Įterpiniai, jų aiškinimas Jono Jablonskio gramatikos darbuose

Mr. AkelAitis. Insertions, their interpretation in the works of Jan GINTAUTAS AKELAITIS Mykolo Romerio universitetas Jablonski's grammar 57 INSERTIONS, THEIR INTERPRETATION JONAS JABLONSKI'S GRAMMATICS INTRODUCTION Insertions are a separate subject of Lithuanian sentence syntax and the description of that syntax. However, without their discussion, the description of the sentence syntax would not only be incomplete, but also incomplete. And it is absolutely irrelevant how they will be named and evaluated: whether traditionally insertive, or suitable terms and concepts for German, English, where the expression of formal relations of sentence members is different from Lithuanian, Satzadverbiale, Sentence adverbs – sentence adverbs (see Holvoet, Pajėdienė 2005: 107 and others), or the term parenthesis inherited from classical rhetoric (see Koženiauskienė 2001: 176 and others; Rulíková 1973). It is now obvious that insertions, while not belonging to the core of the sentence, are assigned to the stages of the sentence as a statement, they intervene in various ranks of the sentence and even the text – they are both a means of forming modality, and elements of expression of the discursiveness of the sentence, and in the text – a means of sentence cohesion, i.e. grammatical cohesion. In order to understand what was and what was the significance of the description of insertions in the works of Janas Jablonskis, we need at least a brief overview of the history of Lithuanian language syntax research – what was said about insertions before J. Jablonskis. 1. There was no description of insertions in Lithuanian grammar before J. Jablonski. Grammars written in other languages than Lithuanian – even those of August Schleicher and Friedrich Kuršaitis – contained little description of the sentence itself; the subjects of syntax were laid out by the so-called principle of syntax of parts of language (see Būda 1987: 13 et al.). But the first examples, now considered inserts, have already appeared. For example, A. Schleicher, discussing the preposition anot, used only in insertive constructions, wrote: „anot’s meaning is unclear to me; it 58 LANGUAGE CULTURE | 83 (i.e. anot. – G. A.) is used in the following compounds: anot tevo, anot jo zodzo’ (Schleicher 1856: 280). 2. In grammar descriptions published in Lithuanian – Antanas Baranauskas (1896), Peter Gražbylis (Povilas Januševičius) (1905), Adam Stuobris (1906) – although insertions are not described, the first terms for what is now called insertions appear in the sections on punctuation. Specifically: words to be inserted, sentence to be inserted (A. Baranauskas); words are thrown, words are broken (Gražbylys-Januševičius); Capacitive words and sentences (Adamas Stuobris). These terms with expressive coordinative elements neither existed for a longer period of time, nor did any of them become familiar. Thus, the whole – both the description of established terms and the description of insertions as sentence syntax units – belongs to Jan Jablonski. INTERNAL SUBMISSION OF JONO JABLONSKIO GRAMMATICS IN THE WORK Of course, the most detailed description of insertions in the textbooks of Jon Jablonski is in his 1911 work Syntax of the Lithuanian Language. In the Lithuanian grammar of 1901, the history of writing and publication of which is widely known in Lithuanian linguistics, there is no mention of insertive knowledge: as an object of description they did not enter the chapter “Several laws of syntax” (see Jablonskis 1957: 158–177), because in that chapter it was not intended to present a systematic, even concise, description of Lithuanian syntax, but to touch “only the most important questions of grammar”, by the way, not yet based on Jablonskis’s grammar, but on the principles of earlier linguistics. Although there is a section entitled “A few words on grammar spelling”, there is no mention of punctuation, which means that insertions could not have entered into the 1901 grammar by this way either. (Even in “The Syntax of the Lithuanian Language” (p. 102) J. Jablonskis stated: “Punctuation and its science are, in truth, not so much a syntax as a spelling subject”, thus emphasizing that spelling and punctuation constitute the unity of knowledge about the expression of language in writing.) What J. Jablonski wrote about insertions in the chapters of “First Syntax Subjects” and in the descriptions of punctuation subjects in the Lithuanian Grammar of 1922 (and 1919) and in the Lithuanian Textbook of 1925, was compared with the corresponding material of Lithuanian syntax of 1911. And the conclusion was reached: both in grammar and in the textbook- Mr. AkelAitis. In the 59th chapter on insertions, J. Jablonskis presented, in his eyes, the most important things, taking them from the syntax of the Lithuanian language. There is only one minor difference: in his grammar works of 1922 and 1925 he no longer used the prefix interptinis, interptiniai in the interminal elements – he already presented those elements with the prefix į- (see Jablonskis 1957: 412–413). Thus, the object of further analysis is what is written about insertions in J. Jablonski’s 1911 Lithuanian language syntax. TERMS, CLASSIFICATION AND PLACE OF INTERMEDIATES DESCRIPTION OF THE SYNTH J. Jablonskis did not use the solid term inserpiniai – he used, as already mentioned, compound terms with the coordinative accent inserptinis. The most commonly used term is "inserted sentences". From the explanation that “there are not only sentence interptions, there are interptions and separate statements, words” (Lietuvių kalbos sintaksė, p. 76; the abbreviation S 1911 is used hereinafter), it is possible to clearly imply the terms įterptiniai žodžiai and įterptiniai sakiniai. These terms have a classificatory meaning. And the classification of insertive phenomena is actually binary: 1) insertive sentences, 2) insertive statements and words. The fact that J. Jablonski took the second kind of binary insertions as one, shows his feeling that insertions, which according to the present interpretation are considered as objectified, are close to insertions. A peculiar thing is how J. Jablonski incorporated insertions into the syntax description. He gave the insertions a very important, even formal, status: next to the connection, connection, coincidence of sentences (now – sentences with uniform sentence parts) he added the interposition of sentences. In other words, a sentence with an insertion is a compound sentence in the sense of a linguist. He has stated this clearly: “In a compound sentence we distinguish: 1) connection of sentences, 2) connection of sentences, 3) coincidence of sentences and 4) interposition of sentences.” (1911: 87). However, on the other hand, in the description of the syntax itself, the insertions are not in the section “Composition of sentences”, i.e. not in the description of the grammatical types of sentences, but are discussed in detail in the section “Other peculiarities of sentences and their varieties”. And they are discussed first, only followed by direct language, its variant memorized sentences and narrative, or indirect language, so-called participant language. Thus, it can be cautiously stated that the insertions felt by J. Jablonski are both a matter of the whole sentence or sentence as a language unit in general, and a foreign matter. 60 LANGUAGE CULTURE | 83 INTERNAL UNDERSTANDING The description (which can hardly be called a definition) shows that J. Jablonskis understood insertions very broadly and somewhat contradictorily. The description depends largely on the fact that he first emphasized insertions in sentences, and considered sentences with insertions as compounds, as mentioned. “An independent sentence, which, being interposed into another, has no grammatical connection with it (i.e., grammatical connection – G. A.) and brings to the whole sentence some explanation, confirmation, narrowing of the idea, is called an interpositional sentence,” – this is how J. Jablonskis described (well, defined) interpositions. It is true, he immediately added, that "interlaced are also the utterances and the individual words" (S 1911: 76). There is no explanation for this inconsistency of statements. As he himself stated, he relied on the "simple syntax textbooks" of the time. For example, Russian linguists Dmitry Ovsyannikov-Kulikovsky, and later Alexander Peshkovskiy, indicated inserted words and phrases as elements of either an incomplete sentence or a shortened sentence. Thus, cautiously speaking, the basic description of J. Jablonski’s insertions would seem contradictory. J. Jablonski has pointed out that insertions are, in modern speaking, only a secondary thing – they do not express the things of the content of the sentence. He wrote: "There is a sense of uncertainty about the meaning of the word, and it is not easy to understand the meaning of the word. The statement: "You, they say, were in town yesterday" means the same as the sentence "You were in town yesterday." (1911: 78). Of course, in such an example, accompanied by the explanatory word “sometimes”, the insertion says duplicates, in J. Jablonski’s terms, the speech of the participants. But how the content and meaning of a sentence is modified by insertions, he did not attempt to explain. From the descriptions of the syntax of the Lithuanian language of today, J. Jablonskis presented a peculiar broad concept of insertions. The breadth of the concept of insertions and the scope of insertions as specific elements of sentence syntax was determined by the fact that at the time when J. Jablonskis wrote his works on grammar, the formal direction of grammar prevailed (though he remained faithful to the logical direction of grammar). For this reason, grammar authors paid little attention to the semantics of language phenomena. This tendency is also evident in Jablonski's works on grammar. Therefore, the semantics of insertions, or meanings, as it was seen from the given description, was indicated very generalized and approximately: “brings into the whole sentence some explanation, confirmation, narrowing of the idea”. Not only that, it characterizes- Mr. AkelAitis. Insertions, their interpretation in the grammar works of John Jablonski 61 mas does not reflect the most characteristic Lithuanian language insertions first presented by J. Jablonski – sako, girdi, vadinas, rodos, regis, žiūrėk, matyti, anot (kažką) girdi, „surfin’ who’s to blame here“. ir pan. – reikšmių. Plg. pateiktus pavyzdžius (S 1911: 76–78) su šiais būdingiausiais lietuvių kalbos įterpiniais: „Dabar eikit“, sako, „namo“, „paskui“, You didn't seem to have left the house that day. A hen, a pig, or some cattle came, and the sparrow didn’t mind, he lapped them and, look, he stood up on his back. You won't get anything out of it. There were not many people then, you see. He had to "touch", according to his mother, and he wouldn't have flown. We should put an end to it, in a word, and so on. J. Jablonskis, unlike later works on Lithuanian syntax, did not even attempt to classify insertions or discuss them according to their meanings. Among the grammatical characteristics of interpunctions, it is also important that J. Jablonskis indicated that interpunctions have a free threefold position: “Interpunctive sentences can often stand at the end and at the beginning of other sentences, not only in the middle.” (1911: 78). Thus, interposition is the most typical place of insertions. But what determines the position of inserts, from where it comes, – as many later syntaxists, not excluding the present ones – did not explain. SPECIFIC INSERTIONS The very generalized description of insertive meanings, without properly recognizing the proliferation of words, phrases and even sentences that are insertive, allowed J. Jablonski to add to insertive such constructions that did not fit in other groups of syntactic phenomena, and are related to insertive only in that they are distinguished by punctuation marks in the written sentence, and by more pronounced or faint pauses in the sentence – obviously. Therefore, between the insertions, constructions with be appeared: There were seven men, without Peter. In addition to these manifestations, there were many others, even greater. In Lithuania, besides Lithuanians, there are also Poles, Russians (white and big), Jews, Germans, a considerable number of Latvians... (S 1911: 78). By the way, in the current syntax, especially in punctuation descriptions, based primarily on the similarity to the real insert, this kind of constructions are also added to inserts. On the other hand, even J. Jablonskis himself fluctuated about the above-mentioned type of constructions with be: in the section “Distinctive marks” in the sentence Other holidays, besides Sundays, the English almost have no considered the construction without Sundays as a prefix (see S 1911: 97). 62 LANGUAGE CULTURE | 83 doctor brought." “God forbid, no! – shocks Joseph: – I’ll throw it into the pit, and that’s it” (S 1911: 76). He also assigned Įterpiniais J. Jablonskis laikė autoriaus žodžius, įterptus į tiesioginės kalbos sakinį: „Tu, motyn, būk prie ligonio“, tarė tėvas, „o aš važiuosiu to the insertions those words of the author that are not inserted into the direct speech, but follow it, i.e. at the end of the whole sentence: „Reikia pirmiausia nuplauti“, pridėjo senas (S 1911: 76). In the scientific works on the syntax of the Lithuanian language, J. Jablonski’s decision to consider the author’s words as insertions was not only not discussed, but was not even mentioned. J. Jablonskis considered as insertions, in modern terms, completely free, unobstructed, even non-standard, mostly sentence-form statements inserted into a sentence. Only he did not give any of them among the 80 examples of insertions in the description, but put them in the section “Distinctive marks” as constructions separated by hyphens and especially brackets, clearly calling them insertions. Here are the examples: Once – the girl was already twelve years old – the manors had started talking. If the source is small and there is not much water in it, which happens very often, then only a few people drink. The time will soon come when no German expatriate (a hundred thousand of them leave Germany every year to America) who intends to work the land in America will leave Europe without a cage with a few or a dozen sparrows. (S 1911: 100, 101). The location of the examples shows that the linguist did not consider the free insertive constructions as true insertions, which are rare in live spoken language and its style texts. These examples, which are particularly appreciated by all those who study J. Jablonski’s works, tell us a lot about the phenomenon of language, i.e. about what was not written in the textbooks. And sentences with insertions J. Jablonskis presented not only from the language of people, which he considered especially valuable, but also from special literature, although he emphasized that this should be done with caution; thus indirectly he also showed some insertions characteristic of the special language, cf. e.g. : As you could see, the life in the public housing was perfectly understandable to us. As I said, I corrected and compared their translations. In fact, it takes what is most important, for example, in the opinion of historians (see S 1911: 77–79). He tried to present various inserted forms of the same word and sentences with that word next to each other, e.g. sako, sako Jurgis; tells, tells old people and so on. From the examples given by J. Jablonski we can deduce something about the change of insertions, although almost the entire century of language Mr. AkelAitis. Insertive verbs, their interpretation in the grammar works of John Jablonski 63 We now have only galbūt, turbūt, and in the time of John Jablonski there were even variants used as insertive verbs: 1) gali būti, turi būti; 2) may be, must be; 3) may be, must be and 4) may be, must be – the latter were perceived as diphthongs against the background of those three variants. For example. : More, may be (must be), guests will come together. J. Jablonskis has recorded the prepositional form anote, now only known from the Lithuanian language dictionary: What will that "slapstick", anote father, do to me! (1911: 77). For a long time, the concept of insertions established by J. Jablonski and examples from his extensive material (80 sentences with insertions) were transferred entirely or with only minor changes to the numerous textbooks of Lithuanian language syntax written for schools at the time. * development does not show anything. There are two different scientific concepts of insertions in the current Lithuanian language that are obviously based on J. Jablonski’s description of insertions. This is the narrow concept set out in the academic descriptions of the syntax of the Lithuanian language (LKG III 1976: 701–713; DLKG 1997: 641–644) – here insertions are considered to be words and phrases that have become standardized and have a defined number of meanings; free insertive constructions, which are a “non-systematic phenomenon of the speech plan” (DLKG 1997: 645), are called inserts (this concept is also the basis of the author’s investigations of insertions). Obviously, J. Jablonskis was inclined to the narrow concept of insertions, but, being attentive to the syntactic material, he also provided examples of insertions that more or less allowed the formation of the broad concept of insertions – its most important distinctive feature is not so much that insertions are inseparable from insertions, but that insertions grammatically related to sentence words are also distinguished (see J. Jablonskis, Inserts in Russian Language, 1998, p. Balkevičius 1963: 267–281; Labutis 2002: 343–353). CONCLUSIONS 1. Jonas Jablonskis discussed insertions in his works on grammar more than once (1911, 1919 and 1922, 1925), and most extensively – in 1911 in the syntax of the Lithuanian language in a special section; some additional knowledge about inserts is provided in the “Distinctive Marks” section of this publication. By adding shortened versions of the description of insertions to later works on grammar, the linguist did not change the concept of insertions or the illustrative material at all. 64 LANGUAGE CULTURE | 83 2.J. Jablonskis equated insertions with the predicative elements of the compound sentence (present-day term), sentences with insertions he considered as compounds, although he discussed insertions themselves as the peculiarity of sentences, their diversity. They also described the insertions themselves as sentences (i.e., predicate elements of compound sentences). 3. In addition to the sentence form, J. Jablonskis described another form of insertions – statements and separate words. In describing insertions, he highlighted the following distinctive grammatical features: lack of grammatical connection (i.e. grammatical connection) with other sentence words, free three-fold position in the sentence, possibility of removing insertions from the sentence (extraneity). Very little attention to the meanings of insertions was the prerequisite for presenting, alongside the predominant group of insertions characteristic of the Lithuanian language, such sentence elements which, like insertions, have the characteristic of intonational and punctuational separation (which J. Jablonskis did not directly name). 4.J. Jablonskis also covered the number of examples, and by the way of presenting them, he highlighted the core of the Lithuanian language’s inventory of insertions, on which the current narrow concept of insertions is based. By adding various constructions with some kind of insertion mark to insertions, the linguist made the premise for the creation of a broad concept of insertions. LITERATūRA Balkevičius J. 1963: Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos sintaksė, Vilnius: Valstybinė politinės ir mokslinės literatūros leidykla. Būda V. 1987: Lietuvių kalbos prijungiamieji sakiniai: tyrimo istorija, Vilnius: Mokslas. DLKG 1997: Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos gramatika. Red. V. Ambrazas. 3-iasis patais. leid., Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidybos institutas. Holvoet A., Pajėdienė J. 2005: Aplinkybės ir jų tipai. – Lietuvių kalbos gramatikos darbai 3. Gramatinių funkcijų tyrimai. Red. R. Mikulskas, Vilnius: Lietuvių kalbos institutas. Jablonskis J. 1957: Rinktiniai raštai. Sud. J. Palionis, Vilnius: Valstybinė politinės ir mokslinės literatūros leidykla. Koženiauskienė R. 2001: Retorika: iškalbos stilistika. 2-asis patais. leid., Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidybos institutas. Labutis V. 2002: Lietuvių kalbos sintaksė. 3-iasis patais. leid., Vilnius: Vilniaus universiteto leidykla. LKG III 1976: Lietuvių kalbos gramatika 3. Sintaksė. Vyr. red. K. Ulvydas, Vilnius: Mokslas. G. AkelAitis. Įterpiniai, jų aiškinimas Jono Jablonskio gramatikos darbuose 65 S 1911: Rygiškių Jono Lietuvjų kalbos sintaksė 1, Seinai: Laukaičio, Dvaranausko, Narjausko ir B-vės spaustuvė. Rulíková B. 1973: Parenteze v současné češtinč, Praha: Academia. Schleicher A. 1856: Handbuch der litauischen Sprache von August Schleicher. Bd. 1. grammar, Prague: Clave. Received 03/11/2010 INSERTS AND THEIR TREATMENT IN JONAS JABLONSKIS’ GRAMMARS Summary The creator of Standard Lithuanian, Jonas Jablonskis, was also a grammarian who wrote several grammar books that became widely used and that had a major impact on the work of future textbook authors and linguists. The article analyzes one grammatical (syntactical) topic, namely, the treatment of inserts by J. Jablonski. The study of J. Jablonskis articles revealed several issues. There had been no descriptions of inserts in pre-Jablonskis grammars though some sources had proposed various Lithuanian terms for the insert. These terms, however, were not broadly accepted. The term was coined by the German physicist Jürgen Habermas, who was also the first to use the term to describe the principles of behavior. His definition includes such features of the insert that do occur in more recent explanations, namely, the absence of grammatical relation to the other words of the sentence, a free placement in the sentence, secondary importance to the basic meaning of the sentence. J. Jablonskis paid little attention to the semantics of inserts and he treated as inserts such constructions that only had a formal intonational and punctuational feature. Some of these aspects gave rise to the tradition of narrow and broad treatment of inserts in the Lithuanian Syntax. An interesting yet linguistically unfruitful was J. Jablonskis’ understanding of the insert: he treated inserts as sentences, and a sentence with an insert, in his view, was a complex sentence. GINTAUTAS AKELAITIS Mykolo Romerio universitetas Ateities g. 20, LT–08303 Vilnius, Lithuania [email protected]