კვეთი, ყველი – მსგავსი მოტივაციის მქონე ორი ლექსემა-ტერმინი

Abstract

Participation of the units of the lexical fund of the literary langua-ge in the creation of terminological systems is a universal phenomenon. Naturally, a large portion of Georgian everyday vocabulary related to food has formed part of the terms of gastronomy as a specialized field. Migration of words from everyday vocabulary to the terminological system is often accompanied by the change of meaning, extension/ restriction or another kind of development of meaning. The two lexical units analyzed in the article – rennet and cheese – are transferred from one system into another without any change in their function and meaning. Rennet is a more transparent lexeme because the Georgian word for rennet „კვეთი“ /kveti/ is related to the verb „კვეთა“ /kveta/ (dissect). Any speaker of Georgian will notice this semantic connection if he/she has observed the process of cheese-making. Rennet is used to dissect milk or make it sour (cf. კვეთა (dissect) – ჭრა /chra/ (cut) – აჭრა /achra/ (make sour) – destroy the integrity of something). Thus, „კვეთი“ /kveti/ is a substantivized participle: კვეთი  მ-კვეთ-ი – ‘something which dissects’, motivated by the technological process of producing cheese from milk. The technological process also forms grounds for the name of the obtained product – ყველი /kveli/ (cheese). It is related to the verb “push through”, which in Old Georgian meant ‘to join, curdle, solidate’. The stems from which the words კვეთი /kveti/ rennet and ყველი /kveli/ cheese are derived were კუეთ /kuet/ and ყოფ /kop/. In Old Georgian, these stems had labile semantics: both of them embraced opposite meanings ‘to divide’ and ‘to join’. Taking into account the denotational function of the word კვეთი /kveti/ (rennet), we can assume that it combines the semantics of both division and joining, whereas the word ყველი /kveli/ (cheese) denoted ‘to join, to solidate’. Thus, კვეთი /kveti/ (rennet) and ყველი /kveli/ (cheese) are lexemes-terms of similar motivation: the first performs the function of a subjective participle, whereas the second performs the function of the objective participle. Taking into account the unstable semantics of their initial stems, we can argue that the meaning of both lexemes is ‘to curdle’, and the relation between the two is that of the curdler and the curdled.