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VP Hypostasis (Satzhypostase) in Georgian

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By: Zakharia Pourtskhvanidze

When writing the term VP hypostasis (Germ. Satzhypostase), I describe the variant conception of reification by using the verbal syntagma as (1) a first part of the noun phrase ([VP+N]NP) or (2) as the self-contained noun ([[VP]N]NP). The following example from English will illustrate the (1): “Carolyn was just sitting down again, with her ‘thanks-for-putting-up-with-them-and-that-wasn't-too-bad-was-it?’ smile, when the doorbell rang” (BNC HJH 3112). It is apparent that the hyphenated part of the sentence has a different internal structure than its external function represents. There are two ways of looking at the subordinated hyphenated structure: a. with regard to the context and b. context-free. Within the given context, the construction appears as a subordinate element to the head noun. Out of context (without the hyphenated spelling), the construction represents the independent syntactic finite utterance: “Thanks for putting up with them and that wasn't too bad, was it?” We observe that when the construction is inserted into the original sentence, a fundamental syntactic restructuring occurs in which a finite clause becomes an adjective. I describe this process as Verbal Phrase Hypostasis (VP Hypostasis) and transfer the original term from German “Satzhypostase” into English.

The focus of the present study is placed on grammatical and discourse aspects of the VP hypostasis in the context of the Georgian language.

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