Lithuanian Linguists Research Articles

An Overwiew of Lexico-Semantic Noun Anglicisms in The Modern French and Lithuanian Languages: Linguists’ Approach

The article examines noun anglicisms and their lexico-semantic integration in the French and Lithuanian languages. The notion of dynamics of the borrowing process and the concept of noun anglicisms are analyzed from the linguistic point of view. The article aims at describing different interpretations of anglicisms by French and Lithuanian linguists, problematics of lexico-semantic anglicisms, and the current approach to lexico-semantic anglicisms in the French and Lithuanian languages. It can be assumed that the intensive usage of anglicisms generates a new linguistic situation in which English terms are widely used in the French and Lithuanian languages. The use of new lexical elements in the French and Lithuanian languages improves text expressiveness and helps to move away from the formality of the text, thus creating a connection with the reader and realizing verbal expressiveness. To sum up, anglicisms in the modern French and Lithuanian languages appear to have a systematic character related to the diachronic and structural development of the language. Their relatively fast assimilation at phonological, morphological and semantic levels appears to be the key part of the borrowing process. A great number of anglicisms seem to be the result of the process of globalization. Anglicisms influence all languages of the world. Naturally, French and Lithuanian are not an exception.

MICHELIO HOUELLEBECQ’O ROMANO SOUMISSION VERTIMO Į LIETUVIŲ KALBĄ STILISTIKA

2015 m. Prancūzijoje išleistas garsaus prancūzų rašytojo Michelio Houellebecq’o romanas Soumission sulaukė kontroversiškų vertinimų: vienų romanas vadinamas distopija, kitų – šiuolaikinės vakarietiškos visuomenės kritika, dar kitų – provokacija dėl musulmonų vaidmens kūrinyje. Romaną iš karto imta versti į įvairias kalbas. Lietuvių kalba jį pavadinimu Pasidavimas 2015 m. išleido leidykla „Kitos knygos“ (iš prancūzų kalbos vertė Goda Bulybenko). Vertimas į lietuvių kalbą taip pat sulaukė kontroversiškų atgarsių: viena vertus, Lietuvos literatūros vertėjų sąjungos ekspertų knyga buvo įtraukta į vertingiausių verstinių knygų sąrašą, kita vertus – vertimo recenzijos itin teigiamos nebuvo, pastebėta vertimo klaidų. Tad aktualu paanalizuoti detaliau, kokį Houellebecq’ą teks skaityti lietuvių skaitytojui: ar tokį, kokį jį skaito prancūzai, ar kiek kitokį. Vertimo analizei pasirinktas stilistikos aspektas: bus siekiama aptarti Houellebecq’o stilių remiantis Rogerio Célestino bei Juremiro Machado Da Silvos darbais apie šį rašytoją ir ištirti vertimo į lietuvių kalbą stilistikos specifiką remiantis lietuvių mokslininkų Juozo Pikčilingio, Aldonos Paulauskienės bei prancūzų vertimo teoretiko Henri Meschonnico įžvalgomis apie meninio teksto stilių ir poetiką. Tikimasi, kad tokia vertimo analizė padės atsakyti į klausimą, ar skaitytojas gali tikėtis lietuvių kalba skaityti tikrąjį Houellebecq’ą.

Mažosios baltų kalbos?

Viena iš išsamiai svarstytų ir, atrodytų, gerai ištirtų tradicinės baltistikos problemų yra mažųjų baltų kalbų – jotvingių, kuršių, žiemgalių, sėlių – identifikacija. Tačiau atidžiau panagrinėjus motyvus, argumentus bei empirinę medžiagą – visa tai, kuo remiamasi identifikuojant mažąsias baltų kalbas, šiame straipsnyje pateikiama tradicinės mažųjų baltų kalbų sampratos dekonstrukcija ir verifikuojamos hipotezės, mažųjų baltų kalbų klausimu pateiktos šiuose svarbiausiuose fundamentiniuose ir klasikiniuose veikaluose: Būga 1958–1961; Dini 2000; 2014; Kabelka 1982; Karaliūnas 2015; Mažiulis 1994; Salys 1995; Zinkevičius 1984; Lietuvių kalbos enciklopedija 2008. Dekonstruojant keliamas klausimas: ar tikrai lingvistinėje literatūroje vardijamas ypatybes galima laikyti identifikacinėmis, t. y. ar jomis remiantis galima skirti (atskirti, išskirti) mažąsias baltų kalbas? Išnagrinėjus šias ypatybes, jų tarpusavio santykį ir identifikacinį svorį paaiškėjo (žr. 7 pav.), kad, deja, kol kas trūksta patikimų lingvistinių duomenų ir aiškių argumentų, kad būtų galima identifikuoti ir skirti jotvingių, kuršių, žiemgalių ir sėlių kalbas. Toliau straipsnyje verifikuojamas istorinių regionų, onomastikos faktų ir lietuvių kalbos dialektų ypatybių vaidmuo identifikuojant mažąsias baltų kalbas. Atlikus verifikaciją ir mažųjų baltų kalbų sampratos dekonstrukciją paaiškėjo du paradoksalūs dalykai, susiję su mažųjų baltų kalbų skyrimu remiantis keliomis iš principo tik fonetinėmis ypatybėmis ir lietuvių baltistikoje net ir šiais laikais gana populiaria baltų kalbų archajiškumo (ar senumo) idėja. Straipsnis baigiamas tyrimo perspektyvų siūlymais, kuriuos galima nusakyti trimis žingsniais: tipofilija, tipologija, dialektometrija.

Lithuanian temporal adverbials: position in the system of temporal expressions and a review of semantic research

Expression of time is an important field in linguistic research. In Lithuanian linguistics, the study of time has focused first and foremost on tense and aspect systems. Therefore, Lithuanian language has developed a big diversity of means to encode time, e.g. noun cases (vasarą ‘in summer’) and noun phrases (liepos vakarą ‘in July evening’), prepositional phrases (po darbo ‘after work’), adverbs (netrukus ‘soon’), subordinate clauses (kai nustos lyti ‘when it stops raining’). All of them despite their different grammatical status are suggested to be called temporal adverbials. ‘Adverbial’ is a quite new notion in Lithuanian linguistics, it was first presented in the studies of stance adverbials but is also convenient in the field of linguistic expression of time. The purpose of the paper is to demonstrate the necessity of distinguishing a semantic-functional class of temporal adverbials in Lithuanian linguistics and to show their position in the system of means that encode time. The second part of the paper presents a few semantic models of the temporal adverbials made by foreign linguists and the semantic research of Lithuanian temporal means that should be regarded as temporal adverbials.

On the term of standard language

On the term of standard language

The expression of object location with perlative preposition PER in Lithuanian

It is not unusual for a language to have one or several prepositions of originally perlative meaning that in certain pragmatic and syntactic contexts can designate location of some object (the trajector) on the other side of another, typically topographical, object (the landmark). In English such prepositions are across, through and over. In Lithuanian their sole counterpart is the preposition per.
 
 In Cognitive Grammar the cases when motion verbs or prepositions that presuppose motion are applied to designate static spatial relations between two objects are accounted for by using the notion of ‘subjective motion’ which, in its turn, is based on the notion of ‘subjectification’ (Langacker 2000, 2002, 2006). In other words, the subjective motion is defined as a cognitive operation in the course of which the conceptualizer mentally scans through the route that is presupposed by applying a motion verb or a perlative preposition. Thus the use of the lexemes of originally dynamic meaning is motivated for the designation of static spatial situations.
 The cases of the semantic extension mentioned above until now pose no problems for Lithuanian linguists, either lexicographers or grammarians. Thus the phenomenon of ‘locative’ use of the perlative preposition per in Lithuanian remains unidentified in dictionaries, and undescribed in grammars. No surprise, such uses of the preposition per are unattested in the Corpus of Contemporary Lithuanian, though in spoken everyday language and in the internet sources they are well attested. One may adduce structural and semantic arguments that the locative meaning ‘on the other side of’ of the perlative preposition under discussion is represented in the mental lexicon of the Lithuanian speaker and, thus, must be discerned as separate sense in dictionaries. To say more, without this sense unbridged semantic gap remains between the primary sense ‘through’ of the preposition per, representing ‘proto-scene’, and its derived senses of ‘distance’, ‘span of the time’, ‘more than’ and others − the fact of most relevance for the one who attempts to reconstruct the motivated semantic network (Tyler & Evans 2003) of this preposition.
 The main concern of the article, though, is not lexicography, but similarities and differences between locative usage of originally perlative construction [per + NPacc] and inherently locative constructions [kitapus + NPgen] and [anapus + NPgen]. On the first look these constructions seem synonymous: they have the same meaning ‘on the other side of’ and are mainly used in locative vs. existential sentences. But the deeper insight into the data collected from the internet sources shows that what distinguishes the first construction from the other two is the additional functional component of the ‘trajector control’ in its meaning: the construction [per + NPacc] is predominantly selected in the situations when it is relevant to the speaker not only to say that the object pointed at is on the other side of some topographical object and exactly in front of the viewer but it is within potential reach of this viewer as well. On the other hand, the construction [kitapus + NPgen] and [anapus + NPgen] is selected in the situations when the proximity of the dislocated object is not relevant to the speaker. Thus, in terms of distribution, the construction [per + NPacc], in its locative usage, with respect to its inherently locative counterparts represents the (functionally) marked case in Lithuanian.

Lithuanian resultatives in the context of neighbouring Slavic languages

Resultative secondary predicates, or resultatives, express the state of a participant of an event as a result of the action denoted by a verb. On the other hand, resultatives bear a semantic relation to the main predicate as well. Due to this fact and due to their encoding by adverbs, Lithuanian resultatives are superficially similar to adverbials. This might be the reason why resultative secondary predicates have for a long time remained unnoticed in Lithuanian linguistics. A boundary between resultatives proper and the so-called pseudo-resultatives has to be drawn in order to get an accurate description of the phenomenon. Pseudo-resultatives are constructions semantically and/or formally resembling resultatives proper but lacking the causative relation between the primary and secondary predications; they can, at best, be treated as belonging to the periphery of the domain of resultatives. As the data of Lithuanian, Russian and Polish resultatives reveals, the three languages share some common features. First, all of them encode the basic result component by means of verbal prefixes, while the secondary predicates only specify the result that is already implied by a verb. Secondly, all languages make use of prepositional phrases including the preposition to as one of the strategies for encoding resultative secondary predication. Besides, Lithuanian and Polish, unlike Russian, generally avoid resultatives based on intransitive verbs (except optionally transitive verbs like eat and drink). However, there are major differences as regards the distribution of to-PPs in the languages. In Lithuanian the use of to-PPs is determined by the lexical aspect of a verb: accomplishments usually do not combine with resultative prepositional phrases, while activities do. Another factor operates in Russian and Polish: to-PPs are used with verbs that emphasize a process leading up to the resulting property, while the verbs that highlight the resulting property as such take resultatives encoded by other strategies. In the former case the resulting property is accumulated as the action proceeds: to load the cart full, to eat oneself full, etc. In the latter case a verb usually implies a bundle of finer-grained properties for which the values have to be set in advance: to paint the car red/green/blue, to cook the egg hard/soft, etc. The difference between the accumulated property and the pre-set value can also be formulated in terms of goal and manner: the accumulated property parallels progressing towards the goal, while the pre-set value resembles the manner in which an action is carried out. Polish and Russian, in turn, also show a difference: the former distinguishes two types of resultatives (expressing a pre-set value and expressing an accumulated property), while the latter in addition has a special type of marking for resultatives like to wipe the table clean which are intermediate between the preset-value and the accumulated-property types.

On the reference of zero subjects

The article deals with the issue of the reference of zero subjects which has been very scarcely examined in Lithuanian linguistics. The first part of the article presents a review of the theoretical tools to analyse zero elements and its key theoretical tenets. The main framework that the study relies on is Igor Mel‘čuk’s theory of incompleteness as well as other studies that supplemented and verified Mel‘čuk’s theory. In the discussion of theoretical premises and relying on other linguists’ argumentation, a crucial distinction is made in the article between a zero element and ellipsis. The second part of the article analyses authentic empirical linguistic data of Kauniškiai sub-dialect of Western Aukštaitija obtained from a collection of dialectal texts of the Šakiai and Griškabūdis sub-dialects. The main goal of the article is to determine referential peculiarities of zero subjects and to encourage further motivation to differentiate between the zero subject and the zero anaphoric subject. It should be emphasised that the study is based on individual examples which were analysed. Such a choice in terms of examples was made in order to demonstrate that the distinction of the zero subject and the zero anaphoric subject without a detailed examination of the wider context may prove complicated. In some cases when no adequate context is available, there are no reliable criteria to distinguish these two elements.The main conclusions of the article are as follows:a) The analysis of individual examples shows that zero subjects could be dominant. However, in many cases a dual interpretation is possible, i.e. a zero element may be treated as a zero subject or as a zero anaphoric subject. In such cases it is necessary to examine the wider context, since neither the syntactic structure, nor the semantics of the sentence can provide clear criteria in order to distinguish a zero subject from a zero anaphoric subject.b) Referents of zero subjects may be different. According to the features that are typical to those referents, it is possible to distinguish at least two groups. The procedure requires paying special attention to the features of the referent, which are determined by a concrete sentence and its semantics: ‘±animate’, ‘±person’, ‘±concrete’ etc.c) Referents of zero subjects in the first group typically share the feature ‘unspecified’. Usually these are referents that have the feature ‘some person; a person or people’. In this case the speaker includes a zero subject into the sentence structure yet does not try to name the subject most probably because s/he does not think that it (the subject) needs to be specified. The subject may also be obvious, for example, it may be clear from the general background knowledge or the mutual experience of the interlocutors.d) The second group consists of referents of zero subject, which may be assigned the feature ‘generalised’. It includes cases in which the speaker cannot clearly name the referents for different reasons or the referent is difficult to name using one word only.e) Referents of zero anaphoric subjects, i.e. referents of the ØPro3 antecedents may only include concrete ‘persons, people’ mentioned in the text that only possess concrete features ant not subjects that have the feature ‘natural forces’.Presumably, the most important conclusion of this article is the following: in order to have a real and full picture of zero subjects and zero anaphoric subjects in spoken language, in order to clearly distinguish zero and zero anaphoric subjects and in order to reliably determine the peculiarities of the referents of zero subjects, it is necessary to undertake an analysis of extensive coherent texts.

On Ideology, Language, and Identity: Language Politics in the Soviet and Post-Soviet Lithuania

The paper illuminates links between state politics and language politics in Lithuania during different historical periods: (a) the thaw period, (b) the stagnation period, (c) the liberalization periods of Soviet socialism, and (d) the two post-Soviet decades characterized by both nationalism and liberalization. Based on analysis of the texts by leading Lithuanian linguists published in the main language and culture journals during the period of 1960–2010, the paper argues that the concept of a good, proper language is a purely political idea, produced for the sake of governance by both the Soviet authorities as well as the pro-nationalist governments. The nationalist version of a “good language” is sanitized from foreign effects; the socialist version is sanitized from bourgeois remnants and capitalist influence. In both cases, the proper language is assigned a moral value, but the ideological construct masks inequalities of power. During the post-Soviet years, due to democratization, liberalization, and growing diversity, the idea of one “good, proper language” forfeited its social significance; it remained purely a linguistic ideal. With the development of multiple language cultures and subcultures, it stands increasingly as a metaphor for the totalitarian Soviet period for its omnipresent uniformity and homogeneity.

The changes in the content and opportunities of literary education in primary school after the reestablishment of Lithuanian independence

The education reform carried out after Lithuania regained independence in 1990 has been extensively reported on and evaluated in a number of publications. This type of research is important not only in order to understand the history of Lithuanian education, but also to be able to formulate a perspective of education for future generations. Furthermore, having a thorough understanding of the education reform is also crucial for specialists in charge of the change of today‘s education, authors of alternative textbooks and teachers. The present article deals with a narrow yet fundamental field, i.e. literary education and its change in primary education after the education reform. The theoretical works and documents on aspects of cultural and educational policy written by Dr. M. Lukšienė and other authors of the education reform have influenced the new type of literary education in primary education. The results of a comparative analysis of former and integrated curricula and the contents of the fist integrated textbooks as well as aspects such as the depolitisation of education, integration of literary and language education, new criteria for choosing literary works and their analysis have been integrated into the scope of the article.
 The changes in the school of independent Lithuania started with primary education. This may be the reason why Dr. Meilė Lukšienė, one of the authors of the education reform, focused on the implementation of the curriculum of primary education. She guided the authors of the integrated programme of the Lithuanian language (1992) and reviewed and evaluated the textbooks of the Lithuanian language written in the framework of this programme (1992–1996).
 Throughout the Soviet occupation, the teaching of Lithuanian in primary education was subdivided into segments such as coherent speech, reading, writing, grammar etc. The teaching of Lithuanian was also imbued with Soviet ideology, clearly delineated and academic. The introduction of a new segment into the curriculum of Lithuanian as the first language, i.e. ‘Coherent speech’ was supposed to act as a link between the different parts of the curriculum. It is hard to say whether the aims stipulated in the curriculum were actually achieved in the educational process; however, they were clearly not present in the teaching materials used back then: different textbooks of the different parts of the curriculum were written by different authors who were only interested in serving the purposes of their segments of the curriculum. ‘Coherent speech’ was ultimately to take form of an exercise book.
 This type of teaching and learning was criticised by some Lithuanian linguists, writers and pedagogues. Dr. Meilė Lukšienė underscored the importance of the national culture in educating the young generation in the Soviet period. After regaining independence it was crucial to change and depoliticize language education. A new concept of education was introduced by Dr. Meilė Lukšienė and her colleagues. The concept focuses on the child and not on the subject matter. Their input and insights have helped to create new tendencies of language education. The article focuses on the results of a comparative analysis of integrated and former curricula of the Lithuanian language. Furthermore, the fundamental differences between the goals stipulated in the former and integrated curricula are highlighted. The new curriculum consists of the following central points: 1. integration of literary and language education, 2. prioritizing folklore, ethnography, national literature as part of the national culture, 3. the artistic quality of literary works, 4. differentiated education of the learner’s feelings, creativity and thinking capacity.
 The new tendencies were implemented in the integrated textbooks Šaltinėlis and Šaltinis (written by Elena Marcelionienė and Vida Plentaitė). Th textbooks have a clear system consisting of two planes: fist, a framework encompassing introduction to reading, literary and basic cultural skills was set up. Secondly, guidelines for language education based on the different stages of the child‘s development were introduced. The integration of the two planes has made the teaching of Lithuanian more practical: in this way, the child’s speech and language are developed through experience and the comprehension of texts becomes more complete and emotional, which is very important in the child’s education.
 The ongoing education reform focuses on the differentiation and individualization of education. These two features of education, extensively described by Dr. Lukšienė in her concept of national education, are essential in improving the curriculum of Lithuanian in primary education.

Consonants at the juncture of verb morphemes

The boundaries of morphemes constituting words in the Lithuanian language are not always clear, various phonological processes take place at a morpheme juncture: either front or back sounds are adjusted to the adjacent sounds of the other morpheme, sometimes morphemes overlap – sounds are skipped or contracted. The reasons of such variation are phonological (when geminates that are not characteristic of the Lithuanian language are eliminated, degemination, dissimilation, contraction take place) and phonetic (when sounds are switched or omitted to make pronunciation easier, metathesis, elimination take place). The former changes are more frequent.The research data for the article have been compiled from the Reverse Dictionary of Contemporary Lithuanian and the electronic Database of Morphotactics and Phonotactics which is compiled on the basis of coherent texts. All in all, about 1,300 examples from the dictionary and about 500 language use examples are analysed in the article.Although consonant variations are briefly discussed in more than one research work of Lithuanian linguists, all the classifications proposed in them have their drawbacks. The present article discusses the principles that could be followed in classifying consonant changes that take place at morpheme juncture in the Lithuanian language.

Results of Onomastics in Geolinguistics: Expedition Experience

This paper summarises the research material of the ongoing global grant project, “Modern Research of Geolinguistics in Lithuania: Optimisation of Network of Points and Interactive Spread of Dialectal Information.” The project aims to collect the most important sociolinguistic data of the entire Lithuanian language area, with the purpose of carrying out a primary analysis of the items found in order to make a record of the Lithuanian language situation at the beginning of the 21st century.In fact, the collecting of toponyms started earlier, especially after the foundation of the Group of Onomastics at the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences, at the Institute of the Lithuanian Language and Literature in 1958. In the period of 1976–1986, the Institute, in collaboration with the Society of Heritage Protection and Regional Studies, launched 11 major expeditions to several regions of Lithuania. Expeditions on onomastics and dialectology were also organised at the Vilnius University Kaunas Faculty of Humanities. In the period of 1979–1989, students of the Kaunas Faculty of Humanities, supervised by Albertas Ružė, collected the onyms in the Samogitian region (Telšiai, Mažeikiai, Akmenė and two-thirds of the Skuodas district). During the abovementioned period, two two-day long annual expeditions to the birthplaces of outstanding Lithuanian linguists (e.g., Juozas Balčikonis, Jonas Kazlauskas and others) were organised. In 1977–1988, the expedition members, under the direction of Alvydas Butkus, collected the onyms in such areas as Ukmergė, Molėtai, Utena, Kaunas, Pasvalys, Biržai, Jurbarkas, and Lazdijai.The paper overviews one aspect of the item questionnaire, i.e., the onomastics of part of the live language heritage: toponyms and nicknames. The research is based on the descriptive method and deals with the analysis of the toponyms and nicknames of the dialectal items of the Pasvalys, Kaunas and Marijampolė counties. Moreover, it gives an explanation of the folk etymology of the item names. The research involved 87 informants (of both genders) from different dialect areas and of different generations – the younger (under 30 years old), the middle (31–49 years old), and the elder (50 years old and over). Due to the rather fresh start of the project, the current paper presents only some initial insights, which will be revised upon the completion of the project.

Generalizing nouns

This paper deals with specific nouns that are discussed from the semantic point of view as unspecific and abstract. From the functional perspective they can be seen as components of certain lexicogrammatical patterns used to compose a text. Therefore this specific functional noun group is identified on the junction between lexis and grammar. These nouns have not been detected by Lithuanian linguists, but they have been identified and analyzed in the English langauge. Nouns such as aim, fact, problem, thing, etc. are given different names by different linguists: container nouns, general nouns, unspecific nouns, anaphoric nouns, carrier nouns, shell nouns, signalling nouns, etc. Nevertheless, all of them share the same features. They are of unspecific meaning and perform the function of generalizing stretches of text; therefore, they are called generalizing nouns in this paper. As these nouns are of abstract meaning, they require specific complementation in the text; alternately, these nouns are chosen when the need is to generalize and to sum up certain parts of a text. This paper describes research on English generalizing nouns; discusses possibilities of identifying and classifying Lithuanian generalizing nouns; and presents a typical case of the usage of the noun dalykas (thing).

Expressing evidentiality in Lithuanian

Evidentiality in Lithuanian, like in some other European languages, can be expressed both grammatically and lexically; a large inventory of grammatical and lexical means make up a continuum, which is introduced and defined by B. Wiemer (2008). Constructions based on active and passive participles that function in the main clause as predicates are regarded as grammatical markers of evidentiality while parentheticals (e. g. matyt, girdi), particles (e. g. esą, neva, tarsi) and adverbs (e. g. akivaizdžiai, aiškiai) can be qualified as lexical. There are also evidential markers that take an intermediate position in the continuum of lexical and grammatical means. While the evidential constructions based on participial morphology have been thoroughly researched in Lithuanian linguistics, the exploration of lexical markers of evidentiality is fairly new and its inventory has not been fully identified and described yet. The main sources of lexical evidential markers are verbs, neuter adjectives, nouns, adverbs related to perception, cognition or communication. The integration of lexical markers into the study of evidentiality helps to see the coding of the source of information in language more holistically as well as to more precisely describe the structure of lexical and grammatical markers, shades of meaning and their development.

Secondary predicates (depictives)

The paper sets out to investigate the notion of predicates. It also offers an overview of their classification in Lithuanian and foreign linguistics. Most attention is given to free secondary predicates (predicative adjuncts), focusing on predicates with no resultative meaning, i.e. depictives. A secondary predicate is a word syntactically dependent on the main verb (in cases of complementation it is also semantically dependent) and semantically related to its argument. It refers to primary or secondary predication of the clause. According to the character of the syntactic relation, a distinction is made between predicative complements (the predicative is governed by the verb) and predicative adjuncts (the predicative modifies the verb). According to meaning, two types of secondary predicates are divided into non-resultative and resultative. Free non-resultative predicates are by some linguists referred to as depictives (in a general meaning) and by others as depictives (in a narrow sense) and circumstantial secondary predicates.In Lithuanian depictives usually agree with the verbal argument (depictives in concord); however, there are depictives which only partially agree with the verb argument (in number, gender) or do not agree altogether (semantic depictives).

The category of definiteness and its investigation in Lithuanian linguistics

The paper analyses the concept of definiteness and the semantics and formal expression of the category of definiteness. It also offers an overview of the concept of the category and its investigation in Lithuanian linguistics. Definiteness helps solve problems of the referent identification in the course of communication and is a universal semantic/pragmatic category. In languages with a grammatical expression of definiteness and formally marked by articles, the category of definiteness is grammatical. Articles mainly serve as a means of coordinating reference; however, eventually their usage might become wider and the number of functions might increase. As a result, they gradually seep into indefinite contexts. Since languages manifest a varied expression of definiteness, in contrastive studies only the semantic content of the category can serve as a tertium comparationis. It can be broadly defined in the following way: the semantics of definite description is characterised by its referent which is known to the addressee or can be easily and unambiguously identified and is the only one (unique and maximum) in a certain pragmatic set. The semantics of indefinite description is characterised by an addressee who/which is unable to identify the referent and in respect to uniqueness such description is neutral. The expression of definiteness in Lithuanian can hardly be treated as grammatical, with the pronominal morpheme of the definite form of adjectives being the only formal marker of definiteness. Previous research has been fairly scarce in identifying the contrast, distribution and functions of definite and indefinite forms in Lithuanian. For example, there has been no research done when the definite form is obligatory, when it is optional or when its usage is ungrammatical. Definiteness in Lithuanian is also expressed by demonstrative pronouns; and some of them, according to Albertas Rosinas, have become dysfunctional and presently perform the function of definite markers in spoken language. Definiteness also correlates with the functional sentence perspective and word order as well as the opposition between the nominative /accusative vs the genitive case. However, in Lithuanian to finally discriminate between the definite and the indefinite interpretation is only possible by referring to context.

Lituanistinė Petro Avižonio veikla

The review of the linguistic and cultural activities of a famous Lithuanian ophthalmologist professor P.Avižonis, attempts to disclose his merits and contribution to Lithuanian linguistics. Emphasizing the impact of his book "A short Lithuanian grammar" on the formation of the common Lithuanian language of particular importance is the publication of the very first Lithuanian manual of ophthalmology, and some other publications that greathy influenced the development of Lithuanian medical terminology and affected the formation of Lithuanian scientific style. The result of this analysis is a discussion of medical terms as they were collected by P.Avižonis, revealing the importance of prof. P.Avižonis writings for Lithuanian linguistics and scientific stylistics.