MINDAUGAS STROCKIS

Institute of the Lithuanian Language

Research areas: the prosody of Ancient Greek and Latin, Lithuanian accentuation, lexicographic databases.

DOI: doi.org/10.35321/all85-03

THE ACCENTUATION SECTION IN THE 1737 GRAMMAR OF THE LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE

The Chapter on Accentuation in the 1737 Lithuanian Grammar

ABSTRACT

Published in 1737, the grammar of the Lithuanian language by an unknown author Universitas Linguarum Lituaniae is the earliest known source in which the Lithuanian intonations are correctly described and marked. Nevertheless, the descriptions of the intonations presented in that grammar can sometimes be difficult for the modern reader to understand because of the unusual Latin terminology of the eighteenth century; a literal translation is of little help here. Once the terminology of the period is clarified, it becomes apparent that everything attested there about Lithuanian intonations fully corresponds to what is known about them today.

KEYWORDS: accentuation, intonations, 1737, Universitas Linguarum Lituaniae, syllable quantity, Latin, translation.

ANNOTATION

A grammar of Lithuanian, written in Latin and published in 1737 in Vilnius without an author’s name under the title Universitas Linguarum Lituaniae, is the earliest known work to correctly describe the syllable tones of Lithuanian. However, the description of syllable tones in this grammar is not always easy to understand for a modern reader because of its unusual 18^th century terminology. When this is disentangled, it becomes evident that all that the grammar testifies about Lithuanian syllable tones is fully in line with what we know about their pronunciation today.

KEYWORDS: accentuation, syllable tones, 1737, Universitas Linguarum Lituaniae, syllable quantity, Latin, translation.

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The grammar of the Lithuanian language written in Latin by an unknown author and published in Vilnius in 1737, called Universitas Linguarum Lituaniae (literally “the totality of the languages of Lithuania,” meaning “a universal form of the Lithuanian language” or “a dialect generally understood in Lithuania”), is notable because, for the first time in the history of Lithuanian studies, it precisely describes and marks Lithuanian intonations. Nevertheless, its sections describing stress and intonations also contain ambiguities; some of them arise from the inaccurate translation published in 1981, while some sound unclear even in the Latin original. This article aims to translate the description of Lithuanian intonations as accurately as possible and to clarify the author’s thought concealed behind terminology unusual in our time. An appropriate method for achieving this aim would be to clarify eighteenth-century terms by reviewing their occurrences in other works of the period, where the meanings of the terms will become clear from the context.

The entire description of Lithuanian intonations in the Universitas grammar appears on unnumbered page 4, in chapter 3, divided into subsections 1 to 5, while throughout the grammar intonations are marked in all words (with minor exceptions due to printing errors). The following signs are used for marking them: 1) a short final syllable of a word is marked with a left-hand sign (a grave), as today; 2) circumflex-accented vowels are marked with an angular circumflex (â, ê, etc.; in our time this sign is used by Lithuanianists for another purpose and, when it needs a name, is called a “roof”); 3) acute-accented vowels and diphthongs are marked by a letter in upright type (litera antiqua) inserted into a word printed in italics. There is a strong likelihood that in the author’s original manuscript the acute intonation was marked with a right-hand sign (an acute), and that the antiqua-letter method was chosen at the printing house because of technical obstacles, owing to an insufficient quantity of type with acute accents; this can be seen both from printing errors revealing the condition of the manuscript and from the fact that hardly anyone would undertake to write one letter in a different script in a manuscript (Strockis 2007: 107). 4) Circumflexed diphthongs occurring in a non-final syllable of a word are marked with the same grave sign as short vowels occurring at the end of a word. It is possible, although not very likely, that in the original manuscript a Latin tilde sign (ũ, etc.; Strockis 2007: 108), identical to the Greek circumflex used in present-day intonation marking since the time of Kurschat, was used for circumflexed diphthongs; when the printing house of the time ran out of type, the grave sign was used once again. 5) If a short vowel occurs in a non-final syllable of a word, it is usually left without an accent mark; this is not discussed in the accentuation section, but compare the declension of the participle buvęs on page 27 (which, as mentioned, is unnumbered): Buwias, Buwufio, Buwufiam, Buwufi, etc. If a circumflexed diphthong occurs in the final syllable of a word, it is either left without an accent mark or marked with a grave, but there are not many such words in the short grammar, and printing errors also make it difficult to try to understand the author’s intention; compare page 49 ardaw (ardaũ), ardiev,

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but žinau in the adjacent lines; likewise the obvious printing error nearby, ardžiau (ardžiau). That the author had to adapt to the printing house’s imperfections is also evident from the fact that the printing house did not have the letters į and ų (let alone accented ones), so, for example, the word pažįsta had to be written pažįnsta (with an upright letter instead of an acute sign and with the letter n instead of the ogonek), and a note had to be added: Notandū quod non proferatur hic in ſed i cancellatū “it should be noted that in should not be pronounced here, but the crossed-out i”^¹. From this it is quite reasonable to infer that the author’s original manuscript contained an accented nasal i, and that nasals at that time were still written by hand in the old manner, that is, as crossed-out letters, although when printed in antiqua type they already had their present form.

It is clear that the Universitas grammar was intended for students whose native language was Polish, who studied at the then University of Vilnius (Eigminas 1981: 20) and intended to become priests in Lithuanian parishes. This is evident from the fact that, although the grammar’s text was written in Latin, the Lithuanian words in it were translated not into Latin but into Polish. Consequently, one may expect the grammatical descriptions, including those of Lithuanian intonations, to have been adapted for Polish students. Moreover, after examining the section on intonations, there can be no doubt that the author of Universitas himself taught Lithuanian, because some sentences could have been written only by someone who had personally heard students’ mistakes.

It is therefore worth reviewing the text on page 4 explaining Lithuanian intonations.

Accentus eſt multiplex, summa autem ejus obſervandi neceſſitas, quia contra accentum loquens ferè non intelligitur, (ut patebit ex praxi) quare licet non poſſunt omnes dictiones in hoc libello compingi, tamen saltem super his quæ ponuntur adjungentur notæ; et quidem.

“Accent is of various kinds, and the necessity of observing it is greatest, because someone speaking contrary to the accent is scarcely understood, as will become clear from practice; therefore, although it is impossible to include all words in this booklet, at least in those that are presented, marks [of accent] will be added. Namely: …”

This text clearly appears to constitute a kind of discussion with Klein’s grammar, published 84 years earlier. Klein’s grammar says the following about accent marking:

^¹ In the 1981 edition it was translated by interpreting it as “i through the nose” (ULL 1981: 105). Such an interpretation is, of course, entirely correct, although it does not reflect the wording of the original. Polish students learned Lithuanian from this book and, naturally, from the letters q and ę of their native language they must have known perfectly well how “crossed-out” letters were pronounced.

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Accentus triplex est, ut apud Græcos: Acut[us], Gravis, & Circumflexus; qui tamen non semper dictionibus imponuntur, nisi interdum discriminis & perspicuitatis gratiā. (PLKG 1957: 115; original edition p. 21).

“Accent is of three kinds, as among the Greeks: acute, grave, and circumflex; nevertheless, they [these signs] are not always placed in words, but only sometimes, for the sake of distinction and clarity.”

Of course, during the lifetime of the author of Universitas, Klein’s grammar had been published long before, far away, and moreover in a Lutheran environment, whereas the author of Universitas taught at the Catholic University of Vilnius. Therefore, it is doubtful that he could officially use it as a teaching aid (before writing his own); nevertheless, these sentences about accent marking leave almost no doubt that the author of Universitas had read Klein’s grammar and considered its shortcomings. Klein says that “accent is of three kinds, as among the Greeks,” meaning the three accent marks—the acute, grave, and (angular) circumflex—which he used not as they are used today, but as explanatory diacritics, following the model of sixteenth- to eighteenth-century Latin orthography, explaining the grammatical form of a word (Strockis 2007: 44–105). Such a system would, of course, be difficult to use for didactic purposes: if, as was customary in Klein’s orthography, an angular circumflex is placed on the genitive ending, both when it is accented and when it is unaccented (for example, both garbės and motės), how could a Polish student know that in one word such an ending should be stressed, while in the other it should not? The discussion with Klein is obvious here: Klein says that accent is of “three kinds”; the author of Universitas replies that accent is of various kinds (having in mind at least four phonetic variants); Klein says that accent marks are not written everywhere, but only in some places (“discriminis gratia,” that is, usually where they are useful for distinguishing homographic forms, as in the Latin orthography of the period); the author of Universitas replies that accent marks are written everywhere, because without them a learner cannot stress Lithuanian words correctly, and a person who stresses them incorrectly is almost impossible to understand.

Further, page 4 of Universitas discusses the individual accent marks.

1. A grave accent placed on final syllables indicates that they are to be pronounced with exceptional brevity, e.g. awīs.

A grave sign placed on final syllables indicates that they are to be pronounced with exceptional brevity, for example, awīs.

In the Polish language, vowel length disappeared at the turn of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries (Długosz–Kurczabowa 2006: 134); consequently, an eighteenth-century Polish student, like a modern one, needs an explanation of the peculiar shortness of Lithuanian short vowels (from the Polish

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language perspective¹⁾). Pronouncing a word such as avis with a Polish accent could make it sound to a Lithuanian like a meaningless word, something resembling “avÿs.”

2. A circumflex accent indicates a long syllable to be pronounced as if by doubling the vowel, e.g. Pōnás [a printing error; it should have been Pōnas].

[Acute] circumflex accent [i.e., accent mark] denotes a long syllable, pronounced as if doubling the vowel, for example, pōnas.

The acute on the ending –ás is, judging from everything, a printing error. Which language’s vowel o is to be doubled when pronouncing the Lithuanian circumflexed õ? Polish, of course; an eighteenth-century native Polish speaker wishing to pronounce the Lithuanian word pōnas would have to pronounce it as if it were a doubled Polish o, as if saying [poˈonas] in Polish sounds. One may surmise that when pronouncing that doubled o, the second of them should be stressed, thus producing an acceptable imitation of the Lithuanian circumflex intonation².

3. A letter in upright type placed among italics indicates a syllable that is indeed long, but of a different length from the circumflexed one, and to be pronounced with a certain weakening of the voice: e.g. siena sciana. Wienas jeden.

“Antiqua [that is, upright-type] letter [instead of an acute sign in the manuscript], inserted among italic letters, indicates a long syllable, but one of a different length from the circumflexed syllable, and pronounced with a certain weakening of the voice, for example, siena, vienas.

² One may compare Kurschat’s comparison, written somewhat more than a century later, of the Lithuanian and Polish vowel o: “It is necessary to emphasize that the Slavic languages [...] do not have a long, closed o. In Russian and Polish this vowel is invariably pronounced short and open. To pronounce it closed is almost impossible for Slavs. If someone nevertheless manages with great difficulty to lengthen it, it still remains similar to a half-a.” (Kuršaitis 2013: 54, § 50; translation by Alfonsas Tekorius). The original text: “Es ist bemerkenswerth, dass das Slavische [...] kein langes, geschlossenes o hat. Im Russischen und Polnischen wird dieser Vocal ohne Ausnahme nur kurz und offen gesprochen. Dasselbe geschlossen auszusprechen ist dem Slaven fast unmöglich. Denn wenn er in dessen Aussprache auch mit Mühe eine Dehnung zu Stande bringt, so bleibt es bleicht dennoch einem halben a gleich.” (Kurschat 1876: 18, § 50). Of course, this was written more than a century later and compares the dialects of Lithuania Minor; unfortunately, we have no similar testimony from the eighteenth century concerning the dialects of Lithuania Major. Nevertheless, this testimony by Kurschat also helps form an impression of the difference between the Lithuanian and Polish vowels o in earlier times.

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The phrase “with a certain [or ‘some kind of’] weakening of the voice” (attenuatione)³ can be understood to mean that when pronouncing the acute intonation, the voice should seem to weaken toward the end of the syllable. The Latin words certainly do not mean that this intonation is pronounced “in a weaker voice,” as translated in the 1981 edition (ULL 1981: 61).

4. A grave accent not on the final syllable also indicates a long [syllable] of a length different from both of the preceding ones, and to be pronounced more harshly: e.g. kàlba.

A grave accent [accent mark] on a non-final syllable also indicates a long [syllable], but of a different length from both of the preceding ones, and pronounced more harshly, for example, kalba.

What does the word “more harshly” (durius) mean here? It certainly does not mean “to be pronounced more strongly,” as translated in the 1981 edition (ULL 1981: 62). The adjective durus in Latin means “hard, firm, rough,” not “strong, forceful.” What did the author of Universitas intend to convey to Polish students by this?

Polish grammar discusses hard and soft consonants, similarly to Lithuanian grammar. As early as the seventeenth century, Latin-written grammars of Polish used the words durus (“hard”) and mollis (“soft”), much as they do today. For example, Volkmar’s grammar Compendium linguæ Polonicæ (Volkmar 1640: 7–8) says that Polish consonants such as ź “are characterized by softness” (excedunt in mollitie), whereas ones such as ż are characterized by “hardness” (duritie). Likewise, Woyna’s 1690 grammar Compendiosa linguæ Polonicæ institutio states that the consonant ł (which at that time, as can be inferred from the description, was still pronounced [ł], rather than [w], as today) is pronounced “hard” (dure) (Zwoliński 1952: 396). Thus, in the eighteenth century, when the Universitas grammar was written, this term was already known in Polish linguistics. Therefore, by writing durius in Latin, the author had in mind the Polish word “twardziej,” “more hard.” Nevertheless, it is customary to speak this way of consonants; what does such an expression mean when applied to a vowel (or diphthong)?

At least in present-day Polish, vowels occurring between two soft consonants become fronted (Ostas zewska, Tambor 2000: 52–53), for example, [a] becomes [æ] (the transcription used in the cited book is [ä]). In spoken language, the Polish vowel i is sometimes called a “soft vowel” (samogłoska miękka), although this is not an official term in Polish linguistics (P) 2006). There is no reason to think that the situation was essentially different in the eighteenth century; consequently, the relationship between what may be called a “hard” vowel in Polish and what would be called a “soft” vowel is

³ It may also be mentioned here that in Sirvydas’s 1642 dictionary attenuatione is translated as “weakening” (SD: 457) and “making thin” (SD: 493).

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“hard” vowel, is like that of [ɑ] to [æ] or, for example, of the Polish y [ĩ ~ ɪ] to i [i].

Thus, the statement that the circumflexed syllable in a word such as kalba is pronounced “more harshly” should mean that the vowel a here becomes more back. From this it may be inferred that the pronunciation the author had in mind was not [kaːba], but something resembling [ˈkɛːba] (using simplified transcription and not marking intonations). This is not inconsistent with the identification of the Universitas author’s dialect set out in ULL 1981: 23–38^⁴

5. If the first syllable has any accent, the remaining ones are short.

Literally, this sentence seems to say, “If the first syllable has some accent [any one of the aforementioned accent marks], the remaining ones are short.” This is how it was translated in the 1981 edition (ULL 1981: 62). This sentence is the most difficult to understand in the entire description of accent in Universitas.

The author of Universitas nowhere else discusses the length of unstressed syllables; length is discussed only as a characteristic of accent and intonation. Nowhere in the text of Universitas are there any instructions on how to determine the length of an unstressed syllable. Moreover, this generalization is clearly not correct: in Lithuanian, syllable length does not depend on the position of the accent. Even if, hypothetically, it were correct, the question would arise of why such a generalization was needed if other cases were not mentioned (for example, what would be the length of unstressed syllables if a syllable other than the first one were stressed?). This gives rise to the suspicion that what is being discussed here is not syllable length as it is understood today. Syllaba brevis here means “unstressed syllable.”

As is universally known, the position of the accent in classical Latin automatically depends on syllable quantity: if the penultimate syllable of a word is long, it is also stressed; if the penultimate syllable is short, the syllable preceding it, that is, the antepenultimate syllable, is stressed. Nowadays, Latin textbooks most often mark the length of all vowels, but in earlier textbooks one can see the practice whereby only the penultimate syllable was marked with a length sign, so that the length sign de facto became an accent sign (for example, legĕre, but habēre). In this way, the words “short syllable” become a convenient way in Latin to

^⁴ Here one may also compare the spelling of the circumflexed diphthong -ai as -ey in a 1589 hexameter (see Brender 1933: 35–45 for the transcribed text and metrical analysis), for example tev (tāi), Sismundey (vocative; an abbreviation of the name Sigismundai “Žygimantai” following the model of the Latin poetic form because of licentia poetica; according to the hexameter scheme, this ending had the ictus, that is, it was stressed in recitation); it is true that a few lines lower the same text also has skaytykte with -ay-. Such variation in spelling reveals that the pronunciation of the unstressed circumflexed diphthong ai was not [ai], but perhaps [ɛɪ], [ʌɪ], or even [əɪ].

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to say “unstressed syllable.” In fact, in the eighteenth century it was difficult to find another way to say this clearly. Ancient Roman philologists called an unstressed syllable syllaba grauis (“heavy syllable,” Strockis 2007: 34, 81, 118 n.), translating literally the Greek term συλλαβὴ βαρεῖα (Strockis 2007: 19), but in later times, when the meaning of the term “gravis” changed to the one familiar to us, such an expression would have sounded absurd: an attempt to say “si prima syllaba habet accentum quemcumque (e. g. gravem), reliquae graves sunt” would mean “if the first syllable has any accent (for example, a grave), the rest have graves.” In the Renaissance, other expressions were also used; for example, the grammarian Petrus Ramus wrote in 1559 gravi syllaba deprimitur (Strockis 2007: 76), which literally meant “the syllable marked with a grave is pressed down [i.e. unstressed]” (following the teaching of the philologists of Antiquity; later, as mentioned, the meaning of the grave sign changed to the one familiar to us, Strockis 2007: 31). Nevertheless, this too would not have been a very clear or customary expression for eighteenth-century students.

That “short syllable” and “unstressed syllable” meant the same thing in the eighteenth century, especially in Poland, is shown by the old saying Nos Poloni non curamus quantitatem syllabarum “we Poles do not care about syllable quantity,” that is, when speaking Latin, we do not care about the position of the accent. For comic effect, it must be pronounced with every possible word stressed incorrectly: Nos Pōloni non cūrāmus quantĭtātem syllābarum. The literature mentions that this saying arose in the eighteenth century, but Knie 1887: 661 traces its origin back to a publication issued as early as 1591, in which even an elegiac distich with absurdly incorrect syllable quantities, and therefore with the ictuses of an elegiac distich, parodying Polish accentuation, had been published:

The Germans and Poles once contended among themselves, “I do not care about the quantity of syllables…”

(“A German and a Pole once argued with each other: I do not care about syllable quantity…”)

The same source also quotes the aforementioned saying, marking the incorrectly stressed and unstressed syllables wherever possible with length and shortness signs: Nos Pōlōni non cūrāmus quantĭtātem syllābārum. A similar story is told in von Gottschall 1884, 354, where it is written that Germans mocked Polish Latin accentuation in this way, while they themselves stressed it correctly (Nós Polōni non curāmus quantĭtātem syllabārum). Finally, Büchmann 1877: 224 traces the origins of the story to the fifteenth century, when the then king of Poland, Casimir Jagiellon, met the king of Sweden, Charles VIII. At that meeting the Swedish king spoke Latin, but no one in the Polish delegation understood him, so they had to

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summon a monk as an interpreter. Angered, Casimir Jagiellon then declared that no one in Poland could hold high state office if he did not know how to speak Latin. As a result, Latin spread in Poland, but the less educated people stressed it poorly; hence the saying arose. This article does not aim to confirm or deny this story, but we see that in order to say “the position of the accent,” people said “syllable quantity.”

Finally, this joke even made its way into Friedrich von Schiller’s drama “Demetrius.” At the Kraków Sejm, the drama’s character Marina Mniszech says, “Do you swear loyalty to me?”, and those assembled reply: “Jurāmus! We swear!” The incorrect Polish Latin accentuation jurāmus is parodied here (following the aforementioned saying); correctly it would be jurāmus, but the incorrect accent position is also confirmed by the rhythm of the German iambic verse:

Do you swear loyalty to me? – Jurāmus! We swear!

As can be seen from Boxberger’s note to this passage, some scholars of German literature did not understand the joke and considered it a poet’s error. Knowing the whole story, it is indeed very comic (as if that were not enough, after these words the members of the Kraków Sejm draw their swords and shout “Vivat Marina! Russiae regina!”, this time apparently stressing correctly), but it is worth noting that the unstressed syllable in Schiller’s text was marked as short (Boxberger 1878: 199), that is, it was understood that “short syllable” = “unstressed syllable.”

It may now be considered established that “short syllable” was intended to mean “unstressed.” Nevertheless, what did the author of Universitas intend by this? “If the first syllable has some accent, the rest are unstressed”? At first glance, this sounds like a tautology.

As mentioned, the grammar was intended for Polish students. From the time of the Proto-Slavic language, Polish stress was free; later, perhaps from the fourteenth century, the first syllable of a word was stressed, and still later a secondary stress arose on the penultimate syllable of long words, which in the eighteenth century became the main word stress (Długosz-Kurczabowa 2006: 133–134); thus the Polish accentuation familiar today emerged. Universitas grammar was created at the beginning of the eighteenth century; therefore, it is very likely that at that time Polish could still have had a transitional stage in which long words had two stresses, on the first and penultimate syllables. Thus Universitas author teaches Polish students not to do this in Lithuanian: if the first syllable of a word is marked as stressed, all the remaining ones are “short”; in other words, in long Lithuanian words students should try not to pronounce a second stress on the penultimate syllable, however much their native language may require it. This reveals that Universitas author himself taught Lithuanian, since he could have written such a practical rule

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into his grammar only if he had himself heard such student accentuation, when they pronounced a long Lithuanian word, for example, būdāvorne, as ‘būdā vorme’ (perhaps even būdā vome, if the former secondary stress in Polish had already been becoming the main stress), like words in their native language⁵.

Thus, the sentence under discussion, “Si 1ma fyllaba habet accentum quęmčīną [ue] reliquę breues sunt,” means:

“If the first syllable has some kind of stress, the remaining ones are unstressed

[= they do not have the secondary stress characteristic of the Polish language of that period].”

Finally, the last sentence:

Since these accents cannot be exemplified by Polish words or by others, one must observe how native Lithuanians speak; thus they will be stated at the end with other examples.

“Since these stresses [intonations] cannot be illustrated with Polish or other words, one must listen to how native Lithuanians speak; thus they will be learned without other examples.”

Of course, among neighboring languages, intonations exist in Latvian, but knowledge of Latvian was not widespread in Lithuania at that time. It is true that in 1732, that is, only five years before Universitas, and in the same place, that is, in the printing house of the then Vilnius University (the Jesuit academy), a Latvian grammar called Dispositio imperfecti ad optimum seu Rudimenta grammatices Lotavicae was also published. Like Universitas, Dispositio too was published without an author’s name, but in our time it has been established that it was created by the Latvian Jesuit Dr. theol. Juris Spuņģēns (called Jerzy Szpungiański in Polish sources, and sometimes Georgs Špungjanskis in Latvian ones), who also taught at Vilnius University (Eigminas 1981: 18). Nevertheless, there is no evidence that his Latvian grammar described intonations; whether the author of Universitas knew Spuņģēns, and whether the two, as colleagues and grammar authors, could have consulted one another on linguistic matters, remains unknown.

⁵ It is possible that these historical features of Polish accentuation also helped give rise to the aforementioned expression Nos Pōloni non cūramus..., but that would already be an object of Polish studies research.

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CONCLUSIONS

Once the unusual eighteenth-century Latin terminology has been clarified, it becomes clear that the Universitas author’s comments on Lithuanian stress mean the following (repeating the original subsection numbering):

Intonations (more precisely, their phonetic variants) are diverse, and for didactic purposes the grammar must mark them everywhere, since the previously customary marking of explicative diacritical signs, such as in Klein’s grammar, provides little help to learners.

There are four phonetic cases of intonations that must be learned to pronounce as accurately as possible so that a native Lithuanian understands what is being said:

1. Short syllables must be especially short in comparison with Polish. They are marked with the grave accent.

2. The circumflex intonation in non-diphthongs can be imitated by native-born Poles by pronouncing what sounds like a doubled Polish vowel in the same syllable (stressing, as can be inferred, the second of the two; that is, they can pronounce the word pōnas fairly well as if saying [po˙onas] in Polish). This intonation is marked with an angular circumflex (which was customary in the Latin alphabet).

3. The acute intonation is pronounced at the end of a long syllable by weakening the voice. It is marked with an acute accent, which in the printed edition was replaced, for technical reasons, by an antiqua typeface letter without a diacritic.

4. When pronouncing the circumflex intonation in a diphthong, the vowel, at least a, is pronounced “harder,” that is, it becomes somewhat reduced, in other words, more posterior; as can be surmised, it is no longer [a] but closer to [ę]. This intonational case is marked in the printed edition with a grave accent if it is not the final syllable of the word.

In the other languages that the students of that time might know, there are no such intonations.

Distinguishing these four cases was entirely justified, because the pronunciation of a circumflex vowel (monophthong) and the pronunciation of that same vowel in a circumflex diphthong differ considerably, and this is important when teaching non-native students. The phonetic difference between acute monophthongs and diphthongs (such as pūlė, pilti, etc.) is not mentioned, and in the text of the publication they are marked identically (with an antiqua letter); from this it may be inferred that in the author’s dialect the difference was not very great or did not seem very important didactically.

5. If a long word has stress on the first syllable (in forms such as, for example, būdavome), students should try not to pronounce a secondary stress on the penultimate syllable, however much their native eighteenth-century Polish language may require it.

Thus it is obvious that all this corresponds to what is known about Lithuanian intonations in our time, and nothing strange is said here. The essential eighteenth-

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century difference between the intonations and those of today was that they were always clearly distinguished.

Sometimes the literature states that the Universitas author “had not yet fully grasped the essence of intonations” (Eigminas 191: 45); to say this is neither fair nor correct. One may ask only: who understood them better at that time? Or: what specific mistakes did he make in explaining the intonations? The only thing that would not coincide with the explanation customary today is that the circumflex intonation in monophthongs and diphthongs was described by the Universitas author as two separate cases, but this is justified both phonetically and didactically, and the purpose of the Universitas _{grammar was didactic. Indeed, the first person to identify and accurately describe Lithuanian intonations, without having any examples in grammars of other languages}^⁶, the Universitas author was a gifted linguist, worthy of being honored alongside Būga, Jablonskis, and Kuršaitis; unfortunately, in our time even his name is unknown. Had he been born in another era and become not a Jesuit priest but a professor of linguistics, he would be mentioned among the most distinguished researchers of the Lithuanian language.

LITERATŪRA

Boxberger Robert 1878: Schiller’s sämtliche Werke, hrsg. von R. Boxberger, Siebenter Band, Berlin: G. Grote’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung.

Brender Franz 1933: Zur Metrik der litauischen Hexameter von 1589. – Archivum Philologicum 4, 35–45.

Büchmann Georg 1877: Geflügelte Worte. Der Cit atenschatz des Deutschen Volks. Zehnte verbesserte und vermehrte Aufl., Berlin: Haudeund Spener’sche Buchhandlung.

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^⁶ Kaip minėta, latvių kalbos mokėjimas tais laikais Lietuvoje nebuvo paplitęs, o senosios graikų kalbos priegaidės buvo mirusios prieš pusantro tūkstančio metų ir niekam negirdėtos, tad skirtingi graikų kirčio ženklai tais laikais galėjo atrodyti tik kaip bizantiškos rašybos įmantrybė.

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Kirčiavimo skyrius 1737 metų lietuvių kalbos gramatikoje

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The Chapter on Accentuation in the 1737 Lithuanian Grammar

SUMMARY

This grammar of Lithuanian, written in Latin and published without an author’s name in Vilnius in 1737, is titled Universitas Linguarum Lithuaniae^{, which can be translated, not literally but according to the author’s intended meaning, as ‘A universal form of Lithuanian’ or ‘A dialect universally understood in all Lithuania’. It is the earliest known source to correctly describe the syllable tones of Lithuanian and to mark them correctly throughout in the text. However, the description of the syllable tones in this grammar is not always easy to understand for a modern reader because of its unusual 18th} century terminology.

Straipsniai / Articles

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MINDAUGAS STROCKIS

The grammar was intended for students of Lithuanian whose native tongue was Polish, so all grammatical descriptions were adapted to the needs of Polish students. The words cum attenuatĭone quadam vocis, used to describe the pronunciation of the Lithuanian acute tone, clearly mean ‘with a certain weakening of voice [towards the end of the syllable]’, which is congruous with Lithuanian pronunciation. The word durius (‘harder’), used to describe the pronunciation of the circumflex tone in diphthongs, quite obviously corresponds to the Polish word twardziej (‘harder’ or ‘tougher’), that is, with a certain backward quality of the vowel. The term syllaba brevis actually means not a short syllable, but an unstressed syllable, as was common practice at the time, especially in Polish contexts. There is an old saying, describing incorrect accentuation of Latin by the Poles, Nos Póloni non cúramus quantĭtatem syllabārum, whose origin can be traced to the 16^th century, if not earlier. It is notable that while the meaning is ‘We Poles do not care about correct accentuation [of Latin]’, the literal meaning of the Latin is ‘We Poles do not care about syllable quantities’. A joke based on this story even found its way into Friedrich von Schiller’s drama Demetrius, where the character Marina Mniszech says in front of the Cracow Diet, ‘Do you swear allegiance to me?’, and all present answer ‘Jurāmus!’ We swear!’ The wrong accentuation is confirmed by the rhythm of the German iambic line: Schwört ihr mir Treue? – Jurāmus! Wir schwören!, yet the unstressed syllable (which indeed had to be stressed in correct Latin) was marked with a breve mark in Schiller’s text.

Finally, as has been established by researchers into historical grammar of Polish, in the 18th century long Polish words could have been given two stresses, one on the first syllable, and another on the second-last syllable (which eventually became the primary, and then the only, word stress in modern Polish). So the instruction in the 18th century Lithuanian grammar si prima syllaba habet accentum quemcumque, reliquae breves sunt does not mean ‘if the first syllable has an accent mark of any kind, the remainder are short’; in fact it means that if a Lithuanian word has the stress on the first syllable the learners should be careful not to add a secondary stress on the penult, as they would likely do in their native language, 18^th century Polish.

It appears that all that the 1737 grammar says about Lithuanian accentuation and syllable tones is fully in line with Lithuanian pronunciation as we know it today. The only difference between 18^th century Lithuanian syllable tones and modern ones is that the former were always clearly distinct without any blurring or hesitation.

Įteikta 2021 m. lapkričio 26 d.

MINDAUGAS STROCKIS

Lietuvių kalbos institutas

Petro Vileišio g. 5, LT–10308 Vilnius, Lietuva

[email protected]

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