ACTA LINGUISTICA LITHUANICA XLVI (2002), 193–212

REVIEWS

Reviews

Evalda Jakaitienė, Sturla Berg-Olsen, Lithuanian–Norwegian Dictionary.

Vilnius: Baltos lankos, 2001, 628 p.

0. The dictionary under review is the first bilingual dictionary of this language pair. The dictionary’s principal authors, Prof. Evalda Jakaitienė and Sturla Berg-Olsen (Oslo), also involved a group of staff members from Vilnius University’s Department of Lithuanian Language, doctoral students, and students from this department and the Department of Scandinavian Studies in preparing the work. This is not merely a new bilingual dictionary intended primarily for practical purposes. The dictionary stands out not for its size (approximately 22,000 Lithuanian words and their Norwegian equivalents), but because the authors worked according to a consistent lexicographic concept and did not shy away from innovations that encourage a somewhat different perspective on certain linguistic facts.

1. Words were selected according to the principle of frequency of use, so the dictionary contains the core Lithuanian vocabulary as well as the terms most commonly used in everyday speech in certain fields. A striking innovation is the consistent inclusion of the names of inhabitants of nearly all the world’s countries and of people classified by nationality. Although one might have reservations about the frequency of use of some of these, e.g. beninietis, botsvanietis, burundietis, ganietis, hondūrietis, and about presenting some in the singular, e.g. finas, finougras, hebrajas, hetitas, indoeuropietis, alongside members of the same lexical-semantic group presented in the plural, judėjai, sovietai, etc., given that until now there has not been a single dictionary in which these names could be found, this approach is nevertheless most welcome. However, it is regrettable that the authors, having compiled separate lists of the most important Lithuanian place names and personal names, for some reason omitted the names of the most important foreign countries and places. Sadly, even the name of the nation Lietuva is missing—especially considering how much effort we Lithuanians have to expend to determine which dictionary can be consulted for the stress pattern of this ethnonym (the word is absent from most Lithuanian dictionaries, even the Dictionary of Place-Name Stress published by the Lithuanian Language Society (Vilnius: Kultūra, 1994)!).

The dictionary also includes newer loanwords and neologisms that are in wider use or recommended for use, but are absent from many other monolingual and bilingual dictionaries, e.g. banglentė, dešrainis, javainiai, kedai, lankstinukas, mėsainis. However, for some reason the authors forgot the recommended term oro uostą, although they included both of its other variants, aerodromas and aerouostas.

2. Words traditionally treated as word forms are presented as independent lexemes, with more precise part-of-speech labels. This applies to some active and passive, pronominal and non-pronominal participles, e.g. atsidavęs, gerbiamas, gyvenamasis, įtemptas, neišbrendamas, nemokamas, nepersiaunamas, neperšlampamas, nesugyvenamas, nesukalbamas, nežinomas, nuaugęs, padėvėtas, parodomasis, perkaręs, praėjęs, sprendžiamasis. It is possi-

194 |

RECENZIJOS

ble to question several examples: is the non-pronominal pronoun nedegamas—listed as the headword—really more frequent than its pronominal form nedegamasis? The same question can be asked about the adjective gimtas compared with gimtasis. In indicating the parts of speech of such words, the authors prudently hedged their bets by providing the label partic/adj, showing that these are adjectives used as participles. It is entirely understandable that directly calling these words adjectives (in terms of lexical meaning and syntactic relations, they are indeed adjectives!) would run counter to the theoretical principles traditionally used to distinguish parts of speech in Lithuanian morphology. A new lexicographic perspective is also taken on reflexive forms of verbs and prefixed verbs bearing a reflexive suffix: some forms with independent lexical meanings appear here, perhaps for the first time in Lithuanian lexicography, as independent lexemes, e.g. atsistaydinti, derintis, įsitraukti, įsižeisti, mokytis, mylėtis. This has both theoretical and practical significance. Although the most recent Lithuanian grammars call reflexive verbs that have non-reflexive counterparts derivatives, thereby recognizing them as independent lexemes, dictionaries nevertheless continue to list them as forms of non-reflexive verbs. The authors of this dictionary thus consistently adhere to the theoretical view that reflexive verbs are, first and foremost, a working category.

The presentation of the above-mentioned verbs, passive participles, and reflexive verbs as independent lexemes is also valuable in practical terms. Scandinavian users who have not learned enough Lithuanian to determine the meanings of words such as atsidavęs, neišbrendamas or sprendžiamasis without first identifying the base verbs—namely atsidavė (atsiduoti, atsidūoda), neišbrenda → išbrenda (išbristi, išbrido) and sprendžia (spręsti, sprendė)—will be delighted with this dictionary. Until now, the words in question were treated as verb forms and not listed as separate headwords.

Compared with other monolingual or bilingual Lithuanian dictionaries, this work contains considerably more compound pronouns and adverbs listed as headwords, e.g. bet kada, bet kaip, bet kas, bet koks, bet kiek, bet kur, bet kuris, daug kaip, daug kas, daug kur, kur kas. Their presentation in this way more accurately reflects the theoretical status and use of these lexemes.

3. Some suppletive forms and forms of words with varying stems are given as headwords, e.g. mes, jumis, jumyse, jums, jus, jūsų (juo is omitted), aš, man, mane, manęs, manimi, manyje. Unfortunately, this principle, useful to speakers of other languages, is not followed consistently throughout: for example, the case forms of the numerals du and trys, which are just as difficult for foreigners, are listed only under a single entry with their basic forms. It is regrettable that the dictionary does not distinguish the functionally different lexemes jūs (2nd person plural) and Jūs (2nd person singular, polite pronoun), although one example seems to hint at their difference: Ačiū Jums už laišką.

Following the practical approach of listing certain suppletive forms and forms of words with varying stems as headwords, one could go further still: list as headwords the forms of verbs with the greatest stem variation, for example lišti, lenda, lindo; liautis, liaunasi, liovėsi. Such verbs pose as great a problem for speakers of other languages as the so-called irregular verbs of Scandinavian (and Germanic languages in general) do for Lithuanians; these are most often listed as headwords in dictionaries or at least included in supplementary lists.

4. Detailed grammatical information about headwords. Here we find not only the part-of-speech labels traditionally included in Lithuanian lexicography, the stress patterns of nominal words, and the principal forms of verbs, but also labels that, it seems, are found in none of the dictionaries compiled to date

Recenzijos

| 195

of Lithuanian dictionaries: genitive forms of all nouns, suppletive case forms of some pronouns and numerals, transitivity and grammatical valency information for verbs, and the cases governed by prepositions. Such information will be of great benefit not only to Scandinavians learning Lithuanian, but also to Lithuanians learning Norwegian, who will be able to check the grammatical valency of certain verbs in this dictionary, e.g., atstovauti + kam nors, atitikti + ką nors, and so on.

The dictionary’s authors have also provided a great service to those learning Norwegian by supplying comprehensive grammatical information about the Norwegian equivalents: all Norwegian equivalents of Lithuanian headwords, except monosyllabic ones, are marked for stress; the pronunciation of irregularly pronounced words is shown; the gender and plural markers are given beside nouns; the endings of the principal parts of verbs are provided; and even the grammatical government of verbs is indicated! Such a wealth of information is rarely provided even by the best Norwegian (and Scandinavian dictionaries in general) bilingual dictionaries. The comprehensive grammatical information about the headwords expresses the authors’ lexicographic approach: after all, the semantics of words, especially verbs and adjectives, is conveyed not only through precise metalinguistic definitions, synonyms, and equivalents in another language, but also through their grammatical valency.

5. Describing the semantics of words is the stage in compiling any dictionary that requires the most time and insight. The authors sought to present systematically the central layer of Lithuanian lexical semantics: dialectal meanings and those rare in contemporary standard language were omitted, thus making room for highly valuable examples of word usage. Here and there, this principle is not followed. For example, it was hardly necessary to include the very rare third meaning of the verb garbinti, ‘to transport, carry, convey’, or the seventh meaning of the verb išeiti, ‘to get married—of women’. Moreover, meanings that appear to be no longer current (historical) are given here and there, e.g., apylinkė 2. (‘the smallest administrative or territorial unit’)—there are no longer any apylinkės as administrative units in Lithuania—while some widely used meanings are omitted, such as the terminological meaning of aplinka, ‘the aggregate of biotic and abiotic elements of nature and anthropogenic elements of an area’, and the like.

On the other hand, the corpus of Lithuanian texts, whose compilation began only recently, is not yet large enough to support definitive conclusions about the frequency of lexeme meanings, so one must generally rely on the semantic structure of words presented in the Dictionary of Contemporary Lithuanian or in larger bilingual Lithuanian dictionaries, as well as on the authors’ own linguistic intuition.

The dictionary’s compilers demonstrate that they possess theoretical grounding in lexical semantics, linguistic intuition, and lexicographic skills. In almost every section of the dictionary beginning with a new letter, we find words whose semantic structure is presented more precisely than in other Lithuanian lexicographic works. Homonyms are distinguished more effectively, e.g., 1 derėti (‘to bargain over the price’), 2 derėti (‘to bear fruit’), and 3 derėti (‘to fit, suit’); 1 gaišti (‘to waste time’) and 2 gaišti (‘to perish, die’); 1 gauti (‘to surround, envelop’) and 2 gauti (‘to cause a protrusion to form’). The semantic structure of many verbs has been refined by regrouping their meanings under Roman numerals I and II, e.g., bijoti I (of something) and bijoti II (for something); degti I (‘to be affected by fire’, etc.) and degti II (‘to cause to burn’); dėti I (‘to lay’, etc.) and dėti II (‘to hit’); dirbti I (‘to work’, etc.) and dirbti II (‘to produce’); eiti I (‘to move’) and eiti II (‘to hold an office’). The compilers state that, in these cases, Roman numerals distinguish the ‘transitive and intransitive uses’ of the same verb. Nevertheless, Roman numerals sometimes in fact mark unequivocal homonyms, as can be seen from the paradigmatic, syntagmatic, and other analyses of the verbs, e.g., dėti I (‘to lay’, etc.) and dėti II (‘to hit’); eiti I

196 |

RECENZIJOS

(‘to move’) and eiti II (‘to hold an office’); išsukti I (‘to remove by turning’, etc.) and išsukti II (‘to stray off course’); iššaukti I (‘to recall’) and iššaukti II (‘to be capable of expressing’).

The inconsistencies noted above in the presentation of word semantics, as well as other inaccuracies, do not diminish the dictionary’s value. The fact alone that the compilers have already refined the semantic structure of a considerable number of words demonstrates their resolve to prove that compiling Lithuanian dictionaries on the basis of modern lexicography is no Sisyphean task: given a conception of lexical semantics and lexicography and a vast corpus, all that is needed is time and diligence.

The innovations discussed in the first Lithuanian–Norwegian Dictionary show that merely repeating the experience of lexicography in other languages is no longer considered sufficient: this dictionary lays the foundations of a modern lexicographic approach in Lithuanian lexicography. At first glance modest, this bilingual dictionary ranks among the finest works of Lithuanian lexicography through the quality of the grammatical and semantic information it provides about words in both languages. Theoretical lexicographic ideas could also be drawn from it by the compilers of the Dictionary of Contemporary Lithuanian as they prepare a new edition, as well as by compilers of dictionaries of Lithuanian and other foreign languages.

Dalia Barauskaitė MikkelsenReceived 2002 07 03

Dommervaenget 26 C, 1.tv.

4000 Roskilde, Denmark

[email protected]

ONDŘEJ ŠEVČÍK, BOHUMIL VYKYPĚL, EDS., GRAMMATICUS. LINGUISTIC STUDIES PRESENTED TO ADOLF ERHART ON HIS SEVENTY-FIFTH BIRTHDAY.

Brno: Masarykova universita, 2001, 234 p.

The title itself provides sufficient information about the occasion for which the Festschrift under review has been published. Sufficient reason to review it in this journal is provided not only by the fact that the esteemed jubilarian, Prof. Adolf Erhart, former holder of the chair of comparative linguistics at the University of Brno, has always devoted particular attention to Baltic studies (as evidenced by his introductions to Lithuanian and to comparative Baltic linguistics; see Erhart 1956, 1984), but also by the exceptionally strong representation of Baltic topics in this collected volume.

At the outset, let us give a brief overview of the book’s contents. Etymological topics are strongly represented. Specialized studies in this field have been contributed by Eva Havlová (“L.ie, root *al- and Germanic terms for ‘age’,” pp. 56–63), Helena Karlíková (“On the Old Church Slavonic noun spodŭ,” pp. 99–104), Boris Skalka (“Old Church Slavonic šetǫ/šeti semper provocans,” pp. 144–148), and Pavla Valčáková (“Regarding Proto-Slavic *ēdъ,” pp. 201–205). Several papers devote particular attention to a specific subfield of the Indo-European lexicon or to the lexicon of one of the Indo-European language branches. These include the studies by Václav Blažek (“Indo-European kinship terms in *-ə₂ter,” pp. 24–33) and Ilona Janyšková (“Etymology of the names for yew in the Slavic languages,” pp. 91–98). Alongside Indo-European etymology, Dravidian and Altaic etymology are also represented (Jaroslav Vacek,