Meaning Examination of Grigor Tatevatsi’s Newly Words

Grigor Tatevatsi is one of the most prominent Armenian medieval theologians and philosophers. Of the works of Grigor Tatevatsi, “The Book of questions” is perhaps the most important work of the scholar, the most significant, complete and comprehensive interpretation of the Holy Scripture in Armenian hermeneutics. Grigor Tatevatsi, summarizing the seven-century tradition of patristic theological literature, synthesized medieval exegetical literature in his works in general and in “The Book of questions” in particular. However, until our research, his more than three dozen works were mainly studied from the theological and philosophical aspects. There is also another circumstance, that his works are mostly handwritten and have not been translated into modern Armenian, these are written in old Armenian (Grabar), which has caused the incomplete study of this author, in particular, the grammatical problems encountered in his literary heritage were studied by us for the first time (see: Grigoryan S., 2002). With this research, we have also embarked on the study of new words and we aim to supplement the Armenian vocabulary dictionaries with newly coined words by Grigor Tatevatsi, showing the subtle meanings of these words, as well as highlighting this author as a lexicographer. In order to demonstrate the newness of the presented words and their belonging to Grigor Tatevatsi as the author, they were thoroughly compared with all dictionaries covering the vocabulary of the Armenian language, in particular: Armenian Provincial Dictionary [APD] Armenian Radical Dictionary [ARD] New Dictionary of the Armenian Language [NDAL], Dictionary of Middle Armenian [DMA] Grabar's Dictionary of Synonyms [GDS] Armenian Explanatory Dictionary [AED], Ritual Dictionary [RD]. The study of new words from Grigor Tatevatsi's literary heritage is interesting in itself, but the new words used by the author are extremely interesting from the point of view of the modern perception and interpretation of the nuances of these concepts. Sometimes they contain historical information, such as newly coined words related to the order of blessing, and for the most part these words are not attested in Grabar's dictionaries. The study shows that in the person of Grigor Tatevatsi, in addition to being a theologian and philosopher, we also have a language builder, whose analyses become more interesting thanks to his neologisms. The research will help not only those studying the middle period of the history of the Armenian language, but also a wide range of specialists to whose fields the neologisms referred to relate.