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ARTŪRAS JUDŽENTIS

Vilnius Academy of Arts

SUBORDINATING RELATION IN LITHUANIAN SYNTAX WORKS

(FIRST HALF OF THE 20TH CENTURY)1

KEYWORDS: subordination, agreement, government, Jurgis Ambraška, Leonardas Dambriūnas-Dambrauskas, Mykolas Durys, Jonas Jablonskis, Alfonsas Kalnius, Petras Klimas, Zigmantas Kuzmickis, Petras Skardžius, Juozas Žiugžda.

ABSTRACT

The article reviews how subordinating relations are classified in Lithuanian syntax works from the first half of the 20th century, how many types are distinguished, and what these types are. It begins with Jonas Jablonskis’s Lietuvių kalbos sintaksės (1911) and concludes with Leonardo Dambriūnas’s Lietuvių kalbos sintakse (the 1946 edition and later editions). It examines the conception, definition, and application of the distinguished types of subordination in describing and classifying sentence constituents.

INTRODUCTION

Agreement and government—the traditional types of subordinating relation—are mentioned already in the first Lithuanian grammar, in 1653. Danielius Kleinas identifies agreement “when words agree in the same case and person,” and government “when one word governs another word of a different case or person” (Kruopas, ed., 1957: 511). It is evident that even in these earliest definitions, syntactic phenomena—the types of subordination—are not distinguished from morphological ones, that is, from their marking by morphological forms of dependent words. Unfortunately, this remained characteristic of the study of Lithuanian syntax for almost three and a half centuries—until the very end of the 20th century, and often even to this day.

1 This article was written as part of the project supported by the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language, Syntactic Relations in the Lithuanian Language (agreement no. K-16/2020, dated 2020-01-31).

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In seeking to understand how the present-day school system of three types of subordination—agreement, government, and adjunction—came about, it was decided to take a closer look at works on syntax from the early twentieth century, mainly textbooks for upper schools and reference works intended for the general public. The discussion begins with Jonas Jablonskis’s Lietuvių kalbos sintaksės, since his 1901 Lietuviškos kalbos gramatikoje says nothing about the matters at issue.

This work differs above all from other surveys of a similar kind (e.g., the one presented in Ramunė Vaskelaitė’s dissertation; see Vaskelaitė 2009) in its theoretical premises: the author understands syntactic relations as phenomena at the level of syntax that can be expressed at the level of morphology. Accordingly, the levels at which conceptions of syntactic phenomena are formulated are examined in greater detail.

The aim of this survey is to revisit the origins of some of the principal concepts in twentieth-century Lithuanian syntax and to consider how the conceptions of syntactic relations that still prevail today came about, paying particular attention to the distinction between the levels of semantics, syntax, and morphology. This aim also makes the research tasks self-evident: to describe the syntactic relations distinguished in each work on syntax, to compare them with earlier works (in terms of inheritance) and later works (in terms of possible influence), and to bring to light the presumed origins of the theoretical premises.

The research methods are standard for works of this kind. First, each of the works under review is examined (the analytical method); it is then compared with earlier and later works in order to establish its place in the development of syntactic theory (the comparative method); finally, the works of the period under study are viewed more broadly, and the features of the development of syntactic thought and the tendencies of its theoretical premises are identified (the deductive method).

The works reviewed are presented chronologically. The article is divided, according to the publication dates of the works under review, into three sections: “The Dawn,” “The Years of Independence,” and “The War Years.” It concludes with a summary of the survey.

I. THE DAWN

Jono Jablonskio Lietuvių kalbos sintaksėje (1911) prijungimo atmainos – derinimas ir valdymas – atskirai neaptariamos, nėra nė jų apibrėžimų. Vis dėlto apie derinimą veikale kalbama. Štai skyriaus „Sakinio dalių sudėtis ir įvairovės“ 25-oje skiltyje minimas tarinio derinimas su veiksniu: „Grynasis tarinys (ir sudurtinio tarinio jungtis) asmenimi ir skaičiumi

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is brought into agreement in speech with the subject,” for example: Mes nė vienas neišmanom. Žt. (Palionis, ed., 1957: 462). Column 26 states that the nominal part of a compound predicate is likewise in agreement with the subject: “The cases of agreeing parts of speech, when they occur in place of the inflected part of the predicate, agree in gender and number with the subjects of the sentences,” for example: Dievo gėrybė neišmastoma. Pr. (Palionis, ed., 1957: 462). As can be seen, these statements inseparably conflate the levels of syntax (the syntactic relation itself) and morphology (its marking by gender, number, and case morphemes).

Further on (column 27), Jablonskis also discusses the agreement of adjectives and participles of the so-called neuter gender functioning as the nominal part of a compound predicate in impersonal sentences: “Where the grammatical subject of a sentence is unclear, where there is no grammatical subject (in all impersonal sentences), where it is represented by a neuter adjective or pronoun, or where the subject is represented by an unexpressed form [= infinitive], either alone or together with the nominative of an inflected word, in all such sentences agreeing predicates (adjectives and participles) take the neuter form,” for example: Dabar dienos trumpa, nakties ilga. Sv. (Palionis, ed., 1957: 463). Moreover, neuter adjectives and the pronoun functioning as the nominal part of the predicate may also be in agreement with a nominative subject or an infinitive, either alone or together with the nominative of an inflected word, for example: Iš bado ir varškė gardu. Sv. (Palionis, ed., 1957: 464–465). In these cases, where the content of the subject category is unclear or the meaning of the sentence is generalised, the predicates are called agreeing, although the neuter form of their nominal part is not agreed but selected (they “take on” the neuter form). Besides syntax and morphology, sentence meaning is also important in such cases.

J. Jablonskis also discusses agreement when classifying attributes as agreeing and non-agreeing. In column 29 he writes: “We express an agreeing attribute by adjectives, participles, pronouns, numerals, and sometimes certain nouns, which agree with the words they modify in gender, number, and case” (Palionis, ed., 1957: 467). This is the grammatical agreement familiar in Lithuanian linguistics. Agreeing attributes are also mentioned in the 1922 Lietuvių kalbos gramatikoje (Palionis, ed., 1957: 407–408).

Lietuvių kalbos sintaksėje also mentions “agreement of meaning,” in which, when establishing agreement, “we look not at grammatical gender, number, and case, but at the overall meaning of those expressions,” for example: Šeimyna pasilikę vienas kalė, kitas dailino... Žt. (Palionis, ed., 1957: 467). With this statement, J. Jablonskis emphasises the importance of the semantic component and its priority over morphology.

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A noun-expressed agreeing attribute is called an apposition. Appositions agree with the word they modify only in case, e.g.: Pamotėlė-raganėlė dug a pit of glowing embers. Ps. (Palionis, ed., 1957: 468).

Not only is government left undefined, but J. Jablonskis does not use the concept at all. One might reasonably expect government to be mentioned in the section on objects. Yet that section discusses the meaning of objects, not their syntactic properties: “<...> those objects will denote other things as well, with which the aforementioned = [associated] <...> actions are connected” (Palionis, ed., 1957: 470). Objects indicate “what other things, apart from the subject, are somehow or other involved in an action or state” (Palionis, ed., 1957: 470). These statements describe the content of the object as a sentence constituent. The concept of the object is not connected at all with the syntactic government, or requirement, of the head word.

It can be said that J. Jablonskis’s Lietuvių kalbos sintaksė set the course for the development of Lithuanian linguistics. It provided the foundation from which the young linguistic scholarship of independent Lithuania took its bearings. As we can see, this work contributes little to the theory of syntactic relations: agreement is understood as the matching of morphological forms (of the simple predicate, the copula and predicative complement of a compound predicate, and the attribute with the word it modifies), with a semantic basis for agreement (in impersonal sentences), while government is not mentioned even as a concept. This understanding of agreement was adopted, developed, and refined by all the Lithuanian grammars of independent Lithuania; government, by contrast, as a distinct type of subordination, was understood and defined only much later, and not without difficulty.

Petro Klimo Lietuvių kalbos sintaksėje (1915), kurią jis parašė, naudodamasis J. Jablonskio Sintaksės turiniu, jokių naujovių mums rūpimu reikalu nėra. P. Klimas, kaip ir J. Jablonskis, aptaria tarinių ir pažyminių derinimą, o apie valdymą visai nekalba. Papildiniai, jo manymu, tik papildo tarinio reikšmę: „Be papildinių veiksmas arba stov(is) sakinyje labai dažnai neišeitų aikštėn pilnokas“ (Klimas 1915: 13). Jo Sintaksėje kalbama tik apie veiksmažodžio papildinius.

II. THE PERIOD OF INDEPENDENCE

From the standpoint of syntactic theory, Mykolas Durys’s textbook Lietuvių kalbos sintaksė (1927) was distinctive and bold. Its ambition to overcome the logification of grammar and reject “philosophical speculation” and “dead scholasticism” is admirable. The author admits that, in writing

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the textbook, he drew on the Neogrammarians and Russian linguists, and above all on Aleksandr Matveyevich Peshkovsky’s Russian syntax (Пешковский 1920).

Syntactic relations are not discussed separately in this textbook either. Agreement is, however, treated in the section “Agreement of the Predicate with the Subject” (Durys 1927: 22–23). M. Durys himself defines the predicate not by its meaning, but in terms of agreement: “By a predicate, first of all, we mean a sentence verb agreed with the subject” (Durys 1927: 21). The section in question specifies this agreement: “Number and person are forms by which the predicate usually (at least most often) adapts in our language to the forms of the subject” (Durys 1927: 23). An accompanying definition of agreement is also given: “<...> adaptation in which, specifically, the form of one word follows the form of another word is called agreement in syntax” (Durys 1927: 23). This is perhaps the first definition of agreement in independent Lithuania. It also reveals the syntactic nature of the relation fairly well: no specific morphological forms by which agreement is expressed are mentioned; instead, the discussion refers in general terms to “the form of a word.”

Next, following J. Jablonskis, M. Durys discusses two types of predicate agreement: the simple predicate and the copula of a compound predicate agree with the subject in person and number, while the predicative complements of compound predicates and predicate constructions (M. Durys’s term) agree in gender and number. Cases of non-agreement are also discussed.

Attributes, like predicates, are defined in the textbook in terms of their agreement: “An attribute is an adjective or participle that stands beside a noun and agrees with it” (Durys 1927: 29). Only agreeing attributes are discussed. The forms mano, tavo, savo, when used with nouns, are called non-grammatical attributes (Durys 1927: 76).

M. Durys provides no separate definition of government. Nevertheless, he mentions government when discussing objects. First, he defines them in terms of dependence: “Objects are not independent forms but dependent ones; they depend on other words in the sentence” (Durys 1927: 25). Governed and free objects are distinguished. “Governed objects are those whose particular form (case) is necessarily required by the verb,” e.g., Svetimi dūmai akis graužia R. J., whereas “free objects are those whose particular form (case) the verb does not necessarily require,” e.g.: kalbėjome visą valandą (Durys 1927: 26). As we can see, the definition of governed objects comes very close to the concept of government itself. Although government is associated with the requirement for a morphological case form, this form (or

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(forms) is not specified. Many of M. Durys’s examples of free modifiers, viewed from today’s perspective, are nothing other than adverbials.

Moreover, M. Durys associates modifiers not only with verbs—they “may depend on any word in a complete sentence”: on nouns, adjectives, and adverbs (Durys 1927: 27–28). Modifiers accompanying nominals may also be governed or free, but “[A] firmly bound modifier of a noun, one that is truly governed (dependent), is only the genitive case,” e.g., tėvo namai, whereas “all other modifiers of nouns are merely free modifiers, which are only adjacent to nouns” (Durys 1927: 29).

Thus, M. Durys’s Syntax was perhaps the first to present a definition of agreement in independent Lithuania. Moreover, it is not associated with any particular morphological expression. Although government is not defined in the textbook, the term itself is used (governed modifiers). The concept of government is associated with dependency, and government is understood in general as requiring a case form.

M. Durys’s innovative textbook apparently did not find success. In 1930, Zigmantas Kuzmickis Lithuanian Syntax was published. It was popular in schools: five editions of the textbook appeared over the course of a decade.

Z. Kuzmickis’s textbook follows not the formalist approach (“the purely formal direction in grammar is not acceptable to us for the time being”), but the then customary path of logical-psychological grammar: “In writing this syntax, I paid much attention to grammatical forms and their relations, but I strove everywhere to connect them with psychologically logical thought” (Kuzmickis 1930: 5).

A new feature of Z. Kuzmickis’s textbook is its structure: not only does he devote a separate section, “Agreement and Government of Words,” to syntactic relations, but he also places it in the introductory part of the syntax (Kuzmickis 1930: 11–15).

His definition of agreement is similar to M. Durys’s: “The ordering of sentence-word forms whereby one word form, depending on another, is matched and made to agree with that other form is called agreement” (Kuzmickis 1930: 13). It too makes no mention of specific morphological forms, but speaks in general terms of a word form. Moreover, agreement is associated with dependency (depending).

The textbook perhaps for the first time in independent Lithuania defines government, but does so not by identifying its characteristic properties, but by contrasting it with agreement: “Such an arrangement of the forms of sentence words

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“The arrangement whereby one word form, when it passes from another, is not reconciled or brought into agreement with that other form, is called government” (Kuzmickis 1930: 13).

In examining the syntax of the simple sentence, it is the subject, not the predicate (as in M. Durys), that is defined on the basis of agreement (as well as form and meaning): “<...> the subject is a nominative case form, agreeing in its form with the predicate, or another word that stands in place of that nominative case form and denotes that to which the action or quality of the predicate is assigned” (Kuzmickis 1930: 17). Agreement of the subject with the predicate is also discussed in a section devoted to this topic, which examines the simple and compound predicate. Z. Kuzmickis adds a noteworthy observation: “The case of the nominal part of the predicate is sometimes not in agreement, but governed: it is usually governed by the copula of the predicate (nėr močiutės)” (Kuzmickis 1930: 22). He aptly observes that the case of a noun functioning as the nominal part of the predicate depends on the negative copula. Consistently extending this insight, the affirmative copula, too, should govern the corresponding nominative (yra / buvo močiutė)...

Z. Kuzmickis divides attributes into agreeing and governed attributes. Agreeing attributes are adjectival, agreeing with the words they modify in gender, number, and case, or nominal, that is, appositions, agreeing only in case. Governed attributes are either in the genitive or instrumental case, e.g.: sidabro (dew), geltonais žiedeliais (flower) (Kuzmickis 1930: 27). The notion of governed attributes blurs the distinction between attributes and objects (objects, rather than attributes, are generally considered to be governed). This conception prioritizes not syntactic relations (since on this account both objects and attributes can be governed), but the morphological expression of these sentence constituents. In this respect, M. Durys’s Syntax was “more syntactic.” In describing objects, however, Z. Kuzmickis manages without even mentioning government. Their form and role in the sentence alone suffice for him: “<...> we shall call objects those words that are expressed by inflected words, or by other words that stand in their place, with or without prepositions, and that do not constitute any adverbial modifier in the sentence” (cf. Kuzmickis 1930: 43–44).

When reissuing the book, the author made some changes, particularly refining the definitions. In the fifth edition of the textbook, published probably in 1939 (no publication date is given), agreement and government are defined as follows: “If one word depends on another word and agrees with it, this relation between words is called a g r e e m e n t”; “If one word depends on another word but does not agree with it, this relation between words is called g o v e r n m e n t” (Kuzmickis [1939?]: 13). Both syntactic relations are defined on the basis of the notion of dependence, as though they were its subtypes. The syntactic nature of agreement and government is well brought out. Agreement alone is defined in a flawed, circular manner

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(since the same word is used in the definition both in its ordinary and its technical sense: agrees, hence agreement), while the definition of government relies on agreement.

The definition of the subject was also refined—the reference to agreement with the predicate was removed: “the subject is a nominative case form that tells to whom the predicate is assigned; the predicate agrees with the subject” (Kuzmickis [1939?]: 18). The discussion of subject–predicate agreement, the classification of attributes, and the definition of objects remained unchanged.

As can be seen, in defining the types of subordination, Z. Kuzmickis drew on M. Durys’s work and developed it consistently. Z. Kuzmickis’s claim that the subject depends on (agrees with) the predicate, later abandoned, seems entirely modern. However, the distinction of governed nominal parts of predicates and governed attributes shows that, for Z. Kuzmickis, the syntactic nature of relations between words is not yet separated from their morphological expression.

Now let us turn to higher education. In Pranas Skardžius’s lectures “Historical Grammar of the Lithuanian Language: Syntax”, probably written between 1935 and 1938, topics of historical syntax are not the only ones discussed. As the editor of the book, Albertas Rosinas, observes, “they are essentially devoted to problems of synchronic syntax and reflect the achievements of European syntactic thought in the 1930s” (Rosinas, ed. and prep., 1998: 15).

In the section “Word Groups,” P. Skardžius classifies the syntactic relations between the words forming them, on the basis of semantic relations, as coordinating (conjunctive) and subordinating: “We indicate the mutual relation in word groups in different ways, namely: just as the individual elements can be either coordinated (i.e. placed on an equal footing with one another) or subordinated (i.e. one made dependent on another), so the linguistic expressions of those elements can be coordinated or subordinated” (Rosinas, ed. and prep., 1998: 520).

The lectures do not separately discuss the relations between words forming subordinated groups, but the section “Verbal Group” approaches the notion of government in discussing whether verbs “require” (i.e. take) an object or do not: “<...> verbs are divided into transitive and intransitive, that is, those that require an object and those that do not, e.g. mušti, siūti ir miegoti, šokti. But this distinction is not always clear-cut” (Rosinas, ed. and prep., 1998: 526).

Skyrelyje „Kongruencija“ (Rosinas, sud. ir par., 1998: 544–546), jau aptarus subordinuojamąsias ir koordinuojamąsias žodžių grupes, atskirai kalbama apie formalų žodžių

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Agreement. Various cases of agreement are briefly discussed here: an appositive agreeing with its head word; the noun (predicative noun) and adjective (predicative adjective) of a compound predicate with a noun functioning as the subject; an adjective functioning as an attribute (attributive adjective) with the noun it modifies; an attributive or predicative adjective with several nouns; a predicative attribute with a noun functioning as the subject; an adjective functioning as an attribute with the noun it modifies or with several nouns; and, finally, a verb with a pronoun functioning as the subject. In the latter case, for example, only the verb’s agreement in person and number with the person or persons functioning as the subject is mentioned. In other words, only various cases of the morphological expression of agreement are surveyed.

Syntactic relations are not mentioned in the section “The Main Parts of the Sentence” either (Rosinas, ed. and prep., 1998: 559–563). In discussing complex sentences, the authors likewise make do with a coarse-grained classification of syntactic relations: coordinate and subordinate complex sentences are mentioned, as are the coordination and subordination of the sentences that make them up, for example: “Subordinate clauses are attached to main clauses by certain linking elements; consequently, their relationship is much closer and clearer than that of coordinated sentences” (Rosinas, ed. and prep., 1998: 567).

As can be seen, in his lectures P. Skardžius made do with classifying syntactic relations as coordination and subordination. From his lectures, students learned almost nothing about the government of words, and only general points about their agreement; the latter was not even linked to the aforementioned types of syntactic relations (relations between words). Nor was the syntactic nature of agreement brought into focus, since only various cases of its morphological expression were surveyed.

Leonardas Dambrauskas straipsnyje „Žodžių santykiai sakinyje“ (1939) mini derinimą ir valdymą, tačiau terminas valdymas, jo nuomone, nėra tikslus, nes taikomas tik daliai prijungiamųjų (jo vadinamų prijungtinėmis) žodžių grupių, nors „visos prijungtinės grupės yra „valdomosios“ (Dambrauskas 1939: 86). Todėl prijungiamąsias grupes jis siūlo skirstyti į derinamąsias ir nederinamąsias. Tokia klasifikacija primena sintaksinių ryšių skirstymą Z. Kuzmickio vadovėlyje. Matyti, kad M. Dambrauskas valdymą suprato labai plačiai – maždaug kaip žodžių priklausomybės ryšį, kuris prijungiamosiose grupėse „nėra vienodo stiprumo“ (Dambrauskas 1939: 85). Toks platus ir nelabai apibrėžtas valdymo suvokimas lietuvių sintaksėje neturėjo tęsinio.

To M. Dambrauskas, the relation between subject and predicate seems “closer to the relation within subordinate groups” (Dambrauskas 1939: 85), but he does not say which depends on which.

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Following John Ries2, M. Dambrauskas also alludes to a third relation, intermediate between subordination and coordination—that between an appositive and the word it modifies—for example, Susirinko parlamentas, tautos atstovybė (Dambrauskas 1939: 85). This was a new idea in Lithuanian syntax, which found an echo in the works of some later linguists.

In the concise syntax textbook by Jurgis Ambraška and Juozas Žiugžda, published in 1940 and intended primarily for primary schools, agreement is the only syntactic relation mentioned in several places. It is discussed in the section “Agreement of the Main Parts of the Sentence” (Ambraška, Žiugžda 1940: 9–10). It states that a simple predicate, or the copula of a compound predicate, agrees in number and person with a subject expressed in the nominative case. In addition, the nominal part of a compound predicate agrees with such a subject in number, case, and gender, although not always in the latter, for example: Višta yra paukštis.

Agreement is also mentioned in the section on attributes. Attributes expressed by adjectives and participles agree with their head words in gender, number, and case (Ambraška, Žiugžda 1940: 13), whereas those expressed by nouns in the genitive or instrumental case do not agree with their head word; an attribute expressed by an agreeing noun is called an appositive (Ambraška, Žiugžda 1940: 14).

As can be seen, this textbook adds nothing new about the varieties of subordination. It lists more common cases of the morphological expression of agreement, while the concept of government is not mentioned at all, giving the impression that it is being avoided.

During the years of independence, a small step was taken in understanding and describing syntactic relations: they were defined (M. Durys defined agreement, and Z. Kuzmickis both agreement and government). Nevertheless, their conception inseparably conflates the levels of syntax and morphology, linking their syntactic nature to morphological expression. A certain lack of clarity in the conception of government is also evident: it is described as non-agreement (Z. Kuzmickas), equated with semantic dependence (L. Dambrauskas), or simply avoided (J. Ambraška, J. Žiugžda).

2 Greičiausiai jo garsioju darbu Was ist Syntax?: ein kritischer Versuch (Ries 1894, 1927).

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III. THE WAR YEARS

Published during the German occupation, Alfonso Kalnius’s Lithuanian Syntax (1943) does not devote a separate section to syntactic relations, or agreement and government. As in J. Jablonskis’s work, they are discussed in the analysis of sentence parts. Thus, the subject is defined as “[T]he word or words in a sentence that depend on the predicate and most often answer the question who?” (Kalnius 1943: 15). In this definition, the subject is described as dependent on the predicate, rather than as an independent sentence part. However, the reference to a question in the definition once again ties it to morphological expression.

The section “Agreement of the Principal Parts of the Sentence” discusses agreement between the predicate and the subject: a simple predicate and the copula of a compound predicate agree in number and person with a subject expressed in the nominative case. The nominal part of a compound predicate agrees with the subject in number and case, while “gender is often not agreed” (Kalnius 1943: 21). Thus, the direction of agreement does not match the direction of dependency: although the subject depends on the predicate, it is the predicate, or its nominal part, that agrees with the subject.

An object is defined as “[A] word that supplements the meaning of the predicate by answering the questions what?, to whom?, whom?, with what?” (Kalnius 1943: 22). This semantic supplementation is further explained as follows: “Generally, predicates—or, more accurately, verbs—require words that supplement them and make them more meaningful.” Here, the requirement imposed on a word seems to be clearly distinguished from its expression, but the case-related questions in the definition once again lead back to the latter.

It is stated that attributes “may agree or fail to agree with the word they modify and are therefore, as in the textbook by J. Ambraška and J. Žiugžda, divided into two types: agreeing and non-agreeing” (Kalnius 1943: 26).

Thus, although A. Kalnius’s Syntax contains interesting theoretical observations, overall, with regard to syntactic relations, it returns to J. Jablonskis: syntactic relations are not discussed separately, and no definitions of them are provided.

Prepared in Lithuania but first published abroad in 1946, Leonardas Dambriūnas’s Lithuanian Syntax3 divides word relations only into subordinate and coordinate relations (Dambriūnas 1963: 7–8). Subordinate relations are not further subdivided.

3 Unfortunately, it was unavailable to me, so I relied on the third edition of the textbook.

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Agreement is mentioned only in passing in the textbook. The main parts of the sentence—the subject and predicate—are defined solely on the basis of their meaning. Regarding agreement between subject and predicate, it is stated only that “a simple predicate and the copula of a compound predicate agree with the subject (in the nominative) in person and number” (Dambriūnas 1963: 22), while “the nominal part of a compound predicate (in the nominative) agrees with the subject in case, person, and number” (Dambriūnas 1963: 23). The same passage also briefly discusses predicates agreeing with “unexpressed but implied semantic subjects,” for example: Now everyone home we are going.

Attributive modifiers are divided into agreeing and non-agreeing ones. The agreement of the former with the words they modify is discussed (Dambriūnas 1963: 24). Agreement is also mentioned when discussing several subjects agreeing with the same predicate and several modifiers with the same modified word, for example: I and he worked all day, On the first and on the second floor (two floors) our acquaintances live (Dambriūnas 1963: 50).

In defining and explaining objects, the discussion relies only on their role in the sentence (they complement the predicate) and their expression. No mention is made at all of any government of objects or requirement imposed on them. Thus, government is not only omitted from L. Dambriūnas’s Syntax, but is not even mentioned. This is unsurprising, given the conception of government presented in his 1939 article.

Syntax works from the war years consistently adhered to and developed the theoretical views of the preceding period; no major innovations were published in them.

SUMMARY

In Lithuanian syntax works from the first half of the twentieth century, two types of subordination are discussed—agreement and government. They are distinguished most clearly in Z. Kuzmickis’s Lithuanian Syntax. In other works, they can hardly yet be said to be understood as types of subordination (or dependency).

Agreement is mentioned in all the works surveyed. They discuss agreement between subject and predicate and agreement between an attributive modifier and the word it modifies. However, it appears to have been defined for the first time only in M. Durys’s Lithuanian Syntax in 1927.

Government was probably first defined only in Z. Kuzmickis’s Lithuanian Syntax in 1930. In other works on syntax it is either not mentioned at all or is mentioned only in discussing types of objects.

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The third type of subordination, still familiar to us today—adjunction—was not mentioned at all in Lithuanian syntax works before the Soviet occupation.

The works reviewed also reveal differences in the very conception of the subordinating relation. L. Dambrauskas’s view stands out in particular: according to it, subordination is identified with government. It is therefore proposed that the latter term be abandoned and that subordinating relations be divided into agreement and non-agreement.

The works of the period under consideration are characterized by a failure to distinguish syntactic relations from their morphological expression (agreement in gender, person, and number; governed cases). Moreover, especially in the case of government, syntactic phenomena are not distinguished from semantic ones (cases are required).

SOURCES AND LITERATURE

Ambrāška Jurgis, Žiugžda Juozas 1940: Trumpa lietuvių kalbos gramatika. II dalis: Sintaksė, Kaunas: Sakalas.

Dambrauskas Leonardas 1939: Žodžių santykis sakinyje. – Gimtoji kalba 6, 84–86.

Dambriūnas Leonardas 1963: Lietuvių kalbos sintaksė, 3-ioji, papild. laida, Čikaga: Pedagoginis lituanistikos institutas.

Durys Mykolas 1927: Lietuvių kalbos sintaksė. Vidurinei mokyklai, Kaunas: s. d.

Kalnius Alfonsas 1943: Lietuvių kalbos sintaksė, Kaunas: Valstybinė leidykla.

Klimas Petras 1915: Lietuvių kalbos sintaksė. Pirmoji dalis. Rygiškių Jono sintaksės turiniu naudodamasis parašė P. Klimas, Vilnius: Lietuvių mokslo draugijos leidinys.

Kruopas Jonas, ats. red., 1957: Pirmoji lietuvių kalbos gramatika. 1653 metai, Vilnius: Valstybinė politinės ir mokslinės literatūros leidykla.

Kuzmickis Zigmantas 1930: Lietuvių kalbos sintaksė. Vadovėlis vidurinėms ir aukštesniosioms mokykloms, Kaunas: „Sakalo“ bendrovės leidinys.

Kuzmickis Zigmantas [1939?]: Lithuanian Syntax. A Textbook for Secondary Schools, 5th revised edition, Kaunas: Sakalas.

Palionis Jonas, sud., 1957: J. Jablonskis. Rinktiniai raštai 1, Vilnius: Valstybinė politinės ir mokslinės literatūros leidykla.

Ries John 1894: Was ist Syntax?: ein kritischer Versuch, Marburg: N. G. Elwert’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung.

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Ries John 1927: Was ist Syntax?: ein kritischer Versuch, zweite, um einen Anhang vermehrte Ausgabe, Prag: Taussig.

Rosinas Albertas, sud. ir par., 1998: P. Skardžius. Rinktiniai raštai 4: Moksliniai straipsniai ir studijos, Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidybos institutas.

Vaskelaitė Ramunė 2009: Sintaksinių ryšių modeliai lietuvių kalbos sintaksėje: humanitarinių mokslų daktaro disertacija, Vilnius: Lietuvių kalbos institutas, Vytauto Didžiojo universitetas.

Пешковский Александр Матвеевич 1920: Русский синтаксис в научном освещении: популярный очерк: пособие для самообразования и школы, изд. 2-е, Москва: Государственное издательство.

Received 2021 06 28

Accepted 2021 10 19

SUBORDINATION IN THE WORKS ON LITHUANIAN SYNTAX (FIRST HALF OF THE 20TH CENTURY)

Summary

The article analyses, how the types of syntactic relations are described in the works on Lithuanian syntax of the 1st half of the 20th century. The concept and definition of subordination types as well as their application in describing and splitting sentence parts are taken into account.

In the works analysed two types of subordination are mentioned – agreement and government. These types are most clearly distinguished in the Kuzmickis’ Syntax of the Lithuanian language. In the other works their conception as subordination types is yet wage.

Agreement is described in the all works investigated. Usually they make difference between the agreement of syntactic subject and predicate and the agreement of attribute with his head. However, for the first time it is defined only in Durys’ Syntax of the Lithuanian language (1927).

BENDRINĖ KALBA 94 (2021)

http://journals.lki.lt/bendrinekalba

ISSN 2351-7204

ARTŪRAS JUDŽENTIS. Prijungiamasis ryšys lietuvių sintaksės darbuose (XX a. pirmoji pusė) | 15

doi.org/10.35321/bkalba.2021.94.05

The government is defined for the first time only in Kuzmickis’ Syntax of the Lithuanian language (1930). It is not mentioned at all or mentioned only when dividing types of complements in the other works of syntax.

The third type of subordination, which is still common to us – šliejimas was not mentioned at all in the works of Lithuanian syntax before the Soviet occupation.

KEYWORDS: subordination, agreement, government, Jurgis Ambraška, Leonardas Dambrūnas-Dambrauskas, Mykolas Durys, Jonas Jablonskis, Alfonsas Kalnius, Petras Klimas, Zigmantas Kuzmickis, Petras Skardžius, Juozas Žiugžda.

ARTŪRAS JUDŽENTIS

Vilnius Academy of Arts

Maironio g. 6, LT-01124 Vilnius

[email protected]

BENDRINĖ KALBA 94 (2021)

http://journals.lki.lt/bendrinekalba

ISSN 2351-7204

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