Žodžių sąsajos žymėjimas „Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos žodyne“ (santrumpos „žr.“ vartojimas)

LIETUVIŲ KALBOTYROS KLAUSIMAI XXXIX (1998) Daiva MURMULAITYTĖ Institute of the Lithuanian Language, Vilnius WORD CROSS-REFERENCING IN THE DICTIONARY OF THE CONTEMPORARY LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE (use of the abbreviation žr. [see]) 1. The introduction to the Dictionary of the Contemporary Lithuanian Language (hereafter DCLL) (p. XII) states: “The abbreviation žr. (= žiūrėk [see]) directs northern, dialectal, obsolete, borrowed, and other similar words or derivational variants to words more widely used in the standard language.” The dictionary contains about 2,700 entries with this abbreviation; in some entries for polysemous words it is used several times, so in total there are about 2,840 occurrences of the abbreviation žr. Thus, this cross-referencing method is used to explain a considerable part of the DCLL lexicon, which, judging from the quotation, is quite diverse; several of its more characteristic groups can be identified approximately. 1.1. Dialect words—about 300 entries. Most are marked žem. (Samogitian)—105, e.g., bėngti žem. see b a i g t i; with other labels: tarm. (dialectal)—91, e.g., dubùrkis tarm. see d u b u r y s, ryt. (eastern)—71, e.g., čižyla ryt. see z y l ė 1, vak. (western)—10, e.g., bamblỹs 8. vak. see t r a n a s, dz. (southern)—3, e.g., kiáukė dz. see k u o s a, aukšt. (High Lithuanian)—1: spáugas aukšt. see s p u o g a s. A few words have two dialect labels, e.g., lùstas ryt., dz. see l u i t a s. The reverse also occurs—a dialect word is the one being referred to, e.g., búolis, -ė noun see b a u ž i s 1 – baũžis, -ė noun, eastern dialect 1. “hornless animal”; 2. “bald person”; dieninga adjective, feminine 1. see d i e n i – dienì adjective, feminine, Samogitian “one that will bear offspring, be pregnant (of animals).” It also happens that a dialect word is explained by reference to another dialect, e.g., the Samogitian adjectives škùlas, -à and šmùlas, -à are referred to the eastern dialect word baũžas, -à; the nouns škùlis, -ė and šmùlis, -ė—to the aforementioned baũžis, -ė. 1.2. Archaisms and other obsolete words—about 50 entries, e.g.: ãšmas, -à clnt. sktv. obs. see a š t u n t a s, ceratà obs. see k l i j u o t ė 2, driežãgvviai plural, obsolete see d r i e ž a i, įtekmė obsolete see į t a k a, etc. 1.3. Loanwords (international words) and hybrids—about 180 entries, e.g.: diãmetras see s k e r s m u o, gazifikãcija see d u j o f i k a c i j a 1, 2, gazifikúoti see d u j o f i k u o t i 1, 2, titulìnis, -ė see a n t r a š t i n i s. The reverse also occurs—a native word is referred to an international one: greitraštis see s t e n o g r a f i j a; or a loanword is explained by referring to another loanword—filodéndras see m o n s t e r a. 240 1.4. Derivational variants – words in this group are probably most often presented with the abbreviation žr. (‘see’), e.g., ankštybas, -a žr. a n k š t y v a s, dalinti žr. d a l y t i, galvoviršis žr. v i r š u g a l v i s, kailin(i)ūkai pl. žr. k a i l i n ė l i a i, prasikal­tėlis, -ė noun žr. n u s i k a l t ė l i s, and so on. 2. According to the Dictionary’s Preface (p. V), the abbreviation žr. has a standardizing function: it “directs a word or word variant that is not considered a language error toward a more usual, more frequent word.” It is therefore unsatisfactory for this label to be so “polysemous” that it is used in cases so different from the point of view of the norm. For example, it is used with an incorrectly formed but very common compound bendrakeleivis, an archaism ašvà, as well as international verbs with the suffix -izuoti (konkretizuoti, populiarizuoti, sistematizuoti), the foreignism mūsas, and other similar cases, which are not considered language errors in “Kalbos praktikos patarimai” (hereafter KPP), though it advises against their use because better variants exist; alongside these are derivational variants that do not violate the language norm in any way (kirmėlėtas, -a žr. k i r m ė l ė t a s, laistyklė žr. l a i s t y t u v a s) or simply synonyms (kopūstainis žr. b a l a n d ė l i s 3). It is particularly unsatisfactory that a few words which KPP recommends avoiding are marked n. svet. (unacceptable foreignisms) and n. vert. (unacceptable calques), and are strictly corrected, are not considered language errors in DLKŽ—they are not marked ntk., but are simply redirected to another word with the abbreviation žr. These are liberāliškas, -a, liū̀kras, merlūza, tūbas, viršpėlnis and zubrāžolė (cf. KPP – zūbras n. svet.). In general, checking what KPP says about words that DLKŽ presents with the abbreviation žr. shows that a few words (abažūras, buljōnas, propagandistas, ceratà, štābelis, štabeliuoti) have somewhat better variants, but may be used alongside them; about 50 words are not considered language errors, although their variants are preferable (e.g., savarankiš, -i, tòpolis, traktoristas, -ė, and others); the six words mentioned above are strictly corrected. In KPP, words that differ in status with respect to the norm are presented differently; cf.: abažūras ‖ lé mpos gaìbtas, tòpolis – preferably tūopa, viršpėlnis n. vert. – aņtpėlnis. In all three cases, DLKŽ’s presentation using the abbreviation žr. is identical. 3. The abbreviation žr. is used to redirect an entire headword or individual senses of it to other words or their individual senses. It seems that DLKŽ more often redirects an entire word; its entry is usually short and insufficiently informative, e.g.: ain||lis, -ė noun (2) žr. p a l i k u o n i s, giedr||ūs, -i (4) žr. g i e d r a s, vakar||áuti, -áuja, -ávo žr. v a k a r u o t i, and so on. If the redirecting word more or less “suggests” the meaning of the defined headword, many users probably do not consult the Dictionary or look up the entry for the redirecting word. Thus, on a cursory review of the entries for the words under discussion, without examining their semantics too closely, it may seem that 241 the vast majority of words presented with the abbreviation žr. are monosemous. In reality, this is not the case. Sometimes, a “number added after the redirecting word indicates which sense the word should be understood in,” e.g.: padis (2) žr. p a d ė l y s 4 (that is, padis has only the fourth sense of padėlio). If the word referred to is polysemous but has no indication of one or another particular sense, it should be understood in all its senses, e.g.: bumbėti, būmba, -jo žr. b a m b ė t i (that is, bumbėti has all the senses of the word bambėti)” (Introduction, p. XII). The latter presentation clearly does not show that the headword is polysemous, since it is not immediately clear how many senses the redirecting word has. It is true that in 28 cases (only about 1% of all entries with the abbreviation žr.), several senses of the redirecting word are indicated in the redirection, e.g.: daubti žr. d u o b t i 1, 2, karščiai 2. žr. k a r š t l i g ė 1, 2, skridulys žr. s k r i d i n y s 1–3, and so on1. On the other hand, elsewhere an analogous phenomenon is presented differently; cf.: užkaistis 1. žr. k a i š t i s 1; 2. žr. k a i š t i s 3; 3. žr. k a i š t i s 4. So why could the cases mentioned above not also be presented as daubti 1. žr. d u o b t i 1; 2. žr. d u o b t i 2, and so forth? This would make the word’s polysemy immediately apparent. This matters in view of the computerized version of DLKŽ. Its program is designed to sort words according to whether they are monosemous or polysemous. However, a computer cannot do this if the word’s senses are not numbered. As a result, the verb brukúoti žr. b u r k u o t i (the second, redirecting verb has three senses in DLKŽ) and the noun šalìdė žr. š a l i n ė 1, 2 (although this presentation might at first glance seem more acceptable, since the user can see that the reference is not to just one sense) are both treated as monosemous. For this reason, the statistical data produced by the computer are inaccurate. More importantly, quite often a headword redirected by the abbreviation žr. to a polysemous word is assigned senses that LKŽ does not list2. These are most often figurative senses. For example, DLKŽ gives – bamblỹs western dialect žr. t r a n a s, trãnas 1. “male bee”; 2. “someone who does no work, lives off others’ labor; an exploiter.” LKŽ I 634, meanwhile, lists 15 senses of the noun bamblỹs, but the sememe ‘exploiter’ is not among them. Another example is añtrašas 1. “inscription”; 2. žr. a d r e s a s; DLKŽ gives two senses for this redirecting noun – ãdresas 1. “someone’s place of residence, its indication”; 2. “a letter of greeting addressed to a person or institution.” 1 In one case, the reference is not even to individual senses of the same word, but to three homonyms – kaipõ žr. 1, 2, 3 k a i p. This would mean that three homonyms kaipõ are explained in a single entry, but are not marked in the manner characteristic of homonyms; alternatively, the word kaipõ has three senses corresponding to the three homonyms kaip. In either case, it is clear that this presentation needs correction. 2 In some cases, one might suppose that a particular volume of LKŽ was published long ago and that the word may have acquired a new sense in the meantime. Nevertheless, there are too many such discrepancies for them all to be explained by semantic change; it is much simpler to suspect that they are oversights by the editors of DLKŽ. 242 In LKŽ I 171–172, there is no entry for the word with the latter meaning. After checking 76 words beginning with the letters a–g in LKŽ, in whose entries DLKŽ uses the abbreviation žr., one may assume that such discrepancies may amount to about 30%. There were even more complicated cases: several homonyms in LKŽ become a polysemous word in DLKŽ, and the existence of these multiple meanings is further “concealed” by the abbreviation žr. For example, DLKŽ gives: griaudùs, -ì žr. g r a u d u s and graudùs, -ì 1. “heart-rending, sad, plaintive, wretched”; 2. “brittle, crumbly, crackly.” LKŽ III 575, meanwhile, lists three homonyms: 1 griaudùs, -ì “sad, plaintive, wretched”; 2 griaudùs, -ì “cruel, rough”; and 3 griaudùs, -ì “brittle.” 4. Sometimes the cross-reference word is stylistically marked, for example: agurkininkas, -ė noun 2. see 2 a g u r k i n i s, 2 agurkinis, -ė noun colloq. “a cucumber lover”³; greitligė see g r e i t o j i, greitoji noun colloq. “diarrhea”³; dvakinti eastern dialect see d v o k l i n t i, dvóklinti colloq. “to wander aimlessly, as if dazed; to gawp”; bliūti see b l i a u t i, bliáuti 1. “to shout, bellow”; 2. derog. “to cry loudly”; 3. derog. “to sing badly”; 4. colloq. “to widen (a hole).” If this presentation is to be understood as indicating that stylistic labels such as colloq., derog., etc., apply not only to the cross-reference word but also to the main definitional word, then one must conclude that some DLKŽ words lack stylistic labels. Accordingly, precise statistical data on which a detailed further analysis could be based cannot be expected either, since the computer searches only for formal features. Thus, when it is necessary to extract and count all words bearing the label colloq., the list it generates will include neither agurkininkas, -ė, nor greitligė, nor dvakinti. 5. The use of the abbreviation žr., like cross-reference-based word definitions in general, is convenient as a way of saving space in the Dictionary. But every coin has two sides: various cross-references mean that the book has to be consulted more often; frequently, to find the meaning of one word, one must look up the entries of several other words, which may themselves contain cross-references to still other words. This is inconvenient for Dictionary users. Moreover, when the route from a word to its meaning is so long, it is hardly surprising that various oversights, typographical errors, and the like occur along the way. Sometimes it begins to seem that, after going round in a circle, one returns to the original word, yet its precise meaning still has not been clarified; on the contrary, what had been clear has become confused and uncertain. Several “inconvenient” cases of using the abbreviation žr. for users can be distinguished. 3 In colloquial speech, the noun greitoji is probably more often used to refer to an ambulance; this meaning is not recorded in DLKŽ. 243 5.1. When defining a word, the abbreviation žr. is used several times, for example: 1 gąjus see alijošius, alijošius see alavijas, alavijas bot. “an indoor medicinal plant of the lily family with fleshy leaves (Alöe)”; rūdýmė see rūdynė, rūdýne see rūdynas 2, rūdynas 2 “wet soil mixed with peat; a boggy meadow, marsh”; drunėti see drunyti, drunýti 1. see trunyti 1, trūnyti 1. “to rot dry, to decay, to crumble,” etc. 5.2. The cross-reference word to which the abbreviation žr. points is itself also defined by means of cross-references, using other abbreviations—d žn. mžb., įst., prp., prž., etc.—for example: duodïnėti see davinėti, davinėti freq. dimin. of duoti 1: To give someone money, advice, duóti 1. “to cause someone to receive; to provide, assign”; čýpauti see cypauti, cýpauti dialectal form of cypti: Mice squeak. Why are you squeaking like a dog? Snow squeaks under the sled, čýpti “to produce a thin, shrill voice”; 2 báldyti see baltinti, báltinti 3. see balinti 1, bālïnti 1. dialectal variant of balti: To bleach linen, bálti “to become white, to whiten.” The examples show that illustrations sometimes help users find their way to some extent. However, examples of usage, however numerous, cannot replace a definition, which one still has to search for at considerable length. 5.3. When the cross-reference word is an ordinal numeral, a reflexive verb, or an adjective with the suffix -inis, it is directed to the base word with an arrow (→), for example: dvylikis, -ė ordinal numeral, eastern dialect, see dvyliktas, dvýliktas, -a ordinal numeral → dvylika: The twelfth hour. He will return from the trip on the twelfth of November, dvylika cardinal numeral “the number and quantity 12”; dráik(i)otis see draikytis, draikýtis 1. → draikyti (...), draikyti usually dreikti 2: The wind scatters straw around the yard. To scatter threads. || reflexive: The cobwebs spread without wind, driekti 2. “to spread, to extend”; preventyvinis, -ė see prevencinis, prevencinis, -ė → prevencija: Preventive work, prevencija “elimination by forestalling” (cf. preventyvus, -i “preventive”—here the word is simply defined using the same adjective to which the previously mentioned adjective preventyvinis is directed). 5.4. The cross-reference word is defined by a single word. For users (especially those with a weaker command of Lithuanian), such a definition is essentially nothing more than another cross-reference, equivalent to the abbreviation žr., since they must continue browsing the Dictionary if that one word is unclear to them. For example: gribštūkas, -ė noun see grabštukas, grabštūkas, -ė noun “thief,” vagilius, -ė noun “thief of small objects”; gurulys see gurinys, gurinys “crumb”: A bread crumb. A little cheese crumb. || figurative. A clod of earth (a small plot) (...), trupinys 1. “a piece that has crumbled or been broken off”; 2. “a small piece.” Incidentally, it may also happen that a word which, on its own, constitutes another word’s definition has no entry in DLKŽ and is not defined. 5.5. Attention could also be drawn to definitions of compounds, which are often tautological and likewise require consulting several other word entries, for example: dumblãžemis see dumblė 1, dumblė 1. “mud soil”; žiedkopūstis see kalafioras, kalafioras bot. “cauliflower” (Brassica oleracea var. 244 botrytis); ãngtarpis see t a r p a n g i s, tãrpangis “inter-window,” tarpùangis stat. “space between openings”; galvõviršis see v i r š ū g a l v i s, viršùgalvis “top of the head,” and so on. To find out what a word means, one sometimes has to encounter several of the “inconveniences” listed above and consult entries for four or even more words, e.g., gribštauti see g r a b š t a u t i, grabštauti “to pilfer,” vagineti colloq. dim. v o g t i, võgti “to take someone else’s property secretly and unlawfully, to appropriate it.” Main conclusions 1. Entries in the DLKŽ that use the abbreviation žr. (“see”) provide little information and often even mislead (with regard to language norms, word polysemy, and other matters). In the new Dictionary of Standard Lithuanian (hereafter BLKŽ), which should be edited systematically, it would be necessary to clearly define which groups of words should be explained in this way. 1.1. There should not be many such groups; for example, less frequently used derivational variants, and perhaps obsolete words (which must be marked psn.). 1.2. If dialect words have made it into the BLKŽ, they are evidently not simply substitutes for or variants of standard-language words, but name some phenomenon or object specific to speakers of that dialect; therefore, their definitions should be more detailed. If dialect words are often used in literature or are characteristic of the language of well-known writers, they should be presented with appropriate illustrations. In any case, the reference žr. (“see”) alone is clearly insufficient here. 1.3. If a foreign (international) word names a concept that has no good Lithuanian equivalent, then it must, of course, be defined and illustrated in detail. Unacceptable foreignisms (biznesmenas, daidžestas, ofisas and similar words from the list of major language errors) should be marked with the abbreviation ntk., if they should be included in the BLKŽ at all. 2. It is quite clear that the abbreviation žr. (“see”) should not conceal words that are discouraged because better alternatives exist, nor words that can be used alongside their preferable alternatives. Alternatively, such cases should be distinguished by additional labels or symbols. 3. It should always be borne in mind that sending users from one dictionary entry to another is inconvenient, so the abbreviation žr. (“see”) and other cross-referential explanations of word meanings should be substantially reduced in the BLKŽ. It would be inappropriate to abandon this method altogether, since, for example, the arrow sign (→) is useful for directing transpositional derivatives with no specialized meanings to their base words, and so on. For the same reason, concepts should not be defined in a single word, since essentially this is nothing other than the same abbreviation žr. (“see”)—if the user does not know that sole 245 if the user does not know the word’s definition or knows it only imprecisely, they must look up its entry and check. 4. The abbreviation žr. (“see”) often “conceals” a polysemous word and, in rare cases, even homonyms, since the polysemy or homonymy of the word in question can be discovered only from the entry for the cross-reference headword. Sometimes this assigns to a word meanings not listed in LKŽ. Moreover, when a cross-reference points to a polysemous word, the individual sememes of that word are not numbered; consequently, a computer cannot provide accurate statistical data, and the exact ratio of monosemous to polysemous words in the Dictionary cannot be known. 5. Sometimes the cross-reference headword carries stylistic labels (colloq., derog. etc.), field labels (bot., zool., tech., etc.), and other labels. It is not always clear whether these also apply to the main word, the one redirected by the abbreviation žr. If they do, and if the two words are alike in stylistic status, field, or figurative transfer of meaning, then both should be labelled accordingly. At present, however, only one of them is labelled, so the Dictionary does not show how many colloquial words, figurative meanings, and so on there actually are. The article has by no means surveyed all the issues observed in a brief examination of the use of the abbreviation žr. in DLKŽ. This short overview was intended only to draw attention to some inconsistencies and cases requiring correction. Received 1998 02 23 ABBREVIATIONS BLKŽ – Dictionary of Standard Lithuanian. DLKŽ – Dictionary of Modern Lithuanian, Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidykla, 1993. KPP – Kalbos praktikos patarimai, Vilnius: Mokslas, 1985. LKŽ – Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language 1, Vilnius: Mintis, 1968; 3, Vilnius: Valstybinė politinės ir mokslinės literatūros leidykla, 1956. THE INDICATION OF THE CONNECTION OF WORDS IN THE DICTIONARY OF THE MODERN LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE (The use of the abbreviation žr. (see)) Summary There are about 2700 entries in The Dictionary of the Modern Lithuanian Language, in which the abbreviation žr. (see) has been used, and this cross-reference has been used 2840 times in all. The head words of such entries aren’t defined, they are cross-referred to more widely used 246 words. Such a way of the presentation of meanings isn’t handy for user, because he must look for information in several places of the Dictionary. On the other hand, when the word is presented in this way, the polysemy of the word, its stylistic and other peculiarities in many cases are not revealed. Though the reference žr. “has a nominative function” (as it is said in the Preface of the Dictionary), the parallel variants, words, which have better variants in the standard language, and some words, which aren’t proposed to use, are presented with this abbreviation in the same way. It would be useful in the future Dictionary of the Standard Lithuanian Language to use the mentioned cross-reference more rarely in the definitions of the meanings of the head words. 247