From sentence negation to connective. Old Lithuanian nei(gi) 'and not; nor; than; before'

Norbert Ostrowski

doi:10.32798/bl.405

Abstract

This paper aims to show the sources of the Lithuanian conjunction nei(gi) ‘than’ and its later development. The most archaic function of nei that can be found in Old Lithuanian texts is nei ‘and not’ as a type of sentence negation in a clause following another clause that does not contain a negation, with both clauses combined asyndetically. Examples can be divided into two subtypes, defined as unordered addition and temporal succession clauses in Dixon’s terms (Dixon 2009). The counterparts of nei are Latin ne-que and German und nicht. The next stage in the development of coordinate sentences with nei was correlative sentences of the type ne- ... nei(gi) ‘not ... nor’, which were very common in the 16th century. The correlative construction ne- ... nei(gi) ‘not ... nor’ traces back to juxtaposed clauses with narrow-scope negation, viz. p & q (‘We didn’t meet Marvin, and we didn’t meet Joan either’)—Haspelmath (2007, 16). Negative coordination of the type ne- ... nei(gi) underlies reduplicated connectives nei ... nei ‘neither ... nor’, which are widespread in modern Lithuanian. ne- ... nei(gi) also gave rise to the conjunction of comparative clauses nei(gi) ‘than’. (Pirm) nei(g) ‘before’, as a conjunction of temporal clauses, belongs to the latest chronological layer.

Highlights

This paper aims to show the sources of the Lithuanian conjunction nei(gi) ‘than’ and its later development
The most archaic function of nei, which can be found in Old Lithuanian texts, is nei as a sentence negation in a clause following another clause that does not contain a negation, with both clauses combined asyndetically
The most archaic function of nei that can be found in Old Lithuanian texts is represented by sentences of the type Ghis dręba ir siaucz ir kasa Szemes, nei klausa balso Trumittos. ‘He swalloweth the ground with fierceness and rage: neither believeth he that it is the sound of the trumpet.’ (Job 39.24)

Summary

Introduction

This paper aims to show the sources of the Lithuanian conjunction nei(gi) ‘than’ and its later development. The inadequacies in the synchronic description of language in the oldest texts adversely affect etymology An example of this is the account of the Lithuanian/Latvian negation nei in Fraenkel’s (1962) and Smoczyński’s (2007) etymological dictionaries, whose authors do not go beyond the trivial equation of Lith. This paper aims to show how a philological analysis of the oldest Lithuanian texts can help us to follow the functional changes of nei In this way we are able to separate different chronological layers and point to innovations following in succession. Nor’, very common in the 16th century This type of sentence traces back to juxtaposed clauses with narrow-scope negation (section 1.1). Such a shift is the reverse of a change described by Stassen (1985, 61) for Dutch dan ‘than’, which comes from dan used adverbially in temporal succession clauses, i.e. ‘’ > ‘than’, cf. Heine (1997, 117), section 2

Objectives

Conclusion