# Georgian: stress (syllable)



## Maroseika

Q-cumber said:


> * slowik*
> 
> What about stresses in Polish? I used to think you have similar stressing rules. As far as I know, there are very few tongues in the world that use uniform stressing - French (on last sillable), Latvian (on first sillable), ...know any more?


Georgian - on the 3rd from the end (2nd from the end in 2-syllables words).
To imitate Georgian accent in any language it's quite sufficient to follow a/m rule.


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## Q-cumber

Maroseika said:


> Georgian - on the 3rd from the end (2nd from the end in 2-syllables words).


 
 I recollect Georgian word "ge-na-tsva-le" (a friend). I am nearly certain the stress to be placed on the 2-nd syllable from the end ("genatsvale"). Am I wrong? 

 Then I recollect a Georgian song from the Mimino movie: "Чито гврито чито маргалито да"... Wasn't the stress on the 2-nd syllable from the end too?


PS.   I've found this: 





> Ударение в грузинском языке выражено очень слабо и в принципе его можно ставить куда угодно. _Вольная Энциклопедия_


(Stresses in the Georgian language are expressed very poorly and basically they can be put anywhere.)


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## Maroseika

Q-cumber said:


> I recollect Georgian word "ge-na-tsva-le" (a friend). I am nearly certain the stress to be placed on the 2-nd syllable from the end ("genatsvale"). Am I wrong?


Yes, you are.
Correct stress is genatsvale, and if you pronounce it aloud you will see it is more "Georgian" now.
However one should note that Georgian stress is very weak, so that some grammarians advise to pronounce the words without any stress at all.



> Then I recollect a Georgian song from the Mimino movie: "Чито гврито чито маргалито да"... Wasn't the stress on the 2-nd syllable from the end too?


No, it's not there, however it may seem to be there because of the song meter.


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## Q-cumber

Sorry, but you are mistaking here. I found this linguistic textbook (*very interesting work!*)
В. Н. ПЕРЕТРУХИН
Введение
в ЯЗЫКОЗНАНИЕ
Учебное пособие для студентов
филологических факультетов
пединститутов и университетов
It says that  in Georgian, Malayan and Polish languages ,the stress always falls on the penultimate syllable of a word.  However, it is very weak in Georgian, indeed.


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## Maroseika

Thank you for this link, this book looks very interesting indeed. However, the author is wrong, unfortunately.
The books of this sort are very usefull for the general view to the subject, but are not too much reliable when applying to the specificity of each language. At least one cannot use it as a text-book.
Here is more reliable source:
*http://www.armazi.com/georgian*
*Stress in Georgian is dynamic and very weak. It is not significant at the lexical level (that is, it is not used to differentiate between words that are otherwise the same). In words of two and three syllables, the stress is usually on the first. In longer words, the stress is often on the third syllable from the end (the antepenultimate). However, there is often a secondary stress in addition to the main one in longer words. Examples are ჩიტი chít’i (‘bird’), ქალაქი kálaki (‘town’), and პარასკევი p’arásk’evi (‘Friday’). *
In this abstract we may find an asnwer also to the question why in "margalito" the stress may look being on the penultimate syllable.


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## Q-cumber

Maroseika said:


> Thank you for this link, this book looks very interesting indeed. However, the author is wrong, unfortunately.



Hehe...so far I found 5 *(!)* different assertions related to stresses in Georgian langauge.  
*1.* Stresses in the Georgian language are expressed very poorly and basically they* can be put anywhere*.
*2.* "...*официально считается, что в нём нет ударений*... но мы же знаем, что языков без интонации не существует, просто в грузинском оно всегда падает *на первую гласную!*" (it is officially considered, that there are no stresses at all in Georgian... But we know, that languages without intonation do not exist, in Georgian it simply always *falls on the first vowel*!) 
*3.* "...in Georgian, Malayan and Polish languages ,the stress always falls on the *penultimate syllable* of a word".
*4.* . Your last variant: "In words of two and three syllables, the stress is *usually* *on the first*. In longer words, the stress is *often* *on the third syllable from the end *(the antepenultimate)".  Which contradicts  with the previous one:
*5.* "Georgian - <"always falls"- in the context> on the 3rd from the end (2nd from the end in 2-syllables words)".

All that is getting really messy. I give up!


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## Maroseika

Too early, Q-cumber.
If we sort out your first 2 cites, which look taken from a forum or popular edition, and the 3rd *being one evidently wrong or imprecise), we won't find any contradiction in the other cites, taken from the reliable sources (2 textbooks written by the natives and additionally I checked it with "Языки народов Российской Федерации" - super-reliable scientific edition.
Stress is very weak, it's place is normally on the 2nd or 3rd syllable from the end, but since it's rather difficult to pronounce long words such a way, the stress may distribute along the word, still being rather weak.


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## Setwale_Charm

I have only heard that there is no real fixed rule in Georgian. But I may be mixing this with Armenian though.


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## Q-cumber

Maroseika said:


> Too early, Q-cumber.
> If we sort out your first 2 cites, which look taken from a forum or popular edition, and the 3rd *being one evidently wrong or imprecise), we won't find any contradiction in the other cites, taken from the reliable sources (2 textbooks written by the natives and additionally I checked it with "Языки народов Российской Федерации" - super-reliable scientific edition.
> Stress is very weak, it's place is normally on the 2nd or 3rd syllable from the end, but since it's rather difficult to pronounce long words such a way, the stress may distribute along the word, still being rather weak.


Anyway, the words "normally", "usually" and "often" obviously show us that Georgian can't be listed on the "fixed-stress-language-list".  

We can continue collecting the opinions on the subject: 



> Хотя в грузинском языке и нет ударения, грузинские фамилии в Украине имеют ударение, которое фиксируется в основном на предпоследнем слоге.  _Корниенко Ирина Анатольевна, кандидат филологических наук_





> *Грузинский*... *Ударение свободное, тяготеет к началу слова.* (_А.Ю. МУСОРИН ОСНОВЫ НАУКИ О ЯЗЫКЕ Учебное пособие - ЯЗЫКИ МИРА (КРАТКИЙ СПРАВОЧНИК)_


As super-reliable scientific edition as the one you refer above. 



> *Языки без ударения (анакцентные). *Во многих языках за пределами Европы явно выраженная акцентная вершина слова отсутствует, и ученые затрудняются с определением места ударения. *Типичным примером является грузинский, относительно ритмической организации которого единой точки зрения нет. *Существует мнение, что предположение об обязательности ритмического объединения слогов слова является ложным (В.Б.Касевич и др., С.В.Кодзасов). В его пользу говорит, в частности, история русского языка. В древнерусском значительное число форм полнозначных слов представляло собой так называемые «энклиномены» (В.А.Дыбо, А.А.Зализняк). Эти слова не имели собственного ударения и присоединялись в виде энклитик к предшествующим полноударным словам._"Фонетическое качество ударения". "Энциклопедия кругосвет"_



Well, I think we got enough to answer the initial question: "In Georgian stress *doesn't* always stay in the same place".


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## Maroseika

Q-cumber said:


> Well, I think we got enough to answer the initial question: "In Georgian stress *doesn't* always stay in the same place".


Sorry, but still can't agree.
Georgian text-books and scientific editions (real scientific ones, and not such as "Brief reference") all of them state one the same:
Stress is on the 2-3 syllable from the end, is weak, has no sense-distinctive function.
This means that the word is understandable no matter where you put the stress, but it doesn't mean you may put the stress whereever you want.
This will be wrong.

You may compare it with the voiced/unvoiced consonants in the end of Russian words: no matter you will pronounce [дуп] or [дуб] you will be understood. But the latter is wrong and we cannot state therefore that in Russian we don't distinguish hardness of the last consonants or that one can pronounce any sound there he wants - voiced or unvoiced.
Why I firmly differ popular references and books from the sceintific editions and the text-books? Just because the latters are written by the natives or particular specialists, while in other books one person describes everything. And makes errors in some details, as we can see.


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## Maroseika

Setwale_Charm said:


> I have only heard that there is no real fixed rule in Georgian. But I may be mixing this with Armenian though.


As I found out Armenian stress is on the last syllable and more strong than the Georgian (tonic accent).


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