Zum Schicksal der Dualformen (ein tschechisch-lettisch-litauisch-sorbischer Vergleich mit einigen allgemeinen Bemerkungen)

ACTA LINGUISTICA LITHUANICA XLVII (2002), 103-107 The Fate of the Dual Forms (a Czech-Latvian-Lithuanian-Sorbian Comparison with some general Bemerkungen)“ BOHUMIL VYKYPEL Institute of Czech Language AV CR In the present paper, Czech, Latvian, Lithuanian, and Sorbian morphological forms are compared. A few general observations are made concerning (a) the difference between the diachronic viewpoint of historical linguistics and the achronic viewpoint of comparative linguistics, (b) the projection of diachrony into synchrony, and (c) the difference between two forms of loss of morphological categories. Prof. Radoslav Vecerka to the 75. Birthday As is well known, Old Czech has the morphological category of the dual (whereby we understand by a morphological category the totality of the morphemes with a certain scale Sem — in the case of the dual category therefore with the Dualsem). During the 15th and 16th centuries. In the 19th century, however, the dual was lost. From the point of view of the diachronic formal morphology of the Czechs are interested in the question of what happened to the original dual forms. As far as written language is concerned, some lexems have partially assumed the plural function (see Berger 1999 for more details). In some substandard varieties of Czech, the ending of the dative Instrumental dual in the function of the instrumental plural without lexical Restriction enforced. More frequent evidence for this has been available since the end of the 16th century. Gebauer 1896: 20; Oberpfalcer 1935: 173). This assumption of a plural function by an original dual ending finds an instructive parallel in the history of Latvian declination. The present day Latvian has the following endings of the dative plural: -iem, -'iem, -um, -m, -im. If one interprets the vowel base of these endings, ie, 'ie, a, ė and i, as the root-forming formants (themes), then -m can be considered as the actual form of the dative plural morpheme, which is present in all Declinations is common. In older language monuments, however, you can also find For the linguistic correction I thank Markus Giger (Prague). 104 | BOHUMIL VYKYPEL -iems, iems, -ams, -éms, -ims, i.e. without vowel base -ms. These endings -with insignificant exceptions, which may also be considered as typographical errors, have been used since the first written Latvian language monuments from the 80s of the 16th century. century until the 30s of the 17th century. century as the only one before. About since the middle of the 17th. From the end of the 17th century a fluctuation between -ms and -m begins. In the 19th century the ending -m prevailed, which eventually disappeared in the course of the 18th century. century the ending -ms completely displaced. The ending -ms only occurs in West Curonian dialects. (Vgl. Endzelin 1923: 296f., $231, 307, $255, 311, $270, 320, $283; Vanags 1994: 123.) The ending However, -ms is also known to be found in modern standard Latvian, namely in the paradigm of the plural designation of the speaker and the addressee mu-ms ‘us’, ju-ms ‘you’; You'. The only means of determining the chronological primary function of these Latvian forms is the comparative method, i.e. in this case the comparison with Lithuanian. Lithuanian has three numerals: singular, plural and dual. In today’s language, the dual morpheme are peripheral in terms of their application (they are almost not used), but they exist as a full-fledged and paradigmatically complete category. As for the dative, there are the following endings: in the plural -ams, -oms, -éms, -ims, -ums, -iems; im Dual -am, -om, -em, -im, -um, -iem; Based on the comparison of Latvian with Lithuanian, the following explanation can be presented (see also Rüke-Dravina 1977: 98): In the starting system, the form -ms has the function of the dative plural and the form -m the function of the dative dual; after the loss of the dual, the ending -m in Latvian has come to prominence in the plural function, only in the designation of the speaker and the addressee the ending -ms remained (i.e. in categories that are sharply delimited in relation to the other designations, since the latter occur in the third person). It is clear that there is a NOETICAL difference between the description of the development of the Czech instrumental plural and the description of the development of the Latvian dative plural: the insight offered by the former description has a different value than that offered by the latter. While in the first case one describes something that exists, in the second case this is only partially the case. In this example, the difference between the character of the method of HISTORICAL linguistics and that of COMPARATIVE linguistics can also be observed very well. While the former can rightly be called DIACHRONIC, the latter is rather ACHRONIC: in fact, here at the decisive moment, the historical method cannot be applied, because in the words of Antoine Meillet (1934: 49) “on ne peut expliquer historiquement une forme que par une forme plus ancienne”. But if no older form precedes, only a model of explanation can be constructed on the basis of the comparison with certain other linguistic systems, which in itself is neither bound to time nor to space (cf. Meillet 1925: 15; Hjelmslev THE FUTURE OF DUAL FORMS | 105 1968: 34). The difference between the diachronic standpoint of historical linguistics and the achronic one of comparative linguistics can be compared to the difference between HISTORY and EVOLUTION: the former ranks the objects to be examined in time and culture and represents an unnecessary sequence of changes, while the latter rather establishes the relations between the objects and forms a necessary order of changes. Paul Diderichsen (1966: 307, 338) hat dazu geschrieben: „We may go even further and maintain that evolution has nothing to do with ‘true history’ or ‘time’ in the ordinary sense. The primary task is to arrange variants in a structural hierarchy; it is secondary thing that we can formulate hypotheses about manifestations of these structures following after each other in time and space“. [...] „The confusion of the concepts of evolution and history has led to a one-sided view of linguistics. The latter term should be used only when language is seen as part of cultural history (it thus has to do with the geographical distribution of dialects and the like). The former is more difficult. It implies that we can find general laws that apply to the change of language“. It would undoubtedly be possible to construct other explanatory models in the case of the Latvian endings of the dative plural. However, we believe that the one we have presented above (and that is obvious) has the advantage of being the simplest, i.e., leaving the least unanswered questions. 2. As mentioned, the newer standard Lithuanian no longer uses the dual morpheme since about the interwar period (cf. Zinkevičius 1980: 180). Most Lithuanian dialects also do not have a dual. As far as the dative plural is concerned, there are different relationships in the individual dialects, which correspond to the relationships in the individual periods of the Latvian language history. The Zemaites dialects have -ms (like the oldest Latvian language monuments). In some Central Lithuanian dialects there are fluctuations between the endings -ms and -m (as in Latvian language monuments from the 1730s to the 18th century). Finally, in the Austroasiatic dialects there is the ending -m (as in Latvian since the 18th century). The dual ending -m and the plural ending -ms are only distinguished in dialects of the Klaipėda area (as in the older Lithuanian script). (Cf. Zinkevičius 1966: 205, 234f.; 1980: 181.) It can therefore be said that the Aukštaitian dialects treated the dual ending -m in the same way as Latvian. This aukStaitic-Zemaitic dichotomy in the form of the dative plural morpheme finds a correspondence in the Old Lithuanian period. Here there is another ending, namely -mus. The endings -mus and -ms compete with each other, and in the course of the 18th century. In the 19th century, the ending -ms gradually prevailed. This process is faster for authors who have translated from the Zemaitic Originating from a language area: For these, -ms already predominates in the oldest texts, whereas in the case of authors from Aukštaitija this is only the case later (see Senn 1966: 95; Zinkevičius 1980: 193f.; 1987: 180). 106 | BOHUMIL VYKYPEL From a general point of view, it should be noted that the comparison of the endings of the dative plural between the Lithuanian dialects and the history of Latvian is obviously a beautiful illustration of the old thesis of the Prague School, according to which diachronicity in synchrony is projected either vertically, through the social and stylistic stratification of the language, or horizontally, into dialects. In our Lithuanian example, the latter was the case. The fate of the morphological dual category in the aforementioned languages is instructive in another respect: it can be illustrated that the loss of a morphological category can take two forms. One way of loss can be called ZERAFALL, the other is DISAPPEARANCE. In the first case, it is a matter of an actual decay of the category resp. their morpheme, namely to a separation of the morphematic forms from their functions. However, the forms in question, or at least some of them, do not disappear from the language, but are assigned to other functions. In the case of the disappearance of a morphological category, the morphematic forms are simply abandoned, one stops using them. As for the dual category, we have seen that in Czech and in most Lithuanian dialects it has broken down, and we have assumed its breakdown also for Latvian. It has disappeared in modern standard Lithuanian (if this process can be considered finished here) and in some West Lithuanian dialects. In this respect, the situation in Sorbian is also interesting and instructive. In the written language (in its two variants) the dual exists. In spoken language, however, we can observe the diminishing of the dual (the process of loss is not yet over; cf. Faßke, Michalk 1981: 428-430). The dialects can be divided into three groups with regard to the dual (cf. Faßke 1975: 19-36). In some dialects the dual exists and is used (the situation is different in terms of the number of positions in which the dual can be substituted by plural). In other dialects, the dual does exist, but is substitutable by the plural in all positions (this is the diminishing of the category). Finally, in the group of the southernmost dialects, the loss of the morphological dual category has occurred, namely its disintegration: former dual forms appear here as facultative variants of plural forms or as plural forms of some lexemes. It is obvious that historical linguistics can understand both forms of loss of a morphological category, while comparative linguistics can only understand the first of them, the decay. In other words, if a morphological category is lost in the prehistoric period of a language, this can only be determined if the loss took the form of decay. No sharp-minded person in the world can therefore reconstruct the Latin ending -ibus based on the Romance languages. BERGER, T. 1999: On the apparent productivity of the dual form in Czech. Girke, W., Guski, A., Kretschmer, A., eds., Vertograd» mnogocveinyj. Festschrift for Helmut Jachnow, Munich: Otto Sagner, 920. (Specimina philologiae Slavicae, Supplementband 64.) DIDERICHSEN, P. 1966: Wholeness and Structure, Copenhagen: C. E. G. Gads Forlag. ENDZELIN, J. 1923: Latvian Grammar, Heidelberg: Carl Winter. FASSKE, H. 1975: Sorbian Language Atlas 11. Morphology. The Grammatical Categories —The Paradigm of the Noun, Bautzen: Domowina. FAsSSKE, H., MICHALK, S. 1981: Grammar of the Upper Sorbian Language of the Present. Morphologie, Bautzen: Domowina. GEBAUER, J. 1896: Historickd mluvnice jazyka českého 111/1, Praha-Viden: Näkladem F. Tempského. HIELMSLEV, L. 1968: The Language. Übers. by O. Werner, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft. MEILLET, A. 1925: The Comparative Method in Historical Linguistics, Oslo: H. Aschehoug & Co. MEILLET, A. 1934: Introduction to the Comparative Study of Indo-European Languages. 7"* edition, Paris: Hachette. OBERPFALCER, F. 1935: The Language of the Books of the Blacks, Otherwise Smolnych, Prague: The Czech Academy of Sciences and Arts. RÜKE-DRAVINA, V. 1977: The Standardization Process in Latvian, in: RÜKE-DRAVINA, V. 1977: The Standardization Process in Latvian, in: RÜKE-DRAVINA, V. 1977: The Standardization Process in Latvian, in: RÜKE-DRAVINA, V. 1977: The Standardization Process in Latvian, in: RÜKE-DRAVINA, V. 1977: The Standardization Process in Latvian, in: (Stockholm Slavic Studies, 11.) VANAGS, P. 1994: The development of case endings in the oldest Latvian language monuments. Linguistica Baltica 3, 121-130. SENN, A. 1966: Handbook of Lithuanian Language 1, Heidelberg: Carl Winter. ZINKEVICIUS, Z. 1966: Lithuanian dialectology, Vilnius: Mintis. ZINKEVICIUS, Z. 1980: Historical grammar of Lithuanian language 1, Vilnius: Mokslas. ZINKEVICIUS, Z. 1987: History of Lithuanian Language II, Vilnius: Mokslas. Bohumil Vykypėl Received 05/12/2002 Constitution for the language esky AV CR etymological division Veveii 97 CZ-60200 Brno [email protected]