article The Category of Definiteness and İndefiniteness in Turkish and Georgian (Contrastive Analysis)

Abstract

Definiteness and indefiniteness are important semantic categories that manifest differently across languages. In languages that lack specific grammatical markers, such as articles, these concepts are conveyed through various morphological and lexical means. Turkish and Georgian, as is widely recognized, belong to different language families and have significantly different structures. However, neither language possesses articles. In both, the category of definiteness and indefiniteness is expressed implicitly.

This paper examines the functional and semantic means of expressing definiteness and indefiniteness in Georgian and Turkish. It discusses the similarities and differences found between the two languages.

This paper intends to compare the categories of definiteness and indefiniteness in two structurally different languages that lack articles. It seeks to identify the universal features commonly found in languages without articles, while also demonstrating the specific characteristics that emerge due to the unique nature of each language.

Both Georgian and Turkish convey the semantics of definiteness and indefiniteness through demonstrative pronouns. Additionally, Turkish employs the accusative case and possessive suffixes as markers of definiteness, which are absent in Georgian. The indefinite category is expressed in both languages by the indefinite pronouns erti (Georgian) and bir (Turkish), meaning “one”. The expression of indefiniteness is significantly stronger in Turkish compared to Georgian. However, Georgian also employs other pronouns to convey indefiniteness, such as vinme (meaning "someone") and rame (meaning "something").