Syntactic Features of Semantic Transition in the Lenten Hymnody of the New Iadgari

Abstract

This article examines the syntactic features of semantic transition in the Lenten hymnody of the New Iadgari – the most important liturgical collection preserved in the Georgian manuscript tradition, whose Sinai witnesses represent the earliest and best-attested stratum of medieval Georgian hymnographic poetry. The New Iadgari occupies a unique position in the history of Old Georgian literature: it stands at the intersection of translated Byzantine hymnography and original Georgian poetic composition, and its language exhibits a degree of syntactic elaboration that sets it apart from other genres of ecclesiastical writing. Drawing on six manuscripts from the Sinai collection (Sin. Geo. 1, Sin. Geo. 14, Sin. Geo. 26, Sin. Geo. 34, Sin. Geo. 59, Sin. Geo. 64), with Sin. Geo. 1 serving as the primary base manuscript throughout, the study analyses the syntactic mechanisms through which hymnographic texts mediate a shift between layers of meaning – from theological proclamation to doxological or petitionary discourse. This shift, termed semantic transition in the present article, is not merely a rhetorical device but a structurally encoded feature of the troparion genre, realised through identifiable grammatical means. The article argues that the Georgian text of the New Iadgari constitutes an autonomous linguistic entity, independent of any recoverable Greek Vorlage – the bulk of whose antecedents are either lost or substantially later than the Georgian witnesses – and must therefore be analysed on its own terms. The textual tradition of the New Iadgari is notably stable: redactional variation among the Sinai manuscripts is infrequent and largely confined to minor orthographic and morphophonological differences, which reinforces the reliability of Sin. Geo. 1 as a representative witness. The syntactic dimension of semantic transition is shown to be realised primarily through changes in modality, predicative structure, and the arrangement of circumstantial clauses, and the findings are situated within the broader context of the syntactic study of Old Georgian ecclesiastical poetry.