Sinoniminis žodžių reikšmių aiškinimas „Lietuvių kalbos žodyne“

LIETUVIŲ KALBOTYROS KLAUSIMAI, V LIETUVOS TSR MOKSLŲ AKADEMIJA SYNONYMIC EXPLANATION OF WORD MEANINGS IN THE “DICTIONARY OF THE LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE” A. LYBERIS The academic “Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language” is the first comprehensive, monolingual explanatory dictionary of the Lithuanian language. It includes not only contemporary vocabulary, but also words taken from the oldest written monuments of the Lithuanian language, from major dictionaries, collections of folklore, and other sources. The “Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language” contains especially abundant folk-language vocabulary, various dialectal and regional words, and widely known loanwords. The task of an explanatory dictionary is to define the meanings of words, bring out their various shades of meaning and style, and describe their use in language. The first volumes of the “Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language,” whose preparation began back in the years of bourgeois rule, did not aim to describe word meanings in detail or examine all their nuances. The effort was to bring out only the most important meanings and explain them as briefly and concisely as possible, making abundant use of synonyms and illustrative examples for this purpose. Many words, e.g., aklas, atviras, atbulas, badyti, baimė, baisus, dauba, dumdėti, etc., were explained solely by means of synonyms. Accordingly, an effort was made to provide as many illustrative examples as possible from literature and colloquial folk speech, leaving readers to discern from them the various shades of meaning for themselves. In this respect, the first volumes of the “Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language” remind us in many ways of the dictionary by the famous Russian lexicographer V. Dal1. Nevertheless, both V. Dal’s dictionary of the Russian language and the first volumes of the “Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language” use not only the synonymic method but also the descriptive method of explaining word meanings. First, not all words have synonyms; second, synonyms cannot always explain words precisely. For this reason, in many places the meanings of words in the dictionaries mentioned above are explained descriptively. The later volumes of the “Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language” (III—VI), prepared during the years of the Soviet system, differ considerably from the first volumes in their explanation of word meanings. 1 Compare V. Dal’s own view on explaining word meanings: «In explaining and interpreting a word, dry, sterile definitions—the products of scholasticism, the amusement of pretentious learning, which impart no meaning to the matter—were generally avoided... Conveying and explaining one word by another, and all the more by a dozen others, is of course more instructive than any definition, while examples clarify the matter still further. Explanatory Dictionary of the Living Great Russian Language, by Vladimir Dal, volume one, St. Petersburg, Moscow, 1880, p. XXII. 199 They seek to broaden the scope of word definitions, to examine word meanings and their nuances more finely and in greater detail, and to bring phraseological combinations of words to the fore, using for this purpose the methods of word definition developed in Soviet lexicography. Descriptive definitions of words are given priority, enabling their semantics to be revealed more broadly and precisely. However, some words continue to be defined by corresponding synonyms that are widely known and used in the literary language. This raises the question of when the synonym-based method of explaining word meanings should be used in the Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language. First, it should be noted that for the present we are concerned with lexical synonyms and will not address grammatical synonymy, that is, various derived and other word variants, for example: kuoka and kuokas, gedulas and gedulys, brolybė and brolystė, gyvulys and gyvolis, etc., since it contributes almost nothing new to the clarification of meaning, and in the Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language it is usually explained by cross-reference, for example: gyvolis, marked dial. (dialectal), is followed by the abbreviation see, directing the reader to the word gyvulys. If both variants are equally widely used and neither is preferred over the other in the literary language, one (the earlier alphabetically) is defined, while the other is merely explained by means of the first, for example, gaiveliosis, -iojasi, -iojosi gaivelėtis. Lexical synonymy is something else. These are not doublet word forms differing in certain derivational elements, but words with different sound forms and identical or similar meanings, used to denote particular shades of meaning or for stylistic reasons. In the Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language, lexical synonyms are used to define words in two cases: 1) as an auxiliary means in a descriptive definition and 2) as an independent means of explanation. Synonyms most often serve as an auxiliary means in a descriptive definition. In this case, the meaning of the word is first defined descriptively, after which (following a semicolon) a greater or lesser number of synonyms are given; for example, the word gabalas is first defined descriptively as “a separate part of an object,” after which synonyms are added — luitas, lustas, grumulas. The word kampas is defined in a similar way — “a place where two lines, planes, walls, or objects meet,” with the synonym kertė added afterward. Here, synonyms supplement the descriptive definition of a meaning, which is sometimes quite short and concise, and show that other words are also used for the same purpose; readers can look up explanations of their meanings under their respective entries. It may be that the meaning of the synonyms provided will be more familiar to the reader than that of the defining word, which will help the reader better understand the word being defined as well. It goes without saying that explaining one word by another cannot always be precise and accurate, since there are few words in a language whose meanings coincide absolutely. In this case, however, synonym-based explanation is merely auxiliary, since the descriptive definition of the word’s meaning is the basis of the explanation. When synonyms are used as an independent means of explanation, the meaning of the word is no longer defined descriptively; instead, the word being explained is simply juxtaposed with other words that have similar or identical meanings. In the Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language, lexical synonyms serve as an independent means of explanation in the following cases: 1) when explaining terms and regional words; for example, the technical term kėltuva is explained using the widely known literary words galvijas, gyvulys; gorūs — kartus, aitrus, gaižus; dagà — derlius, branda; kaikinti — erzinti, pykinti, tyčiotis, etc.; 200 2) when explaining obsolete words or words that have become archaisms, e.g., atakia is explained by the synonym kerštas; ašmas — aštuntas; godonė — pagarba; 3) when explaining foreignisms, slang words, and other words not used in literary language, e.g., glūšas (Polish głuszy) — 1. deaf... 2. foolish, stupid, dim-witted, unintelligent; kačėrga (Belarusian кацапра) — poker, stirring stick. The exceptions are words not used in literary language that have no Lithuanian equivalents. In such cases their meaning is described, e.g., karabelė (Polish karabela) — a short, broad, slightly curved sword; 4) when explaining unsuccessful or poorly formed neologisms or calques, e.g., apystova (Russian обстановка) — circumstance; ainis (unsuccessfully derived from the word atainis) — descendant, offspring, son; gintuvė (a formation by K. Širvydas) — fortress; gerbūvis (Polish dobrobyt, German Wohlsein) — well-being; išguldyti (Polish wykładać) — explain, set out; dangūtyra (an unsuccessful formation) — astronomy, etc.; 5) when explaining certain figurative meanings of words, e.g., the word karštas in the “Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language” also has figurative meanings: 2. sincere, zealous, strong (a burning desire, support, passionate love, heart); 3. impetuous, hot-tempered, quick (a hot-tempered person, hot blood, a spirited horse); 4. urgent, requiring immediate attention (urgent work). These meanings of words would be difficult to define more precisely: in language they are not sufficiently distinct, differentiated, or independent, and become clear only from the phrase in which they are used. Thus synonyms suffice to explain them. Thus, in the “Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language,” synonyms are used as an independent explanatory device only to explain words with stylistic coloring or words not used in literary language. All other words are explained descriptively, by reference, or in some other way. When this rule is disregarded, an error is made which in logic is called “circular definition” (e.g., explaining the word gražus with the synonym puikus, and then explaining the latter with the word gražus again). Such an explanation will not clarify at all what either word means, or whether there is any difference in meaning between them. One word can be explained by another only if the latter has a descriptive definition in the “Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language.” Other cases in which synonymous explanations are not used in the “Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language” should also be mentioned: 1) words of literary language are not explained by dialectal, obsolete, borrowed, or other words not used in literary language. For example, in the “Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language,” the word gaisas is first defined descriptively as “the redness of the sky at sunrise or sunset, a streak of light from a distant fire,” and then, after a semicolon, the synonym pašvaistė is added as a supplementary explanatory device, but not the dialect words žiora, pažiora, kaisra or the foreignism pazaras; the word kovą is not explained by S. Daukantas’s unsuccessful neologism karmuša, nor are kaliošai explained as purvabridžiai, and so on; 2) words with literal meanings are not explained by words with figurative meanings—synonyms; for example, the word bijoti is not explained by the metaphorical synonym drebėti; the word daugybė is not explained by figurative words baisybė, galybė, kalnai, marios or idioms gyva bala, gyvas kelmas (galas, velnias); 3) words that are stylistically neutral are not explained by words with expressive, emotional, or other stylistic coloring. For example, the word gerti is not explained by synonyms such as maukti, kli aukti, riaukti, sriaubti, vempti, bizyti and the like, which have 201 a strongly derogatory connotation; the word arklys ‘horse’ is not explained by the word žirgas, since the latter means a good horse, usually ridden, often mentioned in folk songs. Words with some expressive-emotional connotation may be explained from a stylistic perspective using neutral words—synonyms. But this is not always enough: sometimes it is also necessary to indicate the expressive-emotional connotation of the word being explained and to expand the synonymic explanation into a descriptive one. For example, the word milžiniškas ‘enormous’ is explained by the words labai didelis ‘very large’: the modifier labai ‘very’ is added to the synonym didelis ‘large’. Words are explained similarly: geisti ‘to desire’—labai norėti ‘to want very much’; kimšti ‘to stuff oneself’—godžiai ir daug valgyti ‘to eat greedily and a lot’; and so on. This method of explanation could be called synonymic-descriptive, since one word is explained by another, usually one with a broader meaning, with an additional word indicating the semantic or stylistic connotation of the word being explained. Shades of meaning among synonyms are not always easy to define, even though they can be sensed from context. They may be expressed in various ways: 1) by gradation of some quality, e.g., baisus, išgąstingas, siaubingas ‘frightening, terrifying, dreadful’; 2) by breadth of meaning, e.g., the word artimas ‘near’ has a broader meaning than its synonym gretimas ‘adjacent’; 3) by degree of concreteness or abstractness, e.g., daiktas yra konkretesnės reikšmės žodis kaip dalykas ‘daiktas (“thing/object”) is a more concrete word than dalykas (“thing/matter”)’; 4) by some semantic features, e.g., daina ‘song’ denotes any short vocal-musical work performed by a choir or an individual, whereas its synonym giesmė ‘hymn’ denotes a solemn work of a similar kind. Such and similar synonyms are explained in the Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language by the synonymic-descriptive method. The notion of closeness and similarity between word meanings is quite relative: what seems close or similar to one person may seem entirely different to another. The closeness of meaning between synonyms is sometimes understood very broadly. For example, courage drąsa shown inappropriately in a life-threatening situation may be called beprotybe ‘madness’ by someone, or parents’ lepinimas ‘spoiling’ of their children may be called gadinimu ‘ruining’ them. Clearly, there is no synonymy between these words. This is only a potential similarity between word meanings, dependent on the situation. Synonyms encompass not individual or accidental instances of similarity in meaning, but stable relations between word meanings that have developed in a language over a longer period of its development. A certain criterion helps establish whether words are synonymous: substitutability, that is, the possibility of using one word in place of another in the same context without substantially changing the thought itself. Where such substitution is impossible, there are generally no synonyms, but only words with different meanings. Although this criterion is not absolutely reliable and is disputed by many, it is indispensable in lexicographic work. A lexicographer must check whether the synonyms given in definitions can replace the defined word in context. If they cannot, they must be rejected, since they will not only fail to help readers understand the word being defined, but may even mislead them in certain cases. In the Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language, this criterion is precisely what guides the selection of synonyms. For example, the word kaimenė ‘herd’ is defined as follows: “a group of animals; banda” (the added synonym banda can completely replace the word kaimenė). There are few synonyms with identical meanings in the language—that is, words whose meanings coincide completely. They are mostly terminological doublets and words close to them, e.g., lėktuvas – aeroplanas, trūkumas – defektas, kepenys – jaknos, and so on. A language does not favor pointless words that add nothing when a thought needs clarification. The prolonged coexistence in a language of parallel words with identical meanings is inconvenient. In time, one of the parallel forms may disappear or acquire some other semantic 202 or stylistic connotation; for example, aeroplanas already has the connotation of an obsolete word and is not used in every style. Since the Lithuanian literary language is still relatively young compared with other languages, it has considerably more parallel words than they do. For example, the following words are used in parallel: drebule – epušė, kadagys – eglis, gandras – gužutis, vieversys – vyturys, kiškis – zuikis, antinas – gaigalas, banga – vilnis, klojimas – kluonas, baslys – kuolas – mietas, and others. Synonyms of this kind can replace one another in all cases. They are widely used in the Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language to explain other words; for example, the word kiškis is defined as follows: “a small wild animal of the rodent family; zuikis” (the equivalent synonym zuikis is added at the end). But most synonyms are not equivalent words—they differ, if only slightly, in shades of meaning or style. Therefore, synonyms must be used cautiously when defining words, since there is always a risk of error: assigning a word a meaning or connotation it does not have. And Lithuanian has a great many synonyms. The richness and variety of synonymy in our language was already noted by Pilypas Ruigys. He wrote: “Our language lacks neither synonyms, nor diminutive words, nor participles, nor inflectional prefixes for naming different things… If Germans use the same word grau when speaking of a man, a horse, a jacket, or peas, Lithuanians use different words to denote greyness: a man is žilas, a horse is širmas, peas are raini or būri. Wie viel? is expressed by the words keli? kiek? kaip daug? keletas? (the last when speaking of living creatures). Grob, when speaking of hay, is stambus; of firewood, storos; of linen, kieta. Waschen is translated as mazgoti rankas ‘wash one’s hands’, prausti veidą ‘wash one’s face’, skalbti drabužius ‘wash clothes’”2. An examination of the lexical composition of Lithuanian shows that not all word classes are equally rich in synonyms. Consequently, when defining word meanings, synonymic explanations cannot always be used with equal frequency. Synonyms are used especially often when defining verbs, since this part of speech is particularly rich in synonyms. For example, the Lithuanian verb lyti ‘to rain’ has about 20 synonyms, the word valgyti ‘to eat’ about 25, while the verb eiti ‘to go’ has more than fifty synonyms when all its shades of meaning are taken into account. Adjectives also have very many synonyms. For example, the concept ‘ugly’ is expressed in Lithuanian by such synonyms as darkus, dar gus, grasus, koktus, atšižžus, šlykštus. The last word denotes the highest degree of ugliness. In the Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language, adjectives are especially often explained using synonyms. However, some of these explanations are inaccurate; for example, the word geras ‘good’ is explained by the words meilus, malonus; gailestingas; nepiktas. As we can see, these words have very different meanings and are not synonyms (something good is not necessarily merciful or not bad-tempered). These words might perhaps be suitable for explaining separate nuances of that meaning, but not its general meaning. Nouns have far fewer synonyms than verbs and adjectives. Names for concrete objects such as žemė, vanduo, oras, saulė, medis, žolė ‘earth, water, air, sun, tree, grass’, and others, have no synonyms at all. Some abstract nouns have more synonyms, e.g., baimė, džiaugsmas, noras, ginčas, daugybė ‘fear, joy, desire, dispute, multitude’, and so on. Numerals and pronouns have almost no synonyms at all. If a synonym is occasionally found for a word in these categories, it is only stylistic; for example, instead of septintas ‘seventh’ 2 Ph. Ruhig, Betrachtungen der Littauischen Sprache, Königsberg, 1745, p. 70. 203 Sometimes the archaic synonym sekmas is used; in place of the pronoun jis, the dialectal synonym ãnas is sometimes used to create a local color. In general, synonyms should be used rather sparingly to explain word meanings. Two or three synonyms are entirely sufficient to explain one meaning of a word. Using too many not only does not help one understand the meaning of a word better, but sometimes even obscures it. For, as noted, alongside their shared meaning, synonyms also have certain, albeit slight, differences in meaning and nuances that may hinder an accurate understanding of a word’s meaning. In the “Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language,” the most precise synonyms, closest in meaning, are selected to explain word meanings. The ability to distinguish shades of meaning among synonyms and to use them skillfully in explaining words is an important prerequisite for successful lexicographic work. SYNONYMIC INTERPRETATION OF WORD MEANINGS IN THE “DICTIONARY OF THE LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE” А. ЛИБЕРИС Abstract 1. In the multivolume “Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language,” which in its size and character is close to thesaurus-type dictionaries and includes dialectal words, archaisms, borrowings, and other words not found in the contemporary literary language, the synonymic method of defining word meanings is used more frequently than in other modern dictionaries. 2. In the first two volumes of the “Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language,” prepared during the bourgeois period, synonymic definitions were often used even in cases where a descriptive definition of word meanings would have been more appropriate. The rationale was that descriptive definitions were supposedly often difficult to formulate, confusing, and not entirely precise or exhaustive. Since explaining one word by another is rarely precise, a fairly large number of synonyms were given in explanations, as they better revealed particular nuances of meaning. In many respects, this makes the first two volumes of the “Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language” resemble V. I. Dahl’s dictionary of the Russian language, in which the synonymic method of defining word meanings is used very widely. In explaining word meanings in the subsequent volumes of the Dictionary (3, 4, 5, 6), greater emphasis was placed on the methods of defining meanings used in Soviet lexicography. All the main words of the literary language are explained descriptively. Only words with stylistic or expressive coloring, or words not used in the literary language, are explained by synonyms (see below). The referential method of defining word meanings is also used. 204 3. Lexical synonyms are currently used in the Dictionary in two cases: 1) as an auxiliary means in a descriptive definition and 2) as an independent means of interpreting words. Most often, synonyms are used in the Dictionary as an auxiliary means in a descriptive definition. In this case, the meaning of the word is first defined descriptively, and then (after a semicolon) a greater or lesser number of synonyms are listed, if they exist in the language. 4. When synonyms are used as an independent means of interpreting word meanings, no descriptive definition is given; instead, the word being explained is simply compared with other words that are close or identical in meaning to the synonyms. In the Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language, synonyms are used for independent interpretation in the following cases: a) when explaining dialectal and regional words, e.g., gorus (bitter) kartus, aitrūs, gaižus; b) when explaining obsolete or archaic words, e.g., ataka (revenge) kerštas; c) when explaining barbarisms, slang, and other words not used in the literary language, e.g., glūšas (Polish gluszy) 1. kurčias (deaf)... 2. paikas, kvaišas, žioplas (stupid); d) when explaining unsuccessful coinages that have not entered usage, e.g., apvstova (Russian обстановка) aplinkybė; gerbūvis (Polish dobrobyt, German Wohlsein) gerovė; e) when explaining certain figurative meanings of words or meanings that are not sufficiently clear and independent, e.g., karštas (hot) also has the following figurative meanings: 1. nuoširdus, uolus (zealous); 2. staigus, ūmus (quick-tempered, impetuous); 3. skubus, neatidėliotinas (urgent, pressing). 5. The following are not explained by synonyms: a) synonymous words that differ in particular shades of meaning, e.g., the word daina (song) is not explained by the word giesmė, because daina denotes “a short verbal-musical work intended to be performed by one person or a choir” in general, whereas giesmė denotes “a solemn vocal work of this kind”; b) synonymous words that differ in marked stylistic or expressive nuances, e.g., pluožmus (cruel, ferocious) is not explained by the word žvėriškas (bestial); c) words with a literal meaning are not explained by words with a figurative meaning, e.g., bijoti (to fear) is not explained by the figurative meaning of the word drebėti (to tremble); d) literary words are not explained by dialectal, obsolete, slang, or loanwords from other languages; for example, the word kamuoti (to torment) is explained in the Dictionary by the literary-language word varginti, but not by the dialectal word stekenti or the loanword tėsyti. 205 6. Synonyms that are word-formation variants and identical in meaning are defined by cross-reference, e.g., the dialectal word-formation variant guvulis refers to the standard-language word guvulys. 7. Synonym-based definitions are most often used to define the meanings of verbs and adjectives; they are applied less frequently to nouns and very rarely to numerals and pronouns. 8. The Dictionary also uses an intermediate method of defining word meanings, which may provisionally be called synonymic-descriptive. Sometimes a word is explained by another synonym together with additional words indicating the semantic and stylistic nuances of the word being explained; for example, the word geisti (to desire strongly; to crave) is explained by the words labai norėti (to desire very much; the clarifying word labai is added to the synonym norėti).