Morphosyntactic Parallelism as a Cohesion Strategy in the Hymns of the New Iadgari

Abstract

The New Iadgari, a major monument of medieval Georgian hymnography, preserves a rich repertoire of the ancient Jerusalem liturgical tradition. Due to fundamental prosodic differences between Greek syllabic-tonal meter and Georgian prosody, direct transfer of melodic-rhythmic structures proved impossible. This study attempts to show that cohesion in the Georgian translations is achieved primarily through internal morphosyntactic parallelism. Drawing on Jakobson’s principle of equivalence (1987) and Halliday and Hasan’s cohesion theory (1976), the analysis of selected Lenten hymns demonstrates that systematic grammatical repetitions create syntactic isocolons and “grammatical rhyme.” Treating Georgian versions as autonomous linguistic realities, the study underscores morphosyntactic parallelism as a fundamental compensatory mechanism that ensures textual unity in the liturgical context.