Evalda Jakaitienė. „Leksikologija“

JONAS PALIONIS Vilniaus universitetas Research areas: the history of written Lithuanian, general language culture, publication and study of old Lithuanian texts, onomastics. Evalda Jakaitienė LEXICOLOGY Study book Vilnius: Vilniaus universiteto leidykla, 2009, 352 p. ISBN 978-9955-33-445-3 The book by Evalda Jakaitienė, professor at Vilnius University, appeared several years ago and, it seems, has yet to receive due recognition, although it is one of the highly significant works in Lithuanian studies from the late 2000s. Its preface notes that it is a study guide intended for Lithuanian students, in which “an attempt is made to set out the principal theoretical problems of lexicology” (p. 5). However, this book, written by a distinguished researcher of Lithuanian vocabulary, especially lexical semantics, considerably exceeds the requirements set for philology students and is marked by scholarly maturity. The book consists of nine larger or smaller chapters: 1) THE AIMS AND TASKS OF LEXICOLOGY [...], 2) THE CONCEPT OF THE WORD IN LEXICOLOGY, 3) LEXICAL SEMANTICS [...], 4) LEXICAL PRAGMATICS [...], 5) SOCIAL ASPECTS OF VOCABULARY [...], 6) ETYMOLOGY AND WORD FORMATION [...], 7) ONOMASTICS [...], 8) PHRASEOLOGY [...] and 9) LEXICOGRAPHY [...]. Only the initial parts of the chapter titles, printed in bold uppercase, are given here; beginning with the third title, Lithuanian explanations of international terms are also added (the full titles will be given when discussing the individual chapters). At the end of all chapters and some subsections, a larger or smaller set of exercises is provided, along with very detailed lists of the relevant primary literature (even including page references). At the end of the book there is also a collection of “Key Questions in Lexicology,” organized by chapter (60 questions in all (pp. 335–337)). This is followed by a fairly extensive bibliography (pp. 338–343), a register of abbreviations (pp. 344–346), and a subject index (pp. 347–351). The first chapter (pp. 7–9) explains the concept of lexicology and distinguishes, from various perspectives in linguistics, the following types of this branch of language studies: general, special, and contrastive lexicology, semasiology, lexical pragmatics, socio- Recenzijos / Reviews 355 JONAS PALIONIS lexicology, etymology, word formation, onomastics. Also associated with these are phraseology and lexicography; the former is sometimes regarded as a separate branch of linguistics (see KTŽ 66), while the latter is the theory and practice of applied lexicology (cf. Jakaitienė 2005: 9). The names of many of the branches of lexicology listed here have been inherited from traditional linguistics. However, lexical pragmatics, sociolexicology are products of the language science of a new era. Without undertaking a broader discussion of the branches mentioned (they are also briefly described in this chapter), I would like to question only the definition of the object of etymology: “[…] its object is only those words whose origin is synchronically unclear” (p. 9). This definition seems to me too narrow. Why does it limit itself to words of synchronically unclear origin? And what science studies words of synchronically clear origin? The definition in KTŽ is therefore more precise: it is “A branch of linguistics that studies the origin of words and their kinship relations with other words in the same or other languages” (p. 60). The second chapter (pp. 11–37) examines the concept of the word from various angles and in an original way. It distinguishes three kinds of conceptualizations of the word: ontic, scientific, and linguistic. The author was perhaps the first Lithuanian linguist to use the term ontic (derived from Greek on, gen. οὖσις ‘being’) to denote a conception of the word pertaining to being. Perhaps this is why the book devotes considerable space to explaining this conception: it discusses the specific nature of the word as a complex social phenomenon with a sign-based nature, its functions, and functional types of words. The word’s most important function is considered to be representational (p. 15). This, however, is open to question. It seems to me that the most important function of the word as the principal means of linguistic expression is not “to represent something” but to communicate with one another—that is, its communicative function. Of course, treating the word’s primary function in this way does not deny the existence of a representational function (the word, like other units of the language system, represents the person participating in the speech process). In general, the description of the representational function both in the language system and in speech activity is rather confusing. The assertion that “In the language system, the word acquires sign status for the first time […]” (p. 19), while “when used in a specific speech activity, it performs the sign’s representational function for a second time” (p. 20), may not be very clear to readers, especially students; nor is it made more explicit on the further pages cited (pp. 26–27). There is no doubt about the other functions of the word, which are divided into general and specific functions and illustrated with examples in a table. One may only add that some linguists also distinguish an impressive function (for example, in military commands: dress ranks!, quick march!) and a phatic function (for example, the telephone word hello!) (cf. Bańczerowski, Pogonowski, Zgółka 1982: 36–37). These, however, are subtleties unnecessary in a lexicology textbook intended for students. The second chapter also contains an interesting subsection, titled as a question: “Is WORD a good linguistic term?” (p. 28). Indeed, as the author notes, in colloquial speech it has not become a strict scientific term, while in linguistic literature definitions of the word vary greatly. 356 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXI Evalda Jakaitienė. Leksikologija The celebrated French linguist Antoine Meillet once said that, in principle, the word is undefinable: “le mot est en principe indéfinissable” (quoted from: Doroszewski 1954: 5). It seems to me that the most appropriate name for the word as a unit of the language system would be lexeme (cf. analogous terms phoneme, morpheme, syntacteme), and for the corresponding unit of speech, or speaking, word. The term onomateme proposed in the book could be acceptable only with one precisely defined meaning: “a group of lexemes having the same phonetic meaning” (p. 29). I also disagree with the author about the suitability of the Lithuanian equivalents kalbėjimas, kalbėjimo veikla (speaking, speech activity) (p. 19) for the Saussurean term parole. It seems to me that a more suitable and convenient substitute is the single-word equivalent šneka, used by linguists in many other nations (an ordinary word from the vernacular made into a term)1. Besides being shorter, this equivalent is also preferable because it can be used to mean not only “speaking” or “speech activity,” but also “the totality of linguistic expressive resources accumulated by an individual, their idiolect” (the šneka⟧ of Jonas, Petras, or Ona). Kalbėjimas, kalbėjimo veikla means only the process of language use. Incidentally, the term phrase šnekos aktai (speech acts) is used in the subsequent fourth chapter by the author herself (pp. 143–146). The largest, third chapter, LEXICAL SEMANTICS, OR WHAT WORDS MEAN AND HOW THEY DO SO (pp. 38–142), discusses the principal problems of word semantics. It begins with an account of the history of lexical semantics, while the following subsections address the concept and structure of lexical meaning, homonyms, and systematic relations among words and their meanings. Many problems of this kind had already been explored in the author’s 1980 textbook Lexicology of the Lithuanian Language and, especially, in her 1988 monograph Lexical Semantics. In the book under review, however, they have been reconsidered, critically evaluated, and supplemented with findings from the research of Lithuanian and non-Lithuanian linguists in subsequent decades. Since the author had written at length about the history of lexical semantics in her 1988 monograph, the book under review devotes more space only to an overview and characterization of the more prominent approaches to semantics and their proponents. Yet both of the author’s books also give rather scant attention to the concept of meaning, and especially to the classification of meanings. Moreover, it is particularly important that the book under review contains many problems of lexical semantics treated differently and in a more innovative way. One of these is the unsettled conception of word meaning. As in Lexical Semantics, the book under review distinguishes two broad types of this conception: cognitive and structural, both of which are further classified into certain 1 In addition to the English speech, German Rede, French parole, Polish mowa, and Russian речь equivalents mentioned in the book, one may also add Czech řeč or mluka, and Serbian and Croatian govor. Recenzijos / Reviews 357 JONAS PALIONIS subtypes. However, in Lexical Semantics there are more subtypes of both cognitive and structural classifications; moreover, some subtypes are described here in greater detail (for example, designative and connotative meaning). On the other hand, Lexicology dispenses with some concepts and terms described in Lexical Semantics (for example, derivational value, designative value, paradigmatic value, as certain features of structural meaning). Without comparing the contents of the author’s two books in greater detail, it should be noted that Lexicology substantially expands the issues related to lexical semantics. The subsections of the third chapter discuss in greater detail the semantic structure of polysemous words (pp. 86–100), homonymy (pp. 101–112), and especially systematic relations between words and their meanings (pp. 113–142). Having no substantial critical comments on this chapter, I would like to mention just one or two formulations that give rise to doubts, or points open to dispute (presented here in page order). On page 66, in discussing syntactic valency, or combinability, and commenting on the combinability of the verbs priklausyti and virti in different cases (The house belongs to the neighbor ‖ Victory depends on luck; The soup is boiling ‖ Mother is boiling soup), it is asserted that those verbs each have two lexemes. If one adheres to the view that a lexeme is a word “as the sum of all its paradigmatic forms and the meanings corresponding to them” (KTŽ 113), this assertion is unfounded, because lexeme, as a lexicological term, is being assigned a syntactic meaning. On page 101, two types of homonyms are distinguished: true and partial. The basis for this classification and the term true are unclear. The opposite of partial would be non-partial or, as is customary, absolute. Some dictionaries of linguistic terms list other types of homonyms as well. “Etymology” also distinguishes three further types according to the sources of homonyms and the reasons for their emergence: etymological, derivational, and semantic (pp. 104–111). In the definition of synonyms given on page 123, two words related to their classification, “identical or” (which I have placed in square brackets), should be removed: “synonyms are lexical units with [identical or] similar meanings, whose main semantic components coincide, while the semantic components that distinguish them can be neutralized in certain contexts.” This insertion is needed because on page 127 the author herself writes about absolute synonyms (karvelis ‖ balandis, kiškis ‖ zuikis). But those words were probably omitted through a simple oversight (perhaps a printer’s error?). The fourth chapter, entitled LEXICAL PRAGMATICS, or WORDS IN SPEECH ACTS (pp. 143–170), whose subject matter was not discussed in Lexical Semantics, discusses a new branch of linguistics that emerged in the 1960s. It begins by explaining the concept of the speech act itself, and then describes the principal concepts and terms associated with speech acts: 358 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXI Evalda Jakaitienė. Leksikologija illocution, perlocution, as well as the most characteristic lexical types of speech acts: performative verbs, etiquette vocabulary, emotives and expressives, modal words. These are new topics, which, before the publication of Lexicology, had probably not only gone untaught to students in the humanities at Lithuanian universities, but had also been unfamiliar to many faculty members in these fields. Thus, the fourth chapter is significant, among other things, for the innovative nature of its subject matter in Lithuanian linguistic literature. The fifth chapter, SOCIAL ASPECTS OF THE LEXICON, or THE INTERACTION BETWEEN SOCIETY AND THE LEXICON (pp. 171–221), as its title itself indicates, discusses the relationship between words and society, and its various strata. First, two types of lexicon are distinguished according to the social position of “members of society”: general, or common national, and specialized lexicon. The latter is further divided into dialectal, professional, and jargon vocabulary (p. 173). Several comments may be made about this classification. It seems to me that dividing the lexicon into general (common national) and specialized is based not on social criteria but on the extent of usage; moreover, general should preferably be replaced by common or common national, since the latter terms have a longer tradition in Lithuanian linguistics and are impeccable neither semantically nor in terms of word formation. The classification of dialectal vocabulary as specialized vocabulary is also questionable, since a dialect is a territorial variety of language, whereas specialized vocabulary is associated with the sphere of science and may be called terminology. It is true that the author regards terms and professionalisms as non-equivalent types of professional vocabulary (p. 181), and there is grounds for this view. However, logically, the opposite of dialectal vocabulary is standard-language vocabulary. The so-called general lexicon is considered to have as its core the term basic dictionary stock, which arose in the Soviet era. It seems to me that basic lexical stock would be better—not for any political reasons, but because a stricter distinction should be made between dictionary as “a book containing a collection of words” and lexicon as “a particular set of words” (of a language, languages or dialect, a profession, and so on), although it is difficult to avoid using the terms synonymously. It has already been mentioned that in professional vocabulary the author distinguishes (as separate, unequal types) terms and professionalisms. A term is defined as a word having “a precisely fixed, very clearly defined content, entirely independent of context” (p. 182). This definition, though concise, seems to me justified, since in the works of our linguists sometimes terms are also used to refer to ordinary general, or common-language, words (for example, words eye, ear, heart, etc., are considered medical terms) (Zemlevičiūtė 2008: 143–144). However, the characterization of professionalisms as a certain part of professional vocabulary—that “these are not standard-language words, but colloquial words” (p. 185)—needs clarification, since it is unclear whether standard colloquial speech is meant here, or a certain intermediate language between dialectal and standard language, which German linguists call Umgangsprache and for which, it seems, we do not have a name— Recenzijos / Reviews 359 JONAS PALIONIS there is no established Lithuanian term (perhaps everyday colloquial speech? would serve). On the other hand, the examples of professional jargon given in the book—sportspeople’s use of kyla instead of kamuolio ‘ball’, drivers’ baranka instead of vairo ‘steering wheel’, and similar words—could be treated as slang. These matters are debatable, however, and do not detract from the original and substantive description of the basic terminological concepts. The sixth chapter, ETYMOLOGY AND WORD FORMATION, OR WHERE AND HOW WORDS COME INTO BEING (pp. 222–262), as its title indicates, discusses two closely related branches of linguistics. One studies the origin of words, the other word formation, or creation. In terms of the space devoted to each, the book gives priority to the problem of word origins: the concepts of “inherited words” and “derivatives” are explained, and borrowings are analyzed in considerable detail with respect to origin and age, drawing on examples from Lithuanian and other languages. In terms of origin, the Lithuanian lexicon distinguishes and discusses Slavicisms (Polonisms, Russicisms), Germanisms (Anglicisms)2, Latvianisms, and international words (alongside which terms with the suffix -ism are usually given in parentheses: Slavicisms, Germanisms, etc.). There is no doubt about the use of such terms: Lithuanian linguists use them selectively in virtually all their work (with the apparent exception of only vokietybė). Nor is there any doubt about classifying borrowings “by age” into old and recent, except that bulka ‘bun’ and napilnykas ‘file’, which were also used earlier in colloquial speech, are classified (p. 234) as “borrowings that entered Lithuanian after the Second World War.” The form napilnykas is not recorded in the comprehensive Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language, while in my native Punia dialect before that war only the form nopiėlnykas was used (clearly a Russicism; cf. напильник). A problematic issue is letter abbreviations, to which the book devotes very little attention. It merely lists five such abbreviations—CO, DVO, PC, and SMS—and states that they have supposedly become words (p. 234). Whether they should be considered words is open to question, since their meaning cannot be known without decoding them. They are a particular kind of letter-based abbreviation, for which, it seems to me, the term symbols might also be suitable. Petro Jonikas wrote about such and other abbreviations in 1940 in Gimtoji kalba (Jonikas 1940: 118–123), so it would have been worthwhile to discuss them at greater length in the book under review as well. The subsection “Derivational Analysis of Words,” which follows the discussion of etymology, explains the concept of derivational motivation, the principles of analyzing derivatives, types of derivatives, and derivational patterns and categories. Although all this has been examined in considerable detail in Vincas Urbutis’s study Žodžių darybos teorija (1978; second edition 2009)), E. Jakaitienė’s book presents it in a more accessible form for students and, moreover, its interpretation of individual problems draws on more recent research in the field. The seventh chapter, ONOMASTICS, OR WHO IS GIVEN WHICH NAMES (pp. 263–278), explains the relationship between proper and common nouns, and defines proper- 2 For some reason, the term vokietybė was not used. 360 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXI Evalda Jakaitienė. Leksikologija noun types and the principles for analyzing proper nouns. Proper nouns are defined here as words that name particular objects without indicating “even their most general characteristics” (p. 264); furthermore, they cannot directly express a concept, but “can (and sometimes must) be associated with a concept” (p. 265). In the author’s view, proper nouns also have a certain, specific meaning, the existence of which some linguists deny. In the book, proper nouns are divided semantically into two broad types: names of living beings and names of “inanimate things.” The type of names for living beings is further divided into three groups: personal names, or anthroponyms, zoonyms, and mythonyms. Names for inanimate objects, in turn, are divided into place names, or toponyms, for which several groups are also distinguished: oikonyms, hydronyms, drymonyms, oronyms. I have no reservations about this conception of proper nouns or their classification. I have just a couple of comments: one concerning the relationship between surnames and personal characteristics, the other concerning the origin of certain surnames. On p. 268, citing Aleksandras Vanagas, the book asserts that “a surname is entirely independent of his [that is, the person’s—J. P.] personal characteristics.” This assertion is true if we set aside the initial stage of its emergence. However, during the period when surnames were being formed, many originated as nicknames, and their connection with personal characteristics was clear (for example, surnames such as Kairỹs, Kuprius, Rudis, and the like). Thus, from a historical perspective, one can speak of a connection between certain surnames and personal characteristics. On p. 272, nickname-surnames of Slavic origin, Burō-kas, Kisiėlius and Ridìkas, are classed as surnames “of native origin.” On the same page, the name Dãnė, the name of a stream flowing through Klaipėda, is linked to the Ossetian don ‘river’, but a derivation of this name from Curonian is more reliable (see Mažiulis 1999: 95). The eighth chapter, PHRASEOLOGY, OR WORDS IN FIXED EXPRESSIONS (pp. 279–307), discusses free and stable word combinations, the semantics, origin, structure, and functions of phraseological units. The introductory subsection of this chapter discusses both the traditional, narrower conception of a phraseological unit, according to which such units are “more or less figurative fixed and indivisible word combinations” (p. 281), and a newer, broader conception, according to which their most important and reliable characteristic is supposedly “stabilization, the frequent co-occurrence of the same words” (p. 280). While partly agreeing with the broader conception, E. Jakaitienė emphasizes two further important characteristics of phraseological units: “a defined phraseological environment” (p. 282) and the fact that they are “retrieved from memory” (p. 284). All of this is convincing and illustrated in the book with well-chosen examples from Lithuanian. Semantically, phraseological units are divided into motivated and unmotivated, or idioms. The motivated ones are further divided into three types: 1) tropological, 2) comparative, and 3) compositional. Tropological units are further divided into metaphorical and metonymic ones. By origin, phraseological units are distinguished as native and borrowed. Particularly interesting and very rare are examples provided by the author such as aitais eiti ‘to come to nothing’, pruojais eiti ‘to waste away’, į kapendą išankinti ‘to deceive’, Recenzijos / Reviews 361 JONAS PALIONIS to go in a whirl ‘to proceed rapidly’ (p. 295). However, it is doubtful whether tautological word combinations clearest of the clear, after all, hundreds upon hundreds should be considered phraseologisms: although they are more or less fixed, they lack imagery, and some are formed according to a particular syntactic pattern (cf. best of the good, worst of the bad, wonders of wonders, etc.). It might therefore be more appropriate to call them semi-free word combinations. Asked whether proverbs and sayings that have “the structure of a simple [i.e. unexpanded – J. P.] or compound sentence” should be considered phraseologisms, E. Jakaitienė tends to answer in the negative (p. 303), since phraseologisms are considered to be word combinations, not sentences. This view seems to me entirely justified from a logical standpoint, because proverbs and sayings (at least in Lithuanian) generally take the form of one kind of sentence or another, rather than that of a word combination. One may also agree with her proposal to use the term winged expressions for proverbs and sayings (ibid.). The final, ninth chapter, LEXICOGRAPHY, OR WORDS IN DICTIONARIES (pp. 308–334), discusses the theory and practice of dictionary compilation. The author had previously prepared a substantial study on this subject (Jakaitienė 2005). For this chapter, she could therefore draw on, and undoubtedly did draw on, the research findings presented in that study, adapting them for students in the humanities at institutions of higher education. This is also reflected in the matching titles of two sections in this chapter: “Aims and Objectives of Lexicography” and “Types of Dictionaries.” Undoubtedly, the second section, on types of dictionaries and their classification, is more problematic. Here, as in the works of many other linguists, the first distinction is between linguistic and encyclopedic dictionaries. Linguistic dictionaries, in turn, are divided into monolingual and parallel dictionaries; monolingual dictionaries into general and specialized dictionaries; and general dictionaries into comprehensive and differential dictionaries. In addition, dictionaries are classified as explanatory and index, universal and aspectual, synchronic and diachronic (the latter being further divided into historical and etymological), while bilingual dictionaries are divided into active and passive, universal and selective, unidirectional and bidirectional types. Thus, a considerable number of different dictionary types are presented, and cramming them all into a student’s head is no easy task. Some dictionaries of linguistic terminology list even more types, with greater terminological variation. Leaving aside the characteristics of the types presented in the book under review, one may question the appropriateness of one type designation. For example, it seems to me that the term comprehensive dictionaries (p. 314) is not very successful, since wholly comprehensive dictionaries probably do not exist. The term general would be more suitable here, as the opposite of differential (the term comprehensive is entirely unnecessary). From the point of view of norms, the term used in Lexicography, parallel, is more appropriate than parallel-type (ibid.). It is also questionable that general dictionaries “explain all the words of some language or all the words of a dialect” (p. 315) [the word all is unnecessary here]. But these are minor points that do not detract at all from the picture of a substantive lexicographic chapter. 362 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXI Evalda Jakaitienė. Leksikologija In concluding this review, I would like to offer a couple more general observations. 1) The book’s preface confidently describes it as a “substantial textbook” (p. 5). And indeed, it is. The subject matter is presented in a problem-oriented manner, considering various views and supporting the author’s own with weighty arguments. If the chapter titles did not include explanatory words, and if “Exercises” were not added at the end of every chapter and many sections, along with “Essential Reading” and page references, it could be called not only a substantial textbook for students but also, more generally, a very valuable work of linguistics. 2) Although the book relies mainly on examples from Lithuanian, it also contains abundant data from other languages, including Norwegian, which is very rarely encountered in Lithuanian linguistic literature (the author learned the language well while working in Norway). The book should therefore be of interest not only to specialists in Lithuanian studies, but also to lecturers in other humanities disciplines, to students in advanced courses, and, more generally, to anyone interested in the study of words. LITERATŪRA Bańczerowski Jerzy, Pogonowski Jerzy, Zgółka Tadeusz 1982: Wstęp do językoznawstwa. Poznań: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu. Doroszewski Witold 1954: Z zagadnień leksykografii polskiej. Warszawa: PWN. Jakaitienė Evalda 2005: Leksikografija. Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidybos institutas. Jonikas Petras 1940: Santrumpos. – Gimtoji kalba, 9–10 sąs., 118–123. KTŽ – Gaivenis Kazimieras, Keinys Stasys. Kalbotyros terminų žodynas. Kaunas: Šviesa, 1990. Mažiulis Vytautas 1999: Ne Dãnė, o Dangė. – Baltistica 34(1), 93–98. Urbutis Vincas 1978: Žodžių darybos teorija. Vilnius: Mokslas; antras leidimas, 2009. Zemlevičiūtė Palmira 2008: Lietuviški Vinco Kudirkos medicinos terminai. – Terminologija, 142–155. Įteikta 2014 m. rugsėjo 25 d. JONAS PALIONIS Vilniaus universitetas Juozo Tumo-Vaižganto g. 9-27, LT-01108 Vilnius, Lietuva Recenzijos / Reviews 363