სახლი“ /saxli/ “house”, „სახლეული“ /saxleuli/ “family” and more general compound term „თესლ-ტომი“ /tesl-ṭomi/ “clan/kin”, the components of which are found independently in the old Georgian texts. The kinship terms used in “The Martyrdom of the Holy Queen Shushanik” are: „დედა“ /deda/ “mother”, „მამა“ /mama/ “father”, „ שვილი“ / švili/ “child”, „ძე“ /ӡe/ “son”, „ასული“ /asuli/ “daughter”, „და“ /da/ “sister”, „ძმა“ /ӡma/ “brother”, „ცოლი“ /coli/ “wife”, „ქმარი“ /kmari/ “husband”, „მაზლი“ /mazli/ “husband’s brother”, „ძმის ცო- ლი“ /ӡmis coli/ “brother’s wife” (a simple term „სძალი“ (> რძალი) /sӡali, >rӡali/ “sister- in-law” is also given in the text, but in this case it does not mean “brother’s wife”). These terms reflect the relations owidespread in the given epoch and prove that the system of kinship and corresponding terms have remained almost the same for sixteen centuries. It is difficult for an ordinary speaker of a language to assess the morphologicalsyntactic capacity of the language. However, the richness of the vocabulary is easy to notice. Despite this fact, in the contemporary Georgian discourse (mostly in urban speech), under the influence of foreign languages, the terms „მამიდა“ /mamida/ “father’s sister” and „ბიცოლა“ /bicola/ “uncle’s wife” have become quite rare. These terms are usually replaced by „დეიდა“ /deida/ “aunt” in the forms of address as well as in the contexts referring to concrete persons. Frequently, „მამიდა“ /mamida/ “father’s sister”, „ბიცოლა“ /bicola/ “uncle’s wife” and „დეიდა“ /deida/ “mother’s sister” are substituted by corresponding anthroponyms. These changes, which seem harmless at a glance, may lead to significant changes in the social relationships (and, correspondingly, mental structures) as well as the language itself. Depreciation of cultural traditions causes a significant change in the system of values. This, in its turn, is reflected on the language and discourse. If we try to define our cultural identity, we should have certain knowledge of other cultures as well. Similarly, we cannot feel the uniqueness of our mother tongue without comparing it with other languages. Therefore, recent scholarly literature has offered numerous papers reflecting the outcomes of typological research of kinship terms. The lexeme „ნათესავი“ /natesavi/ “relative” has been selected as a linguocultural macro-concept due to its frequent use at every stage of development of the Georgian language because this unit has a stable semantic nucleus in Old and New Georgian. The word „ნათესავი“ /natesavi/ “relative”, as a macro-concept, embraces all kinds of relationships; as a hyperonym it includes the entire system of kinship terms, and, as a concept, it is a member of a large synonymic set. The above-mentioned term (the very stem of the word) denotes the following lexicosemantic elements of the conceptual structure of “relation”: origin from a common source (procreation, division), spatial closeness, possession, emotional attitude (love, affection).