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XLIX (2003), 153–170
REVIEW OF RECENT WORKS
Survey of Recent Publications
LITHUANIAN LINGUISTICS IN 2002: WORKS PUBLISHED IN LITHUANIA
The year 2002 is remembered as a time of economic recovery and calmer scholarly work. The major events in Lithuanian linguistics that resonated widely remained etched in memory: the completion of the academic Lietuvių kalbos žodyno and the 400th anniversary of Jonas Bretkūnas’s Lithuanian translation of the Bible. About a dozen books on linguistics appeared, eight of which are discussed in this review. The review begins with monographs, continues with dissertations published in monograph form and a scholarly edition of an old text, and concludes with selected writings.
1. Audronė Kaukienė’s monograph Lietuvių kalbos veiksmažodžio istorija (History of the Lithuanian Verb), volume two (Klaipėda: Klaipėda University, 2002, 400 pp.), continues the study of Lithuanian root verbs published eight years earlier (Kaukienė 1994). This volume examines a-stem (or, historically, ō-stem) verbs whose roots contain short i, u and long y, ū. The book consists of a preface, five chapters, concluding remarks (in Lithuanian and English), and lists of abbreviations. In each chapter, short roots are examined first, followed by long roots.
The book opens with an etymological register of the verbs under examination, whose purpose is “to check and select the material and prepare it for further analysis at various levels” (p. 3). The register first divides the verbs into regular (denoting active action) and irregular (mutative and durative), and then into basic verbs (recorded in the dictionary of contemporary Lithuanian) and dialectal verbs (known only from some dialects or written monuments). Attention is drawn to the problem of the reliability of a word or form. The etymologies of regular verbs are indicated, while irregular verbs are merely listed. The views of various authors on the origin of one or another verb under discussion are reported fairly precisely. Differences between explanations of origins are not concealed, and their reliability is sometimes assessed—this adds to the book’s value.
The second chapter examines competing present- and past-tense variants in other stem types of ō-stem verbs. It begins with Lithuanian and Latvian dialect forms (iō-stem and infixed forms), identifying common variants in the East Baltic languages. All Lithuanian verbs are then compared with cognates in other languages that have the same root structure. In examining present-tense cognates, verbs with a zero formative, an infix, or the formatives i or n are distinguished. In this part of the monograph, the comparison of morphologically related forms gives way essentially to etymological comparison of words, since cognates in other languages are usually cited as lexemes (in some cases in the present-tense form, in others only as infinitives).
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The book goes on to examine root-vowel alternation in inflection and derivation in related forms of Lithuanian dialects and in cognate words in other languages. Diachronic changes in verbs with the same root are presented as if they had been synchronic variants; for example, in the case of bruka: braukia, ablaut is considered inflectional because “many such pairs must once have formed a single paradigm” (p. 119). This chapter is closely connected with the preceding one and repeats some claims formulated earlier. For instance, in discussing inflectional vowel alternation in the present-tense forms of CiC verbs (p. 122), it repeats some conclusions from the overview of present-tense stem forms (cf. p. 100). The book emphasizes more than once (p. 100 and elsewhere) that the structure of the verbs under examination (and their cognates in related languages) is connected with root vocalism; it is therefore questionable to examine stem-final variants and apophony separately.
The fourth chapter of the monograph describes the semantics of ō-stem verbs. The author has developed a two-level semantic classification of verbs: abstract meanings comprise the oppositions of active versus spontaneous action or state, and transitivity versus intransitivity; concrete meanings are divided into semantic subgroups—destructive, motion, biological, and others. The historical analysis of verb semantics is based on the original root meaning and comparison with cognates in related languages, rather than on the method of semantic fields (cf. Karaliūnas 1987: 26ff.). Unlike Karaliūnas, who gives priority to semantics rather than morpho(no)logy (cf. “the establishment of semantic filiations, the determination of the relatedness of meanings <...> is proof of the etymological identity of the corresponding lexemes, i.e., those with the same expression” 1987: 50), Kaukienė assigns semantics only a supporting role in the study of verbs and places its overview at the end of the investigation. The semantic analysis of verbs allows the author to conclude that the semantic core of verbs with short roots consists of so-called contact verbs of the kišti type, with a possible effect component, while many verbs with long vocalism are characterized by an intensity component (pp. 198–199). Comparing verbs with ō- and i̯ō- stems leads to the conclusion that “the greater the difference in the range of [their] meanings, the greater the possibility that verbs of both structural types can coexist on an equal footing” (p. 199).
The greatest share of the book—more than a third of the monograph—is devoted to examining the derivational relationships between verbs and their derivatives. The author maintains that studying derivatives is useful for determining the origins of base verbs (p. 201). The derivatives are described according to derivational categories. Their formation, meaning, vocalism, and accentuation are discussed.
The concluding remarks of the book begin with the Proto-Indo-European layer of verbs, although the monograph says almost nothing about it... This part of the book could have been limited to summarizing the development of verbs during the Lithuanian, East Baltic, and general Baltic periods.
The monograph contains many new ideas, yet seems to avoid discussion: the views of other authors are mentioned and examined only rarely (the etymological register of verbs is an exception). For example, the differing views set out in Karaliūnas’s monograph and articles on the relationship and development of Baltic ō- and i̯ō- stem verbs, despite their close relevance to the topic, are not mentioned at all; his view on the ei: i and ei: y alternation is mentioned only in a footnote (pp. 130–131), and so on. The book mixes synchronic and diachronic levels of analysis (for example, in the second chapter, Lithuanian data of varying dates and reliability are compared with data from other Indo-European languages that likewise vary in date and reliability, sometimes even with their reconstructed forms), as well as structural and derivational, structural and etymological, and derivational and etymological aspects of analysis. Material from related languages was gathered for the study mainly from etymological dictionaries by various authors, written at different times (this is best
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(as shown by the list of literature and sources). Studies of Indo-European language grammars, all the more recent ones (e.g., Koch 1990, Jasanoff 1994, etc.), were scarcely used. It is doubtful whether such material can provide a sufficient basis for undertaking this historical study of Lithuanian verbs from the perspectives of morphology, morphonology, and word formation. In a work of this kind, such as the monograph under review, an index of words and forms should be taken for granted. Despite some of the shortcomings noted here, the monograph is undoubtedly one of the most significant studies of the history of the verb in the Baltic languages.
2. Antanas Pakerys’s book Akcentologija 2: Numerals, Pronouns, Verbs, Adverbs, Particles, Prepositions, Conjunctions, Interjections, Ideophones (Vilnius: Institute of Science and Encyclopaedia Publishing, 2002, 630p.) continues the monograph published eight years earlier (Pakerys 1994), which described the accentuation of nouns and adjectives. The second book follows the same principles for collecting and presenting data. Its aim is to examine the accentuation of words in the standard language as thoroughly as possible, “without omitting rarer cases, and bringing out irregularities and fluctuations in the system” (p. 12). Thus, the book is descriptive in nature; one should not look in it for deeper insights, theoretical discussion, or general conclusions: the author promises to undertake all this in a subsequent work of a more synthetic nature (p. 12).
As in the first book, the material under study is based primarily on data from the third edition of the Dictionary of Contemporary Lithuanian (Keinys, ed. 1993). The preface also mentions the fourth edition of this dictionary, published a couple of years earlier (Keinys, ed., 2000), which “almost coincides with the third edition of this dictionary” (p. 12). It remains unclear whether the author took account of even the errors and misprints corrected in it: as can be seen from the “List of Corrections” (Keinys, ed., 2000: 968), some accentuation errors were also corrected in the fourth edition of the dictionary. Incidentally, an electronic version of the fourth edition of the Dictionary of Contemporary Lithuanian appeared in 2002 (Keinys, ed., 2002), which the author had apparently not had time to use. The book also draws extensively on data from other dictionaries, dialect descriptions, and articles, although nowhere does it consider the reliability of this material, the principles governing its presentation, its degree of codification, and so forth. Data from spoken standard language are used in the work only indirectly—through the results of a written survey of students. This research methodology makes the work less a study and description of actual spoken-language data than a comparative account of the history of accentuation codification or of dialect forms (recorded in linguistic works) and codified variants.
The monograph examines and synthesizes a wealth of factual material. It is described and examples are presented according to criteria of abundance and frequency. These criteria are followed with excessive consistency: the ordering of the examples listed together looks rather odd: eight, eight (feminine), nine, nine (feminine), seven, seven (feminine) (p. 15). Certain contradictions in the selection of examples under discussion are already apparent in the preface. Since the stated aim is to describe the accentuation of words in the standard language, it is understandable that dialect words, as well as obsolete (and nonstandard) words in the Dictionary of Contemporary Lithuanian, are not examined (p. 11). Elsewhere, however, the author emphasizes that both parts of the book “include a considerable amount of dialect and other non-codified language data,” which make it possible to “discern the essential features of dialect accentuation” (p. 13). Indeed, dialectal phonetic and accentual variants of words are frequently presented in the book as examples of non-codified language. For example, variants of the numeral ten are cited from three locations in the academic Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language, the dictionary of the Dūnininkai dialect, the dialect dictionaries of Druskininkai, Lazūnai, and Zietela, and nearly ten references to publications by other authors are also added (p. 17). It is then unclear why dialect forms in the Dic-
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tionary of Contemporary Lithuanian are excluded (for example, the ordinal numeral fifteenth, marked with the abbreviation ryt. in this dictionary, is not discussed (p. 538).
The author follows the principles of traditional morphological, or word-formation, accentology: he links accentuation to word formation. For example, in examining the accentuation of numerals, primary numerals are discussed first, followed by derivatives, compounds, and indeclinable fused numerals. Nevertheless, the author does not achieve complete consistency, since alongside the criterion of arranging the material by word formation, he also follows a criterion of word origin (not mentioned in the preface): the accentuation of numerals of foreign origin is discussed separately at the end of the chapter (p. 25). This latter criterion takes precedence only in the discussion of primary numerals of foreign origin; when their derivatives are examined, the word-formation criterion takes precedence instead—derivatives with foreign suffixes are discussed together with native words of corresponding formation: billion, -a alongside thousandth, -a (p. 20), million, -a alongside hundredth, -a (p. 21). The chapter on pronouns treats primary, derived, compound, fused, multiword, two-stress-component pronouns, pronominal pronouns, and words that have become pronouns in separate sections. It is clear that in a synchronic study there can be no sections such as fused pronouns and words that have become pronouns: the former could be described as primary or compound, and the latter as primary numerals (incidentally, even historically it is not easy to prove that the word pats is a noun that has become a pronoun rather than an old pronoun: Ernst Fraenkel regards ‘sėbst’ as the basic meaning of idē. *potis (Fraenkel 1962: 552), and thus considers pronominal use to be primary). Nor is it consistent to treat multiword pronouns with two stressed components separately from other multiword pronouns. The hierarchy of classification criteria in the pronoun chapter is unclear. The contents further muddle this hierarchy: headings “Multiword Pronouns,” “Pronouns Stressed on the First Component,” “Pronouns Stressed on the Second Component,” and “Pronouns with Two Stressed Components” are listed as being on the same level (p. 6). In the chapter on particles, fused words and compound (multiword) particles, judging by the heading size, are treated as a subset of words or word combinations that have become particles, although the chapter begins by stating that “Compound (multiword) and foreign-origin particles should be mentioned separately [from the rest?]” (p. 581). Similar inconsistencies occur in other chapters of the book.
A relatively large amount of space in the monograph is devoted to data from the students’ oral survey: almost every subsection concludes with a discussion of students’ accentuation tendencies. Relative statistics are provided for normative accentuation and variants obtained through the survey. However, the survey methodology and the processing of its data are not described sufficiently, which raises doubts about their reliability. For example, according to the survey data, students always stress eight (49: 0), yet we have all heard the variants eight, even eight, which are entirely absent from the survey data (perhaps because of its oral nature, or because only Lithuanian philology students were surveyed?).
Terms are occasionally used inconsistently. For instance, when discussing the accentuation of particles, the term primary (simple) words is contrasted not with the terms derived words (derivatives), compound words (as in the preceding part of the book), but with the term words that have become particles: its word-formation meaning is replaced by a historical one (cf. “in this study an attempt is made to distinguish primary particles from those that have arisen through the grammaticalization of individual words or their combinations” (p. 581).
Pakerys has carried out a major task, one that required considerable care and patience (the list of works and sources consulted is impressive!). There can be no doubt that it will prove useful for future studies of accentuation in Lithuanian (not only the standard language).
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3. Juozas Abaravičius’s book The Stylistics of Punctuation (Vilnius: Institute of Science and Encyclopaedia Publishing, 2002, 288 pp.) examines the stylistic potential offered by punctuation and the stylistic use of punctuation marks (cf. p. 7). This is the first monograph of its kind in Lithuanian linguistics. The author bases punctuation on the grammatical, semantic, and intonational division of a text and its units (p. 8). This conception of punctuation is close to A. Valeckienė’s views (cf. Slizienė, Valeckienė 1992: 128–129; Morkūnas, ed., 1999: 585–586) and differs from the purely syntactic conception of K. Gaivenis and S. Keinys (cf. Gaivenis, Keinys 1990: 186). The book focuses mainly on the semantic (especially emotional and expressive) and intonational foundations of punctuation. Stylistics is essentially identified with the stylistic use of linguistic units, which provides a basis for its propaedeutic value. If one followed a similar approach, it would probably also be possible to distinguish “stylistics” of orthography (the use of lowercase and uppercase letters, writing words together or separately, etc.), prosody (the accentuation of clitics, sentence intonation, etc.), and other kinds. In Western linguistics, the stylistics of punctuation is considered part of graphostylistics (cf. Bußmann, Hrsg., 2002: 265).
The theoretical foundation of the monograph consists of the works of Russian authors (the works of N. S. Valgina and L. G. Vedenina are cited particularly often). Although the bibliography lists several Western European authors who have addressed problems of punctuation, their views are generally only mentioned; they are relied on chiefly, and their works cited, in discussions of the history of punctuation.
The book consists of two parts. The first examines the relationship between punctuation and stylistics, defines the main concepts, and surveys the functions of punctuation marks. It serves as an introduction to the subsequent study of Lithuanian punctuation marks, which makes up the second part of the book.
The monograph discusses the functions of punctuation marks at considerable length. Following R. Makarova’s classification, as many as sixteen of these so-called semiological functions are distinguished: separating, delimiting, opposing, explanatory, connective, warning, indicating attachment, enumerative, marking boundaries, marking wholeness, marking incompleteness, marking ellipsis, emotional-expressive, modal, compositional, emblematic... (p. 12ff.). The functions distinguished are not all at the same level and vary in scope. Individual functions are insufficiently defined, and their relationships to one another are not established. For example, the function of marking incompleteness is merely part of the emotional (and) expressive function; the delimiting, connective, boundary-marking, and perhaps other functions are parts of the compositional function, and so on. The book then examines optional punctuation, authorial punctuation, and texts without punctuation marks (unmarked punctuation). From a theoretical standpoint, the concept of authorial punctuation is perhaps considered most carefully (pp. 37–47), but its relationship to optional punctuation nevertheless remains unclear (both chapters discuss authorial marks and the like; cf. pp. 26 and 38ff.). The origins and development of punctuation in Western Europe are surveyed briefly and engagingly.
The second part, which makes up most of the book, discusses the use of punctuation marks and their stylistic potential. Lithuanian has ten punctuation marks. The use of each mark is described separately: first, the essential points are briefly outlined, and then the topic is examined in greater detail. Literary examples are used extensively.
The monograph’s fairly lengthy conclusions (pp. 245–253) would be better described as a summary: they contain no theoretical generalizations.
The author has compiled a fairly detailed “Index of Important Terms, Concepts, and Descriptions” (pp. 271–284). Unfortunately, it only partly fulfills its purpose, since it is arranged not alphabetically but thematically: the index itself needs an index, or at least a table of contents...
The book is written in lively conversational language, rich in rhetorical figures and stylistically marked punctuation. Such language is highly suitable for a popular work, perhaps a teaching aid (according to the au-
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of the author, its basis is a course of lectures delivered to Lithuanian studies students), but it is an unusual scholarly monograph. As stated in the preface, the book is the result of research into punctuation from the perspective of style, but it is intended not for the scholarly community, but for teachers, students, editors, stylists, and authors (p. 6). This dual nature of the book is not one of its advantages...
4. Kazimieras Gaivenis’s book Lietuvių terminologija: teorijos ir tvarkybos metmenys (Vilnius: LKI leidykla, 148 p.) grew out of articles written at different times and on various subjects (cf. Gaivenis 1979, 1983, 1985, 1994, 1996a, 1996b, 1997, 2000, etc.). However, it is not a collection of articles: the earlier publications have been revised and adapted to form parts of a larger work.
The book is of a synthetic nature, crowning the author’s four decades of scholarly work in the field of terminology. The author himself describes it this way in the preface, emphasizing that it “is neither a terminology textbook nor any kind of scholarly research publication” (p. 11). This undefined genre, unclear purpose, and unspecified readership seriously detract from the book. For the most part, it has the features of a textbook, since it presents elementary, foundational topics in terminology. However, the exposition is not sufficiently coherent or carefully thought out. For example, I could not find a definition of the term itself anywhere in the book, although the first chapter is devoted precisely to this topic. Instead of a definition, several essential features of the concept ‘term’ are identified, and the narrow (S. Šalkauskis and E. Jakaitienė are cited) and broad conceptions of the term are discussed (Lietuviškoji tarybinė enciklopedija is cited). Already in the first chapter of the book (p. 17), the undefined terms intensionalo, implikacionalo are used, while the concept of a term’s intension is explained only in the third chapter (p. 28ff.). The impression is that the author seems to take cover behind quotations and references, while avoiding stating his own opinion and setting out his thoughts directly and precisely.
Gaivenis regards terminology as a branch of lexicology, while also emphasizing that it is highly dependent on other disciplines and serves them (19). This “linguistic” conception of terminology, established in Lithuania, was directly influenced by the work of Russian terminologists of a corresponding orientation (e.g., V. Danilenko) and is close to the views of Prague and Canadian terminologists (cf. Laurén, Picht, Hrsg. 1993: 533ff.). It differs markedly from the views prevailing today in Western Europe among the Vienna School and Nordic terminologists, according to which terminology is an autonomous field of scholarship taking shape at the intersection of linguistics, logic, ontology, informatics, and the subject sciences (Wüster 1974/2001:131ff.), or a constellation of the subject sciences, linguistics, general theory of science, and philosophy (Laurén, Myking, Picht 1998: 47). The views of these approaches to terminology also differ substantially in their treatment of the relationship between term and concept, terminology and language culture, and standardization (cf. Laurn, Picht, Hg. 1993: 493ff.).
The book discusses separately the requirements imposed on terms (in the first chapter) and the principles of terminology creation and standardization (in the fourth chapter). Although the author himself considers the general requirements for terms to be criteria for evaluating them, and sees a relation of coordination rather than subordination between the concepts ‘principle’ and ‘criterion’ (Gaivenis 1996a: 75–76), their interrelationship cannot be denied. Treating them in separate places has inevitably led to repetition and a certain confusion. Thus, the principle of correctness turns out to be nothing other than the requirement that terms be correct; the author even provides a reference to the relevant page in another chapter. The principle of systematicity is not discussed at all in this chapter of the book (only its relation to correctness is noted)—it is obvious that it can be nothing other than the criterion of systematicity required of terms, discussed in the first chapter. In these cases, the names of the criteria and principles coincide. But they may also differ: from the explanation of the principle of economy (“The principle of economy states that preference should be given to shorter language units,”
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p. 96) it is clear that it coincides with the requirement that terms be short. Many of the requirements imposed on terms (correctness, precision, systematicity, brevity, stylistic neutrality) correspond to the requirements imposed on terms by Soviet terminologists. However, the concept of ‘terminological pragmatics’ has been borrowed from Western terminology (the author mentions Cabré and Gajdos). What does this concept entail? In an article of the same title, the notion of terminological pragmatics is narrowed to the requirements that terms be reliable and precise (Gaivenis 2000: 7). In the book under review, terminological pragmatics is explained solely as the reliability of terms, while their precision is treated as a separate requirement. This superficial attempt to reconcile different linguistic traditions does not seem successful. The reliability of terms could also be linked to the principle of authority: it is no coincidence that both sections discuss terms that have been standardized and approved by government institutions (cf. pp. 33 and 94ff.).
The second chapter discusses the sources of Lithuanian terminology. It develops S. Šalkauskis’s views (cf. pp. 51, 57–58). The author’s opinion differs somewhat from the sources of terminology identified by S. Keinys: the literary language dictionary, folk terms, word formation, borrowing of terms, and calques (cf. Keinys 1980: 60–96).
The history of Lithuanian terminology is examined in greater detail in the third chapter of the book, as the history of terminography. In the fifth chapter, “Directions, Schools, and Prominent Researchers in Terminology,” it is characterized only in broad outline. This chapter briefly and quite aptly describes the features of postwar Lithuanian terminology: ideological constraints, dependence on Russian terminology, and a lack of foreign theoretical literature. These circumstances are reflected in part in the work under review. The theories of E. Wüster and H. Felber are described far too briefly, with only general points covered. S. Gajda’s monograph Wprowadzenie do teorii terminu is discussed somewhat more substantially. The theories of Soviet terminologists—D. Lotte, T. Kandelaki, V. Danilenko, S. Superanskaja, N. Podolskaja, and N. Vasil’eva—are examined in much greater detail. The section on S. Šalkauskis’s theory of terminology draws on an article published after ideological oversight of scholarship had eased (Gaivenis 1983). Incidentally, the book reveals the influence of Šalkauskis’s views on the author; in more than one respect he could be regarded as a continuer of Šalkauskis’s ideas: the same principal sources of terminology are identified (even their hierarchy in the book is the same as in Šalkauskis’s works), the general principles of terminological purity, stability, and ease of formation are emphasized, and the extension and intension of terms are examined. The author was strongly influenced by terminologists of the former Soviet Union (especially Lotte and Danilenko): this is evident in the discussion of the relationship between professionalisms and terminology, the four principal methods of term formation, and the normative evaluation of terminology. In the rare instances when the views of Western terminologists are touched upon, only secondary sources are used (cf. pp. 16, 19, 22, 110–112). The only exception is probably S. Gajda’s monograph. I found only four publications by Western terminologists in the bibliography (not counting the Lithuanian translation of J. Hawthorn’s Moderniosios literatūros teorijos žinyno). Today, this is a serious gap in the monograph (and in Lithuanian terminology more generally?) that must be remedied as soon as possible. Incidentally, the bibliographic details in the bibliography are not presented consistently, and I missed the author’s own works. The foreign linguists’ personal names are rendered inconsistently in the book. A subject index would have been very useful.
Taken as a whole, the book directs the reader toward the past of terminology, toward what happened and how, rather than toward the future: it does not raise the challenges facing Lithuanian terminology, identify its weak points, or consider problem areas in any depth. It is a summary of the path Lithuanian terminology has already traveled.
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5. Jolanta Gelumbeckaitė’s book The Syntax of Case and Prepositional Constructions in the Gospel According to Luke in Jonas Bretkūnas’s Bible (Vilnius: Publishing House of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language, 2002, 300 pp.) The Institute of the Lithuanian Language is launching a new series, “Opera linguistica Lithuanica,” intended for monographs based on defended doctoral dissertations. The series aims to make the more valuable research of young Lithuanian scholars more accessible to the scholarly community. Gelumbeckaitė’s monograph is based on the dissertation defended in 1999 (supervisor: V. Ambrazas). As stated on the book’s back cover, it is “a dissertation with only minor revisions.”
The author’s choice of an interesting and topical research subject is warranted, since Lithuanian linguistics still has few syntactic studies based on a textological analysis of the relationship between a translation and its original (or originals). It is hardly surprising that the monograph has already received a positive review (see Švambarytė 2003). The book consists of an introduction, two chapters (“Object” and “Adverbials”), conclusions, a list of sources and literature, explanations of abbreviations, and a summary in German. The introduction and both chapters begin with quotations from the letters of Saint Jerome.
The study sets out to investigate the synonymy of case and prepositional constructions and, by comparing translations with their originals, to determine how these syntactic patterns arose and the tendencies in their development (cf. pp. 11 ff.). In the introduction, the author states that she focused primarily on “the relationship between verb-governed case and prepositional constructions, the replacement of cases by prepositional constructions and vice versa” (p. 13), that is, on syntactic synonymy. Although syntactic units are subsequently interpreted semantically, syntactic semantics is not the subject of this study. The author needed to make a certain starting point at the semantic level in order to group variants of syntactic expression and examine their relationships. For this purpose, it would have been entirely sufficient to rely on the meaning of the verbs that take cases or prepositional constructions, i.e., lexical semantics (indeed, this is how the author herself groups the material under investigation). Resorting to valency theory and introducing terms for semantic functions into the study seem unnecessary and unmotivated by either the material examined or the research aims (note that semantic concepts have almost disappeared from the conclusions). Moreover, this creates some confusion, since concepts from the semantic level of language are mixed indiscriminately with those from the syntactic level, whereas the need to distinguish them strictly has been emphasized more than once by the study’s supervisor, Vytautas Ambrazas (cf. “distinguishing the syntactic and semantic levels at the first stage of analysis is necessary <...> so that we can define their relationship more precisely” (Ambrazas 1986: 29)). For example, the syntactic concept of object is defined not only by a syntactic feature (it is linked to the predicate by a subordinate relation), but also by semantic relations—it “is its [the predicate’s!] obligatory companion” (p. 15); relations between syntactic units—the predicate and its objects—are also established “according to the semantic valency of verbs” (p. 15), and so on. Compare also this conflation of semantic functions, syntactic functions (sentence constituents), and case meanings: “In the Vulgate, prepositional constructions de+abl. function as instrument objects (used synonymously with the instrumental ablative and having a partitive genitive nuance [...])” (p. 81).
In the monograph, the author treats the syntactic constructions of Bretkūnas and those of the editors of his work (the main text and corrections) as equivalent variants. This conflates features characteristic of different idiolects (perhaps even different dialects). The study would be more valuable if Bretkūnas’s own language and its variants were examined separately from the language of the translation’s editors.
The first chapter of the monograph examines the expression of object semantic functions in the selected source. There are some inaccuracies in the interpretation of individual passages in the translation. For example, in the Lk 2,26 example (Table 2, p. 38), the accusative Chriſtų is governed not by a negative participle, as claimed, but by the affirmative participle regėjęs; in this sentence, the word net is a conjunction, not a negative particle (the same applies in footnote 56
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on p. 40). In the sentence Lk 14, 24 (p. 39), the accusative following the verb ragauti ‘to taste’ is explained by the valency of this verb. This explanation is entirely correct, but the example is wholly unsuitable for discussion alongside accusatives of negation, since the verb in it (as in the Latin and German texts) is not negated! The form dufches in the sentence Lk 14,26 (p. 39) is considered an accusative of negation occurring at a position distant from the verb that governs it and is negated. However, it would be more justified to treat it as a singular genitive (dufche: dufches), since the corresponding forms in the Latin (and also German) original are singular; moreover, Gallus replaced this word with fsziwata, which is undoubtedly a singular genitive (the author neither notes nor discusses this correction). The word neg in the Lk 22,68 sentence (Table 3, p. 41) should be considered a conjunction, not a negative particle; the verb form that follows it is affirmative. In discussing words that govern objects with a content function, the author also mentions “nominal phrases with adjectives denoting a mental or physical state, pilnas, gyvas” (p. 48). The author probably means nominal predicates formed with these adjectives and the copula būti ‘to be’ (cf. p. 62); these could also be considered phrases, but verbal rather than nominal ones. The instrumental case used with the verb pasotinti ‘to satiate’ in Lk 15,16 and the phrase sočiam būti ‘to be satiated’ in Lk 16,21 is classified as an instrumental of means (p. 81). There is, however, greater reason to see a content semantic function here, especially since the Latin source corresponds to these not with an ablative, but with constructions using the preposition de.
The second chapter, which makes up most of the monograph, examines adverbial semantic functions. In this chapter, adverbials are simply equated with semantic functions (cf. pp. 84–85), although by no means all of them occupy argument positions opened by predicates. Under the traditional classification of adverbials, the semantic functions distinguished are place, time, manner, cause, and purpose.
The semantic function of place is subdivided into location inside and location outside. A location between things is treated as a subclass of location inside, based on the meaning of the syntactic construction or dependent word (p. 116). Location inside is in turn divided into location in a bounded space, location on a surface, and location in an environment (p. 86). The classification relies on lexical semantics: concrete nouns denoting places (dangus, tėviškė etc.) are assigned to the first group (p. 88), while abstract nouns (tamsuma) and nouns denoting persons are assigned to the third group (p. 106); nouns denoting a surface (patalas)—essentially a subclass of concrete nouns—are singled out as a third group (p. 104). In addition, an internal-state function is included under location inside. The classification relies on the meaning of the dependent noun, the governing verb, or the construction (pp. 110–111). The function of an action in the mind is distinguished on the basis of the meaning of the governing verb (verba dicendi, sentiendo, cogitandi) and the dependent noun (usually a personal pronoun) (p. 114). Location outside is further divided into location on a surface, below, or at the side. As can be seen, this rather complex classification is based on different criteria and is not very consistent. Internal-state meaning may differ from action-in-the-mind meaning only in the meaning of the governing verb; therefore, the example in Acts 19, 21 (p. 111) with the verb of thinking nudumoio would presumably belong to the latter group. The boundary between concrete and abstract nouns is also vague, so the example in Mt 4,16 (sėdėti šešėlyje) (p. 107) differs little from Lk 23,25 (apkal tas buvo turme) (p. 92). It would probably have sufficed to distinguish a single semantic function of place and examine the effect of the semantic oppositions ‘inside’: ‘outside’; ‘concrete’: ‘abstract’, ‘animate’: ‘inanimate’, ‘human’: ‘non-human’ on the syntactic expression in the translation and the originals. A more serious problem is the heterogeneity of the classification criteria: at one and the same level of classification, the analysis relies on the dependent (location inside and its subclasses, partly internal state) and/or the governing (partly internal state,
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(the realization in consciousness) in the meaning of the word. In the latter case, it is no longer the semantic functions of actants that are examined, but the predicates themselves.
The semantic function of time is divided into two subclasses—an indefinite period of time and bounded time. The terms are too similar; the author herself offers better synonyms for them (p. 185). The expression of the function of time is affected by the oppositions ‘moment’: ‘period’ (quantity of time) and ‘notion of time’: ‘non-temporal notion’, which could have been discussed together in one place.
In the section on temporal adjuncts, the author in several instances goes beyond the topic chosen for the dissertation and discusses the expression of time by adverbs (pp. 196, 197; Tables 27 and 30). Such cases confirm that the author collected the material for her work with reference to the Latin text as well as the Lithuanian one, rather than solely to the Lithuanian text (cf. p. 85). This is, of course, no fault—the text simply becomes more interesting to read and more convenient to use.
The conclusions of the monograph (pp. 227–249) are excessively extensive. In a somewhat different order, organized according to the relationship between translation and original, they repeat what is set out in the main body. This is more a summary of the work than a set of conclusions; it is no coincidence that this part of the work forms the basis of the German summary (Zusammenfassung!), with some matters discussed somewhat more briefly in the work added. General methodological matters (Chapters 1 and 2) should not be repeated in the conclusions, since they are merely the premises of the study. What is new in this chapter of the monograph is the author’s typology of the relationships between the translation and its sources (Section 3). Each type of relationship is discussed separately. Only in the analysis of these types and subtypes are the circumstances and extent of the influence of the Latin and German originals assessed (p. 245).
The value of the monograph lies in its thematic collection of data and systematic presentation (the book contains no fewer than 33 tables!), its identification of synonymy between case and prepositional constructions in the translation, its consistent comparison of the translation with the originals, and its demonstration of their effect on the syntax of the translation.
6. Daiva Atkočait ytė’s study Prosody and Vocalism of the Southern Samogitian Raseiniai Dialect (Vilnius: Publishing House of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language, 2002, 224 pp.) is the second book in the series “Opera Linguistica Lithuanica,” based on the author’s doctoral dissertation defended in 2000. The book is a good example of work from the school of Alekss Girdenis, the author’s dissertation supervisor. It is linked to other works from this school by its subject matter, general theoretical principles, terminology, research methodology, and numerous references to the works of the supervisor and other representatives of the school. The bibliography (pp. 191–197) is also quite characteristic, containing almost no theoretical works by foreign linguists in the relevant field.
The author collected the material herself, and it was investigated thoroughly and experimentally. The results are summarized in no fewer than 44 tables and 56 figures, and 12 final conclusions are formulated. The book’s structure also demonstrates its independence, differing somewhat more substantially from the structure of other works on similar topics written within the same school (cf. Bacevičiūtė 2001, Leskauskaitė 2001, Mažiulienė 1996, Murinienė 2000). The Southern Samogitian Raseiniai texts included at the end of the book (pp. 205–217) are valuable. The index of place names compiled by Violeta Meiliūnaitė will help readers locate the relevant linguistic facts (pp. 219–220).
Atkočait ytė’s book has already received a more substantial review by Vytautas Vitkauskas (Vitkauskas 2003), and is therefore not discussed in greater detail in this overview.
7. Giedrius Subačius’s prepared third book of the series “Bibliotheca Archivii Lithuanici,” established by the journal “Archivum Lithuanicum,” X.D.K.P.S. Lithuanian Grammar: The Beginning of the 19th Century (Vilnius: Institute of Science and Encyclopaedia Publishing, 2002, 368) publishes the manuscript Polish-language Lithuanian grammar Prawidła lęzyka Litewskiego Czyli Grammatyka Litewska.
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The book consists of a preface, two analytical articles, a brief account of the principles for preparing the grammatical texts, photographic reproductions and transliterated versions of the grammar itself, a translation of the grammar, a table of contents prepared by the editor on the basis of the manuscript title, an index of Lithuanian words, and a subject index.
Subačiaus straipsnis „X.D.K.P.S. gramatika (apie 1820–1830)“ (p. 10–49) remiasi, kaip pats autorius nurodo, jo monografijos „Žemaičių bendrinės kalbos idėjos. XIX amžiaus pradžia“ septintuoju skyriumi (Subačius 1998, 313–331). Šioje knygoje jis paredaguotas ir papildytas nauja medžiaga apie rankraštį ir jo istoriją. Pastaroji straipsnyje aprašyta ypač išsamiai (skyrius sudaro ketvirtadalį straipsnio). Gyvas pasakojimas skaitytoją intriguoja, kartais net įgauna detektyvo bruožų. Palyginti su monografija, gerokai papildytas skyrius apie gramatikos autoriaus problemą. Jis baigiamas svarbia išvada, kad skelbiamosios gramatika esanti „seniausioji, arba pirmoji, išlikusi žemaitiška lietuvių kalbos gramatika“ (p. 2). Specialiai šiai publikacijai parašytas skyrius apie gramatikos sandarą. Tačiau jis per daug trumpas ir bendras. Nuo pačios gramatikos nagrinėjimo greit nuslystama prie to meto kultūros konteksto (svarstomos galimos įtakos). Skyriuje „Kalbos ypatybės. Tarmės pasirinkimo intencijos“ daromos išvados, kad gramatikoje „ryškios tendencijos rašyti žemaitiškai“ (p. 32) ir „autorius orientavosi į žemaičius“ (ten pat). Tolesniems gramatikos kalbos studijoms svarbus skyrius apie jos aprašymo įvairovę. Silpniausi atrodo baigiamieji straipsnio skyriai, kuriuose autoriaus nagrinėjamos vadinamosios „mąstymo apie bendrinę kalbą kategorijos“ (Subačius 1998: 27t): gramatikos paskirtis ir jos autoriaus bendrinės kalbos samprata, rašomosios ir šnekamosios bendrinės kalbos skyrimas, taisyklių ir vartosenos santykis gramatikoje. Šių temų imtis autorių greičiausiai paskatino Petro Joniko studija (plg. Jonikas 1972: 25t). Šioje straipsnio dalyje daug spėlionių, neapibrėžtų, net neįrodomų teiginių, pavyzdžiui: „Tikriausiai autoriaus sąmonėje garsinis požymis turėjo metonimišką reikšmę – kaip dalis vietoj visumos atstovavo visiems sinkretiškai tesuvokiamiems požymiams“ (p. 40), „Tikėtiniausia, kad autorius turėjo būsimosios bk teritoriją įsivaizduoti sutampančią su Didžiosios Lietuvos lietuviškais etniniais plotais, neišskirti atskirai vien Žemaičių“ (p. 38).
In the article, I missed information about the manuscript’s format: without it, one cannot determine whether the size of the photocopies matches that of the original (the discussion of the principles for preparing the grammatical texts (p. 88) says nothing about this). It is inaccurate to explain that “according to the author’s paradigms, the sixth case is the locative” (p. 37). For example, in the paradigm of the noun brolis, the sixth case is the instrumental (p. 111); in the first adjective declension paradigm, the sixth singular case is likewise the instrumental, not the locative (p. 123). Thus, the grammar’s author confuses the positions of these cases in the paradigm. The spelling of personal names varies without justification in the article; compare Sienkiewiczius (p. 15); Kamolowa, Rutkowskis (p. 17) and Malevskis, Čartoriskiui (p. 15); Sobolevskis (p. 16). At times, the author’s style makes for difficult reading (e.g., the phonetic aspect might prompt one to ask, p. 39), as does the order in which ideas are presented (e.g., One might say that the author thought he was beginning a certain new tradition, a nascent movement, a nucleus—although he did not yet claim completeness or universal validity, p. 37). There is no need to give the full bibliographic details of all cited or referenced works twice: both in the footnotes at the bottom of the page and in the bibliography at the end of the article. What I missed most in the article was a coherent, systematic description of the Lithuanian-language material in the grammar (it offers only an analysis of selected phonetic features), as well as an examination of the grammar’s structure and theoretical apparatus (definitions, terms), and comparisons with other grammars of the period.
Halina Karaś’s interesting and useful article, “The Polish-Language Features of the X.D.K.P.S. Grammar” (pp. 50–87), is a welcome contribution: research into the Polish spoken in Lithuania and its interaction with Lithuanian is
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little relied upon in Lithuanian linguistics and philology, giving the impression that such research is simply unknown. The article examines the grammar’s author’s Polish spelling, phonetics, morphology, certain syntactic features, and words that differ from present-day Polish. It seems that the author also set out to “describe the grammatical terminology used in the work X.D.K.P.S.” (p. 50); unfortunately, I found nothing on this subject in the article. After examining the Polish language of the grammar, the author reaches the significant conclusion that “the grammar is written in the Samogitian variety of the northernmost dialects of the Polish language” (p. 84). Subačius’s article is translated quite well; only one or two minor points caught my attention. For example, category of animate things (as in “this is an example of the expansion of the <…> category of animate things,” p. 71) would be better rendered as animacy category; regionalism (p. 75 and following) should be regionism. The translation does not follow consistent principles for spelling proper names; compare Franciszko Mickevicius (p. 60), Franciszko Mickiewicz (p. 62), and Franciczek Zabocki (p. 61, footnote 30); Adomas Mickevičius (p. 82), Kraševskis (ibid.), but Słowacki (ibid.), and so on. The information in the article’s footnotes is not repeated in the bibliography, thus saving both space and readers’ time.
The photocopies of the grammar printed in the book are of fairly good quality. The original has been transcribed carefully and attentively: after looking through a dozen or so pages, I noticed only one clear error: Męskego (=Męskiego), p. 113. Subačius’s translation of the grammar into Lithuanian is quite good. Nevertheless, there are still places in the translation that need correction, for example: are called exceptional<…> and present-tense active (=passive)participles (p. 298, footnote 80); the third person of Lithuanian verbs is expressed in the same way in both the singular and the plural. [Persons] (=[Number]) are expressed by [=is expressed by] nouns, pronouns, or pronominal particles (p. 299); but any Lithuanian pronoun (=preposition), when added at the beginning, removes the final s or es (p. 314); compare w litewskim zaś dodany poprzednio jakikolwiek Przyimek; usuwa końcowe s. lub es. (p. 217); should this remark begin with the word ‘turn away’? Whether with a noun, a pronoun (=preposition), or an adverb? (p. 317). In many cases, apt equivalents for the Polish terms have been chosen, for example, separator (compare Lithuanian writing has the same separators as those used by the Poles, p. 279) and demonstrative pronouns, p. 290ff. (compare ukazujące Zaimki, p. 139ff.): the latter correspond only in part to our demonstrative pronouns. I would suggest replacing the very frequently used term form in the grammar with the term paradigm; for example, Pięć Form Regularnych na Imiona Litewkie Rzeczowne (p. 109) could be translated as Five regular forms of Lithuanian nouns (=paradigms) (p. 281); and the term Kon|trukcya (p. 231ff.) could be replaced by syntax, as has been done in the subject index (p. 366).
The table of contents for the grammar prepared by Subačius (pp. 329–333) helps readers understand the grammar as a whole, its structure, and the relative proportions of its sections, and is quite useful. It is good that the editor added an example of the relevant word after the titles of the inflection sections. Similarly, the content of the notes—which the grammar’s author merely numbered—could have been briefly explained, for example: Note 4 [Principal verb forms].
The word index prepared by Subačius (pp. 334–362) greatly facilitates finding a Lithuanian word or its form. The principles used in compiling it are not explained in the book, so readers looking, for example, for reflexive verbs or nouns with different stem endings may have to spend more time searching. Word forms are given in the index with the original spelling, while headwords are transposed.
Forms of different stems of the same noun are listed in separate entries in the index, under different headwords. For example, the forms Akmenis nom. sg. 13, akmeny gen. sg. 13, akmeney nom. pl. (not sg.!) 13, and Akmeniui gen. pl. 13 are listed under the entry akmenis
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(for transposition, see below), whereas the forms akmow nom. sg. 13, akmenis nom. pl. 13 are given in the article akmuo (p. 336). Presented in this way, the forms create the impression of being not one word but several: it seems that the grammar’s author distinguished two nouns, akmuo and akmenis, which have the same meaning but different declensions. If the chosen principle were applied consistently, the form Žmones nom. pl. 72, listed in the article žmogus (p. 362), should likewise be listed in a different article from the form Žmoneys nom. pl. 15, 16.
The forms of the personal first- and second-person singular and plural pronouns (aš ir mes, tu ir jis) are given in a single article, as though they were the singular and plural forms of the same pronouns (cf. pp. 337 and 359). This way of presenting personal pronouns is firmly established in Lithuanian lexicography (cf. Girdenis, Girdenienė 1997: 72f. and 336f.). Nevertheless, following the works of V. Žulys and A. Rosinas, it would be difficult to justify this decision (see Žulys 1969: 174–175, Rosinas 1995: 35f.).
Abejonių sukėlė ir kai kurių antraštinių indekso formų transponavimas. Nenuosekliai transponuojama antraštinė tą patį grafinį pavidalą – galūnę -is – turinčių daiktavardžių vienaskaitos vardininko forma: vienais atvejais su trumpa -is, kitais – su ilga -ys, plg.: aulys Aulis nom. sg. 87, kadagys Kadagis nom. sg. 91, vėžys Wiežis nom. sg. 99; bet brolis Bralis nom. sg. 39, Brolis nom. sg. 6, 10 ir kt. Kai kurių formų transponavimas abejotinas, pvz.: iš Eyta nom. sg. 89, Eyra [=Eyta] nom. sg. 90 transponuota eilė (=eila), p. 342 (plg. eilā, Vitkauskas 1976: 84); iš veiksmažodžio formos Ketu praes. 1 sg. 91 transponuota priesagėta forma ketinti (=ketėti), p. 347 (plg. ketėti, kėta, -ėjo, LKŽ 5: 649); iš Kurtas nom. sg. m. 91 – kurčias, -a (=kurtas, -a), p. 347 (plg. kurtas, -à, Vitkauskas 1976: 162; 2 kurtùs, -à, LKŽ 6: 973); iš Mądrus nom. sg. m. 93, Mądresnis nom. sg. m. comp. 77 – mandras, -a (=mandrus, -i), p. 348 (plg. mandrùs, -ì, Vitkauskas 1976: 187) ir pan. Pasitaiko klaidų ir indekso formų nuorodose, pvz.: akis 14 straipsnyje akis (p. 336) yra ne acc. pl., o nom. pl.; Akmeney 13 straipsnyje akmenis (p. 336) yra ne nom. sg., o nom. pl.; žodis arba (p. 336) yra ne prielinksnis (praep.), o jungtukas (conj.) ir pan.
At the end of the book, a subject index to the grammar is printed (pp. 363–366). Like the grammar’s contents, it is organized according to the manuscript’s headings. One wonders whether readers will look in the index for topics such as national adjectives, special adjectives, conjunctive mood, and so on. An index based on current equivalents for describing grammatical structure would probably have been more useful.
Subačius’s substantial and complex work is in many respects commendable. The transcription of the manuscript, its presentation and the overview of its history, and the provision of Karas’s article are particularly praiseworthy. This manuscript Lithuanian grammar is now readily accessible to scholars, which encourages hope for specialized studies of it.
8. Zigmas Zinkevičius’s Selected Articles first volumes (I: The Origin of the Lithuanian Language and Its Relations with Neighboring Languages. Historical Grammar. The Origin of Dialects. Dialectology. The Origin of the Written Language, Vilnius: Lithuanian Catholic Academy of Science, 2002, 646 pp.; II: The State and Language. The Language of Old Writings. The Written Language of the 18th–19th Centuries. The 20th Century. Eastern Lithuania, Vilnius: Lithuanian Catholic Academy of Science, 2002, 624 pp.) republish scholarly articles printed in various publications over four decades, as well as publications written on issues of current interest to the public. For example, alongside the article “On the Origin of the Lithuanian Written Language,” published in Baltistica (I: 516–525), a popular article on the same topic from the journal Science and Life, “How the Language of Lithuanian Writings Came into Being” (I: 499–502), is included, as is a French article prepared on the basis of both, “Quelques remarques sur les sources de la langue des écrits lituaniens au
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XVIe et au XVIIe siècles” (I, pp. 503–508). It is understandable that repetition cannot be avoided in such a collection, and the author did not set out to avoid it (cf. I, p. 7); nevertheless, it must be acknowledged that the criteria for selecting the publications were neither strict nor clearly formulated. The work’s very concept, purpose, and intended audience are unclear. The emblem of the Lithuanian Catholic Academy of Sciences, its editorial board and editorial committee, format, and restrained design all point toward a scholarly, academic publication (articles of this kind make up most of the first volumes). Publications intended for the public and written in a popular style could have formed a separate publication, or at least a separate volume of this one. The author’s decision to include public statements that he did not write himself, but “only supplemented or amended, and in rare cases merely signed” (II, p. 5), is also open to question. This decision is justified by the difficulty of distinguishing the author’s own writing in such publications and by the ideological affinity between the ideas expressed and the author’s views. Nevertheless, the public statements could have been kept separate from the scholarly articles (for example, by placing them in a planned volume of interviews with members of the press).
In the preface to the first volume, the author states that the reprinted “texts are generally not edited, but reproduced as they were published at the time” (I, p. 8), that “linguistic terms have only occasionally been made somewhat more consistent” (ibid.), and that “typographical errors have been corrected” (I, p. 9). These statements are inaccurate: the reprinted texts were carefully reviewed by the experienced editor Agota Striubienė. For example, comparing the article “The Eastern Lithuanian Written Language of the Seventeenth Century: Its Origin and Disappearance” reprinted in the first volume (I, pp. 477–499) with its first publication in the journal Baltistica (Zinkevičius 1972) reveals quite a number of corrections to spelling, punctuation, and usage that was incorrect by current language standards.
In updating the orthography, the spelling of the particles galbūt (I, pp. 481, 484) and the words šiaip jau (I, pp. 486, 487, 488, 491×2, 492, etc.) was consistently changed from joined to separate or separate to joined. Prayer names are now capitalized, e.g., Viešpaties maldos (I, p. 489), Tikėjimo išpažinimo (ibid.). There was overcorrection in writing iki spalio revoliucijos with a lowercase initial (I, p. 490, note 80): first, this is the name of a revolution; second, the book’s title was corrected.
Punctuation was revised in many cases. antai (I, pp. 487, 494), apskritai (I, p. 479), galbūt (I, pp. 481, 484), greičiausiai (I, p. 486), and taigi (I, pp. 481, 488, note 68) are no longer set off. Conversely, matyt is treated as an insert and set off on both sides in the reprint (the earliest manuscript texts <...> were apparently written before a written language had yet taken shape, I, p. 481), as is be abejonės (the writer of the text is undoubtedly from the t(v), d(v) > c(v), dz(v) area, I, p. 484). Expanded participial and half-participial adverbial clauses are no longer set off, or are no longer set off consistently: This dictionary played a major role in standardizing the Eastern written language (I, p. 478), As one goes south, the Nērnyškiai isophone gradually disappears in the Sulenkiai area (I, p. 486; cf. also I, pp. 490, 496). There are also cases in the opposite direction, for example, a qualifying adverbial clause is set off in the reprint: After 72 years, that is, in 1977, a second Eastern catechism was published in Vilnius (I, p. 479). Comparative phrases are no longer set off (I, pp. 477, 485, 494), e.g.: The Reformation leaders failed to appreciate the Lithuanian language as a means of pursuing their aims (I, p. 493). The hyphen between the numerals po vieną du was removed (I, p. 484). In some cases, punctuation could have been simplified further, for example, in the sentence It is reasonable to suppose that, after the establishment of the dioceses of Vilnius (1387), and later of Samogitia (1417), prayers had already been translated into Lithuanian (I, p. 491).
In many cases, the reprinting aimed to improve the style, e.g.: J. Jaknavičius, who also came from a locality (<place) situated farther from the an || un isophone I, p. 483; which still vary considerably depending on stress and intonation (<depending on stress and intonation) I, p. 484; There is, of course, no point in looking here for the origins of the written language that concerns us (<it is unnecessary) I, p. 484; the areas around Vilnius (< areas) probably (<most likely) belonged to area II before the Sulenkiai shift I, p. 486; where
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There is, as we have seen, no point in looking for the origins of the language of seventeenth-century writings (<it is unnecessary) I, p. 486; Polonization (<the process of Polonization) had already affected them I, p. 492; in public state (<governmental) life I, p. 493; the Jesuits, recognizing the importance of spreading religious (<religious) truths to all the inhabitants of the country (<broader strata of the population) in a language they could understand I, p. 493; The authors and translators of the books belonged to the privileged strata of Vilnius society (< were representatives of the privileged strata of Vilnius society) I, p. 493; the language of the catechism is relatively uniform (<consistent) I, p. 495; The degree of its unity (<uniformity) was determined by (<conditioned by) the circumstances of the time I, p. 495; they show the considerable degree of Polonization (<degree of Polonization) among the Lithuanian priests of the time who wrote these texts I, p. 497; there are also revisions in the opposite direction: most (<the majority) of the clergy, especially the higher-ranking clergy, were Poles I, p. 492.
The formation and usage of some forms were revised. The formation of comparative adjective forms was simplified: earlier> earlier (I, p. 479, 497), later>later (I, p. 479, 483x2, 484 and elsewhere); however, in the earlier (I, p. 490), in the earlier (I, p. 495), in the later (I, p. 495, footnote 101) were retained. Adverb formation was revised similarly, e.g.: Here they are used throughout optionally (<optionally) (I, p. 486). Neuter superlative adjective forms were replaced with the corresponding adverbs: In the city of Vilnius <...> at that time, most likely (<most likely), there was excessive fluctuation between č, dž and c, dz I, p. 485; most likely (<most likely) it ran along the northwestern side of the area surrounding Vilnius I, p. 486. Masculine forms were changed to feminine ones, e.g.: here forms with a jot are very widespread (<widespread) among the corresponding forms of other parts of speech with pronominal inflection I, pp. 484–485. Case usage was revised: there are no <...> in many short texts (they may accidentally have been omitted from them (<in them)) I, p. 487; they wrote in their native dialects, diluted by features of other dialects (<features) I, p. 497;
The following lexical revisions were noted: here and there individual features of the native dialect would flash up (<protruded) (I, p. 481x2; similarly revised in I, p. 495); not even (<neither) one of the subdialects of the present-day Eastern Aukštaitian dialect I, p. 482; On the other hand (<from the other side), there seem to be none at all that would contradict the Vilnius origin of the written language under discussion; at least, none have so far been found (<detected) I, p. 488; We find no love of the Lithuanian language <...> in the eastern Lithuanian writings (<we do not detect) I, pp. 493–494; religious books were mainly intended not directly (<immediately) for the common people I, p. 494; In the earliest (< earlier) writings, there were far more fluctuations in language <...> than in later ones (<later) I, p. 494; they used (<employed) <...> books with religious content I, p. 496.
Although the revisions were made carefully, some questionable points remain from the perspective of present-day norms; cf.: this will be discussed below I, p. 483; unlike the areas mentioned above I, p. 485; as we have seen, there is no point in looking for the origins of the seventeenth-century written language in this region I, p. 487, footnote 67; The language of K. Sirvydas’s writings <...> differs in essence in no way from the language of all the other Eastern Lithuanian writing of the seventeenth century I, p. 488.
Some of the editor’s revisions slightly alter the meaning of the text; cf.: linguistic differences (they are all (<entirely) insignificant) I, p. 481; In the earliest (<early) short texts I, p. 483; in the 1616 edition of “Agenda parva” (<publication) I, p. 488, footnote 69 (similarly revised in I, p. 497, footnote 112); The first Lord’s Prayers were supposed to be spoken (<translated) into the Eastern Aukštaitian dialect (<dialect) I, p. 490; the number of representatives of other dialects increased in it <...> (< representatives <...> element) I, p. 490 (the sentence remained unclear); [manuscript texts] survived inscribed (<bound) on a blank page of a printed book I, p. 492; the language of this literature <...> is relatively coherent (<uniform) I, p. 494; The person who entered the Lord’s Prayers <...> may perhaps be identified (<identifiable) as being from the area northeast of Vilnius I, p. 494.
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In several instances, the author’s word order was changed, for example: the author, having studied the language of the 1605 catechism from a dialectological perspective, established I, p. 481, cf. the author, having studied the language of the 1605 catechism from a dialectological perspective, established Zinkevičius 1972: 83; having preached in Lithuanian to the townspeople in St. John’s and other churches for as long as 10 years I, p. 488, cf.: having preached in Lithuanian to the townspeople in St. John’s and other churches for as long as 10 years Zinkevičius 1972: 90. The word order was left unrevised in: here forms with a jot are very widespread (<widespread) <...> forms with a jot: baltój, baltiej > balčiej, baltuoj I, pp. 485–486.
The quotations were neither checked nor corrected when the article was prepared for reprinting. For example, when K. Jablonskis’s article was cited in 1972, common language had already been changed to standard language (Zinkevičius 1972: 91; cf. I 490), for broader strata was changed to “for the broader strata” (ibid.); when the article was reprinted, the quotation was further altered: That dialect <...> was not, of course, established; the central dialect (<it) became it spontaneously (I, p. 490).
The article’s English abstract was also revised slightly in I, pp. 498–499: in the title, rise ‘origin’ was changed to origin; Great Dukedom of Lithuania was changed throughout to Grand Duchy of Lithuania; several syntactic constructions and a few instances of preposition and article usage were corrected.
In the reprint, typographical errors were corrected, for example: last (<pasukutini) (I, p. 485, footnote 59); Gwagnini (<Gwagnin) (I, p. 494, footnote 98), Orthodox (<provoslavų) (I, p. 490). Some errors remain uncorrected: Merkinė (Turgeliai (>Turgelių) dialect I, p. 489; aiškai (>clearly) I, p. 494; those texts, especially in the eighteenth century, were teeming with Polonisms I, p. 497.
As often happens, new errors were introduced in the reprinting. For example, the cable was neither present nor needed in footnote 52 (I, p. 484); the title of J. Otrębski’s work in footnote 34 (I, p. 480) was written with a lowercase initial; in footnote 18 (I, p. 479), a superfluous cable appeared in the title of the translation of R. Bellarmine’s catechism (after the word Anno).
In the author’s preface, it is stated that the spelling of foreign surnames and personal names will not be standardized, since it “has been continually changing in Lithuania and has lacked consistency” (I, p. 8). Nevertheless, standardizing the spelling of personal names when reprinting publications originally published at different times would not have been very difficult, and the volume would have been more cohesive and easier to use.
The volume does not standardize the format used to present the publication details cited in footnotes and bibliographies. Errors have also been left in the references. For instance, footnote 76 on p. 489 gives K. Jablonskis, Senoji lietuviška knyga, Kaunas, 1947, 104–105. In fact, K. Jablonskis is not the author of the book cited, nor even its editor (its responsible editor was V. Mykolaitis); the collection includes his article “Mažvydo gyvenimas ir aplinka,” which should have been cited in the footnote. The same error is repeated in footnotes 90 and 93 of the article. Errors have also been left in the titles of old Lithuanian writings. For example, in the title of K. Sirvydas’s Punktų sakymų (p. 478, footnote 8): kazan (>kazan), Jezykiem (>Językiem), the word Przez is omitted after Litewſkiem, W Wilne (>W Wilnie), and the spelling or omission of several diacritical marks is questionable.
In the footnotes, the note being printed looks odd when attached to long-published articles by the author himself that are even being reprinted in the same volume (cf. I, pp. 479, 482, 490, 494, 496...). A reference is also retained to the author’s forthcoming monograph Vilniaus lietuvių kalba XVII amžiuje (The Lithuanian Language of Vilnius in the Seventeenth Century) (I, p. 494, footnote 97), which, to my knowledge, has not been published to this day... (the book Lietuvių antroponimika. Vilniaus lietuvių asmenvardžiai XVII a. pradžioje [Lithuanian Anthroponymy: Personal Names of the Lithuanians of Vilnius in the Early Seventeenth Century], Vilnius: Mokslas, 1977, was probably intended).
The author’s notes and cross-references linking articles published at different times are also lacking in other instances. For example, in footnotes 58 and 100 of the article “The Eastern Lithuanian Written Language of the Seventeenth Century, Its Origin and Disappearance,” published in the first volume, clarifications are made to an earlier-published article reprinted in the second volume-
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the claims of the article “On the dialect of the 1605 catechism” (I, pp. 485, 495), but in the corresponding passage of this article the same claims are not clarified, and no references are even given to the later article, printed in the first volume of the collection (cf. II, pp. 48, 115). Such and other cases raise doubts about the order in which the collection’s articles are arranged. The articles published in the first volume’s final chapter, “The Origin of the Written Language,” are closely related to those reprinted in the second volume’s chapter, “The Language of Old Writings,” so it would have been convenient to place them in the same volume.
Zinkevičius’s collected articles are a useful book for every linguist (and Balticist). The observations made in this review concerning the preparation of the publication in no way diminish the value of the articles themselves.
To conclude the review, it is worth briefly mentioning works on linguistics published in 2002 that were not discussed here. These include dictionaries: first and foremost, the concluding, twentieth volume of the Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language (letter Ž, editor-in-chief Vytautas Vitkauskas, Vilnius: Publishing House of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language, XXII, 1158 pp.); the second, revised edition of Antanas Lyberis’s Dictionary of Synonyms (editor Jonas Paulauskas, Vilnius: Publishing House of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language, XIV, 586 pp.); and an electronic version of the fourth edition of the Dictionary of Contemporary Lithuanian (editor-in-chief Stasys Keinys, Vilnius: Institute of the Lithuanian Language). Major anniversaries in linguistics are commemorated by a collection of celebratory articles compiled by Zita Šimėnaitė and Jolanta Zabarskaitė, Twenty Volumes of the Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language (Vilnius: Institute of the Lithuanian Language, 48 pp.), and an international exhibition catalogue compiled by Ona Aleknavičienė and Jolanta Zabarskaitė, Jonas Bretkūnas, Translator of the Bible (Vilnius: Lithuanian Art Museum, 159 pp.). A handsome book about lexicographer Bronė Vosylyte was compiled by Kazys Morkūnas and Klementina Vosilytė (Bronė Vosylytė: The Road to the Great Dictionary, Vilnius: Publishing House of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language, 198 pp.).
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Artūras Judžentis
