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ACTA LINGUISTICA LITHUANICA
LIETUVIŲ KALBOTYROS KLAUSIMAI XLIII (2000)
Audra ZAVADZKAITĖ-IVANAUSKIENĖ
Institute of the Lithuanian Language, Vilnius
THE HIERARCHY OF NOUN DECLENSION TYPES IN MIKALOJUS DAUKŠA’S POSTILĖ
(based on the paradigms of “oxytone” nouns)
In 1977, Aleksas Girdenis and Albertas Rosinas drew attention to the fact that the traditional order of Lithuanian noun declensions “is entirely unmotivated and arbitrary, since it takes into account neither noun genders nor the similarity of forms” (Girdenis, Rosinas 1977: 338). Thus, studying noun declension according to declensions is inconvenient from both a synchronic and a diachronic perspective: it does not reveal the interaction of different stems or a natural classification of declension types. In the Grammar of the Lithuanian Language, noun declension is described traditionally, i.e., according to the arbitrary order of five declensions (LKG 1965: 210–230). In recent publications, for example, The Grammar of Contemporary Lithuanian (1DLKG, 2DLKG, 3DLKG), and the English-language Lithuanian grammar (Lithuanian Grammar 1997: 107–125), the declensions are named after stems, and their interrelationships and distribution by gender are taken into account. Adelė Valeckienė distinguishes three declension types based on noun stems and the similarity of their ending systems (Valeckienė 1998: 319–327).
Thus, the noun declension system cannot be studied without taking the relationships among paradigms into account, and these can be determined precisely by applying hierarchical clustering methodology. The reliability of this method of investigation was demonstrated by A. Girdenis and A. Rosinas, who established the hierarchy of noun declension types in the standard language and in the Samogitian dialect (the Tirkšliai and Šaukėnai subdialects) (Girdenis, Rosinas 1977: 338–348); A. Rosinas used the same method to study noun declension in the texts of Simonas Stanevičius (Rosinas 1994: 112–117). Therefore, the noun paradigms in Mikalojaus Daukša’s Postilė were also examined using hierarchical clustering methodology. The data were collected from the index-dictionary of Daukša’s Postilė (Kudzinowski 1977), then checked and compared with the text of the Postilė. All forms of common and proper nouns used in the Postilė were selected and counted, but this article limits itself to comparing the paradigms of so-called “oxytone” nouns1, exclud-
1 Nekirčiuotos daiktavardžių galūnės, ypač tarmėse (žr. Girdenis, Rosinas 1977: 342; Rosinas 1994: 114), gali būti sutrumpėjusios ir turėti kitos kokybės vokalizmą negu kirčiuotos. Šios priežastys lemia įvairius morfologinius procesus, dėl kurių susipina tam tikrų kamienų „baritoninių“ daiktavardžių paradigmos. Todėl pirmiausiai aptariamos „oksitoninių“ daiktavardžių paradigmos, o „baritoniniai“ Postilės daiktavardžiai – jau kito tyrimo objektas.
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ing cases in which the required “oxytone” forms are not attested in the text. In addition, the paradigms of masculine and feminine nouns are distinguished.
“Oxytone” nouns in M. Daukša’s Postilė are declined as follows2:
o stem Singular Nom. dievas namái Gen. dievo namų Dat. dievui namámus Acc. dievą namūs Instr. Dievù namáis Loc. Dieve namùlė
io stem Singular Nom. kėlės keléi Gen. kėlo kelų Dat. kráuiui kelámus Acc. kėlą kelús Instr. kelù keléis Loc. kėlė krauiùlė
A natural classification of inflectional types and their mutual hierarchy is established by taking into account not only noun genders but also the similarity between inflectional types. In this case, the most reliable criterion is the frequency of matching endings in the paradigms being compared. In examining the noun paradigms of M. Daukša’s Postilė, endings were considered identical if they were either exactly the same or differed through the phonological alternation a: ė, ā: ē, as well as when they had phonetic variants due to systematic shortening. Examples include the dative plural of the stems Postilės (i)o, i̇́o, (i)ā, i̇f: namāmus ir alkinimams, dū̄biomus ir dūbioms, gentimus ir dėbimtimis, etc. Endings were not divided into a stem-final element and a “true” ending. For example, five cases coincide in the paradigms of the nouns dieną ir garbę, so the similarity indicator (m) for these paradigms would equal 5.
Counting matching endings in the compared noun paradigms of the Postilė and treating the resulting figures as indices of similarity between inflectional types proved imprecise: first, the genitive plural ending is common to all the paradigms being compared; second, the vocative singular in the Postilė varies according to the particular word, while the vocative plural form coincides with the nominative. For these reasons, the vocative and genitive plural forms were not counted.
Attention should be drawn to differences in the frequency of cases: after counting all instances of cases of nouns used in M. Daukša’s Postilė, it became clear that the most frequent are the singular genitive (29.8%), singular nominative (18.9%), and singular accusative (17.6%), while the least frequent are the plural dative (1.3%) and plural locative (1.4%). Thus, cases are unequal because of differences in their frequency of use (and weight in the system). Therefore, a correction for each case was introduced when determining the similarity of declension types (pi). Singular case
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correction is a fraction approximately equal to twice the relative frequency of the corresponding cases in M. Daukša’s Postilė. The correction for plural cases is equal to half the correction for the corresponding singular cases (see Table 1). Case-frequency data are rounded.
Table 1
Corrections to the similarity indices of noun declension types in M. Daukša’s Postilė
The corrections are added to the index indicating that the ending of a given case is identical in the compared stems. Thus, the similarity indices for noun declension types in M. Daukša’s Postilė were calculated using the formula
I = m + ∑ᵢ₌₁ⁿ pᵢ, where
m – the number of matching case endings, pᵢ – the correction for a particular case.
Each paradigm differing from the others in the ending of at least one case was considered a distinct declension type. A binary comparison of the noun paradigms in the Postilė yielded results (see Table 2) showing that the following declension types can be distinguished: (i)o (diėvas, kėles), i̇io (lopulis), ā (dienā), iā (*marti), ē (garbe), i (wagis, akīs), u (funūs), iu (waifīūs), Cₘ (piemū) and Cᶠ (dukté). They are ranked by similarity as follows: u, iu, (i)o, i̇io, Cₘ, Cᶠ, i, ē, iā, ā.
Table 2
Similarity indices of noun declension types in M. Daukša’s Postilė
More precise interrelationships among declension types are revealed by hierarchical clustering. The clustering procedures were carried out using the maximum method, i.e., after the most similar types were merged, new classes were formed according to the largest of the previous indices. The hierarchical classification of noun declension types in M. Daukša’s Postilė produced in this way (see Figure 1) clearly indicates that there were three main classes: 1) nouns with u, iu, (i)o, iio stems, 2) nouns with consonant (Cₘ, Cբ) and i stems, 3) nouns with ē and iā, ā stems. All the words in the first class are masculine; those in the second are masculine and feminine; and those in the third are almost all feminine, apart from exceptions such as Seneka, wārgeta, lūdžiā, and the like.
Fig. 1. Hierarchical clustering “tree” of noun declension types in M. Daukša’s Postilė
Thus, the nouns in M. Daukša’s Postilė belong to three main declension types: masculine, mixed, and feminine. In the first, the opposition between u, iu (lūnus, wailius) and (i)o, iio (diewas, kėles, lopulis) stems is prominent; in the second, the opposition is between consonant stems (piemū, duktė) and i stems (wagis, akīs); in the third, it is between ē stems (garbē) and ā, iā stems (dienā, *marti).
It should be noted that the o and io stems of nouns in the Postilė do not form an opposition—there are no cases that distinguish them. In contemporary Lithuanian, the singular locative endings of these stems differ, for example, name, but kelyje, whereas in the Postilė even the forms of this case coincide, for example, diewē and kele. Thus, nouns with o and io stems in the Postilė form a single declension paradigm.
Only the plural locative distinguishes the declension paradigms of u and iu stems; cf. lynulē (the old u-stem form) and wailiusē (the ending coincides with the plural locative of nouns in the (i)o paradigm, for example, namulē, krauiulē).
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The nominative singular of the noun viešpati and its other case forms are used in the Postilė, as are the genitive singular marcžios and accusative singular marcžią; accordingly, the nominative singular *marti was reconstructed for the latter noun. The form of this case, as in the present standard language, is the sole feature distinguishing the iā-stem paradigm in M. Daukša’s Postilė iā from the ā-stem paradigm.
Compared with the corresponding “tree” for contemporary standard Lithuanian, constructed by A. Girdenis and A. Rosinas (Girdenis, Rosinas 1977: 341), the hierarchical clustering “tree” of noun declension types in M. Daukša’s Postilė is somewhat lower. The declension types in the Postilė are differentiated more strictly by stems than by gender. This is shown by the mixed declension type: among consonant-stem nouns, masculine nouns, for example, pienų, are distinguished from feminine nouns, for example, duktė (but felū), only by the nominative singular, whereas the declension of masculine i-stem nouns, for example, wagis, and feminine nouns, for example, akīs, is completely identical. The situation is different in the present standard language, where masculine and feminine declension types are distinguished for both consonant-stem and i-stem nouns. Thus, differentiation of declension types by gender is a relatively recent phenomenon.
LITERATŪRA
1DLKG – Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos gramatika, Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidykla, 1994, 68–81.
2DLKG – Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos gramatika, Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidykla, 1996, 68–81.
3DLKG – Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos gramatika, Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidybos institutas, 1997, 68–81.
G i r d e n i s A., R o s i n a s A. 1977: Lietuvių kalbos daiktavardžio linksniavimo tipų hierarchija ir pagrindinės jos kitimo tendencijos (bendrinės kalbos ir žemaičių tarmės duomenimis). – Baltistica 13 (2), 338–348.
K u d z i n o w s k i Cz. 1977: Indeks – słownik do „Daukšos Postilė“ 1–2, Poznań: Wydawnictwo naukowe uniwersytetu im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu.
Lithuanian Grammar 1997, Vilnius: Baltos lankos, 107–125.
LKG I – Lietuvių kalbos gramatika 1, Vilnius: Mintis, 1965, 210–230.
R o s i n a s A. 1994: Simono Stanevičiaus tekstų daiktavardžio linksniavimo tipų hierarchija. – Lietuvių kalbotyros klausimai 34, 112–117.
V a l e c k i e n ė A. 1998: Funkcinė lietuvių kalbos gramatika, Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidybos institutas, 319–327.
THE HIERARCHY OF SUBSTANTIVAL DECLENSION TYPES IN MIKALOJUS DAUKŠA’S POSTILĖ (the oxytonic paradigms)
Summary
The substantival declensional paradigms in Daukša’s Postilė are here classified according to the principle of hierarchical grouping. The paper focuses on the oxytonic substantival paradigms, of which a comparative analysis is given.
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The declension types having been exhaustively classified according to the hierarchical principle, the existence of three fundamental types of substantives could be established for the language of the Postilė:
(1) masculine nouns, with a clearly marked opposition between u-, iu-stems on the one hand and (i)o-, io-stems on the other; (2) masculine and feminine nouns, with a clearly marked opposition between consonantal stems and i-stems; and (3) feminine nouns, with a clearly marked opposition between ė-stems on the one hand and ią-, ą-stems on the other. The substantives in Daukša’s Postilė can thus belong to a masculine, a mixed-gender or a feminine declension type.
In the Postilė, o- and io-stems are not clearly opposed to each other, as there is no case form that would differentiate them. For u- and iu-stems such a differentiating case form is the locative plural, for ā- and ią-stems it is the nominative singular.
If we compare the substantival declension types attested in Mikalojus Daukša’s Postilė with those of the modern standard language, we see that they are still clearly differentiated according to their stems, not according to gender: this is shown by the existence of mixed-gender declension types. The differentiation of declension types according to gender is thus shown to be a relatively recent phenomenon.
