სხვათა სიტყვა: კლასიფიკაცია და გადმოცემის საშუალებები ქართულში/ Reported Speech: Classification and Means of Expression’s in Georgian

Abstract

The author of a text or the narrator (in the oral speech), besides their own words, can deliver the other people’s narration, to deliver which, the different languages all over the world use for their own language-particular means, and on this point, all the languages reveal large varieties. Generally, among the kinds of other people’s words (someone else's speech), the direct and indirect (or reported) kinds of speech are most usual and known. Besides that, free indirect speech and dialogue are also sorted out as the kinds of indirect speech. The given article discusses the classification of the other people’s words (someone else's speech) and the grammatical and lexical means of their delivering in the modern Georgian. Also, the history of studying the mentioned phenomenon in the different grammar books of the Georgian language (XIX-XX centuries) are studied and shown in Georgian linguistics. Special attention is paid to the valuable work done by P. Ioseliani who was the first linguist in Georgia to study this phenomenon in his Grammar Book edited in 1849 and who sorted out its two types. We should also mention the grammar books by T. Jordania, A. Benashvili, S, Khundadze, M. Janashvili, A. Kutateladze, D. Karichashvili and M. Kelendjeridze, in which the phenomenon of the direct and indirect (reported) speech is discussed and the efforts to create appropriate terminology for this phenomenon are evidenced. The bulk of the empiric material to be analyzed is taken mainly from the corpus of the Georgian language (GNC), and some material – from the Georgian dialectic corpus (GDC). The descriptive methods used in the process of study are as follow: descriptive, comparative, statistical and corpus methods. It is very important to discuss the opinions of the Georgian linguists of the 20th century as relating to the classification of the someone else's speech (or other people’s words) (A. Shanidze, L. Kvachadze, W. Boeder, Zh. Peikrishvili, A. Arabuli, L. Geguchadze, R. Kurdadze…). The opinion expressed by A. Arabuli, concerning the other people’s word which should be discussed as one of the kinds of the indirect (reported) speech, not the direct speech, as it was classified earlier, is especially interesting for us. The additional argument to support this opinion is that despite the similarity with the samples of the direct speech, (repeating the person, number and tense of the verb unchangeable), such phrases reflect neither direct communication (eye-to-eye contact) nor direct appeal to the addressee and only repeats something that already happened in the past, something that was said or thought by somebody, just as it is the characteristic feature for the indirect speech. Terminology of such phenomena should be studied and adjusted in order to specify the explanation of the term “other people’s words, as in reality it denotes not only something said by people earlier, who at the given moment are not participating in the talk, but the words expressing the opinions and thoughts of the person who is participating in the given dialogue at the given time. In such cases the quotative particles “-metki” (< me vtkvi– ‘I said’) and “-tko” (from “tkva”), are used, that makes it possible to maintain the verb forms in the indirect speech. Besides the particle “-meutxari” (from “me vutxari” ‘I told him’), which became very usual and is used in everyday speech, should be also mentioned, as it is used quite often when delivering the dialogue which took place earlier (this suggestion was expressed by the author in their papers (Zekalashvili 2004; 2010; 2020). The mentioned particle has not yet been discussed as a particle in the literary language but is used only in colloquial speech, when delivering the conversation taken place earlier then the dialogue. The article shows the results of the study of necessary transformation which takes place in the process of delivering the indirect (reported) speech from its direct original. Such transformations are usual in the process of delivering several kinds of the narrative, interrogative and imperative sentences in the indirect speech (reported speech, reported questions, reported requests or reported orders). The words of the author are transferred as the main sentence in the structure of the complex subordinate sentence. It is introduced as the direct object and starts within the narrative sentence, with help of the conjunction “rom” - ‘that’; and in case of the interrogative sentence – “tu ara” – ‘or (if) not’, or in case of such pronouns or other words which are by their meaning interrogative, namely (“vin” ‘who’, “ra” ‘what’, “rodis” ‘when’, “sad” ‘where’…); in the imperative sentence with help of the particle “unda” – ‘must’ plus other phrases such as: ‘it must be so’, ‘it is necessary’, ‘mandatory’ and so on…; the negative particles such as “ar” – ‘do not’ or “nu” – ‘you must (should) not do it’ and other means added to the verb forms (“ar” + Subjunctive, “nu” + Present/Futur). Basing on the language corpus, several statistic data are gathered showing the results of measuring the frequency of usage of the quotative particles, such as “metki” – ‘I said’ (or ‘I thought’) and the data, as it was expected, show us that the particle -metki overwhelms the cases with the particle “-tko”. This is because of the fact that its usage is limited by its inner content – transferring the words of the first person to the other person through the speech of the second person. As for the particle “-o”, it is the most frequently used one, it can be met with any of the parts of speech, but sometimes it is a prosodic vowel (in poetry). The particle -o is acknowledged mostly with the words which have particles “titkos” – ‘as if’, and “neta” – ‘wish’, expressing strong dream, desire in the sentences expressing the wish or dream (e. g. “ise šemomxeda, titkos ṗirvelad mxedavso” - ‘she (he) looked at me as if he saw me for the first time’); “važma inaṭra, neṭa is ulamazesi gogo gamacnoo” – ‘the young man dreamed about somebody’ or ‘some situation helped him to know that prettiest girl’). There are the verbs sorted out in the examples chosen to analyze, which are followed by word-by-word (quotative) particles, such as “-metki”, “-tko”, “-o”. As it was expected, those are the verbs out of the ‘speech’ and ‘thinking’ circles, in the different personal and tense forms: “ambobs/tkva” (iṭq̇vis, utkvams) – ‘says/said/is known that ‘he said’, “eubneba” (eṭq̇vis, utxra) ‘tells’, ‘says’ (‘will tell, say’, ‘told, said’); also: “uambobs” ‘retells’, ‘told’, “moaxsenebs” ‘reports’, “elaṗaraḳeba/esaubreba” ‘speaks to’, “uq̇viris” ‘shouts at’, “cạ moiӡaxebs” ‘shouts out’, “evedreba/exvecẹ ba” ‘begs’, “ečurčuleba” ‘whispers’, “ebuṭbuṭeba” ‘murmurs’, “ebuzγuneba” ‘growls’, “naṭrobs” ‘wishes’, “eḳamateba/edaveba” ‘discusses’, “pikrobs” ‘thinks’, “ocnebobs” ‘dreams about’, etc. As about the generalized personal forms, without showing persons: “natkvamia, tkmula” ‘as its said’, “(rogorc) amboben” ‘they say so’, (rogorc) iṭq̇vian” ‘they say’, “cnobilia” ‘as it is known’ ‘it is said’ and the like, they are comparatively rare, but it is generally known that such forms maintain the general sayings with the end-particle -o and are met in the proverbs.