E.D. Polivanov and the Georgian language: synchronic questions and diachronic perspectives

Abstract

The present paper deals with a short contribution which E.D. Polivanov published in 1925 in the scientific journal of the Central Asia State University during his stay and work at the University of Taškent. Polivanov’s text presents a phonological analysis of the Georgian consonant system and aims at making the transcription system devised by the academician N.Ja. Marr for the rendering of Georgian sounds comparable with the better known and more useful alphabet of the International Phonetic Association.

In addition to the synchronic description and classification of Georgian con-sonants, in which, contrary to the customary interpretation, weak aspiration of voiceless plosives is claimed, Polivanov offers an interesting diachronic ex-planation of the defective postvelar (uvular) series, which in contemporary standard Georgian features only the voiceless ejective member; his reconstruction of the former system is based on typological assumptions about the different behaviour of voiced and voiceless obstruents with respect to lenition (spirantisation).

Some years later, the Georgian linguist G.S. Axvlediani provided ar-guments, based on internal reconstruction, which confirmed and further developed Polivanov’s hypothesis. Although he had reviewed Polivanov’s contribution for a Georgian journal in 1926, Axvlediani did not mention it in his later work, probably because Polivanov in the meanwhile had become persona non grata in Soviet lin-guistics for his open criticism of Marr’s linguistic theory.