126 |

RECENZIJOS

AXEL HOLVOET, ROLANDAS MIKULSKAS, EDS.

RESEARCH ON GRAMMATICAL FUNCTIONS

Vilnius: Lietuvių kalbos institutas, 2005, 199 p., ISBN 9986-668-85-9

(Studies in Lithuanian Grammar, 3.)

The third volume of Studies in Lithuanian Grammar aims to discuss the units of Lithuanian sentence structure, usually designated by the terms for sentence constituents, and to address problems related to their definitions. These units are examined in separate articles prepared by the project leader, Axel Holvoet, with several collaborators. The seven articles in the volume follow a common plan and can be regarded as chapters of a unified work.

Susipažinus su šiuo rinkiniu ir darbo vadovo papildomomis pastabomis (Holvoet 2005) darosi aiškesnė numatyto parengti lietuvių kalbos sintaksės aprašo koncepcija. Gramatinės funkcijos, knygoje aptartos su plačia dabartinės kalbotyros teorinių darbų perspektyva, turi fundamentalią reikšmę sakinio sandaros tyrimui. Čia pateikta daug naujų sprendimų, kurie lietuvių kalbos tyrinėtojų turėtų būti nuodugniai ir visapusiškai apsvarstyti.

The book opens with a chapter on syntactic dependency. It further develops the view of two types of syntactic relations—government and modification—set out in the first volume of Studies in Lithuanian Grammar. The different roles of these types in the logical (predicate-and-argument) structure of the sentence are demonstrated. Attention is drawn to the differing semantic functions of the head and dependent constituents in a phrase. In certain cases, a syntactically dependent constituent can provide the semantic basis for a phrase, that is, function as a semantic factor. For example, in the phrase graži gėlė ‘beautiful flower’, the dependent constituent graži ‘beautiful’, which modifies the head constituent gėlė ‘flower’, functions as the semantic factor. On semantic grounds, two subtypes of syntactic relations are proposed: specification and determination. In phrases of the first subtype, the head constituent is semantically incomplete (for example, the verb gali ‘can’ in the phrase gali lyti ‘it may rain’); in phrases of the second subtype, the dependent constituent is semantically incomplete—a demonstrative pronoun (ta kepurė ‘that hat’). Overall, this chapter clearly differentiates syntactic relations from units of the logical and semantic structure of the sentence, and provides a good example of analyzing the relationship between different levels.

Complements are distinguished from adjuncts according to government or modification. Governed dependent constituents are considered complements, while modifying ones are considered adjuncts. However, the subject and direct object are proposed to be defined on a different basis. The second chapter of the book, which discusses these functions, argues that the concepts of subject and direct object cannot be formulated on the basis of syntactic relations alone. “Descriptions of these concepts often take syntactic, morphosyntactic and semantic properties into account” (63–64). The principal properties of the subject and direct object are considered to be their expression by the grammatical (or structural) nominative and accusative cases, which are opposed to each other in the structure of a transitive sentence and, in terms of participation in syntactic processes, occupy the highest position in the hierarchy of case “accessibility.”

The nominative or accusative case is also syntactically matched, and only semantically altered, by a “semantic case superimposed on it”—the genitive of indefinite quantity or negation; compare: Atėjo svečiai / svečių; Skaičiau tą straipsnį / neskaičiau to straipsnio (53). Such a genitive presupposes the function of the nominative or accusative. This is an accurate observation. That the genitive here has the function of a direct object

RECENZIJOS

| 127

is also confirmed by its relation to the nominative in passive constructions; compare mano skaitytas / neskaitytas straipsnis ‘my read / unread article’. However, the authors no longer consider the genitive governed by the verbs laukti, prašyti, reikalauti ‘wait for, ask, demand’, or the dative governed by padėti, vadovauti ‘help, lead’, to be direct objects, since they “do not meet the structural case criterion” (60). This overlooks the fact that these cases, too, correspond to the nominative in passive constructions; compare Jis buvo laukiamas / prašomas / padedamas / vadovaujamas / bijomas ‘He was awaited / asked / helped / led / feared’. Case form is considered such an important property of the subject or direct object that it is even concluded that subjects “differ from objects not syntactically but morphosyntactically” (137).

In intransitive sentences, discussed in the sixth chapter of the volume, there is no opposition between subject and direct object, so it is argued that “the category of the intransitive subject is functionally very indeterminate” (160). Only in locative sentences (e.g., Sąsiuvinis yra stalčiuje ‘The notebook is in the drawer’) is “the nominative a prototypical subject that coincides with the unmarked theme. In existential sentences, the subject and the unmarked theme do not coincide” (145); compare Stalčiuje yra sąsiuvinis ‘There is a notebook in the drawer’. Nevertheless, even in intransitive sentences, it is proposed that the subject be identified by formal properties (146), first and foremost by the nominative case.

The relationship between complements and adjuncts is examined in the third and fourth chapters. They devote considerable attention to the different roles these units play in the logical structure of the sentence. A complement is an argument of the predicate, whereas an adjunct does not enter into the predicate’s composition and functions as a secondary predicate. On this basis, an instrumental of instrumental meaning or a construction with the preposition su ‘with’ is proposed to be considered an adjunct rather than a complement. Since place-denoting constructions with verbs of motion direction, called dynamic locatives, “cannot be understood as additional predication” (73), they are classified as complements, e.g., Jis nuvažiavo į miestą; Jis išėmė (laišką) iš kišenės ‘He drove to the city; He took (the letter) out of his pocket’. A different view is taken of place constructions with the verb būti ‘be’, which form part of the main predicate in locative sentences, e.g., Namas yra prie ežero ‘The house is by the lake’. Although the construction prie ežero ‘by the lake’ is syntactically obligatory here (and thus, according to the proposed criterion for syntactic relations, should be a complement), for semantic reasons it is regarded as an “obligatory modifier,” and the evidently contradictory term būtinosios aplinkybės ‘obligatory adjunct’ is proposed for its function (74–78). The authors are deterred from treating such constructions as governed because the verb būti ‘be’ does not, by virtue of its meaning, require a particular specified complement; its “syntactic requirements are rather indeterminate” (75). Yet a noun associated with the very same verb, which serves as a copula and has the same “indeterminate requirements” (e.g., Jonas yra linksmas / mokytojas ‘Jonas is cheerful / a teacher’), is readily considered “a complement of the verb, like a subject or an object” (80).

The functions of datives associated with the predicate are also explained on the basis of the logical and semantic structure of predication. When, given the meaning of the verb, a dative can be considered an argument of the predicate, it is classified as a complement (Jonas padovanojo Onutei gėlių ‘Jonas gave Onutė flowers’); when it cannot, it is classified as an adjunct (Jonas atnešė Onutei vyno ‘Jonas brought Onutė wine’). A possessive dative together with an accusative denoting a part of the whole it refers to (e.g., Vaikai pabučiavo senelei ranką ‘The children kissed their grandmother’s hand’), meanwhile, is considered by the authors to form a sort of split argument; it is not stated whether such a dative should be considered part of the complement. The dative of experiencer (dativus iudicantis) is not called a complement and is apparently classified as an adjunct.

Adjuncts that modify sentences are called sentence adjuncts. In many cases, it is difficult to distinguish them from adjuncts associated with the predicate, since the predicate represents the sentence. This is perhaps why sentence adjuncts are said to consist mainly of modal words and phrases, especially parenthetical ones (turbūt, deja, laimei, be abejo ir pan. ‘perhaps, unfortunately, fortunately, undoubtedly, etc.’). It may be added here that they too

128 |

RECENZIJOS

in certain cases are associated with individual sentence constituents, e.g.: A large, though unfortunately crooked, lime tree grew by the house.

The fifth chapter discusses predicatives, of which three groups are distinguished: primary (copular) predicatives, expressing the main predication (Jonas is cheerful); free secondary predicatives, expressing an additional predication (Jonas returned cheerful); and obligatory secondary predicatives, expressing a secondary predication as an argument of the main predication (Jonas pretended to be cheerful). In terms of syntactic relations, free predicatives correspond to what are called modifiers, while obligatory ones correspond to complements, but they are classified as neither adverbials nor objects. Predicatives are considered a distinct syntactic class of words, defined as follows: “A predicative is a nominal used predicatively but syntactically dependent on a verb” (121). According to the authors, free predicatives differ from adverbials only in being expressed by nominal case forms; “the difference is not syntactic, but categorial and morphosyntactic” (123).

In many places in the book, it is noted that the authors’ views differ from those of “traditional grammar.” The term is ambiguous. In America, it often refers to the distributional analysis of L. Bloomfield, C. C. Fries, and others; in Europe, to the method of describing sentence constituents by combining semantic and formal features, popularized in the nineteenth century by K. P. Becker; and in Lithuania, to school grammars based on the works of Jablonskis. The contributors to the volume use the term “traditional grammar” in a particular way: they use it to refer to all descriptions and studies of Lithuanian grammar up to 2003, when Studies in Syntactic Relations appeared. In reality, no such unified school exists. The development of grammatical thought in Lithuania has been long, diverse, and complex. The grammatical structure of Lithuanian was studied especially intensively in the last decades of the twentieth century. In those studies and the descriptions based on them, efforts were made to define grammatical classes and categories as consistently as possible, to distinguish clearly between the levels of syntactic, logical, semantic, and pragmatic analysis, and between the units belonging to those levels. Further steps in this direction could also be seen in the first volume of Studies in Lithuanian Grammar: these included the constructive proposals to distinguish syntactic relations more clearly from their means and markers of expression, to abandon a formal approach to the distinction between government and adjunction, and so on (cf. the authors, 2005). In the third volume, however, the attempt to distinguish and define the units of sentence structure on a uniform basis has been abandoned.

As already noted, the authors regard expression by grammatical (or structural) cases—the nominative and accusative—as the distinguishing features of the subject and direct object. Objects and adverbials are distinguished according to syntactic relations. Predicatives, in turn, are identified on a new basis: by their predicative use and expression through nominal case forms, and by their dependence on a verb.

Such variation in criteria inevitably gives rise to inconsistencies. For example, according to the proposed conception of syntactic relations, the subject ought to be regarded as one type of complement, and the direct object as a subclass of complements as well. The so-called primary predicatives, which the authors consider complements governed by the verb *būti* ‘be’, should likewise be classified as complements. Syntactic optionality is recognized as a distinguishing feature of adverbials, yet obligatory adverbials in sentences with a copula are discussed immediately afterward. The obvious overlapping of categories arises from the principles of the description, not from the properties of the language itself.

The authors’ attempt to define the units of sentence structure on a uniform basis was impeded by restricting the conception of syntactic relations to government and modification, elevated to the highest level of classification. Government here corresponds to what has hitherto been called obligatory subordination, while modification corresponds to non-obligatory subordination (cf. ⁴DLKG 430). If such a broad conception of government and modification is adopted, the relation of the predicate to both the direct object and the subject, as well as to

RECENZIJOS

| 129

the obligatory predicative, must be considered government. The syntactic differences among these relations remain undisclosed, and the authors are inevitably forced to seek other criteria.

In recent descriptions of Lithuanian syntax, a uniform basis for classifying sentence constituents has been maintained by differentiating syntactic relations according to their directionality (unilateral versus bilateral dependence) and their one-sided or two-sided character, while distinguishing government from adjunction at a lower level—that of unilateral dependence (cf. Valeckienė 1998: 18–22; Labutis 1998: 26–29; ⁴DLKG 478–482). There is surely no need to prove that the relation types mentioned are syntactic, rather than morphological, semantic, or otherwise. The authors a priori reject this view of syntactic relations, apparently on the grounds that the concept of a two-sided syntactic relation and mutual association (or bilateral dependence) “is unnecessary and arose from confusing syntactic and morphosyntactic phenomena” (24, 64; cf. also 123). In fact, there is no confusion here; it is an obvious fact that syntactic relations, including mutual association, have certain morphosyntactic markers.

The role of morphosyntactic markers is repeatedly noted in discussions of government, for example: “Morphosyntactic government can be regarded as a marker of syntactic government. If one word imposes a case form on another, then there is probably a syntactic relation between them” (19). The role of agreement markers was similarly defined in the first volume of Studies in Lithuanian Grammar: “the agreement of the form of one word with the form of another reflects a syntactic relation between two words” (Semenienė 2003: 38). The third volume, however, makes different claims: “agreement... does not presuppose a syntactic relation” (28); “agreement may, but need not, be a marker of a syntactic relation” (29). A similar point is made in the supervisor’s comments on the work: “the concepts of mutual association and a two-sided syntactic relation rest on the false assumption that agreement is a syntactic relation, or presuppose a syntactic relation” (Holvoet 2005: 153–159). These oddly conflated claims about the existence of a syntactic relation and its presupposition have entirely different meanings: agreement presupposes (more precisely, indicates) a syntactic relation between sentence constituents, but it is by no means itself a syntactic relation or a type of relation.

Having rejected agreement as a marker of a syntactic relation, the authors also attempt to deny the very existence of a syntactic relation between an object and a predicative complement in sentences such as He knocked his brother flat on his back (28) or I saw him cheerful (129), cf.: They knocked their brothers flat on their backs; I saw them cheerful. Elsewhere, however, it is proposed that “the term secondary predicative be associated specifically with secondary predicates that have the relevant morphosyntactic features (i.e. are inflected for agreement – V. A.)” (126). Discussing the sentences We are playing with a ball and The children are playing with a ball, the relation between the subject (we; the children) and the predicate (are playing; are playing) is stated even more explicitly: the nominative’s “syntactic relation with the verb is formally expressed by two morphosyntactic markers—case government and agreement” (24). Thus, a reciprocal syntactic relation is recognized, in which a dependent constituent—the nominal or pronoun—dependent on the head constituent, the verb, determines the number form of the head constituent with which it agrees. This type of relation is generally called mutual association (or codomination).

The criteria the authors use to define the units of sentence structure not only vary, but also belong to different levels of analysis. Objects, adverbials, subjects, and direct objects are defined by features of the syntactic and morphosyntactic levels. Predicatives are distinguished from other units and further subclassified on the basis of predicate logic. Dative-case objects are distinguished from adverbials according to whether they function as an argument or as an additional predicate. The predicate usually refers to the predicator as the syntactic center of the sentence. A different criterion—that of semantics—is used once again to identify among adverbials

130 |

RECENZIJOS

syntactically obligatory prepositional constructions with a locative meaning (75–77). Also, for semantic reasons, nominative noun phrases with locative or temporal lexical meanings in sentences such as A long journey has been traveled; A whole day has already been waited out are regarded as “an intermediate category between adverbials and subjects” (58), although the syntactic properties acknowledged by the authors themselves clearly indicate a subject function here—above all, the relation to the accusative direct object of an active construction (I traveled a long way; I waited out the whole day), which becomes genitive in the corresponding construction with negation (He/she did not travel a long way; He/she did not wait out the day). It is also proposed that one should rely on the information structure of the sentence, for example, treating as the subject the grammaticalized realization of the main unmarked sentence topic (62–63), although Lithuanian data do not support a direct correlation between units of information structure (topic, comment) and syntactic units (predicate, subject, object, etc.).

The authors present the use of predicate logic, semantics, and information-structure criteria to identify syntactic units as “a prototypical way of defining grammatical functions” (49). They draw on Keenan’s (1976) proposal to define the subject of a sentence by means of a whole cluster of formal, syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic properties, and to treat words exhibiting all these properties as category prototypes, while others (which display only some of them) are peripheral cases. This approach, widely debated in the 1970s, is still used in language typology when the aim is to demonstrate differences in the correlation of certain sentence-part properties across languages. Its application to the description of Lithuanian syntax was rejected because defining sentence-structure units by properties characteristic of different levels would inevitably lead subsequent analysis of those units’ meaning and use into a vicious circle (cf. aut. 1984: 13–14). For example, if we define the subject by syntactic properties, we can then consistently describe its place in the predicative structure of the sentence, its semantic functions, determine in which sentences it serves as topic or comment, and so on. Sentence structure can also be described successfully by proceeding in the opposite direction: determining which syntactic units realize the predicative structure of the sentence and how semantic roles (agent, patient, instrument, etc.) are expressed. However, if we try to define syntactic units both by form and by semantic function, by their role in the predicative structure of the sentence or in its information structure (or define some sentence parts by properties from one level and others by properties from another), it will be very difficult to describe sentence structure consistently.

Language categories have a field structure, which in many cases makes it possible to distinguish a category’s center (or prototype) from its periphery. On this basis, for example, one can state that the characteristic (or prototypical) form of the subject is the nominative of a noun or pronoun, while that of an adverbial is an adverb. This by no means requires giving up precise differentiation among the categories themselves and “resigning ourselves to the idea that definitions of the syntactic categories under discussion will not be sufficiently rigorous” (51). On the contrary, the complexity and multidimensionality of the object of study—the language system—require precise research tools: clearly defined concepts at every level of analysis. Holvoet (2005: 160) agrees: “the most important thing is for the researcher’s tools to be sharp.” A grammatical description should not only offer new insights into phenomena of the language system, but also model that system according to differentiated criteria and clear methodological principles. This is impeded by the aforementioned intersection of levels of analysis and by approximate or “complex” definitions of the principal grammatical functions. We must therefore agree with the authors’ own view that “they have not succeeded in satisfactorily resolving the problems associated with defining and describing the functions mentioned” (8). Let us hope this can be achieved in the future.

RECENZIJOS

| 131

LITERATŪRA

Ambrazas, V. 1986: Lietuvių kalbos sakinio sintaksinės ir semantinės struktūros vienetai. Lietuvių kalbotyros klausimai 25, 4–44.

Ambrazas, V. 2005: Rec. Holvoet A., Judžentis A. (red.). Sintaksinių ryšių tyrimai, Vilnius: Lietuvių kalbos institutas. Acta Linguistica Lithuanica 52, 167–170.

Holvoet, A. 2005: Dėl sintaksinių ryšių skirstymo. Acta Linguistica Lithuanica 52, 157–161.

Keenan, E.,L. 1976: Towards a universal definition of “subject”. Li, Ch., ed., Subject and Topic, New York: Academic Press, 303–333.

Labutis, V. 1998: Lietuvių kalbos sintaksė. Vilnius: Vilniaus universiteto leidykla.

Semėnienė, L. 2003 Būdvardžio derinimas. Holvoet A., Judžentis A. (red.). Sintaksinių ryšių tyrimai, Vilnius: Lietuvių kalbos institutas, 37–66.

Valeckienė, A. 1998: Funkcinė lietuvių kalbos gramatika, Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidybos institutas.

Vytautas Ambrazas Lietuvių kalbos institutas P. Vileišio g. 5, 10308 Vilnius, Lietuva