The factors of variation in definiteness marking in the history of Georgian

Like in many other languages, in Old Georgian demonstrative pronouns had adopted the function of definite articles. They are found in this function in the earliest texts already. Statements w.r.t. the function of the demonstrative as a definite article in the literature are rather global and not in harmony with each other: Sardjveladze (1997: 63f) acknowledges the additional function of demonstratives as personal pronouns, but not that of definite articles (“There is no article”). Harris (1991: 22): “... Old Georgian has a productive definite article (formally identical to the demonstrative and third person personal pronoun). Presence of the article, postposed to the head noun, indicates that the nominal is definite; it is absent from indefinites.” Fähnrich (1991: 150): “Nouns without the article were indefinite, nouns with the article definite“. Both Sardjveladze’s and Fähnrich’s statements are clearly inadequate: throughout a period of about one-thousand years, there is considerable variation, both inter- and intra-textually, as to the (non-)use of articles. Goal of the paper: to achieve a precise understanding of this variation by investigating the following conditions: · the semantic and pragmatic factors which govern the use of articles · the variation in terms of text sorts · the role of language contact, in particular the influence of Gree