Rygiškių Jono „Lietuvjų kalbos sintaksės“ pavyzdžiai

VITAS LABUTIS Vilnius University EXAMPLES FROM JONAS OF RYGIŠKIAI’S LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE SYNTAX KEYWORDS: Jonas Jablonskis, syntax, examples, sources, methods of presentation. It was not so long ago that 100 years had passed since the publication of Jonas of Rygiškiai (Jonas Jablonskis), Lithuanian Language Syntax, part I (Seinai, 1911)1. In setting out to discuss the examples in this grammar—one of its most striking features—we should say something about the circumstances in which this work, significant to the study of our syntax and to the development of school textbooks to this day, was written2. Neither the first Lithuanian grammars of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries nor the scholarly grammars created in the second half of the nineteenth century (August Schleicher, 1856; Friedrich Kurschat, 1876; Antanas Baranauskas’s Kalbamokslis lietuviškos kalbos, 1896; Kazimieras Jaunius’s Lietuvių kalbos gramatika, mimeographed in 1897), nor other grammars of lesser significance, had provided a systematic description of the syntax of the Lithuanian language as a whole. From his first efforts in the field of Lithuanian grammar, J. Jablonskis understood how hard and weed-choked the fallow fields of syntax were. As early as 1890, reviewing the Reverend Mykolas Miežinis’s Lietuviška gramatika, he emphasized what was needed first when undertaking such work: to understand the rules oneself through “our songs, riddles (brain-teasers), sayings, proverbs” (JR IV: 3). J. Jablonskis analyzed several facts of Lithuanian syntax in the article “Medega sintaksiui,” published in Varpas in 1893. An edited version of that article was also included in the section “Keli sintaksio įstatymai” of J. Jablonskis’s 1901 Lietuviška gramatika (JRR I: 158–177). 1 We will cite it from the more accessible first volume of J. Jablonskis’s Rinktiniai raštai (compiled by Jonas Palionis), pp. 436–548, and abbreviate its title to J. Jablonskis’s Sintaksė or simply Sintaksė. 2 The circumstances surrounding the creation and publication of Sintaksė were described by J. Palionis in the introduction to Jonas Jablonskis’s Rinktiniai raštai, “J. Jablonskis ir jo lietuvių kalbos vadovėliai.” The subject was discussed in particular detail in A. Piročkinas’s study J. Jablonskis – bendrinės lietuvių kalbos puoselėtojas (1978); it was also highlighted in Jono Jablonskio laiškai, edited by Arnoldas Piročkinas (1985), and in more than one of his articles. The significance of the examples in J. Jablonskis’s Sintaksė was also mentioned in general works on the history of the Lithuanian language (by Petras Jonikas, Jonas Palionis, Algirdas Sabaliauskas, Zigmas Zinkevičius, and others). V. LABUTIS. Rygiškių Jono Lietuvių kalbos sintaksės pavyzdžiai 19 THE NEED FOR LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE TEXTBOOKS – THE PRELUDE TO J. JABLONSKIS’S SYNTAX After the Lithuanian press was restored, the Lithuanian language began making its way into schools, and an urgent need arose to devise Lithuanian language curricula and write textbooks. J. Jablonskis also became involved in this work: he developed a Lithuanian language curriculum for elementary schools3 and for future teachers of the subject entering the Panevėžys Teachers’ Seminary, advised primer authors (Povilas Višinskis, Ksaveras Sakalauskas, and others), and took part in competitions to evaluate primers. The primers by P. Višinskis and K. Sakalauskas attempted to put into practice J. Jablonskis’s published ideas that textbooks should rely first and foremost on living language and folklore. Yet there was no entirely suitable Lithuanian language textbook for elementary schools, and such textbooks were all the more scarce for the higher grades. J. Jablonskis intended to prepare a new edition of the 1901 grammar, in which syntax was to be separated from morphology and much else revised (see Palionis 1957: 32–33). Nevertheless, in 1909 J. Jablonskis decided to write a separate Lithuanian Syntax. At the time, he considered a systematic syntax textbook to be most urgently needed. Those concerned with language practice also sorely lacked systematized rules of syntax—without them, it was difficult to expect errors in this field to decrease4. HOW J. JABLONSKIS’S SYNTAX WAS WRITTEN AND PUBLISHED From the autumn of 1908, J. Jablonskis worked as a Latin teacher at the Brest Gymnasium. Burdened with teaching, editing Žemaitė’s short stories, and occupied with other work, he found it difficult to make time for Lithuanian syntax. Once again, J. Jablonskis resolved to sacrifice his summer vacation to creative work. Yet he was still troubled by the thorny problems of fluctuating spelling and uncertainty over the choice of Lithuanian grammatical terms. Here it is useful to 3 J. Jablonskis’s Lithuanian language curriculum for schools was approved and published in 1909 as a supplement to Lietuvos ūkininkas, in the section “Mokykla” (Buivydienė 2012: 189). 4 Responding to the concerns of the Textbook Commission, J. Jablonskis noted the shortage of good school textbooks and summed up his thoughts as follows: “How a textbook should be written, and what current textbooks lack, is a very difficult question. To speak seriously about which textbooks are most needed now, we will be able to do so once we have decided which textbooks are most needed” (JR V: 236). 20 KALBOS KULTŪRA | 85 Our Linguists. Seated: Šlapelis, J. Jablonskis, Rev. J. Laukaitis. Standing: Stud. K. Būga, Stud. J. Balčikonis. That summer, our language experts gathered in Seinuose and discussed matters of language for several weeks. Before long, we will have a new grammar and syntax. Having considered the major issues, the linguists divided up the work as follows: Prof. J. Jablonskis is writing the syntax, Dr. J. Šlapelis the grammar, while K. Būga will publish a work on spelling. FIG. 1. Photograph from the October 5, 1909 issue of the illustrated Lithuanian Christian Democratic weekly Šaltinis (No. 39) V. LABUTIS. Rygiškių Jono Lietuvių kalbos sintaksės pavyzdžiai 21 He had to find advisers and helpers. Such an opportunity arose unexpectedly: some younger-generation priests finally became concerned with purifying the language of Lithuanian prayers and decided to involve J. Jablonskis in this work. The priests convened consultations several times—at one in Punskas in early 1909 they invited J. Jablonskis as well, and a few months later, at another consultation in Vilnius, not only Jonas Jablonskis but also Kazimieras Būga, Juozas Balčikonis, and Jurgis Šlapelis took part (see Piročkinas 1978: 62–63)5. In the summer of 1909, several priests from Seinai, together with the linguists J. Jablonskis, K. Būga, J. Balčikonis, and J. Šlapelis, edited the language of the prayers. The linguists also undertook work on Lithuanian syntax (see Fig. 1). Here J. Jablonskis and his assistants discussed the spelling and principal terms of the planned Syntax6. He then succeeded in writing a substantial part of his own Syntax in Seinai. J. Jablonskis continued working on it for another full year. He worked in haste, sparing his health not at all. In a letter to Kazimieras Jokantas, he admitted how hard he had worked, without rest (Piročkinas 1985: 160). Most of the Syntax was apparently written in the summer of 1910 at the Petkevičiai estate in Puziniškis. He most likely continued revising it after returning to Brest. J. Jablonskis’s Syntax was first published in the autumn of 1910, in two issues of Vadovas, a monthly magazine for priests edited by J. Laukaitis (Piročkinas 1978: 69)7. To make it accessible to the public, the Syntax also had to be issued as a separate publication. The first half of the work appeared in early 1911, and in early June of the same year the Laukaitis, Dvaranauskas, and Narjauskas company in Seinai published the complete Lithuanian Syntax by Rygiškių Jonas (see Fig. 2)8. The author himself announced this in the newspaper Viltis (JR IV: 64). J. Jablonskis regarded the work as the first part of his planned textbook on Syntax and promised to publish the second part soon—a study of cases and prepositions. Unfortunately, it appeared only 17 years later. 5 Several photographs were taken of the commission of linguists working in Seinai. One of them was published in 1909 in issue 39 of Šaltinis (see Fig. 1). The information beneath the photograph is interesting: it says that J. Jablonskis wrote the Syntax there and indicates how the linguists present divided up the work. One of the organizers of that work was the priest Juozas Laukaitis. He had earlier worked as A. Baranauskas’s senior assistant and later taught Lithuanian at the Seinai seminary for priests. In addition, he founded and managed the Catholic publications Vadovas and Šaltinis. J. Laukaitis knew of J. Jablonskis’s linguistic work and felt favorably toward him. 6 At the end of the preface, the author thanks his assistants, especially K. Būga: “had it not been for K. Būga, his diligence, his dedication to the cause of scholarship [...]—the little work would have been even weaker.” 7 A fuller account of Father J. Laukaitis’s life is given in the recently published book Lietuvybės kovų verpetuose (eds. Kairiūkštytė, Gudonytė 2009: 164–168). 8 Three years later, still remembering how the people of Seinai had printed the Syntax promptly and even praised it, J. Jablonskis reproached them sorrowfully: “The writers of Seinai study that syntax least of all; at least, that is what one would have to conclude from the language of the current Šaltinis and Vadovas” (JR III: 54). 22 KALBOS KULTŪRA | 85 Having opened J. Jablonskis’s Syntax, which spans 110 pages, the reader must first read a fairly informative four-page “Preface.” Here the author very modestly calls his publication “a work of haste and hunger”: “not all the parts of this section have been worked out equally, [...] nor have they all been written equally clearly.” Recalling another task of this Syntax, the author vividly says that it would be merely a “wedge” for the written language, one that would do it little good9. SOURCES OF THE EXAMPLES IN J. JABLONSKIS’S SYNTAX About three quarters of the aforementioned “Preface” is devoted to discussing the examples in the Syntax and their sources. The author considered these matters exceptionally important. He writes: “I collected the material (later corrected to ‘examples’ (see Fig. 3)) almost entirely (‘all’) from people’s speech” (JRR I: 437). In broad terms, “people’s speech” refers not only to the traditional speech of selected rural people but also to folklore—not merely what the author had heard himself, but also material drawn from collections compiled by reliable collectors. Attempts are made to locate these groups of sources of popular speech according to the administrative boundaries of Lithuanian-speaking regions at the time. The author faced considerable difficulties in reconciling the governorates and districts of the tsarist period with dialect areas. Quite a number of sources were used in the Syntax: 51 are listed with numbers, but many abbreviations conceal two or more localities. For example, Kp. (22) covers the speech of the areas around Kupiškis, Šimonys, and Skapiškis, while Kp.d., that is, Kupiškio dainos. (Kupiškis songs), is listed alongside it. Thus, the sources of the examples may well be twice as numerous, or even more. The sources are divided into two main groups: the first consists of selected examples of spoken language and folklore, and the second of written texts. The distinction is not strict, since what mattered more to J. Jablonskis was the quality and reliability of the examples than which group they belonged to. The order in which the sources are described also matters, since they are numbered accordingly. Using those numbers, the reader must determine what an abbreviation means in the alphabetical list of sources given below, because in the text the examples were identified only by an abbreviation and a number. For instance, the alphabetical list gives No. 19 as Nerekonys, a village between Švobiškis and Joniškis, in the description of places in Kaunas Governorate10. 9 Nevertheless, J. Jablonskis repeatedly advised people who wrote to read the Syntax carefully (see below). 10 J. Jablonskis sometimes gives the same source abbreviations alongside the examples, including in some other articles. 24 KALBOS KULTŪRA | 85 songs (Vlk. 2), recorded by August Leskien. Kristijonas Donelaitis’s writings are also included here (Dn. 3). Four sources are cited for examples of the Suvalkian language: the village of Rygiškiai in Naumiestis County; Marijampolė and Vilkaviškis County (specifically Sv.); songs from Liudvinavas (Ld.d.)13; and tales and songs from Garliava (Grl.d., Grl.p.), once collected by Prof. Karl Brugmann14. Among them is inserted a source from the Dzūkian area of Seinai. Thus, among the Suvalkians in the broad sense (according to Suwałki Governorate) are found both a source from the Suvalkians in the narrow sense (according to dialect) and an insertion from the Dzūkians of Seinai. The largest number of sources for examples comes from the former Kaunas Governorate, which encompassed most of Samogitia, Central and Eastern Lithuania—the Kaunas, Raseiniai, Telšiai, Panevėžys, Šiauliai, and Ukmergė counties of the time, as well as the Zarasai-area localities. Here, as many as 17 sources are listed individually. Numerous examples from these places were collected by J. Jablonskis himself; many were also obtained from other linguists or people with whom the author had occasion to interact: Juozas Balčikonis, Kazimieras Būga, Kazimieras Jaunius, Jurgis Šlapelis, Petras Avižonis, Jonas Šliūpas, and others. Examples of spoken language and published songs supplied by Matas Slančiauskas are marked as a double source (Sln., Sln.d.) from Gruzdžiai (formerly Grūzdžiai) and Žagarė. Examples from Vilnius Governorate were “rather few”—only from Švenčionys and Trakai counties, though the latter source covers as many as five widely scattered localities: Žasliai, Onuškis, Punia, Jieznas, and Valkininkai. Examples are also provided from Lazūnai (Ašmena County) and Zietela (now Zietela) (Slonim County), which belonged to Lithuania. Sometimes J. Jablonskis does not indicate specific places, but instead uses generalized source titles: Samogitian (Žm., Žm.d. 35), Eastern Lithuanian (Rt. 36)15. Examples from the written language were used very cautiously. Here he distinguishes 19th-century sources from “old-time” writings. Among the former, besides the already mentioned writings of K. Donelaitis, he mentions the writings of Motiejus Valančius, Simonas Daukantas, and Žemaitė, The Grove of Anykščiai, The Šiaulėnai Old Man, Lithuanian Tales, The Society’s Lodgers, Antanas 13 These are Lithuanian folk songs recorded in 1871 in the environs of Liudvinavas (then in Kalvarija County) by Filip Fortunatov and Vsevolod Miller, and printed in Cyrillic in Moscow (in 1872 and 1873). 14 Published in the collection he issued with A. Leskien, Lithuanian Folk Songs and Tales from Prussian and Russian Lithuania (in German, 1882). 15 In J. Jablonskis’s Syntax, more or fewer examples were taken from each major subdialect; examples were almost entirely lacking only from the western Dzūkians (the present-day environs of Alytus, Druskininkai, Lazdijai, and others). 26 KALBOS KULTŪRA | 85 Juška’s Songs (folk songs) and Dictionary, etc. Sometimes the source of the texts is indicated simply as R. 45. Among the writings of the “olden times,” the works of Mikalojus Daukša, Konstantinas Sirvydas, and a number of other writers are cited. The source abbreviation Rr. 51 is also used (from the examples’ content, one may suppose that this refers simply to religious writings). This fairly varied, even motley, list of sources, not strictly differentiated or defined throughout, suggests that J. Jablonskis had been collecting examples since his student days and had some sort of index-card file of them. To be sure, in one letter from J. Jablonskis to K. Būga, he modestly mentions only his own “hodgepodge” of examples (Piročkinas 1985: 89). Abundance of Examples The abundance of examples in J. Jablonskis’s Syntax immediately catches the reader’s eye. One of the first critics of this work, the young poet Kleopas Jurgelionis, living in America, hastened to count about 2,300 examples in the Syntax just six months after its appearance. He counted them and took offense: supposedly, so many had been included “only to pull the wool over writers’ eyes,” and most of the examples were supposedly from Suvalkija or from works edited by J. Jablonskis himself. This hotheaded critic was little concerned with whom the examples were intended for or how they were presented. Apparently, he had also failed to read carefully the aforementioned “Preface,” with its many and varied sources. Infected by the not especially meaningful arithmetic of examples, we too did some counting. Including sentences devised and commented on by J. Jablonskis, we found approximately 2,900 examples. However, the exact figures may be less interesting16 than certain types of examples and their comparison and proportions. We divide the adjusted types of examples in J. Jablonskis’s Syntax into three main groups: 1) spoken language, 2) folklore, and 3) written (literary) language. Examples of spoken language (dialects) make up about one third of all the syntactic facts examined. This group includes not only examples explicitly attributed to the so-called Suvalkiečiai (Kapsai and Zanavykai), but also about 100 examples that J. Jablonskis himself recorded in the vicinity of Rygiškiai and presented without any attribution. Nevertheless, in the Syntax we also find a considerable number of facts collected both from Samogitia (in Alsėdžiai, Kvėdarna, and other places) and from central Lithuania (in the vicinity of Šiauliai, Panevėžys, Pasvalys, and Žagarė). If we put them all together in one pile— 16 K. Jurgelionis also scattered these specific figures throughout his work; A. Piročkinas commented on and supplemented them (see Piročkinas 1978: 86). V. LABUTIS. Rygiškių Jono Lietuvių kalbos sintaksės pavyzdžiai 27 we would see that they amount to nearly as many as those from the so-called Suvalkiečiai. Examples from eastern dialects (Kupiškis, Anykščiai, Dusetos, etc.) and those marked simply with the abbreviation Rt. likewise make up almost a third of all sentences classified as spoken language. Several dozen examples were taken from the dialects of Prussian Lithuania, which, as is known, are very close to the “Suvalkian” dialect. In the 17Syntax, folklore, which J. Jablonskis greatly valued, likewise accounts for approximately a third (more than 900) of all the examples collected. They are given together with the name of the place where they were recorded (e.g., Grl.d.—Garliava songs), or the name of the collector, e.g., Dk.p.—Daukantas’s folktales, Sl.d.—Slavočinskis’s songs). We classified such examples according to folklore genre, rather than by place or collector. This somewhat distorts the picture of dialect data, but proverbs, sayings, and even songs and folktales spread from one dialect to another, sometimes disregarding dialect boundaries18. The easiest to remember and to travel from one dialect to another are proverbs and sayings—there are about 500 of them in the Syntax. The language of Lithuanian folk songs—with its melody and rhythm—captivated more than one linguist (A. Leskien, K. Brugmann, F. Fortunatov, and others). These songs also circulated in several variants across different dialects. J. Jablonskis drew examples not only from folklore collectors (S. Daukantas, S. Stanevičius, M. Slančiauskas, J. and A. Juška), but also from texts recorded by linguists. In the Ld.d. alone—the so-called Liudvinavas songs, recorded by F. Fortunatov and V. Miler—are cited about 30 times in the Syntax19. In all, about 300 song examples are presented here. Folktale sentences are longer and harder to remember—there are about 150 in the Syntax. There are slightly more than 20 riddles. Altogether, more than a thousand folklore examples can be found. More than 200 examples of written (literary) language are drawn from Žemaitė’s stories; the other literary examples can be listed approximately in descending order as follows: from Visuomenės įnamiai, by M. Valančius; Juozapas Silvestras Dovydaitis’s Šiaulėniškis Senelis; A. Baranauskas’s Anykščių šilelis; M. Daukša; and others. A considerable number of examples of this type remain attributed only in general terms as R and Rr. Altogether, examples from written works make up approximately a third of the sentences discussed in the Syntax. 17 In polemicizing with Vincas Krėvė in 1926, J. Jablonskis repeatedly insisted to writers that “the language of folklore is not something they (writers) may despise...” (JR V: 65). 18 The author of this article, who could not yet read, heard J. Jablonskis’s example black bread is no famine, cited from S. Daukantas, in the Daukšiai dialect (on the southeastern edge of the Kapsai area); however, there it also had a continuation: Black bread is no famine; a thick shirt is no nakedness. 19 It seems that later these songs were not explicitly cited in any other Lithuanian-language textbook. 28 KALBOS KULTŪRA | 85 Examples among the Syntax topics J. Jablonskis arranged the examples according to the plan of traditional syntax textbooks, in which four main parts can be discerned: 1) the sentence and its parts, 2) complex cases of the simple sentence, 3) sentence types, 4) compound sentences and their structural differences. For the practical needs of written language, a few matters of punctuation are usually added as well—this was also done in Syntax. Where, in a systematic account of syntax intended for a textbook, the author gives only a brief description, without delving into more difficult cases of expression and analysis, a few elementary examples suffice in Syntax—they do not even need a source citation. The concept of the sentence and its main parts—the subject and the predicate—are introduced briefly, for example: People toil, work in summer. A hen is a bird and so on. It is recalled that there are simple sentences in which some sentence part is not explicitly expressed: You are running. Stop. Who is crying here?—A child. It is already getting dark. It is cold. There will be rain. The last three sentences are considered impersonal. For secondary sentence parts, longer sentences must be selected—those with source citations, and many more of them. For example, two paragraphs were needed for objects and modifiers, with about 70 examples: A small mound overturns a large cart. (Pr.); He himself carries rye. (Als.); The bread bought is not filling. (Dk.). About 60 examples are found for the various circumstances that are, meanwhile, described briefly: Tomorrow we will go to the forest. Now all girded up everyone works from morning till evening. (Žm.); The branches of the trees with apples bowed. (Kp.); Yesterday all day I stayed at home. (Sv.). An address, or vocative, is not considered a separate sentence part—it is said to be another “outlier”: You, father, be and rot away... (Sln.); Be quiet, frog, listen to what uncle says. (Kp.). Examples pour forth in streams when discussion turns to “sentence composition and variety.” About 20 examples are now given for the subject. Among them, the most interesting are those expressed by an infinitive or together with a nominative: Who would enjoy toiling! (Žm.); Drinking beer is healthy. (Sv.)20; The time will soon come to cut the rye. (Kp.). For the central, most problematic part of the sentence—the predicate and its types—more than 150 examples are devoted in Syntax. Here is at least one sentence illustrating each group: Trouble makes legs straight. (Pr.); That horse was of a bay muzzle. (Sv.); Kalpokas hopes to receive a lot of money. (Žt.); A gentleman is not a brother. (Dk.); The houses are already visible. (Žt.). Here the author considers the possible different 20 The example Drinking beer is healthy is repeated by regular beer lovers, even those who have never heard of J. Jablonskis’s Syntax. V. LABUTIS. Rygiškių Jono Lietuvių kalbos sintaksės pavyzdžiai 29 the interpretation—what to assign to the subject and what to the predicate. Of more than one tricky sentence, J. Jablonskis says: “As the question, so the answer.” J. Jablonskis did not discuss agreement separately as one of the ways of expressing syntactic relations, but in Syntax the agreeing attribute is discussed, while predicate agreement with the subject is treated in detail in two paragraphs, each with three or more subsections. Here are some more interesting examples of such agreement: No one knows that they don't know. (Nr.); Come out, at least one of you, little brothers. (Ps.); The bear and the brown bear both are like that. (Pr.); It's a shame to run away; once escaped, she is safe. (Kv.); The berries are safe. (Sv.); The forests of old were loved, many a song was laid… (An. Š.). About 100 examples are again devoted to the distinctive uses of objects and to the special complex object. Let us look at at least a few sentences with a complex object: Katrė, having seen her husband angry, fell silent. (Val.); Everyone knew Mikė capable of deceiving people. (Val.); Have you ever seen twelve brothers flying about as ravens? (Ps.). The overview lists five adverbials: place, time, manner, purpose, and cause. Their expression is discussed in greater detail starting with the adverbial of purpose; alongside it, adverbials of intended purpose also appear, followed by adverbials of time, manner, cause, condition, and concession21. From two to five varieties are distinguished for each adverbial, and the diversity of their expression is illustrated by 10 or 20 examples apiece. It is worth mentioning only a few of the more unusual cases. Purpose: The maiden is beautiful to look at, sweet to speak to. (D.); I am no little duck to sail across the seas, nor a cuckoo to cuckoo in the forest. (Ld.d.). J. Jablonskis understood how varied the dative constructions with infinitives expressing purpose were, and so he provided many examples in Sintaksėje: Not every mouth is meant to sip porridge. (Sv.); Mother got a child to herd pigs. (Val.); Dried apples are very good to eat dry and to boil for porridge. (Rt.); Today is a good day for bees to climb. (Nr.). Sintaksėje there are other distinctive features relating to the various examples. J. Jablonskis classifies examples of complex subordinate sentences essentially according to which question posed by the main clause the subordinate clause answers. In this respect, asyndetic sentences fall into the same groups as those containing a subordinating word. The classification assigned to one or another sentence sometimes raises doubts. For example, it is not easy to recognize a predicate subordinate clause in a case such as this: Yours are beautiful, but mine—one must weep looking at the animals. (Žt.). 21 Expression of locative adverbials is not discussed, apparently on the assumption that they are better treated in the study of cases and prepositions, while adverbs functioning as adverbials belong to morphology. 30 KALBOS KULTŪRA | 85 Among adverbial subordinate clauses, temporal clauses especially stand out—there are 95 of them. In the Syntax they are divided into as many as 10 subgroups. There are examples here with dialectal conjunctions as well as asyndetic clauses: As Grandma was mending the stakes, I was young. (J. d.); You’ll recover, lig you’ll get married. (Sl.); I rode across the field—the earth rumbled. (D.). We could find more unusual, mostly dialectal examples: The priest won’t come, but he is ill. (Als.); As it is acquired, so it goes for nothing. (Sln.) (Presented among causal clauses.) J. Jablonskis also regarded distinctive comparative expressions as subordinate clauses: She defends, as a lapwing does her chicks. (Pr.); He writhes, it as if toothache were tormenting him. (Val.) (Punctuation follows Jablonskis’s practice.) More than once, the Syntax acknowledges that a subordinate clause may also be assigned to another group. Many have noted the unusual “contracted subordinate clauses” in J. Jablonskis’s Syntax, formed from a participle, half-participle, or gerund, with which other words—its companions—may be “combined”: The devil, having turned into a mouse, gnawed a hole in the ship. (Ps.); Being a bird of the day, a person is restless at night. (Vs.). The author always writes the name “contracted” subordinate clauses in quotation marks and adds the note that these are not true subordinate clauses, but merely peculiar parts of a sentence. J. Jablonskis himself tends to separate them with commas, but believes that “the comma here, of course, cannot have a decisive voice” (§58)22. In the Syntax, examples of parenthetical sentences also include cases in which the narrator’s words are inserted into direct speech: “You, mother, stay with the sick person,” said the father, “and I’m going to fetch the doctor.” (Žt.). Examples of parenthetical words also include particles (surely, perhaps, maybe, as if, and so on): The little man was, as if, nailed to the ground. (R.). We would argue that J. Jablonskis supported with convincing examples the distinction between cases in which the speaker reports a fact genuinely known to them and those in which something has merely been heard or reported by others, while the speaker remains seemingly detached, unaware of what actually happened23; cf. The eagle replied: “I saw and know: by day they fly about as ravens, and at night live as people on one mountain.” (Ps.) and The eagle replied—having seen and knowing: by day they fly about as ravens... (Ps.). J. Jablonskis also presented participial speech as a means of expressing unexpected observations and experiences: After three days, the parents look—and the whole swarm of snakes is slithering into their yard. (Ps.). Unfortunately, in his writings he himself already observed that this tendency toward participial speech is often not followed: We got 22 The punctuation of such participial-type word groups (constructions) is left unrestricted in our time. 23 These cases are now regarded as a distinct category of evidentiality. V. LABUTIS. Rygiškių Jono Lietuvių kalbos sintaksės pavyzdžiai 31 the news that soon will come out as a new newspaper. According to J. Jablonskis, it would be “more natural” to write: We got word that soon will come out as a new newspaper. To this day, syntax textbooks most commonly follow the classification of compound coordinate sentences into additive, adversative, disjunctive, and continuative types. They are named as such in J. Jablonskis’s Syntax. About 60 examples are given for each of these types of coordinate sentences. Even then, J. Jablonskis doubted whether the particle gi, used in written texts, was suitable for expressing contrast: One can drink 10–15 cups of tea, even a young girl (a Mongolian); grown men, however, drink twice as much. (R.). Among the sentences expressing consequence, inference, and continuative coordination, we also find asyndetic ones: I value white peas immensely: they cook quickly and are very healthy to eat. After coordinate sentences, the so-called “coincidental” sentences are added. These are mostly sentences with homogeneous sentence parts: Fish and guests stink on the third day. (Val.), but genuine compound sentences also occur here: The dried-up miser neither eats himself nor gives to another (Spyna). (Kp.). At the end of the chapter on compound sentences, Syntax emphasizes that sometimes there is very little difference between subordination and coordination: He loaded the cart so heavily that even the horses cannot pull it (see § 72). At the end of the syntax textbook, it is also appropriate to discuss punctuation. It is presented here according to punctuation marks, but general rules of punctuation are also stated. Most examples of compound coordinate sentences and more unusual cases of punctuation are taken from written texts. Methods and purposes of presenting examples As an experienced teacher, J. Jablonskis understood well that it would be useful to draw on several methods in Syntax. Where one can rely on students’ existing, if limited, understanding of how to identify the type of a syntactic fact, and where there is no opportunity to examine structure, means of expression, and more difficult cases in depth, it is useful to employ the so-called inductive method. With this method, examples highlighting a particular syntactic phenomenon are usually presented first, and its nature is then explained and a general definition given. This method is used in the first ten paragraphs of Syntax, as well as in introducing sentence parts and subordinate adverbial clauses, and sometimes elsewhere. The expression of sentence parts, their variety, and more complex cases involving sentences and sentence parts are discussed by the deductive method: first a generalization and the types of syntactic phenomena are set out, and then sentences illustrating all this are provided. 32 KALBOS KULTŪRA | 85 Often, examples selected from texts in Syntax are discussed, with possible differences in their interpretation and analysis pointed out. This is a kind of reasoning method. At times the author jokes, inventing witty examples that seem somewhat unusual for a textbook’s style. Yet even in such cases, J. Jablonskis does not violate scholarly principles. For instance, the seventh paragraph begins by discussing the importance of the main parts of a sentence, and continues: “If some blabbermouth were to come up to us and say suddenly, unexpectedly, without being asked (emphasis mine – V. L.) ‘There’s someone sitting on the roof,’ then what he said would not yet be a grammatical sentence.” Or again: while arguing that reported participial speech is in some cases more precise than thoughts expressed by verbs, J. Jablonskis also incorporates his own pseudonym into an invented situation—as if, were he to find in a newspaper a report about himself saying, “The neighbor of R-kių Jonas summoned (brought) [him] to court, saying that his (the neighbor’s) horse had been stolen,” he (Jablonskis) could lodge a complaint against the newspaper’s editor for believing that neighbor’s words. The newspaper should have written: “R. Jonas’s neighbor summoned [him] to court, saying that his horse had been stolen... or suspects him of having stolen the horse.” J. JABLONSKIS’ SYNTAX AND THE STANDARDIZATION OF GRAMMAR As mentioned, in the “Preface” J. Jablonskis modestly said that the textbook would be of little benefit to the written language. And yet it did (and does) provide such benefit. J. Jablonskis’ Syntax is a considerable support for the use of Lithuanian grammar, of course, for anyone who wishes to distinguish the chaff from the grain here. And J. Jablonskis himself, correcting errors of this kind, which were still certainly common in writings at the time and were related to syntax, had since 1912 continually reminded readers that this had already been written about in his Syntax. Unfortunately, even this allusion prompted people who were predisposed against J. Jablonskis’ works, or had not studied them closely or understood them, to look for all kinds of pretexts and belittle his work. Setting aside the baseless attacks by Druskius (Adomas Jakštas (Dambrauskas)) and K. Jurgelionis against the Syntax and its author, let us note only how clearly J. Jablonskis explains that he did not regard his Syntax as any kind of “Koran”; he did not boast of it, but only wished to highlight in it examples of people’s speech... (JR IV: 111)24. 24 It is incomprehensible how the author could have been called a dictator, ruthlessly wielding the axe, when in his Syntax he offers as many as six possible alternatives for one construction, first neng, first negu.... V. LABUTIS. Rygiškių Jono Lietuvių kalbos sintaksės pavyzdžiai 33 J. Jablonskis’s Syntax supported the standardization of our grammar and the systematic descriptions of Lithuanian syntactic phenomena themselves, whose methodological direction can be regarded as “from functions to expression.” The author understood that the regularities he had established might be forgotten after some time, but the examples of good language illustrating them, etched in memory like signposts, show where, in a given situation, our ancestors were able to express their thoughts beautifully in Lithuanian. J. Jablonskis’s Syntax system, though revised and supplemented, strengthened our language through many subsequent textbooks and other grammatical descriptions. For example, in 1985, in the diaspora, Juozas Masilionis published a new textbook for Lithuanians in the USA, Lithuanian Syntax. Here, too, the traditions of J. Jablonskis’s Syntax are acknowledged, having spread through the textbooks of Petras Klimas, Zigmas Kuzmickis, Leonardas Dambriūnas, Pranas Gailiūnas with Juozas Žiugžda, and others. It is again emphasized that J. Jablonskis’s Syntax had always been an inexhaustible storehouse of examples (Masilionis 1985: 5). Indeed, the proverb “Black bread—no hunger,” mentioned perhaps four times by J. Jablonskis alone, would probably be found in every reasonably comprehensive description of our syntax. CONCLUSIONS 1. The Syntax of the Lithuanian Language J. Jablonskis wrote primarily with the shortage of textbooks on this subject for the upper grades of secondary school in mind—a factor that partly explains the abundance of examples and their arrangement. He had been collecting examples for the Syntax since his student days in Moscow—about 30 years. 2. The Syntax was begun while he was a teacher in Brest; in 1909, with the help of K. Būga, J. Balčikonis, and J. Šlapelis, he found refuge in Sejny. He continued the work in the summer of 1910 at the Petkevičiai estate in Puziniškis. Rygiškiai Jonas’s Syntax of the Lithuanian Language was published as a separate book in June 1911. Most of the sources for the examples are cited there with specific references. 3. By approximate calculations, there are about 2,900 examples. By source, the examples are distributed roughly as follows: about one third from spoken language, somewhat more from folklore, and less than one third from written works. 4. The examples are presented according to the plan of traditional syntax: the sentence and its parts, sentence types, complex subordinate and coordinate sentences, so-called reduced subordinate clauses and elliptical sentences, and, at the end, the use of punctuation marks. J. Jablonskis defended, with good reason, the reported 34 KALBOS KULTŪRA | 85 (participial) language. It is repeatedly Sintaksėje recalled that, in more difficult cases, the same sentence can be interpreted and analyzed in several ways. Several methods are used to present examples: inductive, deductive, and deliberative. 5. The correct, beautiful examples of the Lithuanian language, especially folklore, collected by J. Jablonskis often served as a kind of granary for other Lithuanian grammars. J. Jablonskis’s Sintakse, as a systematic model for describing Lithuanian syntax, was used to a greater or lesser extent by more than one author of Lithuanian-language textbooks in the 20th century, as well as by researchers in syntax. The rules and usage tendencies he established helped many Lithuanian grammatical norms take root. LITERATŪRA Buivydienė V. 2012: Lietuvių kalbos mokymas XX a. pradžioje: pirmosios lietuvių kalbos programos ir to laikotarpio vadovėliai. – Naujausi kalbų ir kultūrų tyrimai. Sudarė V. Meiliūnaitė, N. Morozova. Vilnius: Petro ofsetas. Jonikas P. 1987: Lietuvių tauta ir kalba amžių būvyje, Chicago: Lituanistikos instituto leidykla. JR I–V: Jablonskio raštai 1–5. Sudarė J. Balčikonis. Kaunas: Švietimo ministerijos leidinys, 1932–1936. JRR I–II: J. Jablonskis. Rinktiniai raštai 1–2. Sudarė J. Palionis. Vilnius: Valstybinė politinės ir mokslinės literatūros leidykla, 1957–1959. Kairiūkštytė N., Gudonytė A. (sud.) 2009: Lietuvybės kovų verpetuose. Vilniaus ir Seinų kraštai XIX a. pabaigoje–XX a. pradžioje, Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų institutas. Masilionis J. 1985: Lietuvių kalbos sintaksė, Chicago: LB švietimo taryba. Palionis J. 1955: Įžymus lietuvių kalbininkas Jonas Jablonskis, Vilnius: Valstybinė politinės ir mokslinės literatūros leidykla. Palionis J. 1957: J. Jablonskis ir jo lietuvių kalbos vadovėliai. – J. Jablonskis. Rinktiniai raštai 1. Sudarė J. Palionis. Vilnius: Valstybinė politinės ir mokslinės literatūros leidykla. Piročkinas A. 1978: J. Jablonskis – bendrinės lietuvių kalbos puoselėtojas, Vilnius: Mokslas. Piročkinas A. 1980: J. Jablonskis, Kaunas: Šviesa. Piročkinas A. 1985: Jono Jablonskio laiškai, Vilnius: Mokslas. Rygiškių Jonas. 1911: Lietuvių kalbos sintaksė, Seinai. Sabaliauskas A. 1979: Lietuvių kalbos tyrinėjimų istorija 1, Vilnius: Mokslas. Zinkevičius Z. 1992: Lietuvių kalbos istorija 5: Bendrinės kalbos iškilimas, Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidykla. Gauta 2012 12 20 V. LABUTIS. Rygiškių Jono Lietuvių kalbos sintaksės pavyzdžiai 35 EXAMPLES IN LIETUVIŲ KALBOS SINTAKSĖ (SYNTAX OF THE LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE) BY RYGIŠKIŲ JONAS Summary The first comprehensive and systemic description of the syntax of the Lithuanian language Lietuvių kalbos sintaksė (Syntax of the Lithuanian Language) was presented by Jonas Jablonskis under the pseudonym of Rygiškių Jonas as a textbook of a vitally important part of the language at the time when after the lifting of the ban on the Lithuanian press the Lithuanian language was making its way into schools. Jablonskis wrote Lietuvių kalbos sintaksė in a year. Kazimieras Būga, Juozas Balčikonis and Jurgis Šlapelis helped him to resolve issues related to orthography and terminology. Jablonskis’ Lietuvių kalbos sintaksė was published in Seinai on the initiative of the priest Juozas Laukaitis in the monthly of religious direction Vadovas in the autumn of 1910. As a separate book it was published in 1911 also in Seinai. In the foreword of the publication Jablonskis pointed out how important for this work were the examples (2900 of them) and introduced their sources. One third of them are examples of the spoken language form various villages, examples from folklore comprise more than a third (over 900) and examples of best language taken from the writings of 19th century (works of Kristijonas Donelaitis, Žemaitė, Motiejus Valančius, Simonas Daukantas and other) make up less than a third. Examples in Lietuvių kalbos sintaksė are arranged according to the traditional plan of the textbooks of this subject – a sentence, parts of the sentence, types of the sentence, composite sentences and their kinds. For the first time in Lithuanian grammars punctuation marks with the rules of their usage and illustrative sentences were provided. The researched publication helped to bring out and to substantiate the norms of the grammar: first of all it can be seen in the rules set for various matters of syntax and based on convincing examples; in addition various mistakes ingrained in syntactic construction were indicated. The majority of 20th century textbooks of this subject continued the traditions of Jablonskis’ Lietuvių kalbos sintaksė. Some of the examples (especially from the folklore) were widely used by the authors of textbooks as well as scientific works. KEYWORDS: Jonas Jablonskis, syntax, examples, sources, presentation methods. VITAS LABUTIS Vilniaus universitetas Universiteto g. 5, LT-01513 Vilnius 36 KALBOS KULTŪRA | 85