Wojciech Smoczyński. „Laringalų teorija ir lietuvių kalba“

Recenzijos Wojciech Smoczyński The Laryngeal Theory and the Lithuanian Language Authorized translation from Polish Translated from the manuscript by Veslava Čižik-Prokaševa and Diana Šileikaitė Academic editors Diana Šileikaitė and Axel Holvoet Vilnius: Lietuvių kalbos institutas, 2006, 292 pp. ISBN 978-9955-704-17-1, ISSN 1822-3257 (Bibliotheca Salensis, 3) Amid a stream of sociological surveys of Lithuanian linguists and studies of dialectal sound shifts, the publishing house of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language has issued a book translated from the manuscript by the most prominent Polish comparativist specializing in Baltic studies today. As the book’s curator, Prof. Dr. Habil. Axel Holvoet, says, “The Kraków comparativist and Balticist Wojciech Smoczyński has been successfully applying a new laryngealist model of reconstruction to the study of the history of the Baltic languages for several decades” (p. 9). In the “Introduction” (pp. 13 ff.), we can all—whether unfamiliar with the subject or having forgotten it—learn about laryngeal theory itself, the application of its methods and derived structures, and try to grasp the great mysteries and distinctive features of our own and other more archaic Indo-European languages. The summary is presented in detail at the end of the chapter (pp. 15–18). It is not easy to argue about theoretical questions with the author, whose teacher at the University of Kraków was the great linguist J. Kurylowicz; one can only admire the incisiveness of his thought and the wealth of facts drawn from diverse sources in Lithuanian studies (LKŽ, LKŽ K, scholarly journals, and so on). It is worth drawing attention to one or another item of Lithuanian linguistic data, its form or meaning, or to some additional point. We should begin with the form minžù (p. 60), a dialectal form dating back to the time of K. Donelaitis: m’ežù Žvr, Nm (K. Donel), m’eñ.džù Krtv, Šauk, Krš, Varn ~ mežù, Aukštaitian myžù; it is also widespread in colloquial standard Lithuanian. It is unfortunate that the source of the cited form is not indicated; we would add it to corrections to LKŽ if we ever have the entire national lexical corpus published. The word žmonà belongs to accentuation paradigm 3; žmóną (p. 69) would be only the vocative case. The verb ardýti is pronounced this way by all Lithuanians (cf. ¹LKŽ₁ 239, ²LKŽ₁ 294–295), so árdyti (pp. 99, 105, 191) is an unexpected, surprising form. The derivative apýušris should be corrected (pp. 99, 101): the attested form is apíu.šr’is ~ apýušris (1) “the beginning of dawn,” apýušriais adv. “around dawn” ¹LKŽ₁ 184 (and apýušriu), ²LKŽ₁ 230; compare also the word mentioned by the author of the book, úšra (pp. 93, 101). The forms *gerù, *kelù, *lemù, *perù (from pértì, not from pérti—this 141 Recenzijos (a newly widespread form), tremù, vemù, stumù, since such forms are still used today in a large part of Samogitia. Thus, there is some kind of recurrent phenomenon here. Apparently, the forms geriù, lemù, tremiù (pp. 102–103) returned (?) to the original forms geriù, lemù, tremù, plėtù, stumù (but this form stumù also occurs among the southern Aukštaitians, Drsk, Rtn, etc.); cf. the widely used form m’ė.ntò / m’ėn.tù ~ mentù. Such are the cycles of change in the forms of terms. Among the Samogitians and southern Aukštaitians (Dzūkians), lejų, glėjų (p. 104) are also repeated; rėdu (p. 104) has a falling retracted accent in Samogitian: r’ītù, r’īdù in Krš, Krtv, etc., as does šlavù, mentioned by the author. Perhaps the Samogitian verb tumėti, tuma ‘to thicken’ would be of interest to the author, instead of the author’s tunėti (p. 108); perhaps there is some assimilation here? (There is also tumė ‘thickening capacity’, tùmùs / tòmòs, etc.) For some reason, the older form pèt’īs ~ petìs, pèt’īs ~ petiẽs, instr. sing. p’èt’īm ~ petìm (Ž. Krš, Užv, Pvn, and elsewhere) seems to have been forgotten (only the newer form petỹs is explained, p. 109). aṁpalas (< aṁṕalas) – pp. 110, 112, according to P. Jonikas (the Pagramantis dialect), is a colloquial speech-style form; in the dialects there are ántpalas in Pgr, áńčpalas in Pvn. Lith. šarà ‘haste, misfortune’ (p. 114) – šorà is used more often (šũorà, šuorù.t’į ‘to work hard’ in Krš, Krkl., šuorõut’ę ‘to hurry very much’ in Tl. = šorúoti). For Lithuanian bėda (b’ėda in Samogitian) and Latvian bēda (p. 116), the application of the formula *bʰeh₁dʰ- is questionable. Is there not a relationship here between e̯: and the Slavic yat (ь), as in sénys, mešà, and other words (cf. K. Būga, Rinktiniai raštai, 1959, vol. II, pp. 554–555; J. Balčikonis, Rinktiniai raštai, vol. I, p. 383). The word ýla and Latvian iļens are considered Baltic (p. 119, note). A firm and well-founded assertion is needed (cf. Fraenkelio LKEŽ, p. 183, with the full bibliography). In the western Samogitian dialects, bruot’ėrė.l’īs (also pronounced bruot’ėrė.l’īs) ‘little brother’ is used, whereas broterėlis is a very literary form found only in dictionaries and folklore collections (p. 122). The accentuation of the i-stem stótis is also questionable (pp. 128, 132, 138). The form patógus in DP is also unattested; it could have an archaic accentuation, like sunkus, šviesus, and other adjectives, but it is not known what the accent type was at that time. The same applies to vótis, vóti (pp. 122, 132), žūtis, -iẽs (p. 162) = žūtis, -iẽs (4). Only the Samogitians have mýlas, -à; this is shared with the Latvians, Curonians, or Prussians (p. 148). Where the verb pýti is used, its present-tense form is pýna everywhere, whereas pỹja was created in accordance with the editorial policy of LKŽ (p. 148). It has long been known that, for some Samogitians, winter wheat is pūrai (4) or pũrai (2) – 142 Recenzijos LKK vol. 8, 1966, pp. 166–167; LKŽx 847, recorded as pūras (4) NŽ (recorded there by the Salantai native Prof. A. Salys, whom I had occasion to speak with in 1969). In this book, only pūrai. During visits to western Samogitia in 1958–1968, while collecting material for the LKA and for Curonian loanwords, the root pūr- (a noun of accentuation class 4) was recorded in Rusnė, Saugos, Kintai, Plikiai, Veiviržėnai, Švėkšna, Endriejavas, and elsewhere (now the four dialectologists who studied the Kulių dialect have heard the form pūrā (perhaps confused with the grain measure pūrs?). In the index to K. Būga’s Rinktinių raštų (p. 157), there is, in one entry, both pūras (vol. III, p. 652, glossed “measure”) and the root pūr- (vol. II, p. 388 – pūras, pūrai “Winterweizen” ALS, Kv, SLNT; p. 527 – pūrai and Jn, etc.). Those pūrai are entirely unexpected here, and it is unclear where they came from. In 1964 I took part in conversations near Švėkšna and Judrėnai, where agronomists were splitting their sides laughing at “nonsense invented by old men,” as they put it; as a result, people began to avoid the word, and it was not even recorded in “Texts of the Švėkšna Dialect” in 2005 (although the author had still heard it in the villages of Būdviečiai and Tvaskučiai; Jaunius recorded it in Kvėdarna, but the authors of volume I of the LKA did not include it). K. Būga also compared pūrus with Latvian dialect forms pūr’i, while on p. 713 of that volume purai, pūrai appears in a list of Lithuanian words distorted by foreigners. LKA 167 gives: the most common form is pūras, pūrai, the less common one pūrai, and in only two places pūrai (perhaps the disappearing word was also heard in Skliaustė and Židikai). There is also another pūrai, ‘pus’, from LKŽx 946 – J. From the word frequently used in comparisons, a figurative meaning ‘a multitude’ was established; compare how pūrai drimb (already ‘pus’), whereas Dirsės birst pūrais Vkš – no, throughout all of Samogitia, even, Krš would say, “they scooped porridge out of their ears in heaps,” and pūrais žinių bobos nešio(ja) Ub, and so on. (Now, having come to his senses, he corrected this in his Lithuanian etymological dictionary and no longer included either instance. Thank God.) The present-tense reflexive verbs of those same Samogitian women, nešýs, plentýs, kemšýs, have -y-; I even came across this in an Icelandic publication, so I am curious to know how it fits with h₁nek̑eh₁i > neš-i?, p. 165. The form rãplės RDN, Šv, etc. (LKŽXI 177), alongside Prussian raples (p. 178), might be of interest to the book’s author. It seems that the -riau- and -rau- variants occur mainly in the Samogitian dialect, and that they may include grauž- / griauž, raukti / riaukti, drūžė / driūžė and many others, due to *ṛ̥iau > rau, *ri̯ā > rā > ro, *ṛ̥iu- > ru, etc. The verb vadýti, vādo, vāde is a southern Highlander word, and the asterisk is unnecessary (p. 185). A few more words’ accentuation should be mentioned: šalnà, šalnà (p. 195) = šalnà, šalna (4); nevėša (p. 184) = nėvėša noun (1) or n’ėvėša verb.; iltis, -ies (p. 214) = iltis, -ies (1); audrà (from ž. áudra) (p. 186) appeared only quite recently, after 1930, in keeping with the Lithuanian tendency to change the intonation and stress position of newly learned words (K. Būga, Rinktiniai raštai, vol. III, p. 785). 143 Recenzijos I was somewhat surprised by the book’s sole form of the word kainà. Instead of the Polish čienia used for rectories, and the equivalent cienią imposed on estate owners with the help of tsarist clerical offices, Lithuanian intellectuals at the end of the nineteenth century and the very beginning of the twentieth found the word kãina (1) in the Samogitian dialect. Even K. Būga did not know it; because of the Samogitian intonation of kãina, with the falling contour on the second diphthongal mora, J. Jablonskis may have said kãina, nominative kainà (but there he recorded it, apparently having by then become accustomed to Samogitian dialect phonetics, as kãina). Some of our people use the Samogitian kãina, but also use it with altered stress as kainą, kainą (4), especially Western Highlanders. This is not an inherited form, so in historical grammar research only kãina (1) can be considered; it corresponds precisely to Slavic cena. First impression: the book by the Kraków scholar Prof. habil. Dr. W. Smoczyński is immensely interesting and important for our linguistics—a work of significance for decades, examining the historical grammar and development of the Lithuanian language. One or another note recorded here can only encourage the reader to brush aside some bit of fluff that has settled (especially concerning pūrų ar pūrų). Vytautas Antanas Vitkauskas Lietuvių kalbos institutas P. Vileišio g. 5, 10308 Vilnius, Lietuva 144