J. Balčikonio kalbotyros terminų sandara ir savitumas

Ramunė ANDRIUŠKAITĖ Vilnius Pedagogical University THE STRUCTURE AND DISTINCTIVENESS OF J. BALČIKONIS’ LINGUISTIC TERMS This year marks the 115th anniversary of the birth of one of Lithuania’s most prominent linguists, Juozas Balčikonis, who left a vivid mark on Lithuanian culture as a lexicographer, educator, translator, editor, and collector of folklore. Although he published none of his scholarly works on linguistics as separate volumes, his articles, reviews, and commentaries in the periodicals of the time are numerous. J. Balčikonis’s work is most closely associated with standardizing and regulating the language. He was deeply concerned with the correctness of his native language and sought to improve both written and spoken Lithuanian; he observed how people spoke in schools and on the radio, and how books and newspapers were written. J. Balčikonis’s name is counted among those of the most prominent lexicographers, because we cannot imagine the great Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language without him. This linguist worked hard to ensure that K. Būga’s collected word slips did not go to waste and, drawing on his lexicographic work, undertook to organize the preparation and publication of the Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language. While working as a language standardizer and teacher, and, as editor of the Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language, collecting and organizing words, J. Balčikonis repeatedly encountered terms from various fields and therefore also had to take an interest in terminology. J. Balčikonis began working in this field in his youth. In Voronezh, he helped J. Jablonskis develop and organize terms in mathematics and other fields. In 1925, he wrote the article “On the Work of the Terminology Commission,” in which he defended long-established loanwords. In 1939, he published the article “Our Language and Terminology,” in which he described some aspects of the development and creation of terms; he also wrote several short articles on particular cases of term usage. Today, the linguistic terminology used by J. Balčikonis can itself be an interesting subject of study. His beautiful, correct language is an excellent example for linguists and term creators of our time. 59 As a linguist devoted to his work and, in part, a terminologist, J. Balčikonis strove to select and use linguistic terms precisely in his writings. Since at the beginning of the 20th century the standard Lithuanian language was still being developed and standardized, and normative grammars were being written, Lithuanian linguistic terminology was likewise unsettled and inconsistent. Linguists were free to choose which terms to use and often tried to create new ones. This instability of terms is also reflected in J. Balčikonis’s writings. Particularly in his early articles and reviews, he often debated with colleagues the appropriateness of one linguistic term or another. J. Balčikonis’s career as a linguist spanned a long period—from 1918 to 1968—and his works therefore reflect the development of the selection and establishment of linguistic terms. They contain many terms still in general use today, but also a considerable number of older variants that are of interest to the history of terminology. J. Jablonskis created and established a large proportion of linguistic terms, which J. Balčikonis adopted. However, although he greatly respected his senior colleague’s authority, he did not agree with all of his terms and did not hesitate to create new ones of his own. Thus, the variety of the linguistic terminology used by J. Balčikonis makes it an interesting subject worthy of study. Since J. Balčikonis’s linguistic legacy is widely scattered across various periodicals, and the only publication currently available to us that brings together most of it is J. Balčikonis’s Selected Writings, the linguistic terms found in that volume are the subject of this study. A total of 1,026 linguistic terms were identified in these two books. Since J. Balčikonis was not a specialist in any one particular field, these terms are highly varied and belong to nearly all branches of linguistics. Morphological terms make up the largest share of the linguistic terms he used—43.9%. Syntax terms rank second in number, at 15.5%. This is not surprising, since morphology and syntax were taught most extensively and are also the largest branches of language science. It should be added that errors in these two fields are precisely the ones most commonly encountered in language, so J. Balčikonis, as a language standardizer, dealt with and discussed them most often in his works. Morphological terms are especially numerous also because the morphology lectures for students at Panevėžys Gymnasium use many older terms. 60 variants that supplement the already extensive system of morphology terms. The linguist took less interest in other branches of linguistic science and did not study them specifically; consequently, his works contain fewer such linguistic terms, and they occur less frequently. J. Balčikonis’s “Selected Writings” contain almost equal numbers of phonetics (9.4%) and lexicology (9%) terms. J. Balčikonis set out the fundamentals of phonetics in the previously mentioned lecture notes for the Panevėžys Gymnasium. He did not study lexicology systematically, but was greatly interested in the ancient place names of Lithuania. His works contain a comparatively large number of general linguistics (7.5%) and accentology (6.3%) terms, while all the other fields account for only a few dozen or a few tens each: spelling and punctuation – 3.2%, dialectology – 2.8%, word formation and stylistics – just 1.2% each, since these two branches of linguistics had been studied relatively little. The linguistic terms used by J. Balčikonis are quite diverse in origin as well. As is known, there are two ways of creating terms: using the lexical resources of the native language and borrowing terms from foreign languages. The very nature of the science of language would seem to require that, as far as possible, it make do with the resources of its own language. However, like every ancient science, linguistics has a certain number of borrowed international terms. It must be admitted, though, that J. Balčikonis tried to use as few of them as possible. One way of creating Lithuanian terms is to terminologize the meanings of primary or secondary words. This is associated with semantic changes: a terminologized word acquires a special, precisely defined meaning. There are very few terminologized linguistic terms overall, and only 4.5% in J. Balčikonis’s “Selected Writings.” These are fundamental linguistic concepts that have been used in the general language since ancient times, for example: garsas I 401, kalba I 37, šneka I 233, vardas I 39, žodis II 39, whose primary meanings were terminologized. Among the terms obtained by terminologizing other meanings of words, the following may be mentioned: asmuo II 51, giminė I 182, laikas II 44, 1 Alongside the examples, the location where the term occurs is indicated: the volume of J. Balčikonis’s “Selected Writings” is denoted by Roman numerals, and the page by Arabic numerals. The abbreviation ct indicates that the example occurs in a quotation. 61 laipsnis II 36, skaičius II 17; among the more original terms used by J. Balčikonis are būdas “mood” II 47, kryptis “vocative” II 132, liemuo “stem” II 95, vaizdas “aspect” II 51. The second method, in which native vocabulary is used to create a term, is term formation through the use of word-formation devices. This is the most popular method of term creation. All four methods of word formation are used to create linguistic terms. St. Keinys established that particularly many suffixal terms are formed in Lithuanian2. Considerably fewer terms are formed with prefixes, endings, and by compounding. J. Balčikonis’s “Selected Writings” use 236 (23%) one-word linguistic terms. Most of them (60.7%) are derivatives. Suffixal derivatives outnumber all the others by two to one, accounting for 64%. They are most often formed from verbs, for example: derinimas II 94, valdymas II 97, jungtis II 107, linksniuote I 99, tarmė I 43, skolinys I 162, atitikmuo I 232, davininkas II 18, veiksnys I 261, neigtukas I 200. Fewer suffixal derivatives are derived from nouns, for example: dalelė I 39, kablelis II 131, įrankininkas I 40ct, galūnė II 12, garsynas II 194, aplinkybė II 105; and only a few are derived from adjectives, for example: veiksmažodiškumas II 113, bendratis I 101, aukštaičiai I 73. Although there are considerable similarities between suffixal and ending-based derivation, ending-based derivatives make up only a very small proportion of linguistic terminology—10.6%. They are most often derived from verbs, for example: intarpas I 300, posakis I 140, priesaga I 95, nuosaka II 92, samazga II 122, pabaiga I 38ct, jungė II 98; three times fewer are derived from nouns, for example: balsis II 5, raidė II 4. The productive endings themselves are -a and -is. The prefixal derivatives used by J. Balčikonis are formed with six prefixes: prie- (priebalsis II 65, priegaidė I 99, prielinksnis II 75, prieveiksmis II 73), pa- (padalyvis II 50, pavardė I 74), pro- (prokalbė I 232ct), pra- (pravardė I 137), po- (polinksnis I 301), ant- (antraštė I 201). They account for 8.4% of all one-word terms. In second place in terms of frequency is the compounding of linguistic terms. Compounds account for 15.5% of J. Balčikonis’s linguistic terminology. They are of two types—descriptive and government compounds. Descriptive compounds may have 2 Keinys St. Terminologijos abėcėlė. Vilnius, 1980. P. 70. 62 both nominal components (asmenvardis I 267, veiksmavardis II 46, jausmažodis II 132, pusbalsis II 7, kamiengalis I 357), an adjectival and a nominal component (senkalbė I 231, slapyvardis I 266), and a numeral and a nominal component (dvibalsis II 6). Only one subordinative compound occurred (kalbotyra I 97). Many Lithuanian linguistic neologisms were created by notable Lithuanian linguists; J. Jablonskis made a particularly great contribution in this field. He proposed such neologisms as asmenavimas I 198, bendratis I 101, būdinys I 136, kreipinys II 132, ištiktukas I 300, padalyvis II 50, garsynas II 94, rašmuo I 186, veikslas I 300, veiksmavardis II 46. Of the linguistic terminology used by S. Daukantas, būdvardis II 16, daiktavardis II 28, and linksnis II 39 have endured; from K. Jaunius, naujadaras I 46, pusbalsis II 7, and jaustukas II 79. K. Būga was the first to use the terms prieveiksmis II 93, skolinys I 162, tarmė I 43, and linksniuote I 99; A. Baranauskas, raidė II 4, rašyba I 86, sakinys II 89, and skaitvardis II 41. A. Balašaitis thoroughly investigated the origin and history of Lithuanian linguistic terms3. International linguistic terms are for the most part formed on the basis of the classical languages—Greek and Latin. This is because, in earlier times, grammars of European languages were written on the model of Greek and Latin grammars, in which Latin terms were used. Later, new terms were also coined on the basis of Greek and Latin words. J. Balčikonis used 41 terms of Greek origin, for example: alfabetas II 244, apostrofas I 247, dialektas II 141, enklitikas I 316, etimologija I 40, filologija II 154, fonetika I 198, frazeologija I 107, gramatika II 4, hidronimas I 371, leksika I 198, metatezė I 382, onomastika I 352, ortoe pija I 201, semasiologija II 81, sintaksė II 81, and others; and 42 terms of Latin origin, for example: afiksas I 264, afrikata I 271, direktyvas I 394, geminata I 327, hibridas I 179, inesyvas I 394, infinit yvas II 85, intonacija II 82, konsonantizmas I 233, partikula I 333, predikacija II 313, sufiksas II 40, terminas I 43, vokalizmas I 232ct, atributyvinė funkcija I 316, and others. All these terms are 3 Žr. Balašaitis A. Lietuvių kalbotyros terminų istorija. Vilnius, 1961. (disert. rankr.) 63 slightly Lithuanianized, but J. Balčikonis used not only terms of Latin origin but also terms in the form of that language, for example: dativus absolutus I 309 (dative with a participle), gradus comparativus II 144 (comparative degree), nomina actionis I 180 (names of actions), verbum transitivum I 182 (accusative verb). Admittedly, these latter terms are usually provided as clarifications alongside the Lithuanian ones. This is evidently also an influence of the Latin tradition as a language of scholarship. There are relatively few international terms of other origins—only a handful; for example, from French came žargonas I 49, and from German, šriftas II 265. Some of the international terms mentioned above serve in the formation of hybrid terms. J. Balčikonis’s “Rinktiniai raštai” contains as many as 123 such terms. There are very few one-word hybrids. They are usually formed from Greek and Latin roots: akcentologija I 93, terminologija I 99. A much larger proportion consists of hybrid word combinations—that is, multiword terms. Ten such terms comprise two words of different foreign origins and are borrowed in this form from other languages. Words of Greek and Latin origin are most often combined, for example: gramatinė forma (Greek) forma (Latin) II 88, sintaksės (Greek) terminas (Latin) II 111, sintaksinė funkcija I 316; one term each is formed from words of French and German origin—gotiškas šriftas I 234—and from Greek and Italian words—gramatinis trafaretas II 111. Most mixed-origin multiword terms are of a type in which one word is Lithuanian and the other international. This structure indicates that they were not borrowed but formed within Lithuanian linguistics. A total of 113 were found, and they can be divided into two groups. The first group comprises hybrid multiword terms whose head is of foreign origin, while the modifier denoting the specific concept is Lithuanian, for example: beasmenė forma II 139, daugskaitinė forma I 383, sangrąžinė forma I 351, asmenavimo sistema II 197, nuosakos kategorija II 18, kirčiavimo paradigma II 189, padalyvinė konstrukcija I 311, šaukiamoji intonacija II 13, kalbos norma I 315, lyginamoji fonetika I 323, pažymimasis artikelis I 156ct. The second group of hybrid multiword terms consists of word combinations whose first constituent is of foreign origin. In such cases, usually 64 An international term denotes a specific grammatical concept’s distinguishing feature, e.g.: abstract word I 118, acute accent I 375, analytic language II 84, circumflex accent I 375, phonetic feature II 197, grammatical meaning I 113, synthetic language II 84. International terms are found in every branch of science. They are traces of economic, political, and cultural interaction among nations. The use of international and Lithuanian terms depends on authors’ preferences, and only authors’ choices determine the spread of particular words. Sometimes, however, foreign words unjustifiably push good Lithuanian equivalents out of the language. J. Balčikonis well understood the value of his own, Lithuanian, vocabulary, since his works use few international terms (9% of all terminology) and do so comparatively rarely. Nevertheless, a few pairs of international and Lithuanian terms used synonymously occur, e.g.: alphabetas II 244 – abėcėlė II 4, infinitivas II 85 – bendratis I 101, dialektas II 141 – tarmė I 43, fleksija I 254 – galūnė II 12, lingvistika I 229 – kalbotyra I 97, neologizmas I 163 – naujadaras I 46, partikula I 333 – dalelytė I 103, sufiksas II 40 – priesaga I 95. The largest share of the linguistic terms used by J. Balčikonis consists of two-word compound terms denoting specific linguistic concepts—there are 668 of them (65.11%). They can be divided into two groups: phrases with agreeing modifiers and phrases with governed modifiers. In compound terms of the first group, modifiers are most often expressed by various adjectives—simple adjectives (narrow vowel II 146, foreign word I 103, mobile stress I 233ct, intermediate government II 98), definite-form adjectives (common gender II 17, pure predicate II 112), prefix derivatives (impersonal sentence I 261, neuter gender I 93), compound adjectives (monosyllabic word I 385, word-final consonant II 10, acute initial length I 40, homogeneous sentence II 120), especially often adjectives with the suffix -inis (adjectival adverb I 180, vocalic conjugation I 73, nasal vowel II 6, expanded modifier I 39ct, accusative noun I 76, indicative mood I 361, ordinal numeral II 41). Participles serve as agreeing modifiers in compound terms comparatively often: explanatory word I 109, connecting vowel I 226, imperative mood I 276, governed object II 98, positive meaning II 135, 65 assertive adverbial II 106, much less frequently—ordinal numerals, e.g.: second degree I 39, fourth declension II 18, first person I 229, third conjugation I 355. The rarest grammatical type of two-word terms consists of two nouns in the nominative, e.g.: western Aukštaitians II 147, coastal Samogitians II 145, secondary part II 96. Phrases with governed modifiers are less common than those with agreeing modifiers. In J. Balčikonis’s “Collected Writings,” they are half as numerous as the first type. K. Gaivenis proposes classifying such two-word compound terms in more detail according to the head rather than the dependent constituent4, taking into account whether the head is a concrete or an abstract noun (adverbial of manner II 106, instrumental of draugė II 86, language unit II 140, verb of attraction I 161, etymological dictionary II 283, stem-final vowel I 271, Zietela dialect I 363, language group I 231), verbal abstract (adjective formation I 271, use of cases I 42, dialect description II 159, vowel alternation I 298, agreement dependency II 97, stress shift I 100), and, less commonly, adjectival abstract (vowel length I 180, language vitality I 107, consonant softness II 144, stress variability I 233ct). In the source examined half as extensively, 104 three-word terms (10.14%) were found. These terms vary greatly in the parts of speech that compose them, and 19 types can be distinguished. However, based on the relationships among their constituents, they can be divided into only three groups5. 4 Gaivenis K. Dvižodžiai sudėtiniai terminai dabartinėje lietuvių kalboje // Lietuvių kalbotyros klausimai. Vilnius, 1975. T. 16. P. 60. 5 Gaivenytė J. Lietuviškų ir angliškų keturžodžių technikos struktūrų sugretinimas // Terminologija ir dabartis. Kaunas, 1997. P. 91–96. 66 The modifying elements of three-word terms in the first group are linked to the head element through embedding. The head element and the middle modifying element form a primary phrase, which is characterized by a secondary modifying element. For example: distinctive part of speech II 130, comparative closed-vowel consonant of languages I 232. The modifying elements of compound three-word terms in the second group are also linked to the head by embedding, but the direction of embedding is different. The primary phrase is formed between the two modifying elements. The second, noun-expressed element governs the primary adjective element, and the entire phrase characterizes the governing head element. For example: back row vowel I 395, Western Aukštaitian dialect I 233, indicative mood form II 136, progressive aspect II 51, passive participle I 42ct, terminative verb I 377. Compound terms of the third grammatical pattern consist of a head element—the modified word—and two independent modifiers belonging to it. For example: adverbial subordinate clause II 125, predicative subordinate clause II 124, future compound tense II 45, past frequentative tense II 49, contracted subordinate clause II 130, emphatic pronominal adjective I 316. These three types of terms predominate in the terminology. Compound terms of other types are very rare—16 four-word terms and 2 five-word terms. 67 The variety of linguistic terms in J. Balčikonis’s “Collected Writings” is very great. This publication brings together the works of his entire lifetime. During that period, the study of the Lithuanian language changed considerably: traditional approaches were developed, new theories and rules were formulated, new perspectives on language research were discovered, some terms became outdated, and new terms were created while old ones were refined. Consequently, the terminology of linguistics contains various inaccuracies, synonyms, and variants of terms. In J. Balčikonis’s works, these account for about 17% of all linguistic terms used. In terminology theory, synonyms are commonly regarded as a flaw in terminology, something unnecessary and even harmful; it is considered necessary to eliminate synonymy among terms and their parts and elements so that each concept is designated by only one term6. However, achieving complete synonym-free terminology is very difficult. The establishment of any term within a scientific system is a lengthy and complex process—it requires full agreement among scholars in that field, and such agreement is not reached quickly. Therefore, at every stage in the development of any branch of science, some synonymous terms are used. J. Balčikonis adopted most of his linguistic terms from J. Jablonskis. His works contain only a few inaccuracies in terminology. These occur because of the long period during which this linguist worked and the terminology of linguistics was taking shape. As noted in the discussion of the origins of linguistic terms, pairs of synonyms often consist of international terms and their Lithuanian equivalents. Most international terms are old and familiar, and are often used in language-related works alongside their Lithuanian counterparts (sufiksas II 40, predikacija II 313, lingvistika I 229). Only one linguistic term in J. Balčikonis’s writings, partikula I 333, is almost never used in present-day Lithuanian terminology. The situation is different when Lithuanian synonyms function within a terminology system: their coexistence violates the principle of terminological precision and can cause confusion. If we considered the linguistic terminology used by J. Balčikonis as an indivisible whole, we would find quite a few terms designated by several differently expressed words. However, such an approach would be mistaken with regard to this linguist. Many of his works on the same linguistic topics… 6 Keinys St. Min. veik. P. 98. 68 Terms denoting linguistic concepts cannot be regarded as true synonyms, since they did not function in the language at the same time. There is a substantial difference between the terms he used before the 1940s and those he used afterward. Some terms from the earlier period practically coincide with the early linguistic terms used by J. Jablonskis, which were later displaced by current terms in the works of both J. Jablonskis himself and J. Balčikonis. For example, consider the term veiksmavardis II 46, which was later replaced by the term bendratis I 136. In J. Balčikonis’s earlier works on language, veiksmavardžiu referred to some indeclinable verb forms. J. Jablonskis regarded any forms actually derived from verbs as veiksmavardžiais, including participles, adverbial participles, and half-participles in this category. J. Balčikonis understood the concept more narrowly, so in his early terminology, apart from bendraties, only two action-nouns are found: aplinkybinis veiksmavardis II 51 (later būdinys I 136) and siekiamasis veiksmavardis II 58. J. Jablonskis called the latter term siekiamuoju sakymu, until both were replaced by the more convenient and elegant term siekí nys I 224. For a time, J. Balčikonis also used the term sakomasis būdas, adopted from J. Jablonskis, to designate verb moods. It was also used to form terms for specific concepts: liepiamasis būdas II 46, geidžiamasis būdas II 46, tariamasis būdas II 46; instead of the current tiesioginės nuosakos, he used reiškiamasis būdas II 45. The word būdas is overly abstract. The current term nuosaka is etymologically related to nusakyti ‘to state’, and thus is connected with the act of speaking and is better suited to a system of linguistic terms. There were many other older terms used by both linguists: liemuo I 95 (later kamienas II 12), įrankininkas I 40 (later įnagininkas I 100), didžioji arba svarbioji sakinio dalis II 96 (later pagrindinė), sąjunga II 76 (later jungtukas), dvigubas (later dvejybinis) naudininkas II 104 / galininkas II 104 / linksnis II 104. Some of the newer terms are more precise, while others, such as įrankininkas and įnagininkas, are equivalent in both meaning and expression. Another part of J. Balčikonis’s early terminology consists of terms used by him alone and perhaps coined by him, although they were later abandoned for one reason or another. To designate verbal aspects, he used 69 the term vaizdas II51, and named aspect types in an unusual way, unlike J. Jablonskis, who was already using current terminology at the time: einamojo veiksmo vaizdas II 51 and pabaigto veiksmo vaizdas II51. Although in meaning they differ in no way from the current terms eigos and įvykio veikslas and express exactly the same concepts, they are nevertheless cumbersome and inconvenient to use. Perhaps for this reason, or perhaps for others, J. Balčikonis abandoned them in his later works. He also used a different word to designate the dative case: davininkas II18. This is a calque of the Latin term dativus and, moreover, the only case name based on a verb; it therefore disrupted the system of their formation and was later displaced by naudininko. Other more original terms used by the linguist include stovį II 46 (dalyvio rūši): veikiamasis stovis II 46 (veikiamoji rūšis I 302), kenčiamasis stovis II 46, kenčiamasis dalyvis II 47 (neveikiamoji rūšis, neveikiamasis dalyvis), as well as pabaigos laika II 63, though he later used the term būtasis laikas; the terms betarpiškas valdymas II 98 and tarpiškas valdymas II98 (now tiesioginis ir netiesioginis valdymas). These last two terms, used by J. Balčikonis to designate types of government, are even slightly more precise than the current ones. In addition to the terms discussed above, which do not form synonym pairs, several terms have been found in J. Balčikonis’s “Selected Writings” that could be considered synonyms, since they designate the same concept and were used at the same time. First, the names of accent types vary in his writings: pastovus kirtis I 95 – nekilnojamas kirtis I 383 – nešokinėjantis kirtis I 372, and correspondingly nepastovus kirtis I 233 – kilnojamas kirtis I 202. These are unstandardized terms used in parallel. There were more, for example: mišrusis dvgarsis I 366 – mišrusis dvibalsis I 394, perkeltinė prasmė I 361 – perkeltinė reikšmė I 198, prokalbė I 232 – senkalbė I 231, forma I 185 – lytis I 179, beformis žodis II 82 – belytis žodis I 40 (=nekaítomas žodis), savaiminis naudininkas I 276 – savarankiškas naudininkas I 260 (=subjekto naudininkas), literatūrinė kalba I 231 – bendrinė kalba I 105, išskirtinė kalbos dalis II 130 – izoliuotoji kalbos dalis II 130 (This concept was also called sutrauktaisiais šalutiniais sakiniais in J. Jablonskis’s grammars), pabrėžiamasis žodelis I 289 – pabrėžiamoji dalelė I 308. 70 Among the more unusual synonym pairs, one may mention jungę II 98 – prielinksnį II 75 and sangražinę dalelytę I 269 – sangražinis įvardis I 333. They are interesting because of their unexpected shifts in meaning. J. Jablonskis coined the term jungę as one variant of the term jungtukas, whereas J. Balčikonis used it in the sense of prielinksnio. Today, the reflexive affix -si is called a particle, whereas in J. Jablonskis’s earlier works it is treated as a pronoun (grįžtamasis išvardis). Following the old usage, J. Balčikonis sometimes also calls it a įvardžiu. When discussing the meanings of terms, two groups of terms used by J. Balčikonis should be considered separately: linksniuote I 99 – linksniavimo paradigma I 387 – linksniavimas II 18 – trečiasis linksniavimas II 18, asmenavimas II 198 – pirmasis asmenavimas I 355. In contemporary Lithuanian linguistics, the terms linksniuote and linksniavimas designate different concepts: inflection for case and the declensional paradigm. However, in the linguist’s early works, linksniavimas and asmenavimas also referred to the corresponding inflectional paradigm. Consequently, these terms were ambiguous, which caused considerable inconvenience. A separate group comprises terms that have no synonyms in J. Balčikonis’s writings but would form synonym pairs with terms in the current Lithuanian linguistic terminology system. These are words with which the author designated various linguistic phenomena in an unusual way. For consonants undergoing assimilation, he used the term abejojamas priebalsis II 11. Today we would call them supanašėjusiais arba asimiliuotais priebalsiais; these names express the essence of the concept more precisely. The term abejojamas priebalsis merely points to the possibility of an error. To name the negative particle Neigiama jai dalelytei, he used the term ginamoji dalelė I 39ct. It is interesting because it draws on an older meaning of the word ginti in his works: ‘to prevent, forbid’. Other terms worth mentioning include būtasis mėgintinis laikas II 49 (now sudėtinis būtasis laikas), junginimas II 109 (now laipsniškas prijungimas), pobūvio galininkas I 289 (now laiko trukmės galininkas), pereinamasis veiksmažodis II 100 (now galininkinis veiksmažodis), išeities sujungimas II 122 (now išvados sujungimas). In addition to those discussed, J. Balčikonis’s writings also contain terms that are not only unusual in form but have no equivalents at all in current linguistic terminology. Some of these, whose origins are unknown 71 Terms designating linguistic phenomena were not used by J. Balčikonis himself. They occur in his reviews, in which he criticized colleagues for carelessness in creating definitions for linguistic concepts that do not exist. For example, he drew attention to such questionable terms in J. Murka’s textbook as keičiamasis žodis I 38ct, perdedamasis žodis I 38ct, puošiamasis žodis I 38ct, dalinis žodis I 38 ct. Although J. Balčikonis himself viewed such attempts by some linguists to introduce new linguistic concepts with suspicion and distrust, unconventional ideas also occur in his works. In the syntax notes prepared for students of Panevėžys Gymnasium, alongside the usual terms tarinio and veiksnio, one can find the terms psichologinio tarinio II 87 and psichologinio veiksnio II 87. With these, J. Balčikonis attempts to explain the mental processes that take place in human consciousness as a thought forms. This is a fairly new approach to the science of grammar, bringing it closer to the concerns of psychology or psycholinguistics. In the same notes, two more unusual terms stand out: minkštoji balsė II 6 and kietoji balsė II 6. Softness and hardness are properties characteristic of consonants, and it is questionable whether these features can be used to describe vowels. From the definitions provided for these terms, one can infer that J. Balčikonis had in mind back and front vowels, which soften or harden the consonants preceding them. It is clear that the vowels were given these names because of the functions they perform. If the author wanted to emphasize these functions, it might have been more accurate to use the terms minkštinamosios and kietinamosios balsės. It should also be noted that at the time J. Balčikonis did not yet make a terminological distinction between the names of sounds and letters, since he designated sounds as balsėmis. In addition, J. Balčikonis’s works distinguish types of linguistic categories that do not exist in contemporary linguistics, for example: traukos veiksmažodis I 161, sutaptinis sakinys II 83, vietininkas antrasis II 18. These terms were also used by J. Jablonskis. The second locative essentially refers to the inessive, whereas according to J. Balčikonis it is a locative that answers the question kur? The linguist already had doubts about the term sutaptinio sakinio—the text places a question mark beside it. J. Jablonskis used it to designate compound sentences that have a common main clause but can coincide with one another and become a single sentence. 72 However, the examples provided show that by coinciding sentences he meant homogeneous sentence constituents. J. Balčikonis was therefore entirely justified in questioning this term and later abandoning it.7 In addition to synonymous terms, J. Balčikonis’s long-standing system of linguistic terminology contains quite a number of variants, which most often differ from one another in their derivational affix or grammatical form. Some of these variants consist of definite and indefinite forms of terms. Many linguistic terms form contrastive pairs, and the feature they designate, being contrary to that of another phenomenon, is distinguished by comparison or opposition; therefore, they should occur only in the definite form, for example: ilgas balsis I 325 (cf. ilgasis balsis II 7), ilga balsė I 40 (cf. ilgoji balsė), minkštas priebalsis I 357 (cf. minkštasis priebalsis I 395), moteriška giminė I 266 (cf. moteriškoji giminė I 300), rašoma kalba I 99 (cf. rašomoji kalba I 44), trečias asmuo I 183 (cf. trečiasis asmuo), trumpas balsis I 325 (cf. trumpasis balsis II 7), vyriška giminė I 325 (cf. vyriškoji giminė I 271). Some definite-form terms have variants involving suffixed forms or word combinations of another form, for example: klasiškoji kalba II 152 – klasikinė kalba II 152, lyginamoji kalbotyra II 164 – lygin tinė kalbotyra II 165, savinamasis įvardis II 38 – savybinis įvardis I 236, paprastasis būdvardis I 302 – paprastinis būdvardis I 254, sujungiamasis sakinys I 373 – sujungtinis sakinys II 121. Another group of term variants shows that the genitive almost always competed with other adjective or participle forms: vakarinių aukštaičių tarmė I 233 – vakarų aukštaičiai I 233, mažybinis veiksmažodis I 180 – mažybės veiksmažodis I 377, skiriamasis ženklas I 58 – skyriaus ženklas I 58, reikiamasis dalyvis II 273 – reikiamybės dalyvis II 273, minkštinamasis ženklelis I 186 – minkštumo ženklas I 220. At present, in these cases preference is given to variants with the genitive. Terms expressed as single words and as word combinations can also be considered variants, for example: vietos vardas I 73 – vietovardis I 107, neigia- 7 Jablonskis J. Rinktiniai raštai. – Vilnius, 1957. T.1. P. 539. 73 particle II 134 – negative particle I 200, question mark II 291 – interrogative particle II 240. In many respects, one-word terms are more convenient. They do not compromise precision of meaning and, moreover, conform to the principle of linguistic economy. For this reason, they are now also the most commonly used. As with terminological synonyms, J. Balčikonis’ “Collected Writings” include terms that cannot be regarded as true variants, since they were used at different times. Some forms are older than others and were later displaced by more refined variants, e.g.: gimtis II 17 – giminė I 182, kryptis II 132 – kreipinys II 132, priešpriešinis sakinys II 121 – priešinamasis sakinys II 121, didžiulė raidė II 5 – didžioji raidė I 58, mažėlė raidė II 5 – mažoji raidė I 58, įvardinis būdvardis I 134 – įvardžiuotinis būdvardis I 315. All these synonyms and variants reflect the development of Lithuanian linguistic terminology. Although some of them did not survive in the language, they are nevertheless of interest to researchers of the history of terminology. THE STRUCTURE AND DISTINCTIVENESS OF J. BALČIKONIS’ TERMS OF LINGUISTICS Summary This paper deals with terms of linguistics used in Balčikonis’ “Rinktiniai raštai” (“Selected works“). More than 1000 terms of linguistics are discussed according to their origin, structure and word formation, also their variety and topicality for today’s linguistics is surveyed. The main part of linguistic terminology used by Balčikonis consists of two-word terms naming specific concepts of linguistics. One-word terms were used less. Three-word terms are twice as rare as one-word terms. Terms of other structures are very rare in Balčikonis’ works. In respect of origin, terms of linguistics used by Balčikonis can be classified into three types: 1) terms created by terminologisation of some meaning of a word, 2) terms created by means of word formation, 3) terms borrowed from other languages. Terms of the first type are rare. The main part of Balčikonis’ terminology consists of Lithuanian one-word derivatives and complex terms. Most frequently Balčikonis used suffixation. Compounding was used less frequently. Even fewer terms were created using endings. Prefixation in Balčikonis terminology was also used very rarely. All international terms used by Balčikonis belong to the borrowings type. Most of them are taken from Greek and Latin. 74 Two and three word complex terms are classified according to the relationship between components of the phrase. Ramunė ANDRIUŠKAITĖ Vilnius Pedagogical University Faculty of Lithuanian Studies Department of Lithuanian Linguistics T. Ševčenkos 31 LT–2009, Vilnius Received 2000 11 02 75