Lithuanian Terminology Dissertations

AUŠRA RIMKUTĖ

Institute of the Lithuanian Language

1961

Antanas BALAŠAITIS. History of Lithuanian Linguistic Terms. Dissertation for the degree of Candidate of Philological Sciences (Vilnius).

The dissertation surveys linguistic terms that have been used from M. Mažvydas’s Catechism to 1961. The material was gathered from grammars, the principal dictionaries of the Lithuanian language, major works on linguistics, articles, and so forth. Terms from individual branches of linguistics are described alongside the development of those disciplines. The terminology of grammar, lexicography, lexicology, dialectology, accentology, and general Baltic linguistics is examined in detail.

The dissertation consists of five parts, conclusions, and an appendix containing two indexes: a historical index of Lithuanian linguistic terms and an alphabetical index of all the terms examined in the dissertation. The first part briefly surveys Lithuanian grammars—from D. Klein’s (1653) to J. Jablonskis’s (1901, 1911, 1919). Until the 19th century, Lithuanian grammars were published in Latin or German, and, in accordance with the medieval Western European tradition, the terms used in them were Latin. It was only from the fourth decade of the 19th century that grammars began to be written in Lithuanian. In S. Daukantas’s Latin grammar (1837), the principal topics of Lithuanian morphology are presented, and Lithuanian terms are used. In the second half of the 19th century, J. Juška, A. Baranauskas, and K. Jaunius developed Lithuanian grammatical terminology. By the end of the 19th century, the main terms for phonetics, language, and parts of speech were already in use, for example: vowels, diphthongs (K. Kasakauskas), noun, adjective (S. Daukantas), syllable, root, ending (J. Juška), letter, spelling (A. Baranauskas), prefix, suffix, compound words, verb (K. Jaunius), and others. J. Jablonskis’s grammars are particularly significant, having had a major influence on the development of standard Lithuanian.

The second part of the dissertation briefly surveys the history of Lithuanian lexicography. Considerable attention is devoted to K. Būga’s works and the terms used in them

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—for example: loanwords, foreignisms, personal names, and others. According to the author, the terms of lexicology and lexicography only came into wider use around the mid-20th century. The third part examines the development of dialectology and its terminology, for example: dialect (A. Baranauskas), speech variety, subdialect (K. Jaunius), and others. The fourth part describes accentological terminology, drawing on the works of F. Kuršaitis, K. Jaunius, and K. Būga, for example: acute and circumflex pitch accent (A. Baranauskas), rising and broken pitch accent (K. Būga), and others. The fifth part focuses primarily on international terms used in linguistics, which are common to many languages, including the Baltic languages. Detailed conclusions are presented at the end of the dissertation.

1968

Stasys KEINYS. Types of Formation of Lithuanian Single-Word Terms. Dissertation for the degree of Candidate of Philological Sciences (Vilnius).

The dissertation aims to demonstrate the actual processes of word formation in terminology and to identify the term-formation types recommended for use. The material was collected from dictionaries of legal (1954), geological and physical geographical (1956), physical (1958), sports (1959), land-reclamation (1960), chemical (1960), textile (1962), and literary (1962) terms, which had been reviewed by the Terminology Commission of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language and Literature of the Academy of Sciences at the time. The dissertation consists of a preface, a two-part study, conclusions, abbreviations, and a bibliography.

The first part, A Survey of the Theoretical Foundations and Practical Work of Lithuanian Terminology Development, discusses general principles and the main trends in terminology development. The history of terminology begins with early Lithuanian writings—the works of M. Mažvydas, M. Daukša, and K. Sirvydas. The second period is associated with the activities of S. Daukantas, L. Ivinskis, J. Pabrėža, and other prominent figures of the 19th century. Particular attention is given to the works of J. Jablonskis, K. Būga, and S. Šalkauskis. The dissertation discusses how terminology in various fields was organized and standardized.

The second part examines current types of single-word term formation synchronically. The author studies only the formation of single-word terms derived from nouns. This part discusses in detail derivatives formed with suffixes, endings, and prefixes, and identifies the most productive suffixes. According to St. Keinys, most of the derived nouns in use are formed with suffixes; for example, the dictionaries mentioned contain about 5,000 derivatives formed using the resources of the Lithuanian language itself. Detailed conclusions are presented at the end of the dissertation.

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1969

Kazimieras GAIVENIS. Compound Terms in Contemporary Lithuanian. Dissertation for the Degree of Candidate of Philological Sciences (Vilnius).

K. Gaivenis discusses in detail the structure of Lithuanian compound terms (types, the order of their constituents, transformations, etc.), the semantic functions of subordinate constituents, and the presentation and definitions of compound terms in terminological dictionaries. Examples were collected from terminological dictionaries published in the post-war years and original scholarly works in various fields.

The dissertation consists of four chapters. The first chapter discusses the concept of compound terms, its designation and properties, and its relations to other categories of lexicology. The second chapter examines the structure of compound terms. The chapter concludes with findings. The author writes that not all word combinations listed in terminological dictionaries should be considered compound terms, but only those whose principal constituents are nouns. In contemporary Lithuanian, compound terms consisting of two constituents are used most often, and the majority of these are specific compound terms. The third chapter describes the semantic functions of subordinate constituents in compound terms. The final chapter of the dissertation discusses how compound terms are presented and explained in terminological dictionaries. The author emphasizes that terminological dictionaries should present the entire system of terminological concepts in a given branch of science as fully and accurately as possible. Therefore, all types of compound terms and their grammatical configurations should be included in them in a rational manner.

1983

Angelė KAULAKIENĖ. Loan Translations in Contemporary Lithuanian Technical Terminology. Dissertation for the Degree of Candidate of Philological Sciences (Vilnius).

No terminology in a new field can do without loan translations. Loan translation is a complex process. It is related to many other theoretical issues in terminology, such as translation, borrowing, word formation, polysemy, homonymy, etc.; therefore, studying loan translation is useful and relevant not only to terminology but also to the standard language as a whole. The dissertation examines loan translations in the Russian–Lithuanian Polytechnical Dictionary (1959), the Russian–Lithuanian–English Dictionary of Computing Terms (1971), and the Dictionary of Physics Terms (1979).

The dissertation consists of a preface, four parts, conclusions, seven tables, lists of sources and literature, and an appendix (an index of loan translations and calques). The first part focuses mainly on theoretical problems of loan translation, pro-

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blems, for example, the criteria used to determine whether a term is a loan translation, as well as the evaluation of loan translations and the process of loan translation, and so on. Loan translations are divided into groups: lexical, semantic, phraseological, and compound loan translations. These groups are subdivided further. The second part examines lexical loan translations, e.g.: antslėgis, cf. Russian сверхдавление, English superpressure; nelaidininkas, cf. Russian непроводник, German Nichtleiter, etc. It also examines compound words used in physics that are loan translations, e.g.: savi­vartis, cf. Russian самосвал; bangomatis, cf. Russian волномер, English wavemeter. The third part examines semantic loan translations (also called loan translations of meaning), in which a word’s meaning is borrowed, e.g.: gervė, cf. Russian лебёдка (the borrowed meaning is “a device used to lift or move something”). Phraseological and compound loan translations are discussed in the fourth part, for example, terms used in physics such as baltasis triukšmas, cf. Russian белый шум, English white noise; aukštadažnis greitintuvas, cf. Russian высокочастотный ускоритель, German Hochfrequenzbeschleuniger. In the author’s view, loan translations arise when the standard Lithuanian language and its dialects lack a suitable word for naming a given concept, or when no borrowed or international term is in use. Terms whose formation is non-Lithuanian and whose motivation is borrowed are considered complete loan translations. Some loan translations are standard, while others are nonstandard, e.g.: nuriebinimas, cf. Russian обезжиривание, German Entfettung, etc.

1993

Jonas KLIMAVIČIUS. The Terminological System of Land Reclamation.Doctoral Dissertation in the Humanities (Vilnius).

The dissertation examines “not so much scientific systems of concepts as linguistic-semantic microsystems of terms, moreover, not only from a terminological but also from a lexicographic perspective. Since science and its conceptual apparatus are international, and some concepts are also designated by international words, the analysis begins first with dia-linguistic analysis—borrowing and loan translation (borrowings and loan translations)—and then considers correspondences and differences, the transformations of microsystems determined by the characteristics of the native language.” The author emphasizes that land reclamation is as old as agriculture, that is, farming—the origin and foundation of all culture and every kind of culture. The word itself is considerably more recent. The origins and history of land reclamation are discussed in detail, along with its synonyms and antonyms (degradation, deterioration, pejoration), as well as equivalents in other languages (especially the abundant English polyonomy). Terms related to land reclamation, including hydrological terms, are also described, together with their origins and usage. Types of agricultural land reclamation are discussed separately in detail: hyd-

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romelioration – land drainage (including drainage systems), irrigation, archaic term irrigacija; agromelioration and other types, systems, and methods. The dissertation draws two broader conclusions: 1) the systematic nature of terminology and its historical development give rise to conflicts between old and new members of the system, and this leads to changes in the system; 2) terminological systems are affected by changes in vocabulary—borrowings, calques, and neologisms.

2000

Albina AUKSORIŪTĖ. Laurynas Ivinskis’s Terminological Works. Doctoral dissertation in the humanities (Vilnius).

The author examines the manuscript and printed works of Laurynas Ivinskis (1810–1881), a prominent mid-19th-century figure in the Samogitian Lithuanian movement, a publisher of Lithuanian calendars, and one of the creators of Lithuanian natural-science terminology, especially in botany; these works contain more than 6,000 terms and nomenclatural names. The terminology of L. Ivinskis’s largest manuscript, Prigimtūmenė, is analyzed in detail.

The dissertation consists of an introduction, a review section, two analytical sections, conclusions, a bibliography, and a list of publications on the dissertation topic. The introduction defines the aim, methods, structure, and subject of the research. The first, review section discusses studies of L. Ivinskis’s works, the terminological and orthographic features of his writings, and his Polish works dealing with matters of the Lithuanian language. It surveys his printed works (calendars and the journalistic work Pasauga) and manuscripts (Prigimtūmenė, Grybų atlasas, the draft of Būdo gydymo ligų žmonių ir gyvulių, and surviving fragments of the Lenkų–žemaičių kalbų žodynas, Rusų–lietuvių kalbų žodynas, and Rusų–lietuvių–lotynų–lenkų kalbų žodynas), which use numerous terms from folk medicine, veterinary medicine, agriculture, crafts, astronomy, geography, botany, mineralogy, zoology, and other fields. The types of designations used by L. Ivinskis for taxonomic categories and the taxa belonging to them are examined in the second section. According to the author, when providing terms for taxonomic categories, L. Ivinskis avoided borrowed words originating in Latin or other languages and sought either to find a word already in use or to create a new Lithuanian one himself (instead of the terms klasė, triba, varietetas, he used nuodali, režtą, atmainą).

The three chapters of the final section discuss ways of naming concepts in Prigimtūmenė: terminologizing common words, creating neologisms, and borrowing terms. The chapter Terminologization of Common Words examines the geographical, meteorological, and other natural-science terms, as well as plant genus names, used by L. Ivinskis as terms, for example: audra, debesís,

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wièsulas, wiètra; àuksas, juodžemis, and others. The names of minerals, fungi, and plant genera are investigated in the chapters Creation of Neologisms and Borrowing of Terms. Coining neologisms—one of L. Ivinskis’s main methods of creating terms—accounts for more than one-fifth of all mineral names and two-fifths of all fungus and plant genus names in Prigimtūmenė. Derivatives coined by L. Ivinskis are discussed according to their derivational formants, while compound neologisms are classified by their components. More than two-fifths of all plant and fungus genus names in Prigimtūmenė are obscure terms.

The natural-science terms coined by L. Ivinskis are not only intriguing facts in the history of the language but also a source for modern terminology, which 20th-century botanists drew on when creating and standardizing plant nomenclature.

2001

Birutė BRIAUKIENĖ. Petras Avižonis and His Lithuanian Medical Terminology.Doctoral dissertation in the humanities (Kaunas).

Using descriptive and comparative methods, the author examines the medical terminology of Petras Avižonis (1875–1939), a renowned physician of the early 20th century, a prominent figure in science, education, and culture, and author of Lietuviška gramatikėlė (1899). The dissertation’s subject is approximately 5,000 terms collected from P. Avižonis’s medical-scientific works: Akių ligų vadovas, his articles in the journal Medicina, and other sources (a complete list of terminological sources is provided at the end of the dissertation). The review chapter outlines the main periods in P. Avižonis’s life and career. Particular attention is devoted to the origins and structure of medical terms. In the dissertation, a medical term is understood as a word or fixed word combination that designates a concept in medical science. The author divides the medical terms used in P. Avižonis’s writings by origin into three groups: 1) Lithuanian (41% of single-word terms and 19.7% of multiword terms), 2) hybrid, or mixed (0.5% of single-word terms and 70.2% of multiword terms), and 3) non-Lithuanian, i.e. borrowings (58.5% of single-word terms and 10.1% of multiword terms). P. Avižonis used the greatest number of non-Lithuanian medical terms.

The author identifies three methods of creating medical terms: terminologizing common words, forming terms using the word-formation resources of the language itself, and borrowing terms. Structurally, the terms used in P. Avižonis’s writings are divided into single-word and multiword terms. Medical terms are also examined according to the relationships between the head and dependent constituents. One chapter discusses term synonyms. According to the author’s research, P. Avižonis himself coined and proposed for use more than 200 Lithuanian medical terms.

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2005

Alvydas UMBRASAS. Lithuanian Legal Terminology, 1918–1940 (Terminology of the Main Codes). Doctoral Dissertation in the Humanities (Vilnius).

The dissertation uses a descriptive method to study the legal terminology used in Lithuania from 1918 to 1940. A considerable number of various legal texts were published during the period under study. Four principal codes were examined: the Criminal Code, the Civil Code, and the Criminal and Civil Procedure Codes. Since each of these codes was translated several times from the Russian original into Lithuanian, the dissertation evaluates the relationship between the terminology used in translations of the same code, identifies its differences, and thereby traces the development of terms. Approximately 5,700 distinct legal terms were identified. They are analyzed in terms of structure, formation, and origin, and synonymy is also examined. The legal terms in the codes are also surveyed by subject area. General legal terms, terms of criminal and civil law, and procedural law terms account for about 80% of all terms. The remaining terms (about 20%) belong to other branches of law: financial, administrative, labor, and constitutional law, as well as forensic medicine, criminalistics, etc.

The dissertation consists of an introduction, three parts, conclusions, and lists of sources and literature. The introduction discusses the state of legal terminology in Lithuania from 1918 to 1940 and surveys the sources. The first part, Classification of Legal Terms by Branch of Law, introduces the concept of the legal system. It distinguishes terms of civil law, criminal law, procedural law, general legal terms, financial law, administrative law, forensic medicine, labor law, constitutional (state) law, commercial law, international law, criminalistics, and other branches of law. The second part is devoted to the expression of legal terms. The third part describes differences in the terminology of the codes. The author emphasizes that 1918–1940 was a very important period in the history of Lithuanian legal terminology, since Lithuanian began to be used in legal documents only after independence was declared.

Irma ZELLER. Automatic Term Recognition and Processing. Doctoral Dissertation in the Humanities (Kaunas).

The dissertation discusses the scarcity of terms and their incorrect use, whereby meanings are confused when terms are transferred into unsuitable contexts. It also considers the causes and characteristics of the divide between prescriptive and descriptive terminology. The object of the study is the potential term automatically identified in a corpus by specialized computer programs for term recognition. The aim is to determine methods and possibilities for automatic term recognition in text.

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and to test them and show how well they are suited to Lithuanian. I. Zeller studied two finite electronic collections of texts translated from English—corpora. The Lithuanian-language corpus, like the German-language corpus, comprises the same 1,695 legal and economic documents (regulations, directives, decisions, and opinions) adopted between 1962 and 2000 by the European Commission and the Council of the European Union.

The study seeks to reveal changing theoretical approaches to terminology and a practical methodology for terminological work that differs from those used to date, along with its characteristics and importance. Through this work, the author demonstrated that the automatic term recognition methods proposed by descriptive terminology can also be applied to Lithuanian. From a theoretical perspective, the study evaluates theoretical material on methods for automatically identifying terms and recognizing them as terms, which has not previously been published in Lithuanian.

The dissertation consists of an introduction, four parts, conclusions, a bibliography, and two appendices. The first part, The Development of Prescriptive and Descriptive Terminology, surveys the state of terminology in the 20th century and prescriptive and descriptive terminology. The second part presents the methodology of automatic term recognition, including the possibilities, methods, and tools for identifying terms and recognizing them as such. The third part describes an experiment in automatic term recognition and analyzes its results. The final part seeks to assess and anticipate the benefits of such recognition and explores possibilities for the practical application of automatic term recognition in Lithuanian terminology. Having conducted an experiment in automatic term recognition in corpora of texts from the aforementioned sources, the author concludes that automatic term recognition in text using specialized programs is indeed possible.

2006

Nijolė LITEVKIENĖ. Lithuanian and Latin Complex Anatomical Terms. Doctoral Dissertation in the Humanities (Kaunas).

The study examines complex anatomical terms (2,024 Lithuanian and 2,506 Latin), collected from T. Weston’s Atlas of Anatomy, prepared and published in London in 1995, and J. Tutkuvienė’s expanded translation into Lithuanian (1997), as well as from the Dictionary of Medical Terms (1980), S. Pavilonis’s Human Anatomy (1984), and other sources. The aim of the dissertation is to analyze the syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations of complex anatomical terms. Lithuanian and Latin two-word and multiword anatomical terms are analyzed in terms of similarity and difference. It also examines Lithuanian and Latin complex

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the frequency and usage tendencies of anatomical term structures, systematizing the patterns of variation in the components of Lithuanian and Latin terms.

The dissertation consists of five chapters. The introduction discusses the subject and objectives of the study, the material examined, the methods, the relevance and novelty of the topic, the practical benefits of the study, its structure and scope, and provides a list of publications. The second chapter reviews Latin as the international language of medical science and the stages in the development of anatomical nomenclature. The third chapter presents aspects of similarity and difference between Lithuanian and Latin two- to eight-word anatomical terms, as well as their structural groups. The fourth chapter analyzes eponymous compound anatomical terms. The fifth chapter summarizes the results of the theoretical study.

N. Litevkienė’s analysis of Lithuanian and Latin compound anatomical terms complements research on medical terminology, highlighting the differences and commonalities between Latin and Lithuanian terminology that shape the word-formation tendencies in this field. These tendencies could serve as a guide when writing anatomy textbooks and compiling medical terminology dictionaries and anatomical atlases.

Received 2007-11-13

Aušra Rimkutė Lietuvių kalbos institutas P. Vileišio g. 5, LT-10308 Vilnius E. paštas [email protected]

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