There are quite a few borrowed words in Lithuanian. Some of them are morphologically adapted, e.g.: institucija, humanizmas, leksika, while others are used in an unadapted form (this does not refer to foreign-language words or phrases that are deliberately left unadapted, e.g.: free style, cool). This article discusses nouns borrowed quite some time ago, most often used in an indeclinable form, e.g.: alibi, fojė, popuri1. The aim was to investigate how the gender of these loanwords is selected: whether recommendations are followed, or whether the choice of masculine or feminine gender is determined by associations with words of similar meaning.
In the Grammar of the Lithuanian Language, it is stated that gender is the most characteristic category of nouns: “In Lithuanian, there are nouns that essentially lack the category of number (they are not inflected for number), and there are also nouns that cannot be declined and therefore lack the category of case; however, there are no nouns that lack the category of gender. Thus, the category of gender is the most important morphological feature of nouns, helping to bring out their meaning as entities.” (LKG I 1965: 164).
The category of gender is characteristic not only of Lithuanian nouns or fully adapted loanwords, but also of indeclinable loanwords. The grammar states that the gender of indeclinable nouns of foreign origin “is inferred not so much from the noun’s form as from the context: it is indicated above all by adjectives, numerals, pronouns, and participles syntactically related to the noun (That ragù would be tasty, if only it weren’t oversalted).” (LKG I 1965: 169; see also Valeckienė 1967: 127). Ramunė Vaskelaitė (2001: 48) states that “with nouns that have no morphological expression, adjectives
1 This article did not examine cases in which loanwords are used in inflected forms, e.g.: does not have an alibi, congratulated the maestro. This is the subject of another study (see Rimkutė et al. 2010).
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the case of the word is selected according to its syntactic function, number according to its meaning, and gender according to the similarity of the noun’s ending to Lithuanian words or its association with the names of things denoted by the word.”
Ne visada lengva parinkti nekaitomų daiktavardžių giminę, nors DLKG (2006: 64), LKG I (1965: 169) pateiktos aiškios taisyklės: nelinksniuojami kitų kalbų kilmės daiktavardžiai, kurie baigiasi kirčiuotu -ė ir nežymi vyriškos lyties asmenų, yra moteriškosios giminės, pvz.: ateljė, filė, foje, koljė, kupė, turnė, želė ir pan., o turintys tiek kirčiuotą, tiek nekirčiuotą baigmenį -i, -u, -o yra vyriškosios giminės, pvz.: aveniu, bolero, kazino, meniu, metro, ragu, tabu, taksi, triko ir pan., išskyrus moteriškosios lyties asmenis reiškiančius daiktavardžius, pvz., fru, ledi2. Vis dėlto R. Vaskelaitė (2001), Artūras Judžentis (2002), Loreta Vaicekauskienė (2007) mano, kad dabartinėje bendrinėje kalboje nekaitomųjų daiktavardžių giminės raiška įvairuoja: vyriškajai giminei priskiriami ne tik daiktavardžiai, turintys žodžio gale -o, -u, -i, bet ir -ė bei -a, pvz.: akcentas – platus koljė: pradėti gaminti įvairūs drašė (Judžentis 2002: 44).
To investigate which gender morphologically unadapted nouns are assigned to, examples were examined in the Corpus of the Contemporary Lithuanian Language (see http://tekstynas.vdu.lt3); to clarify what determines the assignment of indeclinable loanwords to the masculine or feminine gender, Lithuanian and German language students at Vytautas Magnus University (71 first- and fourth-year students) were surveyed in September 20104. They were asked to complete a questionnaire, that is, to add an appropriate ending (and thus gender) to an agreeing word accompanying the indeclinable loanword—
2It should be noted that loanwords whose final syllable is unstressed and which, according to the recommendations in the book Language Advice: Grammatical Forms and Their Usage (Miliūnaitė 2002), are recommended for declension by adding Lithuanian endings -as, -is, -a, -ė, were not studied; that is, avocado, bikini, brandy, tsunami and the like are replaced by avokadas, bikinis, brendis, cunamis. The note in LKG I (1965: 169) should also be taken into account: over time some indeclinable nouns become Lithuanianized, acquiring endings characteristic of native Lithuanian words, e.g., depas (depo), efendis (efendi). In such cases, the gender of the nouns sometimes changes as well, e.g., kakava (kakao), žaliuzės (žaliuzi). Thus, the gender of such loanwords is not in doubt.
3The corpus contains nearly 136 million words. All examples, except interviu, šou, taksi, were analyzed in every part of the corpus: fiction, nonfiction, administrative literature, journalism, and spoken-language texts. Because many examples of interviu, šou, taksi were found, these words were studied only in the journalism section of the corpus.
4Most of those surveyed were Lithuanian-language students. No attempt was made to select students from particular years in proportion, since, in the author’s opinion, students’ age or field of study should not have a significant effect on the research results.
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able loanword and the word modifying it (the questionnaire is reproduced at the end of the article). The questionnaire also asked respondents to explain which word they associated with the loanword. This question was included deliberately: the hypothesis was that the choice of gender might be determined by association with words of similar meaning, e.g., wonderful tango (dance), international jury (committee), new taxi (car). Earlier studies (Vaskelaitė 2001; Judžentis 2002) support this hypothesis, having established that contemporary standard Lithuanian shows a tendency to standardize the usage of indeclinable nouns of foreign origin.
GENDER OF MORPHOLOGICALLY UNADAPTED NOUNS IN THE CORPUS OF THE CONTEMPORARY LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE
Siekiant išsiaiškinti, katrai giminei priskiriami morfologiškai neadaptuoti skoliniai, Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos tekstyne (toliau – tekstynas) tirti 42 nekaitomi nelietuviškos kilmės daiktavardžiai su baigmenimis -a, -i, -o, -u ir -ė: ālibi, ampluà, asortì, ateljė, aveniù, bistrò5, bolerò, dekoltė, dosjė, esė, fādo, fiāško, filė, fojė, gùru, hāiku, interviù, kakadù, karatè, kazinò, kimonò, koljė, kupė, maèstro, meniù, metrò, piurė, populì, ragù, reviù, reziumė, rodèo, suflė, šòu, tablò, tabù, taksì, tángo, trikò, turnė, želė, žiùri.
These loanwords were selected for analysis because they can occur with agreeing words that indicate their gender. Some loanwords, such as kantri, retro, are almost never used with agreeing words, so their gender cannot be established. The same indeclinable words were also included in the questionnaire completed by students (see the section “Choosing the Gender of Morphologically Unadapted Nouns Based on a Student Survey”); accordingly, when selecting loanwords, consideration was given to whether respondents would know the words, and less frequently used loanwords with specialized meanings were excluded. Only indeclinable forms of loanwords were studied6. The summarized results are presented in Figure 1.
5 Both recommended and discouraged or nonrecommended loanwords were analyzed. This article does not call into question whether the loanwords studied are correct or recommended.
6 Examples that do not conform to the spelling norms of standard language were also studied, in which words such as karatè, kupė, koljė are written karate, kupe, kolje.
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FIG. 1. Distribution of the genders of morphologically unadapted nouns (in percentages) in the Corpus of the Contemporary Lithuanian Language
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An examination of the examples found in the corpus containing the indeclinable nouns under study shows that most often the gender was unclear from the context7. In addition, sometimes only a few examples were found, from which no reliable conclusions could be drawn about assigning a loanword to a particular gender8.
Words agreeing with these indeclinable nouns (1–22) that indicate only masculine gender were found: alibi, asorti, bistro, bolero, fado, fiasko, guru, haiku, kazino, kimono, koljė9, maestro, meniu, metro, ragu, reviu, rodeo, šou, tablo, tabu, tango, triko. The nouns ateljė, piurė (23–24) are considered fem- in the corpus
7 A total of 227 alibi concordance lines were found (177 lines were uninformative), amplua had 247 concordance lines (142 of them uninformative), asorti – 29 lines (26 of them uninformative), ateljė – 234 lines (207 of them uninformative), aveniu – 212 lines (133 of them uninformative), bistro – 61 lines (49 of them uninformative), bolero – 81 lines (68 of them uninformative), dekoltė – 41 lines (19 of them uninformative), dosjė – 232 lines (171 of them uninformative), ese – 1,498 lines (1,064 of them uninformative), fado – 26 lines (25 of them uninformative), fiasko – 400 lines (320 of them uninformative), filė – 197 lines (175 of them uninformative), fojė – 727 lines (681 of them uninformative), guru – 621 lines (538 of them uninformative), haiku – 102 lines (89 of them uninformative), interviu – 4,798 lines (3,628 of them uninformative; because of the large amount of data, only journalistic texts were examined), kakadu – 38 lines (23 of them uninformative), karatė – 765 lines (755 of them uninformative), kazino – 834 lines (723 of them uninformative), kimono – 359 lines (254 of them uninformative), koljė – 39 lines (31 of them uninformative), kupė – 377 lines (263 of them uninformative), maestro – 1,474 lines (1,214 of them uninformative), meniu – 740 lines (561 of them uninformative), metro – 836 lines (783 of them uninformative), piurė – 32 lines (30 of them uninformative), popuri – 45 lines (34 of them uninformative), ragu – 18 lines (15 of them uninformative), reviu – 24 lines (9 of them uninformative), reziumė – 166 lines (135 of them uninformative), rodeo – 23 lines (19 of them uninformative), suflė – 8 lines (5 of them uninformative), šou – 2,387 lines (1,939 of them uninformative; because of the large amount of data, only journalistic texts were analyzed), tablo – 71 lines (49 of them uninformative), tabu – 977 lines (798 of them uninformative), taksi – 2,331 lines (2,092 of them uninformative; because of the large amount of data, only journalistic texts were analyzed), tango – 813 lines (663 of them uninformative), triko – 73 lines (50 of them uninformative), turnė – 161 lines (98 of them uninformative), želė – 318 lines (240 of them uninformative), žiuri – 891 lines (662 of them uninformative). Concordance lines were considered uninformative if no agreeing word occurred next to the indeclinable noun, or if the agreeing word did not indicate a clear gender, e.g.: dreams of a long turnė across all of America; having thoroughly grasped A. Piacolo's musical style and the character of concert tango, they played freely, attuned to one another and the audience.
8 Because the number of examples in the corpus is small, no reliable conclusions can be drawn about these nouns: fado, koljė, piurė, popuri, ragu, rodeo, suflė (for the number of informative lines found for these words, see footnote seven).
9 Here and below, when summarizing the research findings, words that, according to the rules set out in grammars, should be considered masculine or feminine are highlighted if the agreeing words found next to these nouns in the corpus indicate the opposite gender.
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feminine gender, since only feminine agreeing words were found next to them, e.g.:
(1) What kind of alibi were you talking about?10
(2) Such asorti can be kept in the refrigerator for several days.
(3) In every big-city bistro they'll gladly pour you some.
(4) The knitted blouse had fallen apart on her checked bolero and fluttered in the wind.
(5) MISIA and her ensemble are bringing a Portuguese fado program consisting of traditional songs and dances [...].
(6) This is a total fiasko for me, says Lora, a former avant-garde painter.
(7) The wise lamas, the noble guru, the mahatmas meditating in the heights of the Himalayas.
(8) I will never want to create a real haiku about the glamorous virtual world, about computers.
(9) This can happen only in such a tiny kazino.
(10) Only their vivid kimono remained in memory.
(11) [...] to find out that the fantastically beautiful golden collier, adorned with mother-of-pearl and diamonds, and earrings [...].
(12) Mark sensed that maestro was plotting some sort of trick: [...].
(13) Lunch for people with a mixed diet menu consists of three courses—a soup, a main course and [...].
(14) [...] kurios galėtų atlikti antžeminio ir požeminio metro galimybių studiją.
(15) The second course begins with langoustine in an oil, truffle and pea ragout, topped with fish stock.
(16) “The Grand Kaunas revue”:
(17) And then the rather gruesome rodeo suddenly ended.
(18) A striptease, wonderful girls, a great show!
(19) Another minute, and the illuminated scoreboard vividly shows: 52 votes for Z. Balčytis, 48 against, 32 abstentions.
(20) People of that generation today are rediscovering the French singer S. Gainsbourg, who defied every taboo.
(21) I find it interesting for another reason too: that tango was the first tango I learned to play on the piano.
(22) The 1980s: the striped leotard.
(23) From this atelier Pranas N. headed to another, then yet another, and another [...].
(24) Porridges made with vegetable and fruit decoction, as well as vegetable and fruit purée are recommended from the age of 3 months.
Based on the endings of the inflected agreeing words used nearby, it can be stated that the following nouns are more often treated as masculine: in-
10 These examples are taken from the corpus. Since, when concordance lines are presented, the word under study is centered and lines 50–300 characters long can be examined, some sentences are incomplete and even end with incomplete words. The examples retain language or proofreading errors. The words under study are printed in bold in the examples by the author.
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(25) There is such a beautiful and accurate interview with the Secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, L. T.
(26) [...] On the way to the bus station, the route taxi I was riding in nearly ended up beneath the wheels of a dump truck.
(27) [...] The director unexpectedly assigned the role to an actor in a completely different role, Juozas Meškauskas.
(28) The little yellow-crested cockatoos are very rare birds.
(29) Skirtingai nuo kitų saldžių patiekalų suflė gali būti patiekiamas karštas tuose induose, kuriuose kepė.
(30) The summary is this: instead of finding ways to reduce the negative impact of globalization, [...].
(31) After its release, a world tour of 212 concerts took place, beginning in Toronto in December 1985 and ending in 1987 [...].
The endings of agreeing words indicate that the following nouns are more often treated as feminine: décolleté (95.45 / 4.55 percent12), fillet (95.45 / 4.55 percent), jelly (93.59 / 6.41 percent), jury (92.2 / 7.8 percent), avenue (78.48 / 21.52), foyer (65.22 / 34.78), essay (58.76 / 41.24 percent), coupé (57.89 / 42.11 percent), dossier (57.38 / 42.62 percent), for example:
(32) Daugelis buvo apnuoginta nugara, kitos suidele dekoltė, dar keletas per daug nėriniuotų ir perregimų.
(33) Jūros ešerio filė nuplaunama, supjaustoma gabalėliais ir iššutinama.
(34) Inside the “Medallion” is a nutritious jelly.
(35) Vėliau šios dvi paskirtys buvo atskirtos, ir didžiosios žiūri tik „tardydavo ir kaltindavo“.
(36) Kažkoks nenuspėjamas skersvėjis juos nuvarė virš Aštuntosios avenū, ir jie ten ilgai ilgai kybojo, aš net atsidusau iš susižavėjimo.
(37) Po vakarienės didžiojoje fojė buvo šokiai.
(38) That essay was written specifically from the perspective of Polish culture.
(39) Besides, why are there only two of them in this coupé?
(40) I will remind you of one more important thing: a similar dossier is compiled solely for official, internal use.
11 The first number indicates the percentage of examples found in which the loanword under investigation is considered masculine; the second number indicates the percentage of examples found in which that loanword is considered feminine.
12 The first number indicates the percentage of examples found in which the loanword under investigation is considered feminine; the second number indicates the percentage of examples found in which that loanword is considered masculine.
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The corpus yielded equal numbers of examples with agreeing words of both masculine and feminine gender used alongside karate and potpourri, e.g.:
(41) According to him, karate is entirely compatible with any other activity.
(42) Karate originated in Japan.
(43) In other words, potpourri, from which an attempt is made to create a symphony.
(44) [...] others turned to the all-too-familiar potpourri, corresponding to their field of study.
Summarizing the results, it can be stated that, judging by the agreeing words used alongside them, many indeclinable nouns were assigned the gender prescribed in normative linguistic works. This is apparently due to the fact that many of the texts in the corpus have been edited.
Attention should be drawn to the nouns koljė, amplua, suflė, reziumė, turnė, which are more often considered masculine than feminine (see examples 11, 27, 29, 30, and 31); žiuri, aveniu should be assigned masculine gender, but the agreeing words found (see examples 35 and 36) show that these nouns are more often used as feminine. Such data indicate certain tendencies to assign some nouns a gender other than that recommended in normative publications. The reasons for this will be illuminated by the results of the student survey discussed in the next section of the article.
GENDER ASSIGNMENT OF MORPHOLOGICALLY UNADAPTED NOUNS BASED ON A STUDENT SURVEY
To determine how gender is assigned to indeclinable loanwords in contemporary Lithuanian, a questionnaire survey was conducted on the 42 indeclinable nouns of non-Lithuanian origin listed in the previous section.
The survey results are summarized in Figure 2.
Most respondents chose forms of the gender to which, according to the recommendations discussed earlier, indeclinable loanwords should be assigned. The survey results below are presented according to how accurately the relevant gender was selected (with respect to the norms of standard language): first are the loanwords whose gender was most often correctly identified, followed by those for which respondents’ views on gender differed.
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FIG. 2. Gender distribution of morphologically unadapted nouns (percentages), based on the results of a student survey
The gender of nouns assigned to the feminine was selected with the following accuracy: filė (100 percent15; fillet, meat, herring, fish), dekoltė (95.77 / 4.23 percent;
13 The first number indicates the percentage of surveyed students who assigned the loanword under study to the masculine gender, and the second number indicates the percentage who assigned the word to the feminine gender. If 100 percent is given next to a word, this means that all respondents assigned the loanword being analyzed to the masculine gender. If surveyed students did not enter an ending, their responses were not included in the total. In some cases, students agreed the wrong words, for example, in the sentence Having poured the aromatic dried-flower potpourri into a large goblet, you will give the rooms a pleasant fragrance, students were asked to match the adjective aromatinis, -ė with popuri, but there were many instances in which respondents matched this adjective with the nearer noun flowers. Such responses were also excluded.
14 The words in parentheses are words supplied by the surveyed students, which they associate with the loanword under study. These are the most frequently mentioned equivalents of a given loanword or words belonging to the same thematic group as the loanword under study. These words often help explain why respondents assigned a particular loanword to one gender or the other.
15 The first number indicates the percentage of surveyed students who assigned the loanword under study to the feminine gender, and the second number indicates the percentage who assigned the word to the masculine gender. If 100 percent is given next to a word, this means that all respondents assigned the loanword under study to the feminine gender.
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excerpt), jelly (95.71 / 4.28 per cent; jelly, consistency, cream, gel, mass), soufflé (91.55 / 8.45 per cent; mass, baked dish, dish), essay (86.96 / 13.04 per cent; work, article, essay), purée (82.86 / 17.14 per cent; mass, porridge, purée, food), atelier (78.87 / 21.13 per cent; studio, salon), résumé (78.57 / 21.43 per cent; conclusions, summary, abstract), dossier (71.83 / 28.17 per cent; description, profile, introduction, data), foyer (70.42 / 29.58 per cent; vestibule, waiting room, lobby, hall, room), tour (61.97 / 38.03 per cent; journey, tour, concert tour, outing), karate (58.06 / 41.94 per cent; sport, sport discipline, martial art, fight), coupé (46.38 / 53.62 per cent; compartment, carriage), collier (42.03 / 57.97 per cent; ornament, necklace), amplua (13.24 / 86.76 per cent; image, style).
Thus, the data presented show that a gender different from that recommended in normative publications was often chosen. This may have been due to loanwords’ associations with words of similar meaning, e.g., avenue – alley, bistro – café, dossier – description, amplua – image. Consequently, in some cases the choice of masculine instead of feminine, or feminine instead of masculine, may have been prompted by such associations. For example, essay was considered a masculine noun by some respondents because it was associated with the words essay, work, and article (masculine nouns); feminine endings were written on the adjectives used alongside fado because this loanword was associated with the feminine noun song.
That associations with a particular word can also determine the gender of the loanword under study was demonstrated quite clearly by the example of cockatoo: many students who considered this word feminine associated it with parrot, whereas those who thought it was masculine associated it with bird (70.42 per cent of respondents indicated feminine gender, and 29.58 per cent masculine).
It is true that the criterion of association cannot be treated as absolute, since the questionnaires included cases in which, for example, dossier was explained as a description (and thus masculine), but a feminine form was chosen for the agreeing word beside it. There were several examples of this kind.
Perhaps the most interesting question is what criteria informed the choice of a loanword’s gender when it differed from that recommended in normative publications. Since the questionnaire asked respondents to indicate which words they associated with indeclinable loanwords, these data can be used to try to determine the extent to which such associations influenced their choice of gender. As noted above, cockatoo was often associated with the word parrot. Words mentioned as closely related to coupé included compartment, carriage. It is likely that the latter option led more respondents to assign the word coupé to the masculine rather than the feminine gender—
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of the students surveyed. The frequent assignment of the loanword collier to the masculine gender can be explained similarly: respondents associated this loanword with the words ornament, necklace. The two most frequently mentioned equivalents of the word avenue, namely alley, street, are both feminine.
Confusion in choosing the gender of the indeclinable loanwords amplua and jury may have arisen from a lack of information or inconsistencies. For example, neither DLKG nor LKG I specifies which gender indeclinable loanwords ending in -a belong to (A. Judžentis (2002) and R. Vaskelaitė (2001) state in their articles that these loanwords belong to the feminine gender). There is even greater confusion concerning jury: according to the rule given in DLKG (2006), jury should be assigned to the masculine gender, but DLKŽ (even in its latest, sixth edition) assigns this word to the feminine gender. This is entirely understandable, since the students surveyed also often associated jury with the word commission, and thus considered it a feminine word.
COMPARISON OF THE RESULTS OF THE STUDY ON GENDER CHOICE FOR MORPHOLOGICALLY UNADAPTED NOUNS
This section discusses the more obvious differences in gender choice that emerged in the corpus and in the students’ questionnaires. Nouns assigned to the masculine gender in normative publications are used similarly both in the corpus and by students: tableau (100 per cent in the corpus, 78.87 per cent among students), bistro (100 per cent in the corpus, 75.36 per cent among students), ragout (100 per cent in the corpus, 75 per cent among students), fado (100 per cent in the corpus, 64.79 per cent among students), and potpourri (50 per cent in the corpus, 76.47 per cent among students). The nouns avenue and cockatoo were mentioned as more often used as feminine both in the corpus and by students (the masculine noun avenue occurred in 21.52 per cent of corpus examples and 30.88 per cent of student examples; cockatoo occurred in 66.67 per cent of corpus examples, but only 29.58 per cent of student examples). Based on the collected data, it can be stated that jury is considered a feminine noun: in only 7.8 per cent of corpus examples are the words agreeing with jury masculine, and only 5.63 per cent of students paired jury with masculine words.
Comparing corpus data with the student survey data on the use of nouns assigned to the feminine gender, several notable differences emerged:
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The students surveyed suflė, reziumė, turnė more often use as feminine nouns (91.55, 78.57, and 61.97 percent of respondents, respectively, selected the feminine gender), thus following the language recommendations. In the corpus, the nouns mentioned are used slightly more often with masculine agreeing words (33.33 percent of examples found in the text indicate feminine gender for suflė, 38.71 percent for reziume, and 41.27 percent for turnė).
The differences are less pronounced when comparing examples of esė, dosjė, fojė, karatė found in the corpus with the student survey. These nouns are usually considered feminine, although there is some uncertainty about which gender to assign them. Statistical data support this claim: 58.76 percent of examples found in the corpus treat esė as feminine; 86.96 percent of the students surveyed would also assign esė to the feminine gender. Dosjė occurs as a feminine noun in 57.38 percent of the examples analyzed in the corpus, and 71.83 percent of students likewise considered it a feminine noun. The figures for fojė, karatė are similar: 65.22 percent and 50 percent of corpus examples, respectively, indicate feminine gender, and 70.42 percent and 58.06 percent of students, respectively, would assign these nouns to the feminine gender.
Both the corpus data and the student survey suggest that there is the greatest uncertainty about the gender of kupė, koljė and amplua. Although all three words should be considered feminine, the statistical data show otherwise: only 57.89 percent of corpus examples and 46.38 percent of surveyed students treat kupė as a feminine noun; in all corpus examples that indicate gender, the word koljė is considered masculine (although very few examples were found in which agreeing words indicate the gender of koljė), and fewer than half of the students (42.03 percent) assign this noun to the feminine gender. Particular attention should be paid to the gender of amplua: only 0.95 percent of corpus examples and 13.24 percent of surveyed students assign amplua to the feminine gender, so it can be said that this noun is considered masculine.
The results presented show that the same loanword may be considered either masculine or feminine. However, the assignment of either gender is more characteristic of loanwords ending in the vowel –ė. Analyzing the principles for assigning gender to indeclinable loanwords, one can conclude that the use of indeclinable nouns shows a tendency to use the masculine gender as a universal gender. Thus, the results of this survey confirm R. Vaskelaitė’s (2001: 49–50) observation that “the gender of indeclinable nouns expressed syntactically shows a tendency to use the masculine gender as a universal gender.”
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Šią mintį galima pratęsti ir L. Vaicekauskienės (2007: 173)16 teiginiais apie tai, kurią giminę gauna svetimžodis besiskolinančioje kalboje: dažniausiai skoliniui priskiriama nežymėtoji, arba produktyvioji, giminė. Giminė skoliniams gali būti parenkama remiantis semantinės analogijos principu, t. y. svetimžodžiams priskiriama ta pati giminė kaip ir saviems tos pačios semantinės kategorijos („gyva būtybė“, „apranga“, „muzikos žanras“ ir pan.) žodžiams. Giminės pasirinkimą gali lemti ir formos arba reikšmės analogija su savu žodžiu.
CONCLUSIONS
Corpus data show that, despite language recommendations, the nouns aveniu, žiuri are more often assigned to the feminine gender, whereas the nouns amplua, koljė, reziumė, suflė, turnė, judging by the agreeing words used alongside them, are more often considered masculine than feminine.
The questionnaire survey results suggest that people are often unsure which gender to assign to indeclinable loanwords. Students were most uncertain about the claim that žiuri, aveniu, kakadu are masculine, and that kupė, koljė, amplua are feminine.
Loanwords can be adapted to the Lithuanian language system on the basis of the gender of words with similar meanings (e.g., žiuri – commission, koljė – ornament, fado – song, dosjė – description). The gender of indeclinable nouns expressed syntactically shows a tendency to use the masculine gender as a universal gender.
In summary, the results of both studies suggest that there is the greatest uncertainty about which gender to assign to the following nouns: aveniu, kakadu, žiuri, turnė, karate, kupė, koljė, amplua.
LITERATŪRA
DLKG 2006: Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos gramatika. Red. V. Ambrazas, Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidykla.
DLKŽ 2006: Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos žodynas. 6-asis leid., elektroninis variantas, Vilnius: Lietuvių kalbos institutas.
Judžentis A. 2002: Žvilgsnis į daiktavardžių giminės kategoriją. – Acta Linguistica Lithuanica 46, 39–47.
16 L. Vaicekauskienė cituoja Anne-Line Graedler (šiame straipsnyje percituojami L. Vaicekauskienės teiginiai).
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LKG I 1965: Lietuvių kalbos gramatika 1, Vilnius: Mintis.
Miliūnaitė R. (sud.) 2002: Kalbos patarimai 1. Gramatinės formos ir jų vartojimas. Sud. R. Miliūnaitė, Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidybos institutas.
Pupkis A. 2005: Kalbos kultūros studijos, Vilnius: Gimtasis žodis.
Rimkutė E., Raižytė J. 2010: Morfologinis skolinių adaptavimas lietuvių kalboje. – Lietuvių kalba. Prieiga per internetą: http://www.lietuviukalba.lt/index.php?id=162 (žiūrėta 2011 01 30).
Vaicekauskienė L. 2007: Naujieji lietuvių kalbos svetimžodžiai: kalbos politika ir vartosena, Vilnius: Lietuvių kalbos instituto leidykla.
Valeckienė A. 1967: Kitų kalbų kilmės žodžiai lietuvių kalbos morfologinėje sistemoje. – Lietuvių kalba tarybiniais metais, Vilnius: Mintis, 108–128.
Vaskelaitė R. 2001: Nelietuviškų nekaitomų žodžių sintaksiniai vaidmenys. – Kalbos kultūra 74, 43–52.
ANKETA
Tose vietose, kuriose parašytas brūkšnys, įrašykite atitinkamai vyriškosios arba moteriškosios giminės galūnes. Žodžius pagal giminę suderinkite su kiekviename sakinyje esančiu pajuodintu žodžiu. Prie kiekvieno sakinio parašykite, su kokiu žodžiu siejate pajuodintą žodį (pvz., aveniu – gatvė, prospektas, alėja)17.
3. Neseniai su grupe „Skylė“ pristāčiusi naują albumą Aistė Smilgevičiūtė per įsimylėjėlių dieną scenoje pasirodys nauj__ (naujas, -a vns. įnagininkas) amplū.
4. Vienas populiariausių – iš sūrio, viščuko, pomidorų, agurkų, riešutų, sezamo sėklų ir kviečių kruopų paruošt__ asortį, užpilam__ jogurtu.
5. Jo ateljė buvo įsikūr__ Didžiojoje gatvėje ir veikė nuo 1860 m. rugpjūčio iki 1863 m. birželio.
6. Juod__ bolerò pūstomis rankovėmis – originalus drabužis, derantis prie įvairios aprangos.
7. Senamiestyje įsikūrė jauk__ bistrò.
8. Žvilgsnį traukia žėrinčiais siūleliais siuvinėт__ V formos dekoltė.
9. Trump__ Kambodžos dosjė.
17 Pavyzdžiai imti iš įvairių šaltinių: Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos tekstyno, žiniasklaidos, grožinės, mokslinės literatūros, interneto svetainių.
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10. Esė ilg__ ir išsam__, tačiau parašyt__ remiantis vien teksto autorių mintimis ir daugiau primena teksto santrumpą nei jo analizę.
11. Klasikin__ fado (tam tikros formos portugališka daina) dažniausiai atlieka moteris, tad galimybė išgirsti fado dainuojantį vyrą, pasitaiko ne taip jau dažnai.
12. Jeigu pinigai pradeda valdyti, tau gresia visišk__ fiasko.
13. Pasūdyt__ silkės filė aliejuje „Gardums“.
14. Nusišypsau ir apsisukusi grįžtu į tą pa__ (pats, -i vns. galininkas) universitero fojė.
15. Tad gal dabartiniai marketingo specialistai panorės tapti ir lietuvišk__ (dgs. įnagininkas) gūru?
16. Sukūrė graž__ haiku.
17. Ko gero, įtakingiausios pasaulyje radijo stoties žurnalistė buvo apstulbinta ne tiek fakto, kad suplanuot__ interviu neįvyks, kiek to, kaip atvirai ir nesidrovint jai buvo paaiškinta priežastis.
18. Baltakuod__ (baltakuodis, -ė vns. arba dgs. vardininkas) kakadù gyvena šiaurinėse Molukų salose Indonezijoje.
19. Patys mažiausi tradicin__ karatė mylėtojai, kurie žengia tik pirmuosius žingsnius šiame gyvenimo kelyje, galėjo varžytis estafečių rungtyse, demonstruodami savo vikrumą, greitį, jėgą ir išmonę.
20. Kai nuovargis pradeda imti viršų, lendi atvėsti į pirmą pasitaikius__ kazino ir dairaisi merginos, nešiojančios kokteilius.
21. Man nedavė stebukling__ kimonò.
22. Kuriant tok__ (toks, -ia vns. galininkas) koljė yra tam tikros procedūros, kurias atlieka skirtingi specialistai.
23. Iš pasitarimo į Kauną važiuovome dvivie__ (dvivietis, -ė vns. vietininkas) kupė.
24. Tačiau šį sykį mūsų gerbiam__ ir mylim__ maèstro gana išradingai išsisuko iš padėties, sumaniai maskuodam__ pastarąjį savo triūkumą.
25. Įvair__ menių – dar viena patraukli picerijos ypatybė.
26. Įkurti antžemin__ metro skatina miesto plėtrą.
27. Viską išplakite su virtuviniu smulkintuvu (kad išeitų vientis__ piurė).
28. Į didelę taurę supylusi aromatin__ džiovintų gėlių popurì padovanosi kambariams mielą aromatą.
29. Ragù uždengiam__ ir troškinam__ ant nedidelės ugnies.
30. Trijų valandų trukmės naujametin__ reviù bus kupin__ šventinės nuotaikos, geros muzikos ir įvairiausių staigmenų.
31. Reziumė yra rašom__ panašiai kaip CV, tačiau jų forma ir turinys šiek tiek skiriasi.
32. Šiandienin__ rodėo kilo iš meksikiečių rančų savininkų, fermerių, jų darbo su galvijais principų.
33. Kad suflė būtų pur__, reikia kruopščiai atskirti kiaušinių baltymus, gerai juos atšaldyti.
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34. Žiūrovų lauks ne tik įspūdingos kovos ringe, bet ir nepakartojam__ šòu, nuostabiosios Olia Lia Lia mergaitės bei gausybė kitų siurprizų.
35. Prieš išeinant pro mokyklos duris šviečiant__ tablò primena: „Būk atidus!“
36. Esu tolerantiškas gėjams, bendrauju, kai reikia, koncertuoju jiems, ir man tai nėra jok__ tabù.
37. Irane moterų vairuojam__ taksì leidžia našlėms ir išsiskyrusioms moterims savarankiškai užsidirbti pinigų.
38. Tango mokytojas Stasys Česonis savo aistrą argentinietišk__ tángo apibūdino paprastai.
40. Kenas Henslis dirba labai įtemptai – po 12 valandų per parą, nes 58 metų roko veterano laukia ilg__ turnė po pasaulį.
41. Veido odos želė, suteikiant__ odai gaivumo ir gyvybingumo.
42. Griežt__ žiūri atrinks geriausius kupranugarius pagal tam tikrą amžiaus kategoriją.
Gauta 2011 02 22
GENDER OF MORPHOLOGICALLY UNADAPTED LOAN WORDS
Summary
The paper introduces the results of the investigation which aims at identifying if the gender of uninflected nouns is chosen considering the language norm and which factors determine that morphologically unadapted loan words are treated as either of male or female gender.
Tendencies in the choice of gender for uninflected nouns were researched in the Corpus of Contemporary Lithuanian (Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos tekstynas) and in surveying 71 first-year and fourth-year students of Vytautas Magnus University. The students were asked to fill in questionnaires, i.e. to add a gender-marking inflection to an uninflected loan word and to its modifier, agreeing in case, number and gender with the loan word. The informants were also asked to explain their choice of inflection by giving the word which they saw as related to the loan word. The request was not accidental; the hypothesis was that the choice of gender of a word might be determined by its association with some other words.
The data of the Corpus of Contemporary Lithuanian shows that despite language recommendations, words, like avेनiu (‘avenue’), žiuri (‘jury’), usually take the feminine gender, whereas words, like amplua (‘most suitable job or occupation’), koljė (‘necklace’), reziumė (‘resumé, summary’), suflė (‘soufflé’), turnė (‘tourney’)
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more frequently take masculine, rather than feminine, gender. The latter finding was based on the usage of inflecting modifiers going together with the uninflected word.
The results of previous surveys suggest that often uninflected loan words have no clearly identifiable gender. The students found some words highly debatable; they were not sure if žiuri (‘jury’), aveniu (‘avenue’), kakadu (‘cockatoo’) should be treated as masculine and kupė (‘compartment’), koljė (‘necklace’), amplua (‘most suitable job or occupation’) as feminine gender words.
To conclude, loan words are adjusted to the system of the Lithuanian language not only on the basis of norm setting recommendations, but also on the basis of similar words in the same semantic field (e.g. žiuri (‘jury’) is a commission (komisija, f), koljė (‘necklace’) is a decoration (papuošalas, m), fado is a song (daina, f), dosjė (‘dossier’) is a description (aprašymas, m). The data confirms the results of previous research, which identified that uninflected nouns tend to take the masculine gender almost universally.
The research results have also demonstrated that most debatable nouns from the point of view of gender are the following: aveniu (‘avenue’), kakadu (‘cockatoo’), žiuri (‘jury’), turnė (‘tourney’), karate (‘karate’), kupė (‘compartment’), koljė (‘necklace’) and amplua (‘most suitable job or occupation’).
