Ar gali ką nors reikšti tuščia vieta?

136 | REMARKS b. is sometimes pronounced hard before the reduced diphthong -ai: rai.kst’e: “raikštė' DRSK, RTN, kraū.šis “pyraušius' KB, VRN, krai.vas “kreivas' DRSK and others. ; c. in the combination *rj > *ri > r: braū.na ‘edge’ Užv, Kkš, KRTV, kraū.š'is (pear of common language) KRŠ, RDN, TL, EIG, krūokt'e ‘to cry’ (scream of common language) TL, RDN, VARN, Šv, RT, ra.uš'ęs ‘riosés’ Šv, GRDM, etc. They are accompanied by the borrowed krū-ks (aukšt. kriūkas), šrū'ps (Northern Žemaičių and Vysokiaičių š'r'ūps | š'r'ū-bas- ), kraū.č'us “kriaučius, siuvéjas- ’, krūk'is ‘kriukis, ramentas’ KRŠ, KRTV, SAUK, kril.k'is ‘t. p.' RDN, TRS, TL, etc. The whole range of *rjau, *rja, *rjo, *rju, *rjū variation rau, ro, ru is known in zemaitics, where there is no r hardening before the vowels of the anterior row (cf. aut., Morphonomenal phenomena of Lithuanian dialects, Vilnius, 2001, 158-161). The study of such a phenomenon was not foreseen by the LKA, the authors of the phonetic volume, there was an unsettled transposition of dialectal facts, so many uncertainties were already raised earlier, but are still confused. For example, in LKŽ, 626 the word sukrokė (pronounced sūkruok'i KRŠ) is corrected sukriokė (R. Mikulskas, Acta Linguistica Lithuanica 48, 87), and krii-kas in KLVR is assigned to kriūkas *, although there too there can be no r hardening (unless there is some unusualness). So *rj + a, a; The problem of u, u is still associated with the hardening and softening of r, although here there is a question of the old *į decay and the later analogy (when it was generalized in conversations only rau, ro“, ru, ruar r'au, r'o-, r'u, r'u-). In each case, the structure and system of dialects must be studied. Vytautas Vitkauskas Received 04/07/2004 CAN AN EMPTOY PLACE MEAN ANYTHING? Professor Vlado Žulis’ article “About the supposed Lietuvių kalbos institutas P. Vileišio g. 5, 10308 Vilnius, Lietuva null connection” (Acta Linguistica Lithuanica 48, 177-184) is a polemic against Contemporary Lithuanian Grammar (Vilnius, 1994), in which such sentences as Oras gražus are considered to have a null connection. The author of the article believes that the term null connection (and null forms in general) is faulty. That opinion is respectable. I would just like to say a few words about the arguments on which it is based. The first of these is attributed to Immanuel Kant: Nothing has characteristics. The author adds: Nobody's hair grows. If a class is empty, it has no elements, and only elements can have attributes. Therefore, the statement is logically contradictory: Although there is no connection (nothing), it has the meaning of the present time of direct relation (sign) (p. 178). Accepting the rules of the game proposed by the author of the article —referring to authorities to be left to theology- —I will not mention any of the many works written about zero forms. The cited logical statements are correct, but they do not contradict the notion of zero presented in the Grammar at all. Linguistic zero is not some non-existent empirical object or element equal to nothing. This term denotes the absence of a formal indicator of a member of the grammatical paradigm, which was avoided to be interpreted for the sake of convenience of Mikulskas because of the variants santy-!-krūkas, krukas, kriūkas, as well as the changes vąšas (even the impossible ąšas), O-nčas, ūnčas,vė- .ršos, lo-rsas (see R. Mikulskas, Acta Linguistica Lithuanica 46, 85). REMARKS | 137 kio with other members of the paradigm is significant, provides a certain function. The Grammar in question writes about this as follows: “The absence of union indicates the meaning of the present tense of the direct pronoun; such a null, i.e. grammatically meaningless in its absence, connection is equivalent to the verb biiti es. |. forms, cf. : The weather is beautiful” (p. 612). Thus, the null form is seen as a methodological concept that helps to describe when the absence of a certain indicator has a defined grammatical function. Similarly, in Russian grammar, the noun stol is considered to have a null ending, because the absence of the formal indicator of the ending here indicates the meaning of the singular noun in the senior g, which is evident from the relationship with other members of the conjugation paradigm. In such circumstances, the question “Does a null connection exist?” does not seem to make sense at all, it would be more meaningful to ask: “Is the term null connection useful for the description of grammar, or does it help to describe the function of a syntactic unit according to its relationship with other units?” How the concept of null connection can be applied to the description of sentence structure and its development can be seen from the example discussed in the article My brother is disabled (p. 180 — 181). It is said that it is an infinite sentence, abstracted from time and place. That particular sentence can actually be understood in two ways: as a noun-indefinite sentence and as a paradigm of sentences with a conjunction The brother is | was | used to | will be a disabled member, used in the present tense. So not all sentences without a conjunction are the same. The difference would be even more pronounced if we took only the sentence quoted by Jablonski, The oak is a hot tree. The meaning of the present tense here would seem quite tense, and the paradigm Oak was | was/will be a hot tree — artificial. This sentence represents an old Indo-European noun or nominal sentence type, as do the sentences Black bread is not hunger, Genys is colourful, human life is even more colourful, etc. In the past, it has been common to use these types of sentences to describe general relationships between objects and phenomena, the so-called "eternal truths". They were used even when there were no sentences with a conjunction at all, and the verbs of the esir *bhūšarks had specific (existential, etc.) meanings. When those verbs became abstract indicators of time and direction — conjunctions, sentences with present tense conjunction converged with the aforementioned nouns, and many of the latter were reinterpretated (reanalyzed) as sentences in which the absence of a conjunction (respectively a null conjunction) means the present tense of direct direction. Similar processes occurred in other related languages, but with very different results. For example, in Russian, sentences with a spoken present tense conjunction have disappeared, and almost all noun sentences have become sentences with a null conjunction. In German and English, however, the conjunction has become necessary in all cases of a compound noun. The Lithuanian language has preserved an older state here, and some sentences without the said verb are still considered to be relics of noun sentences. However, most of them (especially with adjectives) already function in common language as members of the paradigm of sentences with conjunctions, having the present tense meaning of direct relation. Thus, sometimes it is not enough to say that there is no connection in the sentence, because this absence can be both a sign of the type of sentence and of the grammatical temporal meaning. Of course, if in the future language researchers find better methodological means to describe such paradigmatic relationships of syntactic units, the term null conjunction, as well as null form, could be abandoned. It is unfortunate that in discussing this issue, the polemic article in question is based primarily not on linguistic arguments, but on general statements about language, allegedly scientific and binding on all. It is categorically demanded that the sign of language be regarded as an empirical object only, and the conventional concept of a bilateral sign of language is declared to be contrary to common sense (p. 179). But to separate the sign of speech from its meaning is not so simple. It is asserted that the speech sign birch is an “empirical, i.e. pronounced object”, which “indicates another empirical object — a deciduous tree 138 | REMARKS white toshimi" (p. 179). What connects these empirical objects, what do they have in common? Probably no more than those Michel Foucault- ’s cats, one of which has just poured milk, and the other is covered in silk. The connection between the empirical objects mentioned by the author is possible only in the consciousness of the speakers/listeners, in which the meaning of the word — the birch image or concept — is the significant of the sign of language, its “second side”. The origins of the concept of null forms are also sought in the view of the Contemporary Lithuanian Grammar on the grammatical structure of the language as a system of interrelationships of meaningful elements existing in the consciousness of people (p. 5). This is “substantial psychologism”, “a hopelessly outdated and no longer defendable view”, which makes “the ancient writings in principle indecipherable” (p. 179). If anyone denies the empirical nature of acoustic vibrations or written texts (including descriptions of grammatical systems- )… But where, if not in the consciousness of people, exist such things as rules for the formation of sentences and word combinations, the interrelationship of their units — that which forms the basis of the grammatical system of language? By the way, in one place it is mentioned that “in our heads there is not the structure of language with its signs, 0 the ability to operate it” (p. 179). Here is an even bigger puzzle: how those poor minds are able to operate on what is not in them, what is somewhere in “objective reality”. We have not yet forgotten the funny “reflection theory”, which required us to look in that secret place for the equivalent of every language phenomenon — but is it not necessary for everyone to confess it? I fully agree that “language can be studied without solving the ontological question” (p. 180). I could only add that no doctrine of general linguistics or gnoseology should be imposed on language researchers as supposedly modern, most advanced and scientific. Vytautas Ambrazas Received 20 May 2004 Lietuvių kalbos institutas P. Vileišio g. 5, 10308 Vilnius, Lietuva