Author's Interpretation of Toponyms of the Historical Sources and the Hagiographic Literary Works

Abstract

Geographical names give us lots of noteworthy information about the historical, geographical, political, economic, religious, cultural, etc. picture of a denotation. Due to this the onomastic data are the valuable sources to study the history, language, dialectology, geography, geology, archeology and ethnography of a country. In Georgia one hardly find a small place without a name. Towns, hamlets, villages, groves, gardens, vineyards, arable fields, hills, mountains, water, grassland, former settlements and sometimes trees, rocks and large rocks are given names. Researchers interested in geographical names accept two basic ways of origin of toponyms: 1. either via the toponimization of appellatives without derivation (which is called semantic word-formation: changing of a lexeme’s status, while the form remains unchangeable) or derivation: 2.transonimization of proper names: transition from one onymic class to another as well as transtoponimization, transhydronimization, and a transoikonymization, etc. The toponyms originated via the first (toponimization) method is called the primary toponyms, and the ones originated via the second (transonimization) method - secondary toponyms. The research goal is to study an author’s interpretation and semantic properties of the geographic names of hagiographic works and historical sources of the 5-10th cc. In the sources under research the authors give us not only the information on the location of any geographic object, but they offer a noteworthy explanation of some toponyms and microtoponyms as well. An author’s etymology has extra linguistic and linguistic character and therefore it is of scientific importance, the motivation - persuasive. Existing standpoints on location and explanation of some geographical names (Darialani, Tsertaisni, Satakhve, Zarzma, Garedja, Divri, Tskhenistsqali) are represented in comment form. On the basis of analyzed material the paper demonstrates that the ancient Georgian artistic and historical written sources show the ways and means of origin of toponyms. The cited episodes highlight the basic principle of toponymic word-derivation - the contents of a name is relevant to an object’s name. This is achieved via the following the grammatical means: 1. elision (either determinatum or determinandum component is elided: tsertaisni ! adgilni tsertaisni; bakta ! adgili bakta). 2. derivation (Sataxve – structurally it is a derived form); 3. word-amalgamation (Sheshistavi, Zarzma, Gareja… are structurally compound two-component entries).