I search for dictionary of Georgian with lexical stress, but i can't find online of offline. Perhaps Georgian have any explicit rules for lexical stress which i don't know?
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1P Elliot's answer indicates that serious linguistic studies do talk about stress in Georgian, but all the beginner materials either say Georgian doesn't have stress or that there is a very weak stress on the first syllable of all words. I never noticed stressed syllables when I was trying to teach myself Georgian in Georgia but I found the trick of putting a very weak stress in the first syllable when I speak it prevents me from unwillingly stressing some other syllable in the word out of habit. I don't believe stress is ever lexical with two words in a minimal pair distinguished by stress.– hippietrailCommented Sep 6, 2013 at 4:16
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1 Answer
Aronson (1990) gives the following rules for stress-assignment in Georgian:
less than 4 syllables in word -> stress on 1st OR antepenultimate syllable
5 or more syllables in word -> stress on 1st AND antepenultimate syllables
Robins & Waterson (1952) give an alternative, less compact (but perhaps more readable) set of rules:
2 syllables -> stress on 1st syllable
3 syllables -> stress on 1st OR 2nd syllable
4 syllables -> stress on 2nd OR on 1st & 3rd syllables
5 syllables -> 1st & 3rd OR 2nd & 4th syllables
6+ syllables -> 1st & antepenultimate syllables
Not being overly familiar with Georgian, i can't speak to the accuracy of each, but i suspect the more recent 1990 reference is the one to go with. So, by way of an answer to your question: Georgian stress-assignment is partially rule governed. Applying the rules helps, but since at least one of the rules is disjunctive, stress assignment must be partially lexicalised.
