ACTA LINGUISTICA LITHUANICA

LII (2005), 167–182

REVIEWS

Reviews

AXEL HOLVOET, ARTŪRAS JUDŽENTIS, RED.

RESEARCH ON SYNTACTIC RELATIONS

Vilnius: Lietuvių kalbos institutas, 2003, 216 p., ISBN 1648-8628

(Studies in Lithuanian Grammar, 1.)

A group of researchers formed at the Institute of the Lithuanian Language, led by Professor Axel Holvoet, has for several years been developing the theoretical foundations for a new Lithuanian grammar. The results of this work are reflected in two volumes in the series Studies in Lithuanian Grammar (2003, 2004); a third is also planned. The volumes are organized thematically. This makes it possible to consider the solutions proposed in them without waiting for the research to be completed and its results synthesized. Meanwhile, I would like to draw attention to the first volume, devoted to syntactic relations.

It is worth noting that the fundamental problems of syntactic relations are addressed in this volume at a high theoretical level, with due regard for the prevailing trends in contemporary linguistics. Separate chapters discuss the main types of syntactic relations, adjective agreement, the actual division of the sentence, and the relations involving free predicatives, word groups, and clauses in complex sentences. Axel Holvoet is the author or co-author of most chapters; his ideas and hand are evident throughout, so the book may be regarded not as a collection of separate articles but as a coherent and focused work.

The conception of syntactic relations largely determines how the grammatical structure of a language is described. It is therefore useful first to clarify what new points this work makes about the types of syntactic relations and how the views proposed differ from earlier ones.

In the Grammar of Contemporary Lithuanian (hereafter DLKG), three main types of syntactic relations are distinguished: coordination, subordination, and interdependence. A similar approach is adopted elsewhere (cf. Labutis 1998: 26–29). This classification is based on L. Hjelmslev’s three-part schema of constellation, determination, and interdependence, which makes it possible to define the functions of the main units of sentence structure (including the subject) in terms of syntactic relations (see the author 1986: 16–17).

In this work (pp. 12 ff.), a return is proposed to a binary division of syntactic relations into coordinating and subordinating relations. This is how most contemporary works on syntax classify them; however, the function of the subject in these works is usually characterized not in terms of syntactic relations, but according to other criteria (form, actual division, semantics) or combinations of them (cf. Keenan 1976; Comrie 1981: 101; Holvoet 1991: 41–55). The authors of the volume under discussion do not address interdependence at all. I believe that, under a binary division, this relation could be defined at a lower level within that division—as one subtype of subordination, namely reciprocal subordination, in which, in typical cases, both the head and the dependent constituent bear a marker of subordination. This would help syntactic

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to describe the function of the subject on the basis of syntactic relations, a topic not addressed in the section on the relationship between syntactic relations and the functions of sentence constituents (28–35).

In the book, subordinating relations are divided into two types: government and modification. Government is understood as a relation in which the head word requires a complement without which its meaning would be incomplete, whereas modification is a relation in which such a complement is not strictly necessary (12–15).

Thus, the concept of government here differs from that prevailing in earlier syntactic descriptions, in which government and adjunction were considered types of subordination identified by its formal expression: the dependent word’s inflected (declinable) or uninflected form (DLKG ³1997: 480; Labutis 1998: 33–35; Sirtautas, Grenda 1988: 38–40). It must be acknowledged that this morphologically based opposition between government and adjunction proved of little value for studying the syntactic system of the Lithuanian language and its development; recent works on syntax had already tended to abandon it and to regard only syntactically obligatory dependents as governed, while treating non-obligatory ones as adjoined (aut. 2001: 5, 15, 34–35; DLKG 2005: 480; Vaskelaitė 2003: 144–145). The refinement of the concept of government proposed by Holvoet and his colleagues is undoubtedly a positive contribution to Lithuanian syntax.

The concepts of government and modification presented in the work are syntactically well-founded, but very broad: government here roughly corresponds to the relation that DLKG calls strong (obligatory) subordination, while modification corresponds to weak (non-obligatory) subordination. When these relations are no longer differentiated, the boundaries between distinct syntactic phenomena become blurred. For example, government is taken to include both the obligatory dependence of a word on the sentence’s central element—the predicate—and the relation between a nominal part of the predicate and the copula (32–33), as well as the relation between the subject nominative and the predicate (cf. “the subject is governed by the verb, just like objects” 29). Thus, in sentences such as The book is interesting, the same syntactic relation is posited between the verb form is and two nominatives with different functions, book and interesting. As is well known, the copula can be null. We must therefore assume that in the sentence The book is interesting, the null copula (i.e. a tense and mood marker without lexical meaning) governs both nominatives as obligatory complements of the verb’s meaning (cf. 28–29). A generalized approach to government accords with a universal restrictive model of phrases (the so-called X–Bar schema), but applying it to describe the syntactic structure of a particular language requires further subcategorization of syntactic relations.

A similar difficulty arises from leaving the concept of modification undifferentiated, especially when adjunction is abandoned for no good reason (it is only mentioned on p. 19). Modifiers are taken to include such distinct syntactic units as attributive modifiers agreeing with nouns (an interesting book), predicative modifiers (i.e. secondary predicates—The brothers returned happy), adverbials adjoined to the predicate (read in the library), and so on.

At least some of the difficulties mentioned could be avoided by applying the term government only to one-way subordination and contrasting government with adjunction (adjunction)—a relation not determined by the head but based solely on word meaning. This would make it possible to realize the need, acknowledged by the authors themselves, to define sentence-constituent functions on the basis of syntactic relations: objects could be understood as words governed by the predicate, adverbials as words adjoined to the predicate, while the functions of the subject, the predicative modifier, and the nominal part of the predicate could be described by the direction of the syntactic relation—mutual or bidirectional dependence. There would also be no need to resort to the contradictory term obligatory adverbials, applied to nominal parts of the predicate in sentences such as The house is by the lake (30–31), while at the same time proposing that “only verb modifiers be called adverbials” (35), that is, syntactically non-obligatory words and phrases.

RECENZIJOS

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The book rightly states that “agreement reflects a syntactic relation between two words, but it is not one of the syntactic relations alongside government and adjunction” (38). The types of agreement are discussed consistently and precisely in Loreta Semėnienė’s chapter (37–66). Nevertheless, a syntactic description would benefit from specifying what kind of relation this is and what makes it distinctive, given that agreement is regarded as its marker.

Types of complex sentences are also distinguished according to coordinate and subordinate relations. A significant step forward here is the generalization of the formal properties of coordinate sentences (99–114). On this basis, the interpretation of sentences with the conjunction because has been refined, and it is convincingly shown that, on structural grounds, these sentences should be considered coordinate rather than subordinate, as they have been until now (109–112).

One can only agree that the so-called coordinate verbal phrases (Jonas sits and reads a book, and so on), which have two syntactic centers, are structurally equivalent to coordinate sentences (177–179). On the other hand, it is questionable whether the syntactic description of complex sentence structure will become clearer if adjectival and adverbial phrases are classified as coordinate sentences (e.g. Jonas writes a long and boring book; writes long and boringly), especially since corresponding nominal phrases (Jonas and Birutė are sitting) are not considered coordinate sentences (183–184). It is also unclear what will be gained by replacing the syntactic classification of subordinate sentences according to the relations between their clauses, their functions, and the means by which they are expressed with the proposed morphologically based classification by word class into nominal, adjectival, and adverbial sentences (117 ff.). Substitution by nouns, adjectives, and adverbs is by no means always possible; in many cases, one still has to rely on clause structure and syntactic functions, and resort to transformations or semantic considerations.

In general, the results of theoretical research and the new perspectives on modeling syntactic structure presented in this work deserve the close attention and favorable assessment of Lithuanian-language scholars. Some will undoubtedly help refine descriptions of Lithuanian grammar; others should prompt broader discussion and the search for new solutions. Without such discussions, which have been lacking until now, progress in grammatical research is impossible. I wish the authors success as they undertake the difficult journey ahead, from interesting theoretical insights to their realization in a unified model of grammar with the paradigms of specific forms and constructions fully worked out.

LITERATŪRA

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

AMBRAZAS, V. 2001: Lietuvių kalbos adverbialinis genityvas istorinės sintaksės požiūriu. Acta Linguistica Lithuanica, 44, 3–39.

COMRIE, B. 1981: Language Universals and Linguistic Typology, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

HJELMSLEV, L. 1953: Prolegomena to a Theory of Language, Bloomington: Indiana University.

HOLVOET, A. 1991: Transitivity and Clause Structure in Polish. A Study in Case Marking, Warszawa: Slawistyczny Ośrodek Wydawniczy.

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.

SIRTAUTAS, V., GRENDA, Č. 1988: Lietuvių kalbos sintaksė, Vilnius: Mokslas.

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RECENZIJOS

Vaskelaitė, R. 2003: Lietuvių kalbos daiktavardiniai junginiai sintaksinių ryšių požiūriu. Acta Linguistica Lithuanica 48, 143–158.

Vytautas Ambrazas

Lietuvių kalbos institutas

P. Vileišio g. 5, LT-10308 Lietuva

Gauta 2005 04 22

Lietuvių kalbos tarmių chrestomatija

Sudare Rima Bacevičiūtė, Audra Ivanauskienė, Asta Leskauskaitė, Edmundas Trumpa

Vilnius: Lietuvių kalbos institutas, 2004, 328 [16] p., ISBN 9986-668-56-5

Didžiųjų mūsų kalbininkų Juozo Balčikonio, Zigmo Zinkevičiaus, Adelės Laigonaitės ir kitų ilgai buvome mokomi apie liaudies (gyvosios kalbos, tarmių) didžią reikšmę tautos gyvenimo kultūrai, mokslui, kiekvieną knygą apie tarmes sutikdavome džiaugsmingai. Taip džiaugiamės ir naująja Lietuvių kalbos tarmių chrestomatija. Ją rengė jaunesnioji kalbininkų tarmėtyrininkų karta, dažnai naujais metodais tyrinėjusi ir tirianti mūsų šnektas šnekteles (mokslinė redaktorė doc. dr. Laima Grumadienė).

Viskas teikiama iš magnetofono įrašų (todėl visai nutylima 1970 metų tolgi chrestomatija), nevengiama teikti tekstų su tarmių sistemos pažeidimais (prof. Juozas Balčikonis seniai mokė, kad dabar tarmėse jau galima rasti visko, nes raštu, mokyklos daug kas sugadinta). Jau kaip ir nebesant kaimo bendruomenių, visi dabar mokosi iš radijo, televizijos, įvairiausiose mokyklose, tai pašnekėsiuose su tarmių žmonėmis girdi taikymąsi prie „taisyklingos“ kalbos – (per 15–20 min. negalima ir ko užrašyti, nes tai tik minutine šneka, „mokytumo“ rodymas, o ne paveldėta šnekta. Šioje chrestomatijoje tokių dalykų esama, „Įvade“ apie tai įspėjama – visi juk žinome dabartinę padėtį, suvokiame, kad ir anksčiau to būdavo įrašuose ir įvairiuose straipsniuose. Tai gali suklaidinti kitus kalbininkus, randančius šalia paveldėtų dalykų ir labai naujų.

Pateikiama visa vartojama transkripcija, nors yra daug ir neišspręstų klausimų (ypač prie-balsių grupės minkštumo žymėjimo ankščiau, kel'ti ir pan., redukuotų balsių nuo Chylinskio laikų vaikas Dv, maišas Drsk, Rtn rašymo ir kt.). Matyti klaidų: deŋ'kt' = deŋgt', mė·d'is = mė·d'is, ų̄ks = ų̄oks (p. 18, 19); šiauliškiai neturi formos ž'uŋkšn'us = ž'uŋkšn'us, tai yra Rytų Lietuvos žiųngšnys (žr. dar LKŽₓₓ, iš LD 67, Grv).

Sakoma, kad „bendrinės kalbos tvirtapradžių dvigarsių i, u + l, m, n, r pirmasis dėmuo yra trumpas, todėl jų priegaidė žymima gravis (ˋ), pvz.: gìrtas, kùrmis, bet knygoje nebeliko vietų, kur taip sakoma: kauniškių, jurbarkiškių, žagariškių tik ilgi ar pusilgiai pirmieji sandai (tik užmirštas dvibalsis ùi).

Ar vieno Alekso Girdenio kurti nauji tarmių pavadinimai, ar prof. Zigmui Zinkevičiui neteko prisidėti (p. 26)? Mokslo veikaluose atidumas ir teisybė – būtini dalykai.

Pradedama skyrium „Vakarų aukštaičiai“ (poskyriu „Kauniškiai ir Klaipėdos krašto aukštaičiai“). Įdomus įvadinis straipsnis apie tų šnektų istoriją, prisimenamos Mažosios Lietuvos patarmės striūkiai ir baltsermėgiai. Prie kauniškių pridedama ir Jurbarko šnekta (apibendrinant