Placeholder verbs in Modern Georgian
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Nino Amiridze
Abstract
Many languages have filler nouns like English thingummy, or German Dingsbums and Dingens, known also as ‘oblitive’ nouns. They refer to a person or thing whose name the speaker has forgotten, does not know or does not wish to mention. Modern Georgian has developed filler verbs that substitute for lexical verb forms in discourse, and thus function as placeholder verbs. This paper describes the form of the Georgian placeholder verbs and their use in discourse. Normally, the placeholder verbs are employed as a repair strategy in lexical access failure. However, the present paper deals with another use, namely, when placeholders are inserted in the speech intentionally, in order to make the implicated verb form either difficult or easy for the hearer to guess. Keywords: Placeholder verbs; Georgian; pragmatically motivated substitution; multiple agreement marking
Abstract
Many languages have filler nouns like English thingummy, or German Dingsbums and Dingens, known also as ‘oblitive’ nouns. They refer to a person or thing whose name the speaker has forgotten, does not know or does not wish to mention. Modern Georgian has developed filler verbs that substitute for lexical verb forms in discourse, and thus function as placeholder verbs. This paper describes the form of the Georgian placeholder verbs and their use in discourse. Normally, the placeholder verbs are employed as a repair strategy in lexical access failure. However, the present paper deals with another use, namely, when placeholders are inserted in the speech intentionally, in order to make the implicated verb form either difficult or easy for the hearer to guess. Keywords: Placeholder verbs; Georgian; pragmatically motivated substitution; multiple agreement marking
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Introduction 1
- Parameters for typological variation of placeholders 11
- A cross-linguistic exploration of demonstratives in interaction 33
- Placeholder verbs in Modern Georgian 67
- From interrogatives to placeholders in Udi and Agul spontaneous narratives 95
- Fillers and placeholders in Nahavaq 119
- The interactional profile of a placeholder 139
- Fillers and their relevance in describing Sliammon Salish 173
- Pauses, fillers, placeholders and formulaicity in Alzheimer’s discourse 189
- Language index 217
- Name index 219
- Subject index 221
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Introduction 1
- Parameters for typological variation of placeholders 11
- A cross-linguistic exploration of demonstratives in interaction 33
- Placeholder verbs in Modern Georgian 67
- From interrogatives to placeholders in Udi and Agul spontaneous narratives 95
- Fillers and placeholders in Nahavaq 119
- The interactional profile of a placeholder 139
- Fillers and their relevance in describing Sliammon Salish 173
- Pauses, fillers, placeholders and formulaicity in Alzheimer’s discourse 189
- Language index 217
- Name index 219
- Subject index 221
