Hypotactic Patterns in Oral Speech – the Key Source of Communication

Abstract

Research of the hypotactic patterns peculiar of oral speech is a topical issue, becauseit reveals language capacity in natural speech. The paper analyzes ample empirical material: Georgian dialectal texts, examples of oral speech, texts of non-literary Kartvelian languages – Megrelian, Laz and Svan. The paper also provides examples from the works of Georgian writers. The research embraces three types of hypotactic patterns:

1. Hypotactic patternswith question words, namely: In Megrelian, there are two types of inter­rogative sentences: simple and hypotactic. The components of a hypotactic structure (in the main clause,re „is“, and, in the subordinate clause,-ni „that“) perform the function of actualization of information. It should be noted that the change inthe structure caused by the change in the information is also widespread in the Western sub-systems of the literary Georgian language.
2. Hypotactic patterns with repetition: Lexical ana­diplosis (= repe­tition of the last word of the sentence in the be­ginning of the following sentence)enables the speaker underline the information and express it emotionally. Stylis­tically used lexical repetition forms a kind of hypotactic cons­truction which becomes more comprehensible based on the preceding context. Based on the empirical material, we have analyzed cases of re­pe­tition of verb, noun or both of these parts of speech. The conjunction is added to the repeated lexeme emphasized by the speaker.
3. Hypotactic patternswith initial nominative: The initialnominative construction has a special structure. It begins with a noun in the nominative case which is separated by punctuation and intonation from the following simple or subordinate clause.

The formal markers of topicalized elements are distinguished on the level of phonetics/phonology, morphology/syntax and lexis/semantics; in particular, the paper analyzes such markers asintonation, clitic, word order, specific constructions and so on.Frequently, these data are represented in a complex way in one and the same pattern. This makes the utterance more expressive.