ACTA LINGUISTICA LITHUANICA

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P E R S O N A L I A

ACADEMICIAN YURI STEPANOV AND THE LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE

A full member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, professor and habilitated doctor Jurijus Stepanovas, whose list of scholarly works includes both substantial books and shorter articles on general linguistics, semiotics, culture and Indo-European studies, Romance studies and Baltic studies, is one of the most prominent representatives of the Moscow (or, more precisely, perhaps, Russian) linguistic school today. He is thoroughly familiar with the traditions established in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries by the school’s founders—the famous Russian philologists—and for several decades has himself been fruitfully developing and renewing them, including the tradition particularly dear to us, unbroken since the days of Filipo Fortunatovo, of making room for the Lithuanian language in his field of research. J. Stepanovas’s highly varied interests as a scholar shaped a system of theoretical views which, grounded in concrete observations of the structure and functioning of language, draws on the “filiation (continuity) of ideas” and the “metamorphosis of ideas.” The direction of the “new realism” in the philosophy of language, which has acquired clear contours in Russia comparatively recently, is most closely associated with the name of its founder, J. Stepanovas.

Jurijus Stepanovas was born in Moscow on July 20, 1930. While studying Romance philology (specializing in Spanish language and literature) at Moscow University, he also studied French, English and German, as well as the classical languages—Latin, Ancient Greek and Sanskrit. From 1953 to 1956, he prepared a candidate’s (doctoral) dissertation on the syntax of ninth- to thirteenth-century Old French and Spanish at Moscow University’s postgraduate program. In 1957–1958, he pursued further studies in Paris, attending E. J. Benveniste’s course on structural analysis methods and a course on Latin prepositions, studying at the Sorbonne’s advanced school for translators, and enrolling in A. Martinet’s Basque course and the literary scholar Castex’s seminar on modern poetry at the Sorbonne. On his return, he initially worked as a lecturer and translator at the USSR Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Invited by Moscow University, he took charge of the Department of French in 1961, and a year later became head of the Department of General and Comparative Historical Linguistics. He defended his habilitation thesis in 1966 on the basis of his first two books—French Stylistics and The Structure of the French Language (Stepanov 1965a, 1965b). He was awarded the title of professor in 1968.

In 1971, J. Stepanovas moved to the Institute of Linguistics of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Initially, he worked there as a senior research fellow in the Department of General Linguistics; since 1989, he has headed the Department of Theoretical Linguistics. In 1984 he was elected a corresponding member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and in 1990 a full member. Since 1999, J. Stepanovas has been a member of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Scientific Council on the History of World Culture. He has also served, or continues to serve, on the editorial boards of various important scholarly publications, and was deputy editor-in-chief of the journal Voprosy jazykoznanija (1988–1994), and a member of the editorial board of Izvestija AN SSSR. Serija jazyka i literatury—

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jos narys (1973–1987). Daugelį reikšmingų tarptautinių lingvistikos ir semiotikos kongresų bei simpoziumų skaitė pranešimus, kaip vizituojantis profesorius lankėsi Danijos, Ispanijos, JAV, Kubos, Prancūzijos ir kitų šalių universitetuose. Ne kartą yra skaitęs paskaitų ir Lietuvoje – Vilniaus universitete ir Lietuvių kalbos institute.

As J. Stepanovas approached his seventieth birthday, a monograph, “The Philosophy of Language: Within and Beyond Boundaries,” was dedicated to him in 1999 as the founder of the “new realism” movement in the philosophy of language (Filosofija jazyka: v granicach i vne granic 3/4. Tom posvjaščen... akad. Ju. S. Stepanovu, Char’kov: Oko). The Russian Academy of Sciences also honored its academician with a substantial biographical and bibliographical volume, Jurijus Sergejevičius Stepanovas (Logunov 2000), which, alongside chronological and alphabetical indexes of scholarly works and other indexes, includes a substantial and analytical account of his scholarly activity prepared by E. Kubriakova. The Department of Language and Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences compiled an impressive 600-page collection of articles for the same jubilee, Language and Culture: Facts and Values (Kubriakova, Janko 2001). Its five sections contain 47 articles arranged as follows: comparative historical Indo-European linguistics (9), semiotics, philosophy of language and philosophy (12), theoretical linguistics (11), the Lithuanian language (6), and culture and art (9). The fourth section, devoted to Lithuanian, opens with V. Rodionov’s article “The Lithuanian Language in Academician J. Stepanov’s School,” followed by Z. Zinkevičius’s “When and How Did the First Christian Prayers Appear in Lithuanian?” and V. Vitkauskas’s “On Changes in Common-Gender Forms in Žemaitian Dialects.” Other articles compare the phonological systems of Lithuanian and Russian (K. Garšva), discuss the status of pronouns in the grammatical system of language (A. Paulauskienė), and examine prosodic universals and laws of the Baltic and Slavic languages (O. Poliakovas).

Minėtoje J. Stepanovo biografinėje bibliografijoje (Logunov 2000) užfiksuoti 238 įvairūs 1956–1999 m. spausdinti darbai – monografijos, straipsniai, mokslo darbų recenzijos, mokslinėse konferencijose ir suvažiavimuose skaitytų pranešimų tezės, sudarytos arba redaguotos knygos bei straipsnių rinkiniai, kuriems yra parašęs plačius, neretai atskirai studijai prilygstančius įvadus ar išsamius komentarus. Tarp tokių minėtinos jo iniciatyva Maskvoje 1974 ir 1995 metais išleistos buvusio jo mokytojo, garsaus prancūzų kalbininko E. Benveniste’o knygos Bendroji lingvistika, Indoeuropiečių socialinių terminų žodynas ir straipsnių rinkinys Semiotika (M., 1983), kuriame paskelbta Algirdo J. Greimo ir J. Courté’s aiškinamojo kalbos teorijos žodyno dalis. Paties J. Stepanovo darbų recenzijų ar atsiliepimų apie juos Rusijos bei kitų šalių prestižiniuose mokslo žurnaluose ši bibliografija nurodo daugiau kaip penkiasdešimt.

J. Stepanovas began his independent scholarly career more than forty years ago as a researcher of the syntax of the Old Romance languages. From the very beginning, however, his aim to place every specific subject of his research within a broader system was evident; consequently, the description of particular linguistic phenomena in his works naturally and closely coincided with the generalization of principles and methods of linguistic research (Kubriakova, Janko 2001: 18).

Be pirmųjų prancūzų kalbai skirtų knygų (Stepanov 1965a, 1965b), konkrečiųjų tyrimų krypčiai atstovauja daug aktualiausias indoeuropeistikos ir konkrečias romanų, baltų, slavų kalbų gramatikos, akcentologijos ir etimologijos problemas nagrinėjančių J. Stepanovo straipsnių ir straipsnių serijų, pavyzdžiui, „Rusų linksnių teksto teorija aprašomojoje ir lyginamojoje istorinėje kalbotyroje“ (1988), „Skaičiavimas, skaičių pavadinimai, abėcėliniai skaičių ženklai indoeuropiečių kalbose“ (1989 a), „Baba-Jaga, Jama, Janus, Jasonas ir kiti: Dėl „negriežto“ lyginamojo istorinio metodo“ (1995), „Neparadigminis indoeuropiečių kirčio perkėlimas: (1. Dėl Wackernagelio ir Leskieno dėsnių)“ (1997 b) ir kt. Neabejotina šios krypties darbų viršūne laikytina

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itin plataus atgarsio sulaukusi monografija Indoeuropiečių sakinys (Stepanov 1989). Ji recenzuota Maskvos žurnaluose Voprosy jazykoznanija bei Izvestija AN SSSR, Paryžiuje leidžiamame žurnale Bulletin de la Société de Linguistique de Paris bei mišiškėje Baltisticoje. V. Ambrazas šią monografiją įvertino kaip „naują baltų ir kitų indoeuropiečių kalbų istorinės sintaksės tyrinėjimų pakopą“ (Ambrazas 1994: 112).

The methodology of linguistic research, problems in semiotics and the philosophy of language, and the links between language and culture are examined in J. Stepanovas’s theoretically oriented, synthetic works: Semiotics (Stepanov 1971; translated into Japanese, Hungarian and Bulgarian), Methods and Principles of Contemporary Linguistics (Stepanov 1975a), Nouns. Predicates. Sentences: A Semiological Grammar (Stepanov 1981), In the Three-Dimensional Space of Language: Problems of Semiotic Linguistics, Philosophy and Art (Stepanov 1985), Constants of World Culture: Alphabets and Alphabetic Texts in the Period of Bilingualism (Stepanov, Proskurin, 1993), Constants: A Dictionary of Russian Culture: An Exploratory Study (Stepanov 1997), and Language and Method: On the Contemporary Philosophy of Language (Stepanov 1998). Generations of students at universities across the former Soviet Union, including Vilnius University, studied from J. Stepanovas’s textbooks Fundamentals of Linguistics (1966) and Fundamentals of General Linguistics (1975b), which, incidentally, was translated into Vietnamese a couple of years after its publication.

Dešimt intensyvaus darbo metų Maskvos universitete (1961–1971) atskleidė ir subrandino pedagoginį J. Stepanovo talentą. Išraiškingos mylimo profesoriaus dėstomo bendrosios kalbotyros kurso paskaitos sutraukdavo didžiulę studentų ir anuometinių aspirantų (doktorantų) auditoriją. Kai kurie šį kursą išklausydavo kelis kartus, nes kiekvienais metais jo paskaitose atsirasdavo naujos informacijos ir būdavo iškeliama vis kita aktuali teorinė ar metodologinė problema, reikalaujanti kritiško jos sprendimų vertinimo. Savo vadovaujamoje katedroje J. Stepanovas įsteigė ir globojo naują specializaciją „Kalbinių sistemų tipologija“, į kurios programą buvo įtraukta ir lietuvių kalba. Laisvai pasirenkamą jos kursą dėstė pats profesorius pakaitomis su savo aspirantais lietuviais. Norinčių pramokti lietuviškai tada irgi netrūko.

The Lithuanian language was never a passing enthusiasm or a matter of fashion for J. Stepanovas. He resolved to learn it in 1962, after his first visit to Vilnius and Seredžius. With a keen ear for languages, he learned Lithuanian very well over several summers spent in different parts of Lithuania. It is possible that the “tamed,” archaic Lithuanian language encouraged him in its own way to delve into the history of language and into the less-studied, debated problems of Indo-European and Baltic studies. The accentual structure of words, processes in the formation of the verbal system, and historical syntax are the areas of specific comparative historical research in which J. Stepanovas has perhaps put forward the greatest number of new, unexpected and logically grounded hypotheses and well-argued explanations, consistently based on a systemic approach to language and clearly defined theoretical and methodological principles.

Learned not by a romantic youth enamored of languages, but by a mature scholar, Lithuanian did not remain for J. Stepanovas merely a traditional auxiliary instrument for historical Indo-European research. In presenting and interpreting many of its facts in his theoretical books, he brought the “small” Lithuanian language, on an equal footing with the “great” languages, into a much broader context of linguistic scholarship (one example is the hypothesis set out in Methods and Principles of Contemporary Linguistics concerning the formation of the opposition between transitive and intransitive verbs in the Baltic languages).

J. Stepanovas wrote about 20 articles and article series devoted to “pure” Lithuanian studies. Some were published in Baltisticoje, while others appeared in scholarly linguistics journals published in Moscow.

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Voprosy jazykoknanija, Izvestija AN SSSR and others. Among J. Stepanov’s works on Baltic studies, particularly important is the series of articles devoted to the history of the categories of verbal aspect, transitivity, and voice in Baltic (and Slavic), published in 1976–1978 in the journal Izvestija AN SSSR and in the collection of papers read by Russian linguists at the 8th International Congress of Slavists in Zagreb, issued as a separate book, Slavų kalbotyra (1978). Summarizing the diachronic development of the oppositions between transitive and intransitive verbs in the Baltic languages and between imperfective and perfective aspect in Slavic, set out there, J. Stepanov concludes in the monograph Indoeuropiečių sakinys that the Slavic opposition between imperfective and perfective aspect and the Baltic opposition between transitive and intransitive verbs are historically related—they evolved from a common original prototype (the opposition of activity and inactivity); however, in the Baltic languages, aspect tends to be interpreted in terms of object and subject, whereas in Slavic it is viewed in terms of the boundedness and unboundedness of an action. J. Stepanov has been interested in problems concerning the history of the Lithuanian (and Baltic) verb ever since he began studying Lithuanian—the first of his published articles on Lithuanian studies was an attempt to offer his own explanation of the origin of the 3rd-person form yra (Stepanov 1970). He later substantiated in detail the explanation presented in that article in other publications (Stepanov 1985b, 1989a: 225–233).

J. Stepanov is bound not only to the Lithuanian language but also to Lithuania and to Lithuanian linguists and cultural figures by longstanding, enduring, and warm ties. He has spent many a month of his holidays in Lithuania, knows Lithuanian theatre well, and in general has many friends, kindred spirits, and students here. A particularly close professional and personal friendship connected him with Professor Jonas Kazlauskas, whose tragic death in the autumn of 1970 J. Stepanov suffered deeply. It may be said, perhaps, that it was precisely through the friendship of these two contemporaries and kindred spirits that J. Stepanov’s strong ties with Lithuanian linguistics began, since in the 1960s J. Kazlauskas was one of the principal organizers of the journal Baltistica and of the international conferences on Baltic studies, then called all-Union. J. Stepanov began writing for Baltistica, took part from the outset in almost all the Balticists’ conferences in Vilnius and Riga, served as the official opponent for four doctoral dissertations defended at Vilnius University between 1967 and 1984 (those of J. Kazlauskas, K. Musteikis, A. Paulauskienė, and A. Rosinas), and supervised six dissertations by Lithuanian linguists prepared and defended in Moscow between 1972 and 1985 (R. Venckutė, K. Garšva, S. Krinickaitė, G. Naktinienė, S. Valent, and O. Poliako-vo); at the time these were candidate dissertations in philological sciences. Since the beautiful summer of 1962 spent on the banks of the Nemunas in Seredžius, when the Lithuanian language first entered the young linguist’s field of vision, it has remained firmly established in the research domain of this exceptionally industrious scholar, a gift of God, and occupies a by no means insignificant place there. This year marks four decades since J. Stepanov became a sincere and faithful friend of the Lithuanian language; his engaging personality, radiating exceptional erudition, is for all Lithuanian scholars—not only those who know him from books—a great moral authority, an unforgettable teacher, and an inspiring model of a philologist and scholar.

LITERATŪRA

AMBRAZAS, V. 1994: (rec.) Ю. С. Степанов, Индоевропейское предложение. Москва: Наука, 1989. Baltistica 28 (1), 108–112.

KUBRJAKOVA, E. S., JANKO, T. E., red. 2001: Язык и культура: Факты и ценности. К 70-летию Юрия Сергеевича Степанова. Москва: Языки славянской культуры.

LOGUNOV, A. A., ред. 2000: Юрий Сергеевич Степанов. Российская Академия Наук. Материалы к биобиблиографии ученых. Серия литературы и языка, 26. Составитель Р. И. Горячева, Москва: Наука.

STEPANOV, JU. S. 1965a: Французская стилистика, Москва: Высшая школа.

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Stepanov, Ju. S. 1965b: Структура французского языка: Морфология, словообразование, основы синтаксиса в новой французской речи, Москва: Высшая школа.

Stepanov, Ju. S. 1966: Основы языкознания, Москва: Просвещение.

Stepanov, Ju. S. 1970: Литовское yra – 3 лицо глагола „быть“. Baltistica 6 (2), 193–196.

Stepanov, Ju. S. 1971: Семиотика, Москва: Наука.

Stepanov, Ju. S. 1975a: Методы и принципы современной лингвистики, Москва: Наука.

Stepanov, Ju. S. 1975b: Основы общего языкознания, Москва: Просвещение.

Stepanov, Ju. S. 1981: Имена. Предикаты. Предложения: Семиологическая грамматика, Москва: Наука.

Stepanov, Ju. S. 1985a: В трехмерном пространстве языка: Семиотические проблемы лингвистики, философии, искусства, Москва: Наука.

Stepanov, Ju. S. 1985b: Лит. yra, рус. (он) и есть (К вопросу о происхождении). Baltistica 21 (1), 4–13.

Stepanov, Ju. S. 1988: Текстовая теория русских падежей в описательном и сравнительно-историческом языкознании. Русистика сегодня. Язык: система и ее функционирование, Москва: Наука.

Stepanov, Ju. S. 1989a: Индоевропейское предложение, Москва: Наука.

Stepanov, Ju. S. 1989b: Счет, имена чисел, алфавитные знаки чисел в индоевропейских языках. Вопросы языкознания 4, 46–72; 5, 5–31.

Stepanov, Ju. S. 1995: Баба-Яга, Яма, Янус, Ясон и другие: К вопросу о „нестрогом“ сравнительно-историческом методе. Вопросы языкознания 5, 3–15.

Stepanov, Ju. S. 1997a: Константы: Словарь русской культуры: Опыт исследования, Москва: Языки русской культуры.

Stepanov, Ju. S. 1997b: Непарадигматические передвижения ударения в индоевропейском: (1. Вокруг законов Ваккернагеля и Лескина). Вопросы языкознания 4, 5–26.

Stepanov, Ju. S. 1998: Язык и метод: К современной философии языка, Москва: Языки русской культуры.

Stepanov, Ju. S., Proskurin, S. G. 1993: Константы мировой культуры: Алфавиты и алфавитные тексты в период двоеверия, Москва: Наука.

Regina Venckutė Kazimieras Garšva Olegas Poliakovas

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