Ritual-Based Performatives (Based on Georgian Ethnographic Data)

Abstract

Performative utterances do not describe anything, they are used for a rather distinct objective:
to make things happen. Utterances referring to to bless, to swear, to promise, to threaten, etc.
have been considered performatives.
Notably, in Georgian such utterances have some semantic peculiarities: 1) They are formulaic,
that is, a meaning of a construction is not a sum of its components’ meanings and 2) words,
referring to those actions, are not just etymologically associated with those referring to free
individual behaviors but rather to established social situations, certain rituals, occurring in a
given people’s culture and history. For example: šen šemogevle [lit. I will surround you] - a
blessing formula. It is related to the ritual when a person goes around (surrounds) a sick person
and believes that s/he can die instead of the one who was surrounded (Sakhokia, 1956, p. 95);
šens p’irs šakari [lit. sugar to your mouth] - a blessing formula. It is related to a wedding ritual.
When the bride and groom were approaching the house, one member of a bridal party was the
first to go to the house to tell the hosts the news of bringing the bride. The hosts would put
sugar into the messenger’s mouth. It is known that sugar was not easy to get back then (Mourier,
2018, p. 165; Sakhokia, 1979, p. 754); šegircxves cxviri [lit. let your nose be disgraced] – a
curse formula. It is related to the old Georgian form of punishment, cutting off the nose, which
was often used by men to punish unfaithful wives (Sakhokia, 1979, p. 822; Lamberti, 1938, p.
16), etc.
The paper is aimed at illustrating similar, semantically specific performative utterances, at
establishing their ritual provenance, and at highlighting their ethno-cultural peculiarities.
Evidence from Georgian ethnographic sources will be drawn as empirical data, and the
methodology of the Ethnography of Communication will be applied for their analysis