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We can only rejoice that the study of Bulgarian, initiated by J. Venelin, is being continued in today’s Russia by our compatriot, a linguist and colleague close to us, G. Venediktov, who speaks and writes Lithuanian beautifully.
Aloyzas Vidugiris
FROM PARTICLES TO THE WHOLE OF SYNTAX
(On the occasion of Professor Vitas Labutis’s 70th birthday)
The scholarly and pedagogical work of Professor Vitas Labutis has been diverse and multifaceted. He worked for ten years at the Institute of the Lithuanian Language and Literature, then taught at the Kaunas Evening Faculty of Vilnius University, and from 1972 at the Faculty of Philology of Vilnius University. For many years he taught a course in Lithuanian syntax and various specialized courses, and supervised students’ research and dissertations. He held various administrative positions. At the same time, he pursued intensive scholarly work. The Professor’s bibliography includes the monograph Lietuvių kalbos sintaksė, several textbooks, and more than one hundred and fifty articles and shorter pieces! Vitas Labutis is one of our most distinguished syntacticians. Yet the Professor’s interests were not confined to syntax. He also wrote on morphology, terminology, onomastics, and the theory of language culture. In honoring the Professor on his seventieth birthday, we have undertaken to review his more important research on Lithuanian grammar and his numerous publications on other subjects, leaving aside questions of language practice and teaching methodology.
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At the beginning of his independent scholarly career, V. Labutis took up a topic in Lithuanian grammar that had been little studied at the time: particles. His article “Particles and Their Place among the Parts of Speech,” published in 1962 in the serial publication Literatūra ir kalba, was the first study in Lithuanian linguistics devoted specifically to this part of speech. It was written at a time when there was no clear view of the place of particles among the other parts of speech or of their relationship to adverbs and conjunctions. Nor was there a more detailed account of the meanings and use of particles.
The study examines how particles had been interpreted in earlier works of Lithuanian linguistics and describes their general semantic and syntactic features. Drawing mainly on the criteria for distinguishing parts of speech prevailing in Soviet linguistics, it treats particles as a separate part of speech: they cannot be assigned to any other part of speech and relate to the other parts of speech as an equivalent group of words (Labutis 1962: 368). Particles are defined as “an independent part of speech that expresses additional shades of meaning concerning phenomena of reality or their mutual relations, and conveys them to individual sentence constituents or to the sentence as a whole” (ibid.). Among other things, particles express modal, expressive, and emotional shades of meaning. There are no strict boundaries separating particles from other parts of speech: some particles can also function as conjunctions, others are difficult to distinguish from adverbs, while still others become affixes or components of indivisible phrases. Structurally, particles may be simple or compound.
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The meanings and use of one type of particle—quantifying and specifying particles, which form a subgroup within the larger semantic category of particles, namely logical-semantic particles—are described in detail in the article “Quantifying and Specifying Particles in Lithuanian” (Labutis 1963a). In the academic grammar published eight years later, the author classifies and describes the same particles in a similar way, but more briefly, devoting less space to shades of meaning and synonymy.
The topic under discussion is taken further in an article published by the Professor a year later, which forms, as it were, its second part: “Compound Particles in Lithuanian” (Labutis 1964a). In it, their structure and function are examined using the same methods as for independent words. According to the degree of fusion of their components, compound particles are divided into fused compounds and combinations. Fused compounds are defined as “a special kind of compound words whose components are former independent particles” (ibid.: 119). This part of the study contains numerous examples of terminological usage and historical notes. The accentuation of fused compound particles is discussed separately. Combinations are particles that are not yet fully fused structurally but are already semantically indivisible and form a lexical unit (ibid.: 128). There are not many such particles in Lithuanian. Particle combinations, whose components are less closely connected to one another and therefore more easily distinguished, are used much more frequently.
Articles published at approximately the same time in Kalbos kultūros provide a detailed examination of the meaning, use, and spelling of the particles gi, ne (Labutis 1963b, 1964b). The latter publication, incidentally, proposes translating the Russian adversative conjunction же into Lithuanian not with the particle gi, but with the conjunctions o, bet, tačiau (1964b: 31).
The Professor’s research on Lithuanian particles was brought together in his 1965 doctoral dissertation in philology, Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos dalelytės. On the basis of the dissertation, an account of particles as a separate part of speech was prepared for the second volume of Lietuvių kalbos gramatikos (Labutis 1971). Although in its theoretical foundations this section of the grammar is very close to the academic grammar of Russian (cf. Vinogradov, Istrina, eds. 1960), it surpasses it in the abundance of authentic material and in the detail of its analysis. The definition of particles differs little from that given in the first study, except that it is somewhat shorter; cf.: “Particles are independent words that give individual words, phrases, or the sentence as a whole additional shades of meaning” (Labutis 1971: 543). Fewer of the principal features of particles are also identified: semantic and syntactic independence, semantic and meaning-related indeterminacy (in the first study, these two properties were rightly identified as one), and morphological invariability and structural simplicity. What is new in the grammar is its thorough description of particle meanings. Meaning is even taken as the most important basis for their classification. In this respect, three major groups of particles are distinguished first of all: logical-semantic, modal, and emotional and expressive particles. The particles in each group are divided into smaller groups according to the shades of meaning they express, and these in turn into subgroups. For example, logical-semantic particles, which “give independent words various logical-semantic shades of meaning” (ibid.: 45), are grouped into specifying, restrictive, and negative particles. Specifying particles are further divided into quantifying and degree particles, and duration-specifying particles. Almost every particle is described separately in the grammar: its shade of meaning and features of use are explained, and examples of usage are provided from literature and dialects. The grammar also discusses separately the use of other parts of speech—adverbs, pronouns, and verb forms—with particle meaning, as well as particle accentuation and structure. The section provides many valuable examples illustrating the use of particles—
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…material. The bounds of a synchronic description have not been maintained everywhere (the origin of particles is discussed in a separate paragraph); in many cases, the boundaries of the standard language (in grammatical terms, the literary language) have been crossed (alongside other interrogative and doubtful particles, dialectal begu, bau are also described (ibid.: 558–559), and so on). In individual cases, other interpretations of the words under discussion are possible as well (cf. Girdenis, Žulys 1973: 205), but overall, the semantic analysis of particles in the grammar is subtle and thorough.
In the single-volume Lithuanian grammars Grammatika litovskogo jazyka (Ambrazas, ed. 1985) and Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos gramatika (Ambrazas, ed. 1994), the sections on particles are much shorter, and their description considerably more concise. The definition of a particle is refined somewhat: it is “an indeclinable part of speech consisting of invariable words that impart additional semantic nuances to other words, phrases, or sentences” (Labutis 1994a: 432). A new feature in the single-volume grammars is the terminology primary and secondary particles. They are divided into these two groups according to their functional relation to other words or simply their origin. This classification is inconsistent with the chosen synchronic approach to describing the grammatical structure of language. The single-volume Lithuanian grammar (Ambrazas, ed. 1994) no longer uses the term compound particles; by structure, all particles are divided into three groups: simple, compound, and multiword. The description of particle meanings has been especially shortened. According to meaning, albeit provisionally, nine classes of particles are distinguished: specifying, focusing, demonstrative, negative, affirmative, interrogative and doubtful, optative, emotive, and intensifying particles. Compared with the three-volume grammar, this grammar no longer has separate classes for comparative and exhortative particles; the corresponding particles are assigned to the interrogative and doubtful, and optative classes. The interpretation of some particles changed in the single-volume grammars, and examples of their usage were greatly reduced.
Angliškoje akademinėje lietuvių kalbos gramatikoje (Ambrazas, ed. 1997) V. Labučio pavardės tarp autorių nėra, tačiau dalelyčių skyrius joje (ten pat: 395–403) nedaug tesiskiria nuo ankstesnėse gramatikose Profesoriaus duoto šios kalbos dalies aprašo.
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Another topic Professor Labutis took up while still working at the Institute of the Lithuanian Language was nominative sentences. This topic drew V. Labutis into the maelstrom of syntactic problems, from which the Professor was never released throughout the rest of his scholarly career.
The Professor analyzed nominative sentences in an article of the same title, published in 1967. Almost a decade later, the third volume of the academic grammar appeared, containing sections by V. Labutis on nominative, incomplete, and asyndetic sentences.
In the article, nominative sentences are defined as “one-member sentences consisting of a noun, or another word used as a noun, in the nominative case” (1967: 117). Nominative sentences have a distinctive intonation. The main constituent of a nominative sentence is considered neither a subject nor a predicate, but may only be compared with them in relative terms (cf. J. Balkevičius’s differing view, 1963: 148–149). Although the main constituent of a sentence may have modifiers, in the professor’s view such sentences always “emphasize the very existence of an object or phenomenon, rather than highlighting its attribute” (Labutis 1967: 119). In this respect, nominative sentences differ from two-member incomplete sentences, which may also consist of a single noun in the nominative case. In terms of structure, nominative sentences are divided into extended and unextended ones. Sentences in which a particle accompanying the main constituent is especially emphasized or highlighted are not considered nominative sentences (Antai duona, pasi-imk!), nor are sentences in which an attribute accompanying a noun in the nominative case is emphasized
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or a word expressing a state (Rytas puikus; Stori marškiniai, bet savi.). In such cases, word order plays no decisive role (ibid.: 123). According to their functions, the article distinguishes three groups of nominative sentences: existential, or those stating the existence of an object or phenomenon; those with an emphasized communicative function; and emotional, or evaluative, nominative sentences. Incomplete two-member sentences with a nominative constituent clearly linked predicatively to the verb in the preceding sentence are distinguished from existential nominative sentences, for example: Kadaise, labai seniai, šiame miške dievai gyvenę. Savotiški dievai. Sentences consisting of evaluative words are likewise not considered nominative sentences (Dildė kaip laikai? Meistras!), modal words, greetings, and wishes (Gėda. Sveika, teta).
Lietuvių kalbos gramatikoje nominative sentences are described in much the same way as in the article. The grammar notes that nominative sentences generally introduce or express a new idea. In this they differ from incomplete sentences, which generally continue the thought of the preceding sentence (1976a: 625–626). Incidentally, incomplete, elliptical, and verbless sentences are also described in the grammar by V. Labutis (1976a: 635–653). By function and meaning, nominative sentences are likewise divided in the grammar into three groups: existential (or descriptive and narrative), identificatory, informative, demonstrative, and naming sentences; and emotional (expressing surprise) sentences. Nominative constituents of compound sentences are examined in greater detail in the grammar than in the article (ibid.: 633–635). In the single-volume Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos gramatikoje, N. Sližienė regards such sentences as nominal impersonal sentences, in which “the nominative case of nouns is generally used without a copula” (Ambrazas, ed. 1994: 617).
The Professor’s view of the status of nominative sentences and their place in the grammatical system of language changed over time. In the article “Nominative Sentences” and in Lietuvių kalbos gramatikoje, they form a group of one-member sentences together with impersonal sentences. In these works, the distinction between nominative and impersonal sentences is based on a formal criterion: the nominative constituent functioning as the main part of a nominative sentence—a noun or another word used as a noun in the nominative case—could not be reconciled with the conception of an impersonal sentence, whose “main constituent, corresponding to the predicate <…>, cannot be linked to a subject in the nominative case” (Dumašiūtė 1976: 610). In the monograph Lietuvių kalbos sintaksė (1994/1998/2002), the Professor already treats nominative sentences as impersonal (1994: 134–136). This is based on the fact that the nominal nominative forming the predicative center of a nominative sentence “has no explicit marker of person” (ibid.).
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The Professor devoted a particularly great deal of time to exploring problems concerning Lithuanian word combinations. First and foremost, the study Žodžių junginių problemos (Labutis 1976c) deserves mention. Together with the third volume of the academic grammar, published the same year, it is one of the earliest generalizing works (apart from Br. Kalinauskas’s studies; see Kalinauskas 1963, 1972) to examine Lithuanian word combinations. The word combination as a syntactic unit, and the level of word combinations as a distinct level for the study of syntactic structure, began to be distinguished and examined in Lithuanian linguistics only after the Second World War, largely under the influence of Russian linguistics, especially the academic grammar of Russian (Vinogradov, Istrina, eds. 1960).
The study sets out to examine theoretical problems in the study of word combinations. In the author’s view, only after the principles of syntactic standardization have been clarified can the norms governing the use of word combinations be refined (cf. ibid.: 81). The booklet briefly surveys the history of research on word combinations and describes its principal directions. It is acknowledged that the content and expression of language
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Plans are not always symmetrical, and tasks are set to describe syntactic phenomena systematically and to take proper account of the role of semantics in syntax (ibid.: 16). The study then examines word relations at length, considers the concept of the word combination, and surveys the structure and meaning of word combinations.
Most of the booklet is devoted to word relations. These are examined on the basis of valency theory. This is one of the first examples of its application in Lithuanian linguistics (after the article by E. Geniu šienė in 1971, which attracted considerable interest; see Geniu šienė 1971). Valency is regarded as a syntactic and semantic property of a word (Labutis 1976c: 23). It is defined as “the ability of a word or its form to combine with another word or a corresponding form of that word” (ibid.: 18). Lexical and grammatical valency are distinguished. Only the latter is examined further. Two levels of grammatical valency are distinguished: formal and relational (corresponding to N. Sližienė’s syntactic and semantic valency). Twelve principal cases of relational valency (semantic cases or functions) are distinguished. The need to distinguish relations between word forms from relations between sentence constituents is emphasized. The concepts of “word relations” and “word relationships” are assigned different content. In the booklet, word relations are classified according to how they are expressed and according to the syntactic equivalence of the units linked and the direction of the relation. In addition to the traditional types of word relations—agreement, government, and adjunction—V. Labutis also distinguishes a fourth type: coordination of word forms. The latter is defined as “the possible (but not necessary) mutual application of forms of words that have independent categories” (ibid.: 31). The nominative form of the subject and a finite verb form may be coordinated with each other (J. Balkevičius regards this relation as a case of agreement), or two noun forms may be coordinated (in the Lithuanian Grammar this relation is called correlation). V. Labutis defines government as “the selection of the case of a nominal word for a particular syntactic and semantic function, according to the meaning of another word or some other semantic element” (ibid.: 33). Strong and weak government are distinguished, although it is emphasized that there is no clear boundary between them. Nor is there a clear boundary between weak government and adjunction. According to the character and direction of the word relation, the author distinguishes attachment, coordination, and mutual conditioning between words. Special cases of attachment include attraction between words (a certain intermediate type of word relation, in the Grammar of Contemporary Lithuanian regarded as agreement of a predicative attribute with the subject or object) and appositional attachment. Mutual conditioning is the relation between the subject’s nominative and the finite verb form functioning as the predicate.
Having examined the relationship of word combinations to the sentence and to the individual word, a definition of a word combination is offered: it is “the smallest syntactic and semantic unit at the level of word relations, expressing the relationship between two independent words” (ibid.: 45). Unlike J. Balkevičius’s Syntax of Contemporary Lithuanian (Balkevičius 1963: 42), B. Kalinauskas’s Syntax of Lithuanian Word Combinations (Kalinauskas 1972: 1), and the academic Grammar of the Lithuanian Language (Ul vydas, ed. 1976: 9), V. Labutis regards a word combination not merely as a constituent of the sentence but also (and, above all) as a unit of language synthesis, formed by combining independent words (in this respect, the professor’s views are close to those of F. Fortunatov’s school). As in J. Balkevičius and Br. Kalinauskas (1972: 10), word combinations are understood primarily as words linked by a subordinating relation (as in the academic grammar of Russian, cf. Vinogradov, Istrina, ed. 1960: 1, 41–44), but unlike in the academic grammar of Lithuanian, where A. Valeckienė also regards word forms linked by predicative and coordinating relations as word combinations, cf. Valeckienė 1976: 9). Word forms functioning as subject and predicate and linked by a predicative relation are considered word combinations only with major reservations; because of their specific features, it is proposed that they be examined separately from all other combinations (J. Bal-
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kevičius regards them as sentences). The terms syntagma and construction are discussed, as is their relationship to the word combination. In the author’s view, the terms syntactic construction or syntactic structure are best suited to name a group of words linked by a syntactic relation. The concepts of paradigms, derivation, and transformation of word combinations are discussed. The structure of word combinations is then examined. The parts of a binary combination are called components (cf. components in the syntaxes of J. Balkevičius and Br. Kalinauskas). The main and dependent components of a word combination are distinguished (as in the Grammar of the Lithuanian Language). Combinations are divided into simple and complex combinations (on a somewhat different basis from J. Balkevičius, but similarly to Br. Kalinauskas, cf. 1972: 11–12). Word combinations with one main word and several syntactic relations of differing content form chains of word combinations. J. Balkevičius regards such syntactic units as complex combinations (Balkevičius 1963: 44ff.); so does Br. Kalinauskas (1972: 12). The structure of word combinations is examined using their morphological patterns—one of the first attempts in Lithuanian linguistics to formalize the systematic description of syntactic units in this way. In the section on verbal combinations, V. Labutis also examines deverbal noun combinations, based on their predominant verbal meaning, in which the noun retains the valency of the underlying verb (these combinations are also classified as such by J. Balkevičius (cf. 1963: 43); Br. Kalinauskas takes a different approach). Similarly, nouns derived from adjectives that retain the government of the adjective and have a dependent component are discussed together with adjectival combinations. Participles and gerunds form combinations with a verb only when they do not function as a distinct sentence constituent. Nouns functioning as subjects and adjectival words correlated with them and functioning as the nominal part of the predicate do not form combinations (A. Valeckienė regards these as complex combinations with a predicative attribute, see Valeckienė 1976: 19–20; Br. Kalinauskas regards them as word combinations with a predicate nominative functioning as the nominal part of the predicate, Kalinauskas 1972: 73). By meaning, word combinations are divided into six groups: subject, object, adverbial, attributive, completive, and predicative combinations (cf. the predicative, attributive, object, and relational (adverbial) combinations distinguished by Br. Kalinauskas) (Kalinauskas 1972: 16–20). Depending on the meaning of the main and dependent members and their relationship to each other, object word combinations are further divided into combinations expressing direct, recipient, and instrumental objects, and combinations with an object content of action (state, phenomenon). The section on attributive combinations distinguishes possessive (possessive) or dependency word combinations. It is noted that attributive combinations can have a subject, object, or adverbial meaning. Completive combinations are defined as those in which “the dependent component expresses the content of what is expressed by the main component” (Labutis 1976c: 78). Typical completive combinations are those expressing quantitative content, e.g., a kilogram of butter, full of water (in the Grammar of the Lithuanian Language they are described as combinations expressing quantitative relations; Valiulytė 1976: 202–203). A finite form of a full-meaning, phase, or modal verb forming a compound predicate, together with a case-inflected word or infinitive adjoined to it, constitutes a predicative combination (the distinctiveness of combinations formed by phase verbs with infinitives is also emphasized by E. Valiulytė, see Valiulytė 1976: 175). Br. Kalinauskas (1972: 15, 166–167) does not regard word combinations formed by phase and modal verbs with infinitives as word combinations. Two types of such combinations are distinguished: state, or existential, combinations and combinations in which one action is supplemented by another. J. Balkevičius’s syntax does not provide a separate classification of word combinations by meaning. Since he distinguishes simple and complex sentence constituents, the meaning of word combinations is described in the corresponding sections on sentence constituents.
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Various combinations of words were examined by the Professor in scholarly articles and conference papers as well. Perhaps the greatest attention was devoted to noun phrases with the genitive.
The article “Some Genitive Constructions of Verbal Nouns” (1974a) examines how the syntactic structure and semantics of constructions with verbal nouns depend on various lexical and grammatical factors. Three constructions are described in greater detail: the transformations Ng Nv: Ng V, VNg, and VNg. Subject constructions are most often formed by abstracts of intransitive verbs with various lexical meanings; the meaning of the dependent constituent is immaterial in such constructions. Object constructions are generally formed by abstracts of transitive verbs, and their dependent constituent is usually the name of an inanimate object.
In the theses (1974b) of the paper “Verbal Nouns in Lithuanian and Their Valency,” presented at the conference Questions of Lexicon and Syntax, the concept of valency itself is discussed first and foremost. Subject, object, and circumstantial valency of verbal nouns are distinguished. Constructions with such nouns are examined from expression to meaning; most attention is devoted to constructions with the genitive. The meanings of these constructions depend on the derivational and lexical meaning of the head noun and on the form and grammatical and lexical meaning of the dependent word.
Straipsnyje „Tiesioginio objekto, tikslo ir kiekio kilmininkų valdymas“ (1976) analizuojami keli bendrai kalbai aktualūs kilmininko vartosenos atvejai. Kai neigiamas modalinis veiksmažodis eina su bendratimi, jos valdomas objekto linksnis – kilmininkas arba galininkas – dažnai priklauso nuo atstumo iki neiginio. Su veiksmažodžiu žiūrėti bendrai kalbai teikiamas kilmininkas, nes jis turi tikslo semą: žiūri televizoriaus, kino, spektaklio… Šis siūlymas kitų kalbininkų buvo kritikuotas (žr. Ambrazas 1976, Balkevičius 1976) ir bendrinėje kalboje neprigijo. Su abstrakčios reikšmės daiktavardžiais reikšmė, įtaka, įspūdis, poveikis ir pan. siūloma vartoti kilmininką, kai norima išryškinti neapibrėžto kiekio atspalvį, ir galininką, kai tas atspalvis nesvarbus. Straipsnyje pabrėžiama semantinės motyvacijos svarba norminant sintaksės reiškinius.
The semantics and syntax of constructions related by paradigmatic relations, such as The dog gnaws the bone, The bone is gnawed by the dog, The dog's gnawing of the bone, are examined in the article “Semantics and the Selection of Forms in Active, Passive, and Substantive Constructions” (1979a). In the author’s view, each of the constructions mentioned should be regarded as the realization of a separate semantic and grammatical model (ibid.: 57), rather than derived from a single basic structure, as proponents of generative grammar do. Having separately discussed the deep and surface semantic structure of each construction and revealed the factors determining the selection of morphological forms, V. Labutis concludes that syntactic semantics is a multilayered hierarchical phenomenon, and that it “should be considered the ‘driving force’ not only at the so-called deep levels, but also at the surface levels” (ibid.: 58).
Straipsnyje „Kilmininkas ir savybiniai įvardžiai“ (1980) dėl įvardžių mano, tavo, savo vietos gramatinėje sistemoje polemizuojama su V. Žuliu, kuris juos laiko asmeninių įvardžių kilmininkais (Žulys 1969). V. Labučio nuomone, šias formas įtraukti į įvardžių aš, tu, savęs paradigmas trukdo jų leksinė reikšmė – posesyvumas. Teigiama, kad sintagminiu požiūriu šios formos gali būti laikomos sustabarėjusiais kilmininkais, tačiau semantiniu požiūriu jos esančios savybiniai įvardžiai (Labutis 1980: 56). Autoriaus nurodomos ir silpnosios tradicinės interpretacijos pusės; vis dėlto ji laikoma parankesne praktikos reikalui, mokyklai.
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The use of genitives of quantity content and partitives is described in the article “Government and Semantics of the So-Called Genitives of Quantity” (1981a). Both types of genitive occur in the same syntactic positions of subject and direct object. In constructions with nouns or adverbs expressing quantity, a genitive marking quantity content is governed by those words, and its rank in the syntactic structure of the sentence is, as it were, “lowered.” The word denoting the object is non-individualized and represents a class of things. The partitive genitive without a word marking quantity is characterized as the marked member of the opposition. It is used when “we want to show that the action concerns a part of the direct object, rather than the whole” (ibid.: 197). The use of the partitive genitive in the direct-object position is restricted by various factors that have not yet been fully clarified, whereas in the subject position the partitive genitive “occurs only in existential sentences and some sentences expressing motion” (ibid.: 198). The article also debates the understanding of the category of definiteness and indefiniteness.
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In many publications, V. Labutis examined specific problems of Lithuanian syntax and questions of methodology in syntactic research.
The Professor wrote extensively about syntactic relations between words, especially agreement and government. This topic was explored in some of the publications already mentioned (1974b, 1976, 1981a; see also 1982). In addition, the Professor wrote a short article on agreement (1974c) for a glossary of linguistic terms published in the journal Our Language. Agreement is defined there as “the adaptation of the forms of words with non-independent categories to the forms of other words” (ibid.: 45). In Lithuanian, adjectives, participles, adjectival numerals, and pronouns agree with nouns or other words used as nouns. The author emphasizes that agreement does not entail complete matching of forms, and that so-called incomplete agreement is also common in language. Distinguished from agreement is the adjustment of the form of a nominal predicate to its subject—a relation he proposes to call coordination or correspondence (in Lithuanian Syntax it is called correlation)—while the relation of an appositive to the word it modifies is termed formal parallelism (later the author calls this relation opposition). Coordination between a subject and a predicate expressed by a finite verb is of yet another kind: these forms agree only in the category of number (ibid.: 47). The author later drew on the material of the article in writing more extensive works—the study Problems of Word Combinations (cf. Labutis 1976c: 28–30) and the monograph Lithuanian Syntax (1994: 30–33).
Research on the government of verbal nouns prompted an interest in valency theory. The Professor discussed the concepts of valency, or word combinability, in books (1976, 1994); they are also considered to a greater or lesser extent in other publications (e.g., 1974b).
In the theses (1985a) of the paper “Valency – Semantic Roles – Semantic Sentence Structure,” presented at the international conference of Balticists, these three phenomena are characterized as distinct, though interrelated, grammatical strategies operating within the language system. Valency is considered a project of the syntagmatic interaction of a word as a lexical unit of the language system, specifying the number and content of the word’s obligatory, probable, or merely possible interactions, as well as the guidelines for their realization by means of linguistic elements. Semantic roles are defined as a reflection of the typified positions of known elements of reality in particular situations. Semantic sentence structure is a schema of a particular sentence type. Diachronic linguistics is assigned the task of “determining to what extent and in what ways, over the course of centuries, the valency projects of individual lexemes can evolve in a particular language
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not only in terms of formal expression, but also in terms of content, what possible shifts occur in the regularities governing the representation of semantic roles” (ibid.: 66).
Minėtina ir N. Šližienės Lietuvių kalbos veiksmažodžių junglumo žodyno (Šližienė 1994) pirmojo tomo recenzija (Labutis 1995). Joje atidžiai išnagrinėta knygos sandara, skirtingų lygmenų valentingumo pateikimas ir kai kurios teorinės nuostatos. Argumentuotai svarstomas žodyno paskirties ir veiksmažodžių atrankos kriterijų neapibrėžtumas, nurodomi semantinių funkcijų skyrimo, žodžių reikšmių atrankos ir nusakymo trūkumai, nepakankamas leksinio valentingumo pateikimas. Recenzento pabrėžiama išsamaus nagrinėjamų veiksmažodžių reikšmės aprašymo svarba, siūloma pirma pateikti semantinį veiksmažodžių valentingumą, o tik po jo – sintaksinį, keliami būtinųjų ir fakultatyviųjų valentinių palydovų atribojimo sunkumai.
Research on syntactic relations is directly connected with the field of syntactic semantics. The interaction of syntax and semantics, and the role of semantics in syntactic research, are emphasized by the Professor in many publications (cf. 1979a, 1980, 1981a, 1981b).
In the paper “Semantics and the Selection of Word Forms,” read at the conference Questions of Syntax and Semantics (1982), word relations are divided into two types according to strategies for selecting word forms. The formal-grammatical type is based on the lexical and morphological classes of words and their inflectional categories; agreement and correlation belong to this type. In the case of semantic-formal strategies, word forms are selected depending on semantics that reflects relations among elements of reality and on the grammatical structure of the language; the word relations of this type are government and adjunction.
The need to rely on semantics in syntactic research and to proceed not only from expression to meaning but also in the opposite direction is also emphasized in the paper “Some Features of the Syntactic Norm of Case Constructions,” read at the conference Language Norm and Functional Styles. The conference abstracts (1984) demonstrate the complex interrelationship between units of syntax and semantics and reveal the prerequisites for the formation of syntactic synonyms. The need for a collocational dictionary of the Lithuanian language is highlighted.
Apžvalginiame straipsnelyje „Sintaksinė semantika (semasiologija)“ (1983) ši kalbotyros kryptis apibūdinama kaip „sintaksės tyrimas pagal tiesioginį kalbos vienetų ryšį su jais žymimais tikrovės daiktais, procesais, reiškiniais“ (1983: 11–12), nusakomi pagrindiniai jos principai.
In the article “Some Types of Syntagms with Quantitative Meaning in Russian and Lithuanian,” written together with G. V. Maksimova (Maksimova, Labutis 1985), the semantic agreement (in terms of quantity) of event verbs with their direct objects is examined. Lithuanian and Russian word combinations consisting of verbs whose semantic structure contains the logical notion of plurality are investigated in greater detail (e.g., catch birds, cut down willows, etc.). Unlike in Russian, meanings of plurality and partitivity in Lithuanian are conveyed not only by prefixes of verbs with the corresponding root, but also by iterative suffixes (-yti, -inėti, etc.).
In more recent works, the Professor’s keen interest in another theory of contemporary grammatical research—functional grammar—is evident. The distinctiveness of the functional approach to language, the purpose of functional grammar, and certain methodological issues are explained in the article “Language Practice and Functional Grammar” (1994c).
The Professor continues to teach a course in Lithuanian functional grammar to master’s students at Vilnius University, so further work by him in this field may be expected.
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From around the late 1970s onward, the Professor increasingly explored problems of the sentence.
In the paper “Predicativity and the Word Combination,” read at the 1979 conference Problems of Contemporary Linguistics, the view is taken that predicativity is precisely what distinguishes a sentence from a word combination. A separate type of predicative combinations should not be distinguished, since this would erase the boundary between a word combination and a sentence, which, in the Professor’s view, is already a past stage in the development of syntactic science (1979b: 49).
The article “Possibilities and Tasks of Syntactic Description” (1981b), published in Linguistics in 1981, may be regarded as programmatic. It demonstrates the diversity of methods of syntactic description and the complexity of the phenomenon being described. It examines the understanding of the fundamental concepts of syntax—the sentence and the word combination. The importance of linking syntax and semantics is emphasized once again: in the author’s view, “what matters most in syntactic semantics is the meanings of syntagmatic (or syntactic) relations <…> and the meanings of categories associated with sentence predicativity” (ibid.: 57). Syntax can be described comprehensively only by combining two opposite lines of inquiry: proceeding from meaning to form as well as, conversely, from form to meaning. In the author’s view, two levels of syntactic analysis must be distinguished: word forms and word combinations, on the one hand, and the sentence, on the other. He is skeptical of attempts to “combine the findings of syntactic studies based on different, sometimes directly opposing, principles” (ibid.: 59). At the end of the article, the most pressing tasks facing Lithuanian syntactic science are formulated as follows: “1) to improve and deepen the traditional study of the syntax of contemporary Lithuanian; 2) to undertake serious research into apparent syntax <…>; 3) to create a historical syntax of Lithuanian <…>; 4) to compare Lithuanian syntactic facts typologically with those of other languages <…>; 5) to investigate and describe the levels of Lithuanian syntax from different perspectives, according to different principles and aspects; 6) to investigate semantic-syntactic structure (syntactic semantics); 7) to engage in discussions of theoretical issues in syntax” (ibid.: 59). The Professor himself undertook nearly all of these tasks in his scholarly work.
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The Professor’s many years of scholarly and teaching work culminated in the major work Syntax of the Lithuanian Language. It is not only a textbook for higher education institutions, but also a scholarly monograph and a synthesis of earlier research, covering the full range of syntactic phenomena. In less than a decade, three editions of this book have already appeared (1994, 1998, and 2002).
In the monograph, the syntax of word relations and combinations is regarded as one of the main branches of syntactic science and is examined in a separate chapter. The concept of valency in the monograph differs somewhat from that in the study Problems of Word Combinations: valency is regarded as an approach to syntagmatic relations determined by the lexicon (1994: 23). In the author’s view, valency cannot reveal sentence structure because it “has no direct connection either with the orientation of the predicated feature toward the speech act—which determines the essence of the sentence (sentence predicativity)—or with sentence intonation” (ibid.). This view differs from that set out by N. Sližienė and V. Ambrazas in Grammar of Contemporary Lithuanian (cf. Ambrazas, ed. 1994: 587ff.). Word combinability is distinguished in the monograph from valency as the broader concept. Syntagmatic relations are distinguished from semantic relations: the former are established between words and their forms as instances of direct semantic interaction, whereas the latter hold between the constituent units of a sentence. Unfortunately, this distinction is not explained clearly enough (cf. ibid.: 42, n. 2). In the new book, the relation of the nominal part of the predicate and the predicative attribute to the verb is no longer considered attraction between words, but a type of adjunction (there
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(p. 37). The formal relations between word forms in the monograph are distinguished in the same way as in the study Žodžių junginių problemos, except that the term coordination has been replaced by correlation, probably borrowed from the academic grammar (or correlation). The concept of this relation remained essentially the same as before, but the textbook distinguishes more of its types; for example, correlation is also identified between indeclinable word forms functioning as subject and predicate: Sunku šieną vežti; Gyventi – tai ne duoną kepti (ibid.: 41–42). The concept of government is somewhat refined in the monograph: in defining this syntactic relation, it is noted that not only cases but also prepositional constructions may be governed. Adjacent attachment may also involve inflected word forms: not only predicative (or predicate) attributes and nominal parts of the predicate, but also adverbial nominatives and comparative sentence constituents (expressions): Kas rytas bėgo su kitais vaikais į mokyklą; Per kitas dvi pamokas jis sėdėjo kaip medinis (ibid.: 37–38). Word forms linked by a two-way relation are included in the class of word combinations more clearly in the monograph than in Žodžių junginių problemose, although they are considered specific word combinations (ibid.: 45–47). As before, word forms linked by a coordinating relation are considered homogeneous sentence constituents forming certain constructions, but not word combinations (ibid.: 46). The relation between the concepts of grammatical construction and word combination is defined more clearly in the monograph: the latter concept is narrower, and word combinations are regarded as binary constructions with a certain degree of syntactic and semantic autonomy (ibid.: 44). Word combinations are classified according to structural, formal, and semantic criteria.
In the chapter on verbal combinations, new groups of combinations with participles and copulative combinations are introduced. The latter consist of a verb with an independent meaning (a copula), together with a word functioning as the nominal part of the predicate, and a word form functioning as the subject. Combinations formed by deverbal nouns are described in the monograph not in the chapter on verbal combinations (as before), but in the chapter on nominal combinations. Five types of combinations are distinguished by meaning; completive combinations do not constitute a separate type—they are now discussed in the chapter on object combinations (ibid.: 84).
In the textbook, the sentence is defined in terms of its semantic, formal, and predicative-structure aspects. Its most important properties are considered to be predicativity and separate intonation (ibid.: 108). The communicative function of the sentence is emphasized (ibid.: 109). Sentences are formed according to formal and semantic structure patterns and are characterized by certain word-order tendencies (ibid.: 107). In terms of structure, sentences are classified according to the number of predicative centers into simple and complex sentences, and according to the number of members in the predicative center into two-member, one-member, and zero-member (or unanalysable) sentences. According to the relation of the predicative center to the grammatical category of person, both two-member and one-member sentences are classified as personal and impersonal. In this respect, the monograph differs from other descriptions of Lithuanian syntactic structure. One-member personal sentences are considered to be sentences with an indefinite or unknown, or generalized, agent—the so-called indefinite and generalized-subject sentences (ibid.: 126–127). Sentences with an expressed agent of the action are called definite personal sentences; they are considered two-member sentences (ibid.). In the textbooks of J. Balkevičius and V. Sirtautas and Č. Grenda, sentences whose subject is unexpressed but inferable from the person of the predicate or from the context are called definite personal sentences (see Balkevičius 1963: 133–134; Sirtautas, Grenda 1988: 22–23); in their textbooks these sentences are considered one-member. Impersonal sentences with a subject, which, in the Professor’s view, “is semantically drawn into the predicative center” (Labutis 1994: 125), are considered two-member, though with reservations. The word forms that make up the predicative center of impersonal sentences indicate the absence of a connection with the grammatical category of person (ibid.: 127–128). The author classifies impersonal sentences into four types: simple—
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—infinitival, nominative, and zero-member sentences. In the textbook by Sirtautas and Grenda, only the first are considered impersonal. Balkevičius also considers infinitival sentences impersonal, while the academic grammar is, in this respect, closest to the Professor’s work.
The predicative center of simple impersonal sentences is most often formed by impersonal verbs or neuter forms of adjectives (ibid.: 128). Three problematic types of simple impersonal sentences are considered separately. First, an impersonal sentence may have a formal subject expressed by an infinitive, for example: Draudžiama nuvažiuoti autotransportui nuo asfalto. When such an infinitive is used after a neuter form, it “leans more toward the predicate”; consequently, in the author’s view, it is appropriate to consider such sentences impersonal (ibid.: 131). Second, sentences with a genitive subject and a predicate expressed by a neuter participle are considered impersonal, for example: Suprato ji, kad čia ateinama žmogžudžių (ibid.: 132). Sentences with verbs in the predicative center expressing existence, emergence, or processes of decrease or increase, and a genitive expressing an indefinite quantity, quantitative content, or negation, are also similar to impersonal sentences, for example: Ir buvo gi triukšmo; O pas mus purvo aukščiau kelių (ibid.: 132–133). Third, sentences whose predicate is “an infinitive of a verb denoting sensations, with an optional finite verb form,” and whose object is expressed by an oblique case or a subordinate clause, are considered impersonal, for example: Vėjo malūnų tame krašte visai nebuvo regėti (ibid.: 132).
Infinitival sentences are considered impersonal because the infinitive “does not directly indicate a connection with the grammatical category of person” (ibid.: 132). Attention is drawn to sentences in which the infinitive “does not enter into a syntagmatic relation with a dative subject and [they] can be reconstructed not as an impersonal sentence but rather as a two-member sentence: Dėdė treptelėjo koja: – Gult! (J. Mikel.) Šitokį berną paleist iš rankų! (J. Balt.)” (ibid.: 133).
Zero-member sentences are considered grammatically “unanalyzable utterances consisting of a word that does not function as a sentence constituent, or a very close combination of such words” (ibid.: 137). They are also called quasi-sentences because they lack the structural pattern characteristic of a sentence. It becomes clear only from the diagram that zero-member sentences are considered impersonal (ibid.: 138). Incomplete sentences are distinguished from zero-member sentences and examined separately. They correspond to a sentence constituent or a clause in a complex sentence. A characteristic feature of such sentences is their dependence on context or situation, without which they are simply incomprehensible. When incomplete sentences are only loosely connected with the context, they constitute a special subtype—the elliptical sentences (ibid.: 142). Professor V. Labutis’s concept and classification of zero-member and incomplete sentences are close to those given in J. Balkevičius’s textbook (cf. Balkevičius 1963: 151–155). It differs more from the description of corresponding sentences in the textbook by V. Sirtautas and Č. Grenda: in the latter, elliptical sentences are not considered a subtype of incomplete sentences; appended sentences (parcellation) are also distinguished from incomplete sentences on the basis of function and discussed separately (Sirtautas, Grenda 1988: 28–29). Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos gramatikoje incomplete sentences and other sentence fragments are regarded as instances of the realization of a sentence’s grammatical form in speech; they do not constitute separate types of sentence structure and should therefore be objects of textual rather than syntactic research—the grammar sets them aside (Ambrazas, red. 1994: 476).
The book defines a complex sentence as “a complex unit of communication (utterance), consisting of two or more predicative structures, which reports two or more situations and the relation between them” (Labutis 1994: 145). Complex sentences are classified and described in a manner similar to that in Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos gramatikoje: first, sentences with conjunctions and without conjunctions are distinguished; the former are then divided into subordinate and coordinate sentences, while the latter are grouped according to their clauses
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the nature of semantic relations. In the monograph, linking words are considered to include not only relative pronouns but also certain particles performing the function of conjunctions (ibid.: 150). Bipartite and multiword complex sentences are examined separately. The book presents a structural and functional classification of subordinate clauses. Structurally, subordinate clauses are divided into integrated clauses (with a whole-sentence subordinate clause) and embedded clauses (with a subordinate clause functioning as a separate word). The latter are divided into explanatory and expanding clauses. The subordinate clause in explanatory sentences explains the content of verbs, adjectives, or abstract nouns in the main clause. The subordinate clause in expanding sentences may be relative, specifying, or attributive. Relative or descriptive clauses are those introduced by a relative pronoun or adverb and having a correlative word in the main clause (ibid.: 159). Specifying clauses begin with the conjunctions kad, jog; they “elaborate on what is expressed incompletely in the main clause by an adjective or adverb accompanied by a pronoun signaling that incompleteness, toks, tas, or by the adverbs taip, tiek” (ibid.: 159). Such subordinate clauses may also be linked directly to a pronoun or adverb. Unlike in Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos gramatikoje, the Professor also classifies as specifying such comparative sentences “whose subordinate clause is linked to an adjective or adverb, especially to their comparative form” (ibid.: 159–160). Attributive subordinate clauses express a quality of an object, are associated with a noun in the main clause, and most often begin with the pronoun kuris (ibid.: 160). Integrated subordinate clauses are further classified according to the function of the subordinate clause in relation to the whole sentence. The view is maintained that subordinate clauses are often synonymous with, and compete with, the corresponding sentence constituents. Subjects, objects, and predicates expressed in their usual forms have no clear synonymous subordinate clauses (ibid.: 162). Overall, the structural classification of complex subordinate sentences essentially corresponds to that given in the academic Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos gramatikoje.
Coordinate sentences are structurally divided into sentences with open and closed, flexible and inflexible structures. According to the content of the interaction between their clauses, four types of coordinate sentences are distinguished: additive, disjunctive, adversative, and conclusive. Unlike in the academic grammar, V. Labutis does not distinguish a separate type of coordinate sentences with a specifying function. Clauses linked by the conjunction o may form additive or adversative coordinate sentences (ibid.: 166, 169). As in the academic grammar, asyndetic sentences are examined separately from sentences with conjunctions. They are grouped according to structure (open and closed) and the nature of the semantic relations they express. The Professor considers asyndetic sentences with a single subject to be not complex sentences but simple sentences with homogeneous word groups (ibid.: 175). Appending (like parenthesis) is treated in the textbook as a separate type of syntactic relation and is contrasted with both subordination and coordination, including asyndetic coordination (ibid.: 175). Complex appended sentences include sentences with quite varied structures: clauses linked by the conjunction ir (nepatinka, ir tiek); by the inflected forms of the pronoun kas and the adverb kaip (these correspond to the appended subordinate clauses in Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos gramatikos); clauses linked by the particles ypač, tik, bent, nebent (Koks ponas, toks tarnas, – tik prekių ieško); and even some asyndetic sentences (Bet jam neišeina taip kaip tėvui, net visai nepanašu). Multi-clause complex sentences, like asyndetic sentences of complex structure and mixed sentences in the academic grammar, are examined in the monograph according to their modes of combination (structure).
The second part of the book is devoted to sentence constituents. In the Professor’s view, “A conception of syntax that bypasses any sentence constituent does not fully reveal those syntactic phenomena that the study of the sentence
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constituents addresses” (ibid.: 192). Its syntactic function in the sentence is considered the most important feature of a sentence constituent. A sentence constituent is defined as “a word, a word form, a combination thereof, or a phrase that performs a certain function in the sentence in relation to the whole sentence and is directly related in meaning and grammatically to another element of the same level in the sentence” (ibid.: 197). V. Ambrazas, for example, regards a sentence constituent as a unit of sentence structure distinguished according to the syntactic relations between word forms (Morkūnas, ed. 1999: 546). Structurally, sentence constituents are divided into simple and complex. Unlike Lietuvių kalbos gramatika and V. Sirtautas (Sirtautas, Grenda 1988: 53), phrase-like sentence constituents are treated as simple. The subject and predicate are considered the principal sentence constituents, of equal rank. An object or adverbial related to the whole sentence is called a situant (ibid.: 204). It is emphasized that, owing to the distinctive nature of syntactic phenomena, it is not always possible to identify a sentence constituent unequivocally in particular cases. Often, it is even more important “to show how it is identified by setting out one’s arguments” (ibid.: 210).
V. Ambrazas defines the subject as a sentence constituent connected to the predicate by a syntactic relation of mutual association (Ambrazas 1999). V. Labutis defines the subject as the principal sentence constituent “which, together with the predicate, forms the predicative center of the sentence and denotes the object or matter to which, in forming a sentence, a feature oriented to the speech situation is attributed” (Labutis 1994: 211). In the Professor’s view, the definition of the subject cannot be based on the nominative case, even though it is the subject’s basic form. In personal sentences, the subject may be expressed not only by the nominative and phrases containing a nominative, but also by the genitive of indefinite quantity or partitive meaning, or by the genitive plural of a collective noun, e.g.: Rudenį atvažiuodavo į girią vyrų; Cinoko dar neišvirė, o Baltaragio jau sėdo valgyti. Sentences with the verbs būti, atsirasti, kilti, didėti, mažėti and the like, used in the third person, and with a genitive subject are considered personal, e.g.: Kiekvienoje dirvoje yra kūkalių; Tuoja ant stalelio atsirado visokių valgių ir gėrimų. This classification relies on the possibility of using a nominative, or a phrase containing a nominative, with the same verb form. A genitive subject may also denote the bearer of an attributive feature, e.g.: Senosios būta šnekios. In V. Labutis’s view, impersonal sentences may also have a subject. It may be an infinitive or an infinitival construction, e.g.: Išeiti į gatvę jai vienai buvo uždrausta; a neuter form, e.g.: Viena teb uvo aišku...; the pronouns kas, viskas, niekas, e.g.: Bet kas buvo įsakyta, tai turėjau atlikti (ibid.: 223). Sentences with the passive voice and a genitive object are also considered impersonal, e.g.: Ar ir ten žmonių gyvenama? (ibid.: 224). Sentences with a agreeing adjective functioning as a predicative complement and a genitive may be regarded as personal or impersonal, e.g.: Sesers būta labai gražios (ibid.). Sentences with the verbs rūpėti, parūpti and the like, and a nominative subject are also considered impersonal, e.g.: Mergoms tik ištekėti rūpi, daugiau nieko (ibid.). Sentences with the negative verb būti and a genitive, e.g.: Tokių žmonių, kaip buvo Jurgaitis, jau nebėra, are considered impersonal because “Without changing the predicate, the genitive cannot be replaced here, since it is determined by negation” (ibid.: 220). The function of the subject in a sentence may also be performed by a predicative clause—a subordinate clause. In the book, subject clauses are examined as one of the ways in which a subject is expressed.
The predicate is defined in the book as “the principal sentence constituent determining the predicative center of the sentence, by which a feature attributed to something and oriented according to the speech act is expressed in the sentence” (ibid.: 226). The concept of the predicate is associated with that of the subject; therefore, in impersonal and nominative sentences, the main constituent is considered a predicate only with certain qualifications. Structurally, predicates may be simple or compound. The former are divided, as in V. Sirtautas and Č. Grenda, into simple predicates (cf. Sirtautas and Grenda’s pure predicates), phrasal predicates, and analytic predicates. The latter consist of compound verb forms—compound tenses and passive—
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… type. The view is held that such a predicate attributes one feature to the subject; its “two constituents are connected at the level of morphology, with no syntagmatic relation between them” (ibid.: 231). Following the tradition dating back to J. Jablonskis, compound predicates are divided into compound-auxiliary and compound-nominal predicates. The nominal part of a compound-nominal predicate is called a predicative. In the monograph under review, the predicative (or predicative-type) attribute is understood more narrowly than in academic grammars (Ulvydas, ed. 1976: 437–454; Ambrazas, ed. 1994: 490): the nominative of an adjectival word connected with an independent verb is treated as a second, supplementary predicate (Labutis 1994: 250–252). The chapter on the predicate also examines subordinate clauses of predicate. Unlike academic grammars, a boundary is drawn between comparative expressions and subordinate clauses of the comparative-predicate type: the latter are identified when “the comparison consists of at least one of the main parts of the sentence” (ibid.: 255). Thus, a comparison is also regarded as an elliptical subordinate clause as Mykolas in the sentence I want to be as learned as Mykolas. In describing the relations between predicate forms and subject forms, different meanings are assigned to the concepts of agreement (of adjectival words) and correlation (of nominal words and finite verb forms).
On the basis of the subject’s position in the passive transformation into a direct object, the Professor classifies as genitives only the genitive of negation and the genitive of indefinite quantity (ibid.: 268). The genitive with verbs expressing striving, lack, fear, and the like is treated as an indirect object (unlike in Grammar of Contemporary Lithuanian; cf. Ambrazas, ed. 1994: 488). According to their relation to the predicate, objects are classified not only as direct and indirect but also as peripheral objects. They “are usually supplementary, secondary objects—they occur with predicates that already have a direct or indirect object, and sometimes another peripheral object” (Labutis 1994: 274). Complex objects consisting of a secondary predicative center, with a converb or participle (constructions with double case marking), are termed compound objects by the author (J. Jablonskis’s term). The same chapter also examines subordinate clauses of direct, indirect, and peripheral objects.
According to meaning, adverbials of place, time, cause, condition, concession, purpose, quality, and quantity are distinguished, along with the corresponding subordinate clauses. The semantic subgroups and expression of each type of adverbial and subordinate clause are described in detail. For example, subordinate clauses of quality are divided into two subgroups: direct quality clauses and comparative clauses. In terms of structure, direct quality subordinate clauses are further divided into inclusive, or substitutive, clauses (I will live as no one has lived), descriptive clauses (Not everything went as they imagine), and relative clauses (As one works, so one earns). Expanded participial, half-participial, and converbial adverbials are examined separately, and the question of their independence in the sentence (and hence of their punctuation) is discussed.
Understanding parentheticals broadly, the author distinguishes three groups: parentheticals grammatically connected to parts of the sentence, those not so connected, and forms of address, which are examined as a particular type of parenthetical.
A separate chapter discusses matters of direct and reported speech related to sentence structure. The monograph is notable for its consistent separation of structural analysis from syntactic analysis. Throughout the book, considerable attention is paid to punctuation and matters of language practice. The principles of punctuation are presented separately in the book’s final chapter.
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The Professor was also interested in the history of research on Lithuanian syntax. For example, the article “Syntax in D. Klein’s Grammar” (1990) examines the structure and principal concepts of the syntax section in our first printed grammar. It offers valuable observations on the translation of this Latin grammar-
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… into Lithuanian. In the author’s view, D. Klein can be considered “the pioneer in describing the use of Lithuanian cases and certain other forms, having brought to light interesting and still significant facts in this field and indicated guidelines for their scholarly interpretation” (ibid.: 117). One must also agree with the article’s emphasis on the importance of examining earlier descriptions of Lithuanian grammatical structure: “Unless we thoroughly examine and comprehensively assess all our grammars, including their individual chapters, we will not have a genuine history of Lithuanian linguistics. Without it, contemporary grammatical scholarship often ‘discovers’ things that were already known long ago or draws unwarranted conclusions” (ibid.: 118).
The commemorative article “Lietuviškos kalbos gramatikai – šimtas metų” (2001) is also devoted to the history of our linguistics. It surveys the circumstances surrounding the creation of J. Jablonskis’s first grammar, its theoretical principles, structure, more important definitions, and terminology. The normative character of the grammar is highlighted; V. Labutis assessed it as “a work that laid the foundations of our traditional grammatical scholarship, formulated many of its fundamental principles, and has retained its value to this day in clarifying and establishing the usage and norms of numerous individual aspects of the language” (ibid.: 14).
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Professor V. Labutis has published reviews of several works on Lithuanian linguistics.
S. Krinickaitės knygelė Kalbų raiškos savitumas (1984) recenzento vertinama kaip bandymas užpildyti lietuvių kalbos gretinimų su kitomis kalbomis spragą (1985c). Tačiau grožinės literatūros originalų ir vertimų lyginimai, Profesoriaus nuomone, „nėra labai patikimas kelias pereiti prie kalbų raiškos savitumų ir net prie būdingų kalbos modelių“ (ten pat: 29). Lietuvių ir rusų kalbų gretinimo vaizdas būtų tikresnis, jeigu savitumai autorės būtų rodomi bendrybių ir panašumų fone. Knygelėje kartais nedaroma skirtumo tarp meninės kalbos faktų ir kalbos sistemos savitumų, kliūva pernelyg platūs apibendrinimai.
Recenzijoje „Žodžių dažnio žodynus panagrinėjus“ (1999a) aptariami Laimos Žilinskienės ir Vidos Grumadienės parengti dažniniai dabartinės rašomosios lietuvių kalbos žodynai mažėjančio dažnio (1997) ir abėcėlės (1998) tvarka, daugiausia dėmesio skiriama pastarajam. Žodyne pasigendama buitinio stiliaus leksikos, daugelio kasdien vartojamų žodžių: buitinių realijų, augalų bei gyvūnų pavadinimų, kultūros srities ir su intelektine veikla susijusių žodžių, abejojama dėl tekstų atrankos principų. Dėl šių priežasčių siūloma jį laikyti ne dabartinės lietuvių kalbos, o keturių funkcinių stilių žodynu (p. 108). Recenzuojamame žodyne pasigendama žadėtų tikrinių žodžių dažnio duomenų. Neaiškūs kalbos dalių nustatymo kriterijai, todėl kalbos dalių statistikos lentelės nekelia pasitikėjimo. Su rūpesčiu konstatuojama, kad žodyne gausu nenorminių žodžių, todėl norminimo reikalui, V. Labučio nuomone, žodynas „labiau tiktų kaip klaidų šaltinis“ (p. 112). Recenzijoje daroma išvada, kad žodyno sudarymo principai autorių nepakankamai apmąstyti, pats „žodynas ir jo atramos taškai, deja, dažniau nuvilia nei džiugina“ (p. 113).
J. Balkevičiaus Lietuvių kalbos predikatinių konstrukcijų sintaksė (1998) trumpai apžvelgiama Gimtosios kalbos žurnale (Labutis 1999b). Jame paskutinis žymiojo sintaksininko veikalas ypač vertinamas kaip „savita sintaksės mokslo studija, kurioje nuosekliai plėtojama vientisa verbocentrinio sakinio pamato koncepcijų visuma“ (1999b: 14). Kiek išsamiau ši studija ir kiti J. Balkevičiaus darbai aptarti Baltistikoje paskelbtame drauge su B. Stundžia parašytame nekrologe (Labutis, Stundžia 2001).
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It is hardly possible for a single survey to cover the full range of the Professor’s scholarly work. Nor is that the aim of this essay. The intention was at least to sketch the directions and methods of the Professor’s research into the grammatical structure of the Lithuanian language and to reveal the development of his scholarly views. A comprehensive analysis and evaluation of V. Labutis’s work remains a task for the future.
On the occasion of his seventieth birthday, one would like to wish the esteemed Professor many more creative years – ad multos annos!
LITERATŪRA
AMBRAZAS, V. 1976: [Diskusijos]. Mūsų kalba 4, 30–31.
AMBRAZAS, V., red. 1985: Грамматика литовского языка, Вильнюс: Мокслас.
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