Research on the character of Georgian verse started in 1731. Since that time, some researchers have described Georgian verse as syllabic, while others have said that it is syllabotonic. The dispute about the character of Georgian verse became particularly acute in the 20th century. The main text the participants in the dispute analysed was a prominent piece of Georgian poetry of the 12th century – The Knight in the Panther’s Skin by Shota Rustaveli. It consists of 16-syllable monorhymical quatrains that have a special name in Georgian – shairi. There are two varieties of shairi – the so-called high shairi (4 4 4 4) and low shairi (5 3 5 3). The high shairi was the main issue of the dispute. The researchers who regarded Georgian verse as belonging to the syllabotonic system divided high shairi into trochaic feet, while the supporters of the syllabic theory denied the presence of metric trochaic stress in high shairi, believing that the penultimate syllables can be stressed only in two-syllable words but not in words with multiple syllables (due to the dactylic accentuation typical in the modern Georgian language). Since natural dactylic stress (found in low shairi) reflects the accentuation norms of the language of the later period (including those of modern Georgian), we assume that metric stress in high shairi, which is no longer found in modern Georgian speech, could be a reflection of the natural accentuation of the comparatively earlier period in the development of the Georgian language. Checking this hypothesis by relying on relevant linguistic literature, we reconstructed the archaic movable and phonologically relevant stress in the rhymed words in The Knight in the Panther’s Skin. We found that metric stresses of both high and low shairi in this epic poem are actually archaic linguistic stresses. This conclusion differs from the views expressed in concepts developed earlier. It enables us to take a fresh look at the metrics and rhymes of The Knight in the Panther’s Skin as well as the main principles and specific features of Georgian verse in general.

中文翻译：

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论格鲁吉亚诗歌的性格

格鲁吉亚诗歌的特征研究始于1731年。从那时起，一些研究人员将格鲁吉亚诗歌描述为音节，而另一些人则说它是音节的。在 20 世纪，关于格鲁吉亚诗歌特征的争论变得尤为激烈。争议参与者分析的主要文本是 12 世纪格鲁吉亚诗歌的杰出作品——肖塔·鲁斯塔维利 (Shota Rustaveli) 的《披着豹皮的骑士》。它由 16 个音节的单韵四行诗组成，在格鲁吉亚语中有一个特殊的名称——shairi。shairi 有两种变体——所谓的高 shairi (4 4 4 4) 和低 shairi (5 3 5 3)。高 shairi 是争议的主要问题。认为格鲁吉亚诗歌属于音节系统的研究人员将高 shairi 分为 trochaic 脚，而音节理论的支持者则否认高音节音节重音的存在，认为倒数第二个音节只能在两个音节的单词中重读，而不是在多音节的单词中（由于现代格鲁吉亚语中典型的dactylic重读）语）。由于自然的指重音（在低 shairi 中发现）反映了后期语言（包括现代格鲁吉亚语）的重音规范，我们假设在现代格鲁吉亚语中不再发现的高 shairi 中的度量重音可能是反映了格鲁吉亚语言发展相对较早时期的自然重音。依靠相关的语言文献来检验这个假设，我们在《披着豹皮的骑士》的押韵词中重建了古老的可移动和语音相关的重音。我们发现，这首史诗中高和低 shairi 的度量重音实际上是古老的语言重音。这一结论与早先提出的概念所表达的观点不同。它使我们能够重新审视《黑豹皮骑士》的韵律和韵律，以及一般格鲁吉亚诗歌的主要原则和具体特征。