Ondřej Šefčík, Bohumil Vykypěl, Hrsg. „Grammaticus. Studia linguistica Adolfo Erharto quinque et septuagenario oblata“

196 | REVIEWS (‘to move’) and to go II (‘to have duties’); turn out I (‘turning to Salj’, etc.) and turn out II (‘going astray to Salj’); call I (“call back”) and call II (“can call back”). These inconsistencies in the semantic presentation of words and other inaccuracies do not diminish the value of the dictionary. The fact that the authors of the dictionary have already clarified the semantic structure of a large number of words shows the authors’ determination to prove that the preparation of Lithuanian dictionaries based on modern lexicography is not a Sisyphus- ’s work, having a concept of lexical semantics and lexicography and a huge textbook — all it takes is time and diligence. The discussed innovations of the first Lithuanian-Norwegian dictionary show that the authors are no longer satisfied with repeating the lexicographic experience of other languages: this dictionary lays the foundations of the modern concept of lexicography in Lithuanian lexicography. At first glance, the modest bilingual dictionary ranks among the best works of Lithuanian lexicography in terms of the quality of the grammatical and semantic information provided about words in both languages. The theoretical ideas of lexicography could be drawn from it by the compilers of the Contemporary Lithuanian Language Dictionary, preparing a new edition of the dictionary, as well as by editors of Lithuanian and other foreign language dictionaries. Dalia Barauskaitė Mikkelsen Received 2002 07 03 Dommervaenget 26 C, 1.tv. 4000 Roskilde, Denmark [email protected] Ondrej Sevcik, Bohumil Vykypel, eds., Grammaticus. STUDIA LINGUISTICA ADOLFO ERHARTO QUINQUE ET SEPTUAGENARIO OBLATA. Brno: Masarykova universita, 2001, 234 p. The title of the present publication provides sufficient information about the occasion for its publication. Sufficient reason for reviewing it in this journal is not only the fact that the venerable jubilee, Prof. Adolf Erhart, former holder of the Chair of Comparative Linguistics at the University of Brno, has always devoted special attention to Baltic studies (as evidenced by his introductions to Lithuanian and comparative Baltic linguistics, cf. Erhart 1956, 1984), but also the extremely strong representation of Baltic issues in this volume. At the beginning, let us give a brief overview of the content of the book. The etymological problem is strongly represented. Eva Havlovä („Ie. kofen *ala germänsk& näzvy pro ‘v&k’“, pp. 56-63), Helena Karlikovä („K staroslovénskému substantivu spod>“, pp. 99-104), Boris Skalka („St[aro]- sl[ovenskE&] serö/seri semper provocans“, pp. 144-148) and Pavla Valčakova („Regarding P[roto-]- S[lavic] *ėde“, pp. 201-205) have contributed to special studies in this field. In some articles, particular attention is paid to a sub-division of the Indo-European lexicon or to the lexicon of one of the Indo-European language branches. It is the Studies by Vaclav Blazek („Indo-European kinship terms in *->,ter“, pp. 24-33) and Ilona JanySkovä („Etymologie näzvü tisu ve slovanskych jazicich- “, pp. 91-98). In addition to the Indo-European, the Dravidian and Altaic etymology is also represented (Jaroslav Vacek, RECENZIJOS | 197 „Dravidian and Altaic ‘hot fire —heat’“, S. 175-200). With more general questions of the Indo-European parallels shows how important etymologischen Methode befaßt sich Karl Horst Schmidt, der am Beispiel kartwelischit is to consider the recurring and universal types of semantic motivation when etymologising („Etymologie und semantische Parallele“, pp. 135-143). Vladimir N. Toporov’s article “Dr.-ind. Pramtha-: to the reconstruction of one of the variants of the Indo-European concept of "first", pp. 165-174, an. In the field of Indo-Iranian studies, the studies of Vit Bubenik („On the Remaking of the Middle Voice in Indo-Iranian“, pp. 34-44) and Ondiej Šefčik („Word Borders in Old IndoAryan- “, 156-164) are to be noted. The Slavic syntax is represented by Radoslav Vecerka („Poznämky k disjunktivnimu/alternativnimu li v staroslov- &nstin&“, pp. 206-210) and William R. Schmalstieg („A Common Mistranslation of a Few Lines in the /gor Tale“, pp. 131-134). On the basis of numerous parallels, the latter argues that the prepositional structure ota nego, which is ablative in most translations, in a sentence of the Igor song (vide tomoju vose svoé voé prikryty ‘he saw his whole army covered by her with darkness’) is actually to be understood as agentive. The preposition ots serves here to reinforce the agentive genitive, a phenomenon with which Schmalstieg has already dealt extensively in connection with the Baltic data (especially those of Lithuanian). In the field of synchronic syntax, Stanislav ZaZa’s study on the use of the verbs for ‘giving’ in Czech and Russian functional verbs (“K funkci slovesa dat dame v češtinė a rusting”, pp. 226-232) is worth mentioning. The contributions of Ludmila Buzässyovä and Eva Pallasovä cannot be assigned to any larger thematic group. The former deals with questions of Latin paradigmatics (,,Parisylaba v latinčine“, pp. 45-55), the latter with the early history of Slavic linguistics, namely with the treatment of word formation by Miklosich (,,Iskoni be slovo —Pocätky slovanské slovotvorby“, pp. 120-135). Interesting questions of Indo-European case syntax are discussed by Helena Kurzovä in her contribution “On the syntax and semantics of the Indo-European case” (pp. 106-119). The essay begins with a consideration of the “basic case”, i.e. Nominative and accusative. For the basic linguistic system, the author emphasizes in the semantics of these cases above all the categorical aspects, i.e., those linked to the categorical characteristics of the nominal groups. Each noun is primarily an animatum or. Inanimatum was marked, and only from this categorical marking the configurational functions emerged: “+++. the cases [were] also used semantically to express the position of the nominal participants in the sentence. By marking them as s-nominative and m/n-accusative, the animata were marked for their opposite position in the fact indicated by the sentence statement” (p. 107). This has resulted in a “subsequent functional identification of the indifferent case of the neutra (‘absolute’ without opposite ergative) with the nominative on the one hand and the accusative on the other” (p. 106). The relevance of categorical characteristics will probably not be disputed, but an absolute without an opposite ergative is a rather deviant concept from a functional and typological point of view. The absolute is in itself a configurational case concept, since it represents the unmarked member in any (transitive or intransitive) configuration. Characterless is, of course, the only actant of intransitive structures, but also in transitive structures is usually either the 198 | RECENZIJOS Agents or the object formally unmarked in the sense that the unmarked case corresponds to that of the intransitive subject. Since there must have been the possibility of appearing in transitive and intransitive structures for both animata and inanimata, one may probably use the nominative as the case of the animated intransitive subject and the absolute as the case of the inanimate object in transitive structures. In this way we basically get a system with nominative marking for animata and ergative marking for inanimata. The author probably ignores the question of the typological plausibility of such a system a little too easily. Furthermore, in her contribution one finds thoughts on the constructions with the exchange of participants (circumdare urbem muro: circumdare murum urbi), on the different syntactic treatment of the neutra (meaning the lack of case differentiation in the neutra, which is expressed, for example, in the contrast id gaudeo vs. gaudeo de aliqua re), on the relationship between the sociative and the dual, on the double accusative, etc. The author maintains the view, probably dating back to Meillet, that the basic language had no verbal reaction in the proper sense, but that the cases were “... independently marked forms for the referential structure of the situation” (p. 117). Also among the historically handed down idg. The author distinguishes between languages with more or less “advanced sentence formalization”. But do “basic languages” obey different laws than historically documented languages? Of course, one can distinguish between semantically marked and purely configurational cases: for example, the accusative as a purely configurational case can be opposed to the partitive genitive (marked with regard to quantification, cf. for example lit. gerti vandenį: atsigerti vandens) or to the dative (marked with regard to the low degree or the temporal limitation of the affectedness, cf. lit. sist suni ‘to strike a dog’: iesist sunim ‘to strike a dog’). In many cases, however, the daughter languages have introduced new differentiations of this kind. This is especially true for such archaic languages with extensively developed case systems, such as Baltic and Slavic. If the case system is decomposed, there are also fewer possibilities for semantic differentiation within a syntactic category (subject, object, etc.), which evokes the impression of an “advanced sentence formalization”. That the functions of the grammatical cases (nominative, accusative, genitive, dative) could be defined completely asyntactically in any language is not very plausible, and the assumption that the basic language would have differed in this respect from the historically transmitted languages contradicts the implicit principle of the uniformity of linguistic development laws (the “uniformitarian principle”) recognized since the young grammarians. In his essay „Pfemysleni (nejen) o litevském kondicionälu“ (pp. 64-90) Tomaš Hoskovec criticizes the conventional theory of the formation of the Lithuanian-Latvian conjunctive, without attempting to give his own explanation. The author's conclusion is as follows (for convenience I quote from the French summary): "In the panchronique system of the Lithuanian verb, there is nothing on which the theory, which is a great tradition in comparative linguistics, that the Lithuanian conditional is derived from a welding of the supin (presumably Lithuanian) with an ancient (presumably Indo-European) form of the verb čėtre can be based" (p. 89). Now the existence of such a "systeme panchronique" is extremely questionable. The syntactic change is based on the mechanism of structural reinterpretation (re-analysis): a certain construction A receives a new structural interpretation, without anything changing in its substance. RECENZIJOS | 199 changes. This reinterpretation leads to the formulation of a new grammatical rule, which is able to generate the initial structure A just like the original one, but is also able to generate a structure B for which the original structure rule is no longer sufficient. The original structure rule on which A relied is no longer recognizable for the speakers. The grammar of each generation therefore differs, at least in certain parts, from the grammar of earlier generations, and the original system is at most still to be grasped by the linguist. The notion of a panchronic language system seems to contradict that of language change. The author formulates his methodological approach as follows: „we observe, according to which principles the individual Indo-European languages as systems have been updated from a certain common potential of means of expression, we ask how to characterize within one language the individual handling of morphological material, which has analogues in other languages“ (p. 72). In many respects this approach may be correct, but no one can determine where the basic linguistic system ends and the monolingual systems begin. Is the beginning of the written tradition of the individual languages, from the point of view of the development of the linguistic system, a purely arbitrary Dividing line. Moreover, there seems to be no room left for the mechanisms of reanalysis and resegmentation, which are so important in historical morphology and syntax. By the way, Hoskovec is right when he emphasizes that in the reconstruction of the formation of the Lithuanian-Latvian conditional there are still several unsolved questions. For the most important elements of this reconstruction, however, Stang has proposed an extremely valuable attempt at explanation, and it is somewhat surprising that the author acts as if no one had yet endeavoured to make the formation of a conditional on the basis of the supin syntax semantically and syntactically credible (“O co by se vübec opfela sémantika supinového syntagmatu?”, p. 86). However, some of the questions raised in the essay deserve serious consideration. Thus the author asks (p. 86) how it can be explained that the original supin has been preserved instead of being completely absorbed into the new conditional. This question can probably be answered in the following way. According to Stang’s brilliant hypothesis, the supine, just as it happened in Slavic with the infinitive, replaced an original participle in sentences with coreferential subjects, while the corresponding form of the auxiliary verb būti was attached to the conjunction: cf. lit. *jei-b(i) valgyty instead of *jeib(i) valges and in other Russian čto-by ėsto instead of čto-by éls (Stang 1966: 429-431). This construction must have been infinite at the beginning, for the meaning of this substitution can only have been to provide the final sub-phrases with an infinite counterpart. Now it is striking that the Baltic conditional forms are no longer capable of infinitive use (a construction like *Reikia dirbti, kad valgyty ‘one has to work to eat’ is not possible in contemporary Lithuanian), while the corresponding Slavic (Russian and Polish) sentences with the infinitive are still infinite (Russian: Nado rabotat’, &toby est’). So the supin in this construction is most likely to be the finite form of the 3. person was reinterpreted, according to which this form became the basis of a new paradigm. After this process had taken place, the original connection with the still infinite supin (despite the supposed panchronic language system) became unrecognizable, and there is now only one case of homonymy that does not seem disturbing. If this finitization had not occurred, the emergence of the new conditional would naturally have had to lead to the demise of the old supin. Another objection of the author, namely, that it was impossible to 200 | RECENZIJOS to consider the monosyllabic sequences bim(e), bit(e) as forms of the verb būti is not quite serious, since abbreviation in enclitic position is obvious. The comparison with lett. biju (cf. recently Smoczynski 1999) therefore nothing stands in the way. That the form of the 1. Press. Sgt. on -Cia, -Ciau requires a special explanation is not denied by anyone, not even by Stang. It remains unclear whether the author attaches any significance to the Old Lithuanian documents, because the peculiarities of the Old Lithuanian. Spelling, for example -iin (giwen)tumbim versus neulit. (viert)tumeme, are declared irrelevant if a “panchronic” view of the linguistic system suggests a satisfactory structural analysis from the author’s point of view. Also with the Lithuanian conjunction, and namely with the question already indicated above of the origin of the enigmatic form of the 1. Press. Sg., befaßt sich Zigmas Zinkevičius („Notes on the history of the 1st sing. cond. forms of the Lithuanian language“, pp. 224-225). From the Lithuanian dialects he cites new facts which indicate that -čia as an older form is opposed to the analogous new formations -čiau and (rarely) -Ciu. This contradicts the opinion of various researchers that -Ciau originated from an irregular abbreviation of -tumbiau (dependent on frequency). In his essay „Argument laryngalistyczny w etymologii balto-stowianskiej“ (pp. 149-155) Wojciech Smoczynski deals with some roots originating from Laryngal, which in Baltic Slavic have absorbed an original formant by moving the morpheme boundary, and in fact in such a distant time that one would at first glance be inclined to think that we are dealing with inherited pronunciation conditions. For example, lit. sietas ‘sieve’ (lit. siets) sets out a secondarily extended root *seh ivo, which was separated by moving the morpheme boundary in the original -ie-present *sé-io-(root *seh -, cf. se-ti). According to the ancestry, Slavic zöjati (in addition to later zijati) is only then with the pris. zéjp to be reconciled, assuming that *g”eh,in an original -ie-present was extended to *g”eh i-, with renewed shrinkage level *g”ih,-(instead of *g”h i-); This assumption then also leads to the further conclusion that lit. žioti is a young formation formed by syncope from *Zijoti (cf. niök-oti < *nijok-oti, to nijöks ‘not one’). The laryngalistic reconstruction also suggests a new interpretation for lit. siuvu (in addition to aksl. sijo): *siuuist cannot (as Trautmann assumed) be explained by the disintegration of the anteconsonant form *siūzu, but literally originated from *siuH-ė, in which u was inserted after shrinkage of the laryngal as a hiatus stiffer. By generalization of the anteconsonant form, therefore, only aksl. šijo to explain, cf. the preserved *sovim Part. praet. pass. SBV-one. The Baltic Slavic alternations ūC: uuV, iC: iiV are therefore to be understood as an immediate consequence of the shrinkage of intervocal larynx. To conclude his laryngalistic arguments, Smoczynski suggests that Trautmann- 's Baltic-Slavic approach *satuas the basis for both lit. sotus and slav. syt8 to put aside for good. The author now compares the latter with hot. "Sunday Sun". sundaysun.- com. *seuh -‘to be full’, whose declination level appears to be present in the verb adjective *suh -tö-‘full, saturated’. In the first part of his essay “Two Lettonistic Observations” (pp. 211-223), Bohumil Vykyp&l attempts to clarify the semantic basis of the grammaticalization of adjective formations of the type lit. ilgokas ‘quite long’ as comparative forms, which has occurred in Latvian. In the second part he deals with the Latvian possessive construction man ir ‘mihi est’ and its chronological relationship to Lithuanian and Old Prussian turėti and turėti. RECENZIJOS | 201 turrit(wei) ‘habere’ auseinander. According to the author, the Latvian construction is the oldest, and Lithuanian and Old Prussian have made the frequently observed transition of the possessive construction from the type mihi est to the type habeo. The Lithuanian construction man yra, which has been preserved as a relic (in the northern Lithuanian dialects bordering Latvia), and the numerous traces of the use of lit. turėti in the original meaning of ‘keeping’ are indicative of this. The author's explanations are very convincing, and it is becoming increasingly clear that the view expressed by various scholars (Veenker, Rüke-Dravina) that Latvian man ir is a novelty created under Baltic-Finnish influence must be rejected. It reflects the very widespread tendency in Baltic studies to interpret any difference between Lithuanian and Latvian as an innovation on the part of Latvian without a more thorough examination. Substitution of man ir for an original turėt ‘to have’ is unbelievable for three reasons: (1) typologically only the transition from ‘mihi est’ to ‘habeo’ is well documented; (2) since the grammaticalization process is basically irreversible, the elimination of an original possessive construction with turėt ‘to have’ would not have led to its reintroduction in the original meaning of ‘to hold’; and (3) the here and there occupied altlett. turėt ‘to have’ is probably an example of what Harris and Campbell (1995: 55) call “exploratory expressions”. A certain construction can initially either be grammaticalized or remain a formation of the moment. Old Latvian turet ‘to have’ is probably an attempt at grammatprobeweise zum Ausdruck irgendeiner grammatischer Bedeutung verwendet werden und nachher icalization that has not prevailed. Of course, it is also possible that turėt ‘have’ in the altlett. As the author (p. 220) notes, an accurate reproduction of the German construction in Teuw nebues wairak Dewes turret required the use of a personal verb, since būt + dative in the first person singular of the singular verb is the same as being + dative in the second person singular of the singular verb. sentence has already occurred as a modal verb. As it is clear from the above overview, this rich and valuable collection, for which we can congratulate both the jubilee and the editors, contains a lot of new and worthwhile reading in the field of Baltic studies. LITERATUR ERHART, A. 1956: Litevstina. Praha: Stätni Pedagogické Nakladatelstvi. ERHART, A. 1984. Baltské jazyky. Praha: Stätni Pedagogické Nakladatelstvi. HARRIS, A. C., CAMPBELL, L. 1995: Historical syntax in cross-linguistic perspective. Cambridge: University Press. (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics, 74.) SMOCZYNSKI, W. 1999: Geneza starolitewskiego conditionalis na -biau, -bei, -bi-, Acta Baltico-Slavica 24, 13-18. STANG, Chr. S. 1966. Vergleichende Grammatik der baltischen Sprachen. Oslo-Bergen-Tromsö: Universitetsforlaget. Axel Holvoet Gauta 2002 04 26 Lietuvių kalbos institutas Vileišio g. 6, 2055 Vilnius, Lietuva [email protected]