Nominatyviniai sakiniai

LIETUVIŲ KALBOS GRAMATINĖ SANDARA LIETUVOS TSR MOKSLŲ AKADEMIJA NOMINATIVE SENTENCES V. LABUTIS § 1. It is only recently that works on Lithuanian syntax have begun to discuss nominative sentences1. It is now necessary to examine more broadly the structure, meanings, and usage of these distinctive Lithuanian sentences2. § 2. Nominative sentences are one-member sentences consisting of a noun, or another word used substantivally, in the nominative case (alone or with a modifier), which states that an object or phenomenon is present or exists, announces or reports it, or points to it. Nominative sentences are distinguished from other sentences by specific features of expression, content, and function. It is useful to examine these features in somewhat greater detail. 1) Nominative sentences, like other one-member sentences, have a single principal sentence constituent which, in general, corresponds neither to the subject nor to the predicate of a two-member sentence3. 1 The term “nominative sentences” has not yet become firmly established in Lithuanian; cf. J. Žiugžda and P. Gailiūnas, Lietuvių kalbos gramatika, II, Sintaksė (Bandomasis vadovėlis), Kaunas, 1964, p. 53, where “nominative-case sentences” are discussed, and J. Balkevičius, Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos sintaksė, Vilnius, 1963, p. 146 (which contains a section entitled “Nominative Sentences”). In works on Russian syntax, alongside the term «номинативные предложения» one also finds «назывные предложения»; cf. А. Н. Гвоздев, Современный русский язык, II, Москва, 1958, p. 80. 2 Neither in general linguistics is there agreement or a consensus regarding the concept of nominative sentences or their distinction from two-member sentences and sentence equivalents. The question of the syntactic functions of the principal word in a nominative sentence is particularly controversial. 3 In numerous works on the syntax of Russian and other languages, the principal constituent of a nominative sentence is now considered to be related neither to the subject nor to the predicate of a two-member sentence; cf.: Грамматика русского языка, т. II, Синтаксис, ч. II, изд-во АН СССР, Москва, 1960, p. 55; Н. С. Валгина, Д. Е. Розенталь, М. И. Фомина, В. В. Цапукевич, Современный русский язык, изд. 2-е, Москва, 1964, p. 346; В. И. Борковский, П. С. Кузнецов, Историческая грамматика русского языка, Москва, 1965, p. 429; Б. П. Ардентов, Номинативные предложения в современном русском языке, «Ученые записки Кишиневского государственного университета», т. 60 (филологический), Кишинев, 1959, p. 76; В. П. Шутова, Семантические типы номинативных предложений в современном русском языке, «Ученые записки Саратовского государственного педагогического института», вып. 17, Саратов, 1955, p. 258—259; Mūsdienu latviešu literārās valodas gramatika, II, Sintakse, Rīgā, 1962, p. 479, 488, Daug kas ta vardi- 117 Autumn. And what else will there be, if green summer has passed. MontvR I 134. Evening. The sun is about a good handspan above the ground. SimonNTP 164. Sometimes the main element of a nominative sentence resembles the subject (a) or the nominal predicate (b) of a two-member sentence (cf. § 3 of this paragraph). a) Answers must be given quickly and loudly, so that even the deaf can hear. Everyone’s first and last name. Family matters. Address... SruogDM 50. O forests, forests!.. how pleasant to remember... MairRR I 56. b) “Andrius Varnelis?” the editor asked. “Yes,” the lad replied cheerfully... VencIGD 278. In the first sentences (a), although the nominatives are related to the predicate of the adjacent sentence, they are nevertheless pronounced with a separate, complete intonation; their primary purpose is to name an object. In the other case (b), the nominative names an object (person) and at the same time asks about something inferred from the situation or context. In this latter respect, the nominative is also close to a nominal predicate. Here, however, it has the intonation not of a separate sentence element but of a whole sentence. A. Shakhmatov’s words remain relevant to the nominative sentence: “The main element of a one-member sentence may formally be compared either with a subject or with a predicate, but, of course, one must not forget that such a ‘predicate’ differs from the predicate of a two-member sentence in that it evokes the image of both a predicate and a subject”4. Thus, the main element of a nominative sentence can be compared with a subject or a predicate only in a relative sense5. 2) The main element of a nominative sentence is expressed by the nominative case of a noun or of another word used substantivally (a numeral or pronoun). This distinguishes these sentences from elliptical sentences formed from other noun cases. (In a particular context, any noun case may function as a separate elliptical sentence.) 3) The main element of a nominative sentence is characterized by a nominative function: it identifies and names an object or phenomenon. …have regarded the nominative as a predicate; cf., for example, A. M. Пешковский, Русский синтаксис в научном освещении, изд. 7-ое, Москва, 1956; sometimes it is simply called a subject; cf. A. Г. Руднев, Синтаксис современного русского языка, Москва, 1963, p. 44. In works on Lithuanian syntax, the principal word of a nominative sentence is also sometimes regarded as a subject; see J. Žiugžda and P. Gailiūnas, cited work, p. 53. 4 А. А. Шахматов, Синтаксис русского языка, изд. 2, Ленинград, Учпедгиз, 1941, p. 30. 5 Although they recognize the one-member nature of the nominative sentence, some linguists nevertheless regard its main element as a subject in some cases and as a predicate in others; see Е. М. Галкина-Федорук, К. В. Горшкова, Н. М. Шанский, Современный русский язык, Синтаксис, Москва, 1958, p. 127. The function of the main element of a nominative sentence is also sometimes differentiated in works on Lithuanian syntax; cf. J. Balkevičius, cited work, pp. 148—149. 118 A sentence does not have this function when the nominative noun that forms it is linked to corresponding parts of the preceding sentence by a clear subject or nominal-predicate relation (cf. § 1 of this section). And who will give you that land? The master? And why would the master give you land? Myk-PutS I 43. You are something else. You are the master. A great man. VaičiūnD 39. And then it was night. A dark, cold winter night. SimonOBT 7. These are distinctive elliptical sentences. They differ from nominative sentences in their intonation as well. 4) The main constituent of a nominative sentence may have modifiers. In these sentences, however, it is always important to emphasize the very existence of an object or phenomenon, rather than to foreground its attribute. Sentences of a similar structure in which the attributes of an object are emphasized are not nominative but two-member sentences, since the word expressing the attribute functions as the predicate, while the noun in the nominative functions as the subject. Nominative sentences: Choice light snacks, sweets, liqueurs, strong black coffee. At first Irena simply enjoyed the snacks... VaižgRR II 93. Late afternoon. The wind beats at the rags of clouds, through which the sun keeps peering more warmly. AvyžŽLŽ 59. Two-member sentences: A mad day! Marta Kareivienė could not call it anything else. VenclGD 28. “New trees, new fellers,” said Antanas Cinokas. ŽemR II 70. Sometimes a modifier that expands a nominative sentence may have a shade of circumstantial or object meaning (a), but clear words belonging to the predicate group (objects or adverbials) cannot occur here, since they obscure the sentence’s nominative function (b). a) The park. The river. Flowers in the meadow. Student days... Wine, a man, his friends disturbed Adelė’s equilibrium. TilvR II 112. Here, in this notebook, all his greatness is pasted together. A few printed lines about the success of the sowing. This is the first drop to fall into the cup of pride, which was still empty then. Correspondence about corn. This is the second drop, which he then swallowed sweetly... AvyžŽLŽ 226. b) In the little forest, a peaceful silence. Here and there, a startled squirrel, leaping into the thicket, makes the branches rustle. ŽemR II 323. It is nearly noon; the sun is moving southward. KrèvAP 72. “Here is a letter for you,” said the forester. ŽemR II 334. The latter sentences (b) are not nominative, although they do somewhat resemble them. 5) The nominative function of a sentence does not require the time of the named object or phenomenon to be stated explicitly, but the content of such a sentence is usually associated with the present; and if names of objects (phenomena) in the past or future are stated here, the speaker perceives them as if they existed in the present. 119 Evening. Nature is growing ever quieter. The herd is gasping. TPrg III 123. To the capital—that’s the place to go! I’ll find plenty of ways to enjoy myself there, too. The theater, books, concerts, social circles! VaičiūnD 230. Petras, having spread out the papers, was thinking... Beer, pastries, vodka... I bought them; it all had to be paid for. ŽemR I 181. Thus, nominative sentences must be distinguished on the basis of the full complex of their structure, content, and functions. If only their formal expression (the nominative case) were considered, it would often be impossible to find any boundary between nominative sentences and elliptical sentences, which may also consist of a single noun in the nominative6. Whether a sentence is nominative or not often becomes clear only from the broader context or situation, from the rhythm of speech, or from sentence intonation (cf. § 8). § 3. From the structural point of view, nominative sentences are divided into non-extended and extended sentences. A non-extended nominative sentence has only a principal constituent, either alone or accompanied by certain dependent words (see § 4). An extended nominative sentence is one whose principal constituent has one or more modifiers (see § 5). Non-extended nominative sentences § 4. The principal constituent of a non-extended nominative sentence is most often a noun, and only occasionally a numeral or pronoun used nominally. Sometimes certain particles, conjunctions, or interjections are also attached to the principal constituent of a nominative sentence. In addition, a nominative sentence may contain words unrelated to its principal constituent—vocatives and parenthetical words. Springtime. Everywhere it is beautiful and peaceful. ŽemR I 131. Jaunmiestas! Run faster! Goodness, how beautiful! CvR II 24. Another day. A golden morning. Petras’s head rolling away. TilvR II 169. But the stranger did not sit down; he kept running ahead of the cart and, turning back, showed the way. There is the little hut. VienR I 336. A lake, indeed. Frogs croak their peculiar songs in it. SimonAŠL 91. There is a nasty taste in my mouth, and my ears are ringing. Fatigue. Or perhaps illness? AvyŽLŽL 104. Glance out the window—and there’s a fire. LKŽ III 281. Why, it’s a spring! What, are they twisting you around their little finger, little ones? BalčAP 271. Or nails... Those of his aren’t much to speak of! Mine are no worse. KrėvP 251. Ah, art, art! May it be damned if he does not escape slavery! SruogR III 13. Wind, oh wind! Wind, and nothing but wind! SNėrP1 52. An observant person, looking from the sidelines, could have noticed many things and differences between Rimas and Nerimas... First of all, their appearance. VaižgRR II 11. The old lady, of course, is a servant... You can’t just take off whenever you feel like it. ŽemR I 118. 6 Nominative sentences could be distinguished solely by the nominative case only if sentences expressed by the genitive, accusative, and other cases were distinguished alongside them, cf. Mūsdienu latviešu literārās valodas gramatika, II, p. 485. 120 Just think, to get such a rich man! Three thousand! SimonNTP 351. — Five, ten, fifteen, twenty... she counted the hundreds of tied-up slips of paper LzPR VII 64. Here we are, your servants! What will your grace command? DonM 16. A nominative sentence in which a particle accompanies the principal member often comes close to a two-member sentence, since the particle (for example, again, already, aure...) conveys a circumstantial nuance of the phenomenon or some other logical, modal, or emotional nuance, weakening the nominative function of the sentence. When the particle is especially emphasized in a sentence, the sentence should not be considered nominative. Šis, tuojau iš po kadagio išbėgęs, sako: — Štai piemuo! DaukŽP 47. Antai duona, pasiimk! Užv. (Sakinio loginį kirtį turi štai, antai). The examples given above show that the principal member of a nominative sentence may be repeated. There are unexpanded nominative sentences with several homogeneous principal members. Meadows, scrubland, little hills. SruogDM 17. A fence, a little gate, a threshold, a porch... He hesitates a little more—whether to go or not? TilvR II 219. It happened that he had to travel to Vilnius on bank business. Wind, sleet. You wouldn’t drive even a dog out. VaižgRR II 66. Extended nominative sentences § 5. The principal member of a nominative sentence may have an independent word dependent on it—a agreeing or non-agreeing attribute (or both together). The agreeing attribute is most often an adjective, but it may also be a participle, pronoun, numeral, or noun (apposition). A black night. The sky shrouded in thick fog. ŽemR I 102. On the road, Zosikė delights in such fast driving, seeming to fly straight up into the sky. Ever-new impressions, new people, all kinds of talk, much of it incomprehensible to her. ŽemR II 17. The threshing itself. One ought to go around the brigades. AvyžŽLŽ 199. The newspaper lines speak. 1944. These days the Sodeliai textile factory “Nemunas” will begin work. T 1964 208. An unexpected blow. Hard. The parents’ agitation and grief are understandable. T 1964 177. And those poor little shepherds! For them there is neither rain nor fair weather... ŽemR I 106—107. The non-agreeing attribute of the principal word in a nominative sentence may be: a) the genitive case, b) other cases, and c) prepositional constructions. a) The end of March. A lovely frost overnight. SruogDM 121. Factory chimneys! Once you seemed like ghosts to me. MiežŽ 95. The parents’ land... in their thoughts, more than one Lithuanian separated from it wanders back to it. T 1964 184. b) Autumn in Paris. Wet. The boulevards are bright. SNėnP₁ 177. The Ninth Fort in Kaunas. In its museum, among many others, here 121 among the photographs of fighters who had been imprisoned, one shows bold, open eyes looking at us from a worker’s face. T 1964 208. c) Soon Jonas was bargaining with that man. A complaint to the court. Jonas would not write it for less than a ruble, while the man offered half a ruble. ŽemR II 301. A square near an old Prussian castle. Somewhere in the distance, the Lithuanians are rumbling. Mantas enters. GrušHM 9. Some suspicious rustling. Two men breathing faster. Furious snorting through clenched teeth. SruogDM 43. A nominative sentence is often expanded by both a agreeing modifier and a non-agreeing modifier. A deaf autumn night. CvR₁ I 39. A hot midsummer noon. A cloud passed over. I took my bow and went into the grove. MašlAMB 202. A cold sphinx of granite! To see once and love until morning, and utter not a word. SNėrP 82. A quiet, light day at the end of the battles. The snow covering the fields is blackened, slushy and, perhaps, the last. CvR₁ I 352. Extended nominative sentences composed of a cardinal numeral and a noun in the genitive deserve separate mention. — Thirty years... Janulis whispered... VienR I 140. Come by my place one day. I received my bonus this morning. One hundred and fifty kilograms of wheat, like gold AvyžLŽ 166. Modifiers that expand a nominative sentence may themselves have specifying, comparative, or other independent words attached to them. The result is fairly complex extended nominative sentences. Exactly 4 p.m. The most important thing is to unload on time. T 1964 208. Every day, the sun and songs of longing for me; every day, I gather wildflowers for you. The sky and youth—a breathing sea. Only you, only you, I cannot find there. SNėrP 40. Gailiūnas’s sketch was called “Sowing.” A wide, freshly ploughed field and a patriarchal sower striding across the full two-meter canvas. The sun, a clear sky, and red farm roofs in the distance. MarcinkPKJ 31. A modifier expanding a nominative sentence usually precedes the main constituent and only rarely follows it. Centuries-old fir trees, carved from black stone. And a white birch sapling cuts through the darkness of the trees. Trš. And before my eyes passes a scene from the not-so-distant past: there is a little hut, built of clay and covered with straw. SimonAŠL 10. A word expressing a quality or state that follows a noun in the nominative much more often functions as the nominal part of the predicate, and the sentence as a whole is not nominative but bipartite. Incidentally, as mentioned (cf. § 1), when a word expressing a quality or state is emphasized, the sentence is sometimes bipartite rather than nominative even when that word precedes the noun in the nominative. 122 A splendid morning. A beautiful, warm day dawned. ŽemR II 328. Short, but also unpleasant, autumn days. The sky is overcast; it rains almost without a break. MašIAMB 187. Thick shirts, but at least they are our own. PP 131. Thus, although an expanded nominative sentence does exhibit certain tendencies in word order, word order alone cannot be used to determine when a sentence is nominative. § 6. Nominative sentences may be not only separate, independent syntactic units, but also clauses in compound sentences. In a subordinate construction, a nominative sentence is used rather rarely, either as a main clause or as a subordinate clause. Somewhat more often, a nominative sentence occurs only as a main clause with a subordinate clause attached by the word which. Images of recent days rise up in my memories. People, their faces glimpsed only in passing, houses in the cities, with extinguished yet seeing eyes, gaze into the night of the forty-first year and await the attack, and the dust of the Smolensk roads, carried on the eyelashes of thousands of people... CvR I 394. Even the little sun grows sad as it looks down from the boundless heavens: stubble fields and stubble fields, growing grayer and blacker by the day. SimonaASL 178. It’s winnowing, it’s raking—so they found a bast shoe in the bread! PP 425. If there’s an uprising, then we’ll make Skrodski jump too... Myk-PutS I 116. If it’s the scorching heat of summer—clouds of mosquitoes. LKŽ V 82. Much more often, a nominative sentence is joined to another sentence by coordinating conjunctions and, or, but, however, or by intonation and meaning alone—with no conjunctions. One door, another: corridor, courtyard, door—and I’m already in the underworld. SruogDM 29. The land there is admittedly somewhat poorer, but there is more of it. Besides, there is pastureland and forest, and if relations with the master are good, they will get fuel and meadows to mow as well... Myk-PutS I 524. A shady nook, leaves rustling, birds chirping—what more could one want, what more!.. GriCLG 153. We must look carefully at that place. A stone... a mound on the other side... a hollow between them. AvyžŽLŽ 315. It’s so beautiful here now: the sun, everything has turned green. VaičiūnD 246. With this thought, a flash came to my mind: father. I need to talk to father. MarcinkPKJ 14. In the asyndetic sentences just discussed, an emphatic pause is generally made between the nominative sentence serving as a clause in the compound sentence and the other clause, and the intonation changes; therefore, the nominative case of the noun here is not simply the subject (or predicate) of an adjacent sentence, but a new predicative center—the principal element of a nominative sentence. In meaning, nominative sentences serving as clauses in compound sentences do not differ from independent ones, so their meanings can be discussed together. 123 Classification of nominative sentences by function and content § 7. All nominative sentences name an object or phenomenon, but the functions of these sentences, their purpose in language, are not entirely the same: some state an object or phenomenon as presently existing (or at least imagined or remembered as presently existing), while others report the appearance or emergence of an object or phenomenon, point to it, or introduce it; in still others, the object or phenomenon is not merely stated, but its emotional evaluation is also expressed. The function and purpose of a nominative sentence in language determine its intonation and, in turn, the nature of its content. All this becomes clear from the style of speech, the situation, and the context. By their function and purpose in language, three groups of nominative sentences can be distinguished: 1) existential, or those stating the existence of an object or phenomenon; 2) those with an emphasized communicative function; and 3) emotional, or evaluative, sentences. Of course, there are no strict boundaries between these groups. Moreover, each group contains sentences with quite varied content. All nominative sentences can be uttered with declarative, interrogative, or exclamatory intonation, but sentences in one semantic-functional group tend to have one kind of modal and emotional coloring, while those in another group have another; for example, so-called evaluative nominative sentences are almost always exclamatory (see § 16). 1. Existential, or sentences stating the existence of an object or phenomenon § 8. The most usual and striking are existential, or object- or phenomenon-existence-stating, sentences. They are used in descriptions or narratives to convey a static, condensed image or situation. Sentences of this type are most often characterized by a calm declarative intonation, with marked pauses that set them apart from the context. Existential sentences may also be exclamatory, and occasionally interrogative. By content, three groups of existential nominative sentences can be distinguished: a) those stating natural phenomena; b) those stating objects; and c) those expressing images and memories. a) Sentences stating natural phenomena most often convey the general situation or circumstances (especially the time). Autumn. We stand on the fortress rampart and gaze far out across the blue expanses of the sea. BalčAP 119. Deep night, and I still lie awake, waiting for you. SNėrP1 105. Eight o’clock in the evening. The machine whistled—the day’s work was over. PaukštK 197. Rye harvest. A frightening heat torments people and animals. SimonASL 29. The broad spring sky! The fields laugh with flowers! And we fly through the window of the world—the children of freewheeling whirlwinds! SNėrP1 58. Thaw. Snow lies piled half a foot deep, white and soft. MašiAMB 168. They pack the cabin full and drive across the yard. Noise and merriment, while Kampaitis smiles and hops about. DovPK 202. 124 Sentences describing circumstances or a situation usually serve as an introduction to the ensuing narrative and are therefore generally used at its beginning. Only occasionally are such sentences inserted among other sentences or uttered as a conclusion, a summary of what has been said earlier. That autumn passed. Winter. And already another spring. CvR1 II 317. You go freely into the enemy’s castle and return again. It is wartime. The castle is surrounded. You tell us the commander is in the castle, while the commander is at liberty. GrūšHM 71. Then all at once she began laughing with her sister: it was morning, while still at home the rooster had crowed, and the two of us—I was afraid of the dead! BiIR I 172. A fresh gust of wind roared through, and water pattered down from the trees. And once again, silence—a deafening, restless silence in the forest. BaltPV I 85. Strange whistles, rustlings, and howls drift from the garden and park with the gusts of wind. An eerie night. Myk-PutS I 149. b) In nominative sentences that state the presence of things, the name of a single thing is rarely given; more often, several things are enumerated in one such sentence, or sentences stating the presence of individual things form an entire series of nominative sentences. Such nominative sentences are especially characteristic of stage directions in dramatic works, though they are also used in descriptions generally. They too most often occur at the beginning of a context or situation, but when needed can be inserted in the middle of a context or uttered at the end of a phrase as a certain explanation, result, or characterization of something. A village between Joniškis and Žagarė. The Paugas homestead set back from the street. SruogAD 51. A classroom. Morning. The pupils are gathering. BinkA 51. A bell. Lunch. Now, hurry to the ward—to feed the children. SimonNTP 24. A beautiful riverside. Slopes. The Venta. Nightingales. Lapwings. And sunshine, sunshine! TPrg II 112. Mikas rides slowly, with only the master accompanying him. Beyond the cliffs he lets his hands and legs run free. At a gallop. Dust. An entire village races past, with women, livestock, and so on. CvR1 I 105. The telephone rings. A brief, precise reply, a note of a few words, a practiced hand turns the knob... All this shows that the unit is now being taken in hand not by novices but by experienced power engineers... T 1964 212. Later the door creaked again. Footsteps. CvR1 I 119. I’m leaving temporarily. Business. GricLG 224. At that moment a bomb hits the bridge. A deafening explosion. DovPK 259. I had seen, to be sure, only Vilnius and the road to Kaunas. Green fields, streams, forests even greener than the fields, and small hills... VencIGD 246. Nominative sentences of this kind are used not only to describe static scenes or situations, but also to state the sudden appearance or recognition of a thing. He had been turning onto the road, but suddenly noticed a cable stretched across the river. A ferry... AvyžŽLŽ 76. Alyzas stared dazedly at the money, as if unable to believe his eyes. Then suddenly he spat. “German scrap metal.” BaltPV I 245. “Why, indeed, uncle!” he exclaimed, surprised and delighted 125 Petras. Myk-PutS I 55. And what joy I felt when I suddenly saw, in the twilight, a clearing in the forest coming into view. A clearing! A clearing! BaltPV I 86. Guests from Soka(i)čiai!.. and so unexpectedly!.. MairRR II 26. He peered through the crack with one eye—and there was a calf! CvR I 125. Look—here are the avenue, the buildings, the lawns. LzPR VII 236. Some familiar voice rings out behind Mastaitis. Mastaitis turns around. Horsemen! Gud-GuzB I 265. Such nominative sentences have no clear communicative function: the speaker states the fact in them as if speaking to himself. With exclamatory intonation, they usually also express surprise at a suddenly recognized thing or other emotional nuances (cf. § 10). When uttered as questions, such nominative sentences most often indicate doubt, an uncertain assertion that this is one thing or phenomenon rather than another. “A concentration camp?!” We were so astonished that we leaned back. SruogDM 47. A superstition? Let it be a superstition, then. SimonVK II 109. The sounds of my native language rang so strangely in my ears, stirring such longing that I did not even notice myself pushing through the soldiers and offering them cigarettes before grabbing one by the elbow: “Lithuanians?” CvR III 256. A letter? For me? BinkA 119. A nominative sentence stating the presence of a thing, with an interrogative and surprised nuance, may be formed by repeating the nominative form of a noun (pronoun or numeral) from the preceding sentence. ...Look, you see, the fairies’ hair is flying about. “Those are cobwebs; they foretell fair weather.” “Cobwebs? Where did you see so many of them?” KrevAP 143. (Marytė)... And where is Mommy? (Jonukas) Mommy? She went to the barn. BaltR II 22. “The farmhands are asking to go to work, too.” “The farmhands? What am I supposed to do with them?” VaižgRR II 119. “Will you be home soon?” “Me?.. Not just yet...” VienR V 56. If we understood such a sentence merely as an ordinary repetition of the subject or nominal predicate of the preceding sentence, it would, of course, be an incomplete two-member sentence. These repetitions, however, are replies by another speaker, which announce the name of the thing mentioned by the person who spoke earlier. The isolation of the nominative used as a separate sentence is shown not only by pauses and intonation, but also by the fact that the same thing (cobwebs, farmhands, Mommy...) is subsequently referred to by pronouns (them, them, she...). The context would remain entirely understandable even if the isolated nominative sentence were omitted. Another matter is the repetition by the same speaker of nominatives corresponding to the subject or predicate of the preceding sentence (in order to emphasize an additional feature or for some other purpose). Once, long, long ago, gods lived in this forest. Peculiar gods. SruogDM 18. At the far end of the field, right beside the boundary ridge, I look—and there lies a dog. A big, brown dog. MašiAMB 42. And then it was night. A dark, cold winter night! SimonOBT 7. And I walk into the sunlight. I? We? MiežŽ 112. These nominatives are connected by clear predicative relations to the verbs in the preceding sentences, and therefore form incomplete two-member sentences rather than nominative sentences. 126 c) Besides those stating the existence of an object or phenomenon, there are also nominative sentences in which the name of an imagined or remembered object or phenomenon is expressed; however, it is uttered as though the object or phenomenon itself were before one’s eyes at the moment of speaking. Nominative sentences expressing images or memories are often characterized by the intonation of an interrupted sentence (in writing, this is usually indicated by an ellipsis). A nominative sentence naming an imagined object is often exclamatory. On his way home, Kimžas heard a commotion in his cottage and it suddenly occurred to him—gamblers. ŽemR III 251. He clouded over and clenched his teeth. Skrodskis!—a terrible thought pierced him. Myk-PutS I 116. (Viktoras) (taking the statuette from her). An eagle! A beautiful, magnificent bird. VaičiūnD 296. War! Was this really the same war he used to read about in books? AvyžŽLŽ 228. Mother... This word is spoken in our country with love and respect. Tsp. Petras had already heard quite a lot of grumbling against the landlords and the authorities. Take Doctor Dimša, for instance. Listen to him, and your fists clench on their own. And the priest Mackevičius of Paberžė! He pours it out both quietly among the people and publicly in his sermons—it is frightening even to listen. Myk-PutS I 64. Domas recalled his days as a farmhand. Evening gatherings, the rye harvest, threshing bees... AvyžŽLŽ 200. As soon as the Lithuanian division began to form, I joined the army. Long months of training, then the front. Traces of fire and blood, graves in the soil of Oryol and Kursk. CvR III 269. Others also joined the argument, all attacking the manor and counting their own grievances:—And so much more of that kind of stuff they squeeze out of us!—And the transport duties!... The forest!... Trips to the towns! Lodgings!...—And flax, wool, butter, cheese, nuts, berries! Myk-PutS I 207—208. And you no longer recognize things: how quickly some images have faded. Some have grown dim, while others, for some reason, have become more vivid. The manor... The overseer’s blow to the face... The white road winds like a snake. AvyžŽLŽ 130. Ah, youth! What could ever make it go to sleep! MarcinkKP 49. Three years, three years... Žilaitienė burst into tears. For the first time since her husband’s death. BaltVRA 79. 2) Nominative sentences with an emphatic communicative function § 9. Nominative sentences that are close to existential ones do not so much state that an object or phenomenon exists as report, announce, or point it out. These sentences have an emphatic communicative function: they are used to draw others’ attention to something. According to the nature of their content, they may be divided into: a) reporting, or signal, sentences; b) demonstrative sentences; and c) sentences expressing names and headings. 127 a) Declarative nominative sentences are often exclamatory, and may also be interrogative. “Did you hear? A strike!” he said, opening the door toward his brother. VienR V 99. “Vilnius, gentlemen! Hand over your tickets!” the conductors shouted. VaižgRR II 81. The swallows spotted the robber and hurried to warn the islanders. Rising toward the hawk, they began darting past it, crying: “Thief! Thief!” MašiAMB 112. “Why are you shouting, child, up in a tree?” “A mad dog!” I say. “Where?” “There, uncle, lying by that little ditch.” MašiAMB 42. Friends! Not another meter. Danger! T 1964 177. Fire! Fire! Varložiai is burning! ŽemR III 362. Or, if Adomėlis shouted, “Hey, girls, the tub!” “Now the squirrel dance! Everyone!”—then the boys and girls would rush into the dance again as though they had long been waiting for that word. Myk-PutS I 370. Sometimes such nominative sentences are like peculiar signals or calls to action (cf. Danger! Everyone!). On the other hand, they may also be close to sentences that state the presence of an object (cf. § 8). b) Deictic nominative sentences usually begin with demonstrative particles štai, aure, antai, va and are often exclamatory. Here are twenty sealed slips. Give one to everyone. BinkA 65. Here’s some tobacco, please. ŽemR I 24. “Look, what a big tree!” said the witch, pointing to a tree standing nearby. BalčAP 104. “Men, look, there are our people, the people from Kaunas!” someone among us called out. SruogDM 46. “Mother, this is my Kazelė, and this is my wife Domicė.” ValR 254. These nominative sentences are most often used prepositionally—before the sentences with which they are linked in meaning. Sometimes, in a nominative sentence beginning with the particle štai (šit, štai ir...), an object or phenomenon is not explicitly indicated, but is merely singled out and mentioned separately. Or here is another example. Four years ago, the novel “The Land and the People” by the Estonian writer R. Sirge appeared... KorsLD 123. Here is Bernotas Ringelė, for instance. How many people he has swindled in his lifetime... KrėvŽ 17. Here is another senseless victim! And what a victim! GrušHM 48. Sentences that introduce someone or something (as a way of making introductions) are very close to deictic nominative sentences. “Allow me to introduce you... My wife, the guests, the neighbors...” GričLG 228. Then, nodding toward the man seated at the table, he said: “Antanas Lukašiūnas, a strapping fellow from Zarasai County.” Myk-PutS I 120. No one answered him, so he came over to me and introduced himself: “Zenonas... I returned from the army in the autumn...” MarcinkPKJ 120. The young man held out his hand to Domas. “Let’s get acquainted. Reservist Corporal Ladyga.” AvyžŽLŽ 217. 128 c) Closely related to declarative and indicative nominative sentences are also names of institutions, enterprises, streets, cities, and the like, expressed nominatively, as well as headings of sections of books, journals, newspapers, etc.8. Ivory shop. The cheerful salesman offers me a bone souvenir, having placed it on the counter. MiežŽP 220. Comrade Vaišvila enthusiastically told us about a factory he was going to, whose name sounds rather strange to many. A bird factory! T 1964 217. There stood a splendid post painted in red and green stripes, with a sign bearing the correct Lithuanian inscription: Sakalynė Vidmantai Daržininkai. TPrg II 31. Cultural goods department. Here, paper and products made by the J. Janonis company are in great demand. T 1964 228. Petras smiled: “The Forest of Anykščiai.” More than once he had read this “little tale” to himself and to Katrytė. Myk-PutS I 372. As we passed, we stopped by the display windows: state trade, publishing house. MontvR I 209. 3. Emotional, or evaluative, nominative sentences § 10. Many of the nominative sentences mentioned above can have an emotional coloring, especially exclamatory ones (cf. §§ 8; 9). However, there are nominative sentences whose purpose is both to state the existence of an object or phenomenon and, at the same time, to express amazement at or admiration for it. The emotionality of nominative sentences of this kind, which often overshadows their very nominative function, is determined chiefly by special exclamatory intonation and emphatic and emotional particles (tai, kad...), or by combinations of words with similar meanings (kas per, štai ir, bet ir, na ir...), as well as by the pronouns koks, kas, toks. Before the last war I was in Kharkov Governorate: — what fields, what vast expanses! CvR₁ II 217. Such barking, such barking!.. GricLG 139. What weeping, what lamenting—it’s hard not to go and listen! Gs (LKŽ III 24). And the mud, too!.. Damn it all... KrėvRg 233. What an audience! What an audience! VaičiūnD 307. What a pig, what pigs! Lp. What a mess! MiežŽP 144. What tiny birds you have! JabIRR I 487. Nearly all the inhabitants gathered and surrounded the fox... Oh, how brown! — Oh, what a tail! — Oh, how soft! VaižgRR II 176. Nevertheless, the sentences mentioned above are nominative, because they state the very existence of an object or phenomenon; the object or phenomenon is simply named (although its emotional evaluation is also expressed). Let us compare them with purely evaluative sentences, composed of words whose meanings are evaluative in nature. 8Various naming sentences, like presentative, declarative, and descriptive sentences, are often distinguished from nominative sentences because they are thought to lack the meaning of asserting existence; cf. Грамматика русского языка, т. II, ч. II, р. 68—69. 9. Lietuvių kalbos gramatinė sandara 129 What have you got your heart set on there, for heaven’s sake? If only he were a man... A drunkard, a tramp, a swindler... you’ll struggle like a fly in whey. ŽemR II 309. How’s Dildė doing these days? A real craftsman! BaltPV I 196. A beggar among beggars... and look at him now, a delegate. Gud-GuzKlt 47, Thieves! Toads! May you choke on that honey and flour! VenclR III 157. “A man!” Poviliukas suddenly laughed, to everyone’s astonishment. BaltPV I 302. In these sentences, the nominative case of the noun does not have a direct nominative meaning; it is connected by predicative relations with what has been said earlier (or is clear from the situation). Incidentally, these are incomplete sentences that are most difficult to distinguish from nominative sentences9. § 11. Interrogative sentences formed from the pronoun koks, kas, kas per and another nominative are also non-nominative. The interrogative word in them is a nominal predicate. (Cf. the exclamatory nominative sentences mentioned earlier, which begin with the same words; see § 10.) What’s the weather like? LKŽ VI 300. Who is he, that writer of such remarkable talent? — we begin to wonder. KorsLD 584. § 12. Modal words, greetings, wishes, and the like can take the form of nominative sentences. Those tomatoes are burning my eyes. Shameful. As if I’d broken into someone else’s garden. AvyžŽLŽ 105. There was a village—and now there is no village. That’s not true! This village exists. MarcinkKP 5. You can trust me, at least. I’ll sort it out. A communist’s word! AvyžŽLŽ 75. (Jaskūnas) Hello, auntie. (Daubienė) Hello, my dear, hello. VaičiūnD 13. “Good night!” Jonelis whistled and rode off. ŽemR I 156. Such sentences lack a clear nominative function and are therefore either incomplete sentences or sentence equivalents. § 13. Nominative sentences express thought in a highly condensed, concise manner, so their use depends considerably on language style. Existential nominative sentences and those expressing images and memories are characteristic mainly of the narrative and descriptive language of prose works and of stage directions in dramas, whereas emotional and deictic ones are more characteristic of dialogue and the spoken language of poetry. In journalistic and scholarly writing, only nominative sentences used for various names and headings are somewhat more frequent; other nominative sentences are quite rare. § 14. Thus, nominative sentences form a distinct group of one-member sentences, unified by the expression of the substantival nominative, their nominative function, and distinctive intonation, but they are far from homogeneous and do not always clearly separate from two-member sentences (especially incomplete ones) or from sentence equivalents. 9It is not surprising that some analyze analogous examples from Russian as nominative; cf. E. M. Галкина—Федорук, К. В. Горшкова, Н. М. Шанский, cited work, p. 129, В. П. Шутова, cited work, p. 265. 130 NOMINATIVE SENTENCES В. ЛАБУТИС Summary The main characteristics of nominative sentences are as follows: 1) Nominative sentences, like other one-member sentences, have one principal clause member, which, in general, is identical neither with the subject nor with the predicate of a two-member sentence, although in some cases it may resemble one or the other. 2) The expression of the principal member of a nominative sentence by the nominative case of a noun (less often, a numeral or pronoun) distinguishes these sentences from elliptical two-member sentences, which are often expressed by other cases of the same parts of speech. 3) The principal member of a nominative sentence has a nominative function. In a sentence that likewise consists of a nominative case but is directly linked to the subject or predicate of another sentence, the nominative function recedes into the background—and the sentence becomes an elliptical two-member sentence. 4) Modifiers may be used with the principal member of a nominative sentence, sometimes even with a circumstantial or supplementary nuance, but here the name of the object or phenomenon itself is always important, not its attribute or state. An explicit adverbial or object indicates a weakening of the sentence’s nominative function and its transformation into a two-member sentence. 5) The content of a nominative sentence is related to reality. Even facts of the past or future are asserted as real in a nominative sentence. Structurally, nominative sentences are either unextended or extended. Most often they occur as independent sentences, but they may also be components of complex sentences. In terms of their functions and content, nominative sentences may be: 1) existential, asserting the presence of an object (phenomenon), 2) of emphatic communicative function, and 3) emotionally evaluative. In our opinion, the first group also includes sentences in which perceptions or memories are named in the nominative case. Nominative sentences with an emphatic communicative function include demonstrative and announcing sentences, as well as sentences that express various names nominatively (in the proper sense). An emotionally evaluative nominative sentence expresses both an evaluation and the immediate naming of the same object, rather than an evaluation of something said earlier; cf. Na ir publika! Na ir publika! Vaičiūn D 307 (What a crowd! What a crowd!) and Kad bent būtų vyras... Girtuoklis, valkata, apgavikas... Žem R II 309 (As if he were a man... A drunkard, a tramp, a cheat...) The latter sentence is elliptical. Also non-nominative, though close to them in form, are sentences expressing greetings, wishes, and the like. In nominative sentences, thought is expressed in a condensed, succinct form. Their use depends to a great extent on the style of speech. 9* 131