„Geradėjas“, „piktadėjas“, „niekadėjas“ – grynai lietuviški žodžiai

ACTA LINGUISTICA LITHUANICA LIETUVIŲ KALBOTYROS KLAUSIMAI XLII (2000) Jonas KLIMAVIČIUS Institute of the Lithuanian Language, Vilnius DO-GOODER, DO-EVIL, DO-NOTHING – PURELY LITHUANIAN WORDS The do-nothing is usually grouped, if not forgotten, alongside the do-gooder and the do-evildoer. Both researchers and language regulators still lack precision and genuine clarity on this point. It would be natural for regulators to be able to rely on research—whether their own or that of historians of the language. KPP1 and do-gooder are hybr., and do-nothing – hybr. KPP2 do-gooder is a new borrowing Do-nothing KPP1 and KPP2 – scoundrel, evildoer, worthless person. Do-evildoer—for some unknown reason—is found neither in KPP1 nor in KPP2. By the way, it would be not the do-nothing, but primarily the do-evildoer that would be a wrongdoer. KT lists do-gooder as a borrowing and do-nothing as a hybrid. KNK again lists do-gooder as a new borrowing and do-nothing as a hybrid. In the List of Major Language Errors approved by the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language, foreign word elements are classified as errors of word formation—2.1.5. -dėjas, -a is a noun element, e.g.: geradėjas, -a = do-gooder, -a; niekadėjas, -a = do-nothing, -a, scoundrel, -a, rascal, -a; piktadėjas, -a = evildoer, -a. In Pranas Skardžius’s doctoral dissertation “Die slavischen Lehnwörter im Altlitauischen” (Kaunas, 1931), do-nothing is not included, while the other two are treated somewhat differently. One account emphasizes their hybrid character, finding only Lithuanian influence, while the other emphasizes their Lithuanian character, finding only Slavic influence: “geradėja ‘Wohltäter’: <…>. Hybrid formation from Polish dobrodziej or Belarusian добродѣй and Lithuanian gėras ‘good’; Lithuanian dėti ‘put’ was also taken into account. <…>; piktadėja(s) ‘Übeltäter’: <…>. Formed from Lithuanian piktas ‘evil’ and dėti ‘put’, after Belarusian злодѣй or Polish złodziej. <…>” It must be noted that among the predecessors on whom Skardžius relies—A. Brückner, A. Leskien, E. Berneker, F. Sommer, and E. Fraenkel—K. Būga is missing. Yet Būga’s 1911 study “Apie lietuvių asmens vardus” (incidentally, published in “Lietuvių tautoje”—as was Skardžius’s dissertation later) explains precisely piktadėjas and the neuter piktadėja in the section “Two-stem compound nouns with the endings -as and -a in the singular nominative”: “;: pa-deio aba padare Širvydo PS 155, “ K. Būg RR I 216. Thus, it is explained morphologically, without any Slavic elements! And it explains what Skardžius does not explain at all and what cannot be explained by borrowing: the ending -a in the neuter forms geradėja, piktadėja cannot come from the Slavic ending -ej! Būga gives a whole set of neuter “two-stem compounds” (i.e., compounds denoting agents) there—akiplėša, daugnora, gal(v)žuda, gernora, naktibalda, niektauža, pasalkandė, pikžodžia, saunora, varlamuša, … And 58 In the 1912 section of Būga’s study “Lituanica,” “К вопросу о хронологии литовских заимствований с русского,” the argument is also made: “В слово nedelia введено é из *deti „делать“ (ср. pa-deio arba padare Ширвид Sak. Punktay 15524, pa-deii „помогать“, gera-dej-a-s „добро-дей“)“ K. Būg RR I 346. Thus, geradėjas, too, is linked with dėti, and specifically with its meaning “to do,” traced back to K. Sirvydas (only?) and presented in a somewhat peculiar way: *dėti “делать.” So, quite unexpectedly, it turns out that geradėjas, piktadėjas are not only Lithuanian, but also semantically motivated in exactly the same way as geradarys, piktadarys! Būga cited the short phrase padeio aba padare [in old texts, synonyms linked by the conjunction a(r)ba / alba are frequent], and moreover without a Polish-text counterpart, since he relied not on the 1629 bilingual original but on Richard Garbe’s 1884 reprint in Lithuanian only. The 1629 original reads: Sukietino weydus saw tabiau negi vota. Sirdi sawo padeio aba padare kayp adamantu / akmeni kiečiausi – Serce swe uczynili iáko diámént kamień natward[3]y [I 381]. It should not be forgotten that the translation is from Lithuanian, not Polish! In LKŽ II1, the word dėti from this sentence of Sirvydas does not appear in the entry (nor is it in LKŽ II2). In LKŽ II2, dėti 11. ‘to make,’ but only ‘(certain foods)’—cheeses, sausages, cabbage—the connection with the basic meaning is clear (and making cabbage is particularly close to it). More telling is dėti sense 1, ‘to become covered with something, form on the surface (of ice, a crust, etc.)’ (also of mildew, a scab, and mange): here becoming is certainly more prominent than covering. Perhaps the most telling and characteristic evidence is dėti 18, reflexive, ‘to come about, happen, take place,’ especially sentences such as: Oras nuo to dedasi šaltas Zapyškis. Mums nelaimė dėjosi – apvogė Darbėnai. Especially nelaimė dėjosi (‘misfortune happened’), since this is a systematic—paradigmatic—phenomenon, while the third-person form dedasi is abundantly attested, and the fact that only the reflexive form has survived is already a sign of the paradigm’s disintegration. This attests both to the semantic archaism and to its relic status. The form destis, incidentally, is also attested in this meaning by Sirvydas: Teip destis su velinu (‘so it happens to the devil’) Punktai sakymu II 70. A broader discussion of the semantics of dėti is unnecessary here; it is merely interesting to compare it with Latvian dēt—its original semantics have faded, but dēties ‘to become’ still survives not only as the usual likties (ar notikt), but also as the original dēties. This continuation of the story tells us quite a lot, though not everything. The 1939 language-advice booklet “Kalbos patarėjas,” edited by A. Salys and P. Skardžius, does not include geradėjo, niekadejo or piktadėjo. But they are also absent from Pranas Skardžius’s magisterial study “Lietuvių kalbos žodžių daryba” (Vilnius, 1943), which means Skardžius did not consider them Lithuanian formations. And what of Antanas Salys? In book II of the “Lietuvių rašomosios kalbos žodynas” (Heidelberg, 1951), compiled by M. Niedermannas, A. Sennas, and now A. Salys, we find niekadejas, -o = niekadarbis, -bė—thus presented just like geradėjas, -o = geradaris, -rė (geradėjystė = geradarybė) in book I (1932), compiled by M. Niedermannas, A. Sennas, and F. Brenderis. Things are somewhat different in book III, compiled by A. Sennas and A. Salys, where Salys may have become more confident—piktadėjas, -o (veraltet) = (rlt.) piktadarys, -rė; piktadėjystė, -ės (veraltet) = (rlt.) piktadarybė. The abbreviation rlt. means “reinlitauisch (Hinweis auf die 59 indigenous equivalent of a foreign word); genuinely Lithuanian.” Thus piktadėjas is a genuinely Lithuanian equivalent, but is it really foreign? After all, it also bears the label: veraltet—obsolete. Could this be a lexicographic compromise between Salys’s view and the well-established practice of standardization? Not so much because it is essential as for the sake of completeness, the history must be continued. In his work “Konstantino Širvydo „Punktų sakymų“ veiksmažodis (Indeksas),” K. Morkūnas gives only the usual meanings of padėti, ‘to put down, lay down; to help,’ and does not give ‘to make,’ although he records the form padėjo from the passage cited by Būga (I 381) LKK XX 172. In 1957, J. Balčikonis briefly remarked of the word geradėjas (=geradarys): “The second part of that word, ‘-dėjas,’ is borrowed from the Polish word ‘dobrodziej’” J. Balč RR II 283. In the introductory article to the 1978 edition of Balčikonis’s writings, Aldonas Pupkis and Vytautas Mažiulis classify geradėją as a hybrid, and consider -dėjas to be even a suffix (ibid., 30), thus seemingly detaching it from dėti. In 1988, Zigmas Zinkevičius mentions geradėją ir piktadėją among “various calques and reworkings,” noting: “as for -dėjas, cf. dėti” LKI III 138. Just before the fair copy, like Phileas Fogg, Birutė Kabašinskaitė’s “Lietuvių kalbos liaudies etimologija ir artimi reiškiniai” (Vilnius, 1998) appeared. Geradėjas is discussed very briefly in the subsection “The relationship between contamination and folk etymology”: gera-d-ėj-as ‘benefactor’: *geradėjas (cf. Polish dobrodziej, Old Belarusian dobrodėj ‘ditto’)” and dėti (dėjo)” (81). She draws on Skardžius and his predecessors. In the same subsection, the influence of dėti is invoked again: “nedėlia, nedėlė ‘week, Sunday’ (cf. Old Belarusian nedėlja ‘ditto’) was influenced by the word dėti” (86). This also draws on the connection I mentioned from Būga (K. Būg RR I 346), but fails to understand that Būga invokes dėti here in the sense ‘to do’ (thus ne-dėlia is motivated just like Slavic ne-dėlja—‘non-doing,’ that is, a non-working day!). In the chapter “Folk etymology,” an attempt is made to seek a Slavic prototype for the word niekadėjas: “niekadėjas…” (cf. Russian niegodiai ‘ditto’ and other Slavic words), remodeled on niekas, dėti, has acquired the secondary sense ‘someone who is innocent of anything, has nothing to do with anything, knows nothing about something’ (LKŽ VIII 771 ff.)” (27). No Slavic prototypes are needed, because geradėjas, piktadėjas, niekadėjas are Lithuanian words. Their interpretation has long been stuck because no attention was paid 1) to the simple fact of the neuter forms geradėja, piktadėja, and 2) to Būga’s brief (but clear) indication of their Lithuanian derivation from dėti ‘to do.’ Kabašinskaitė extended this long inertia as well—perhaps the first to venture an explanation of the other meaning of niekadėjas (which she calls a secondary sense), but without examining either Būga’s point or the data in the academic dictionary. I will return later to the secondary sense that has long intrigued me (the project began with it). Now, to bring the case for the Lithuanian character of geradėjo, piktadėjo, niekadėjo to a more convincing close, we must also consider the issue antithetically. The key point is the parallelism of geradėjo – geradario, piktadėjo – piktadario, niekadėjo – niek(a)dario (and others). 60 This should be considered even if geradėjas, piktadėjas, niekadėjas were loanwords: how, when, where, and for whom did geradarys, piktadarys, niek(a)darys arise and come into use? And if geradėjas, piktadėjas, niekadėjas are Lithuanian, then why have geradarys, piktadarys, niek(a)darys as well? Geradėja(s) ir piktadėja(s) are used in dialects and old writings more widely and for a longer time than niekadėjas. According to the data in LKŽ III, the neuter geradėja occurs in the postil of J. Morkūnas, K. Sirvydas’s dictionary and “Punktai sakymų,” and D. Klein’s grammar; the later form geradėjas is from the dictionaries of P. Ruigys and F. Neselman (in F. Kurschat’s dictionary: geradėjis). However, it is not entirely clear which source has geradėjystė: M. Petkevičius’s catechism, K. Sirvydas’s dictionary, S. B. Chilinski’s Bible, or P. Ruigys’s dictionary; while geradėjysta is in the postil of J. Morkūnas. And geradaris is of a comparable age (as far as our relatively recent writings go), appearing in M. Daukša’s postil; geradarystė ir geradarymas occur in K. Sirvydas’s dictionary. In dialects, geradaris is reported widely—in Skapiškis, Kupiškis, Joniškėlis, and Žemaičių Kalvarija. According to the data in LKŽ IX, forms in use in the same period include piktadėja, piktadėjas, piktadaris (-ys): piktadėja—in B. Vilentas, M. Daukša’s postil, J. Morkūnas’s postil, K. Sirvydas’s dictionary and “Punktai sakymų,” and Krause’s dictionary; piktadėjas—in M. Daukša’s postil, M. Mažvydas, B. Vilentas, J. Bretkūnas, S. Bitner, F. W. Haack’s dictionary, P. Ruigys, and F. Kurschat’s dictionary (the form -is occurs in L. J. Rėza’s Bible and S. Daukantas); piktadėjystė—in K. Sirvydas’s dictionary; piktadaris—in K. Sirvydas’s dictionary; piktadarys—in M. Daukša’s postil and K. Sirvydas’s dictionary; piktadaringas—in K. Sirvydas’s dictionary. In dialects, piktadarys is reported only in Smalvos, and piktadariauti in Stačiūnai; its broader dialectal distribution is evident from various later dictionaries and writings. There is no areal distinction, nor has there ever been one, between geradėjas – geradaris and piktadėjas – piktadaris. Skirtumas yra kitas – geradarys, piktadarys ir patys yra skaidrūs, ir sakoma geradarystę / piktadarystę daryti, o geradėjo, piktadėjo motyvacija (beje, semantiškai tolygi) jau išblukusi, jau niekur nefiksuota geradėjystę / piktadėjystę padėti, o tik padaryti: Kada anas kam padarė geradėjystą Armoriškės (LKŽ III). Žmonės padaro tankiai piktadėjystę dėl menko pelno Jonas Balvočius-Gerutis (LKŽ IX). Ar šitas skirtumas yra ir chronologinis? Greičiausiai – kai geradėjas, piktadėjas žodžiui dėti (beveik) praradus reikšmę „daryti“, motyvaciškai išbluko, atsirado (ar tik paplito?) geradarys, piktadarys. Although the chronology is not very important, the comparison of niekadėjo ir niekadario seems to support it: according to the data in LKŽ VIII, niekadėjas (-us, -is), meaning 2. ‘someone good for nothing, a rascal,’ is recorded relatively late—in M. Miežinis’s dictionary and A. Juška’s dictionary (in dialects: Dusetos, Plateliai); sense 3, ‘someone who does nothing serious, a layabout, idler,’ is in P. Ruigys’s dictionary (in dialects: Prienai, Krosna). By contrast, niekudarys (-is), sense 2. ‘someone who does foolish things, a scatterbrain, joker, prankster, practical joker,’ occurs in M. Daukša’s postil, K. Sirvydas’s dictionary, and F. Kurschat’s dictionary (in dialects: Merkinė, Giedraičiai, Žemaičių Kalvarija); sense 1, ‘someone who does trifling things, an idler, a loafer,’ occurs in A. Baranauskas and later writings. Variant niekadarys, sense 1. ‘someone who gets up to mischief, a rascal,’ and sense 2. ‘someone who makes worthless things,’ is known only from scattered written sources. 61 Possible consequences of Niek(a)dario having become widespread at least somewhat earlier may include both the abundance of its synonyms (unlike those of geradario and piktadario) and their limited or rather limited distribution, as well as their occasional polysemy: niekadarbis 1. ‘someone who does pointless work, occupies themself with trifles’ (A. Juška’s dictionary, A. Juška’s songs, Girkalnis) (and niekdarb(i)uoti—Skirsnemunė, Tilžė); 2. ‘idler, loafer, good-for-nothing’ (and niekdarbystė—F. Kurschat’s dictionary); 3. ‘someone who does something poorly, a bungler’ (J. Šlapelis); 4. ‘someone who fools around, a joker, prankster’ (Dictionary of Written Lithuanian II); niekadarbis (Kupiškis, Palevenė), see niekadarys; niekdirbys ‘someone who occupies themself with trifles, unnecessary or useless things’ (Kairiai, M. Šalčius); niekadirbys (writings), see niekadarys; also the rare dykadárbis 2. ‘someone who does pointless work’ (Dusetos) (1. ‘someone who works for nothing’). Here we should also bear in mind a certain semantic indeterminacy depending on the first element: it is easier to distinguish ‘one who does nothing—a lazy person’ from ‘one who does pointless things,’ but the latter’s dual meaning—‘pointless things’ as misdeeds versus trifles or nonsense—is often blurred. In this respect, piktadario also differs from its rather rare synonym blog(a)dāris (-ys) ‘someone who does or behaves badly,’ LKŽ I₂: blogas means both ‘bad, evil’ (corresponding to piktas – piktadarys) and simply ‘not good.’ However, this is not very important to the article’s topic. One might also suggest that another, as yet unstudied, form niekadejas may have played some role in the relationship between niek(a)dario and niekadeju. But let that be. LKŽ VIII does not treat this niekadejo as a secondary meaning of the word already discussed, as B. Kabašinskaitė puts it, but rather as a separate entry: xniekadejas 1. ‘someone who is innocent of anything, has nothing to do with it, knows nothing about it.’ But this is not a word from old writings. This does not indicate that it is recent—it may simply be that the subject matter did not call for it, or that it was overlooked in the vast storehouse. It is known in dialects both among Aukštaitians (but not eastern ones) and Samogitians: Tėvas dedas niekadėju Joniškis. Išvertė pieną ir stovi kai niekadėjas Marijampolė. Eina kaip niekadėjas, lyg niekas nieko (as if it were not he who did it) Šunskai. Pats nulaužė peilį, pametė po suolu ir sėdi niekadėjas Seredžius. Aš tyčia viską režiu į akis, o jin tyli kaip niekadėja Joniškis. Iš ryto sugrįžęs namo, kaip niekadėjas su kitais dirbau laukuose V. Pietaris. (One sentence from LKŽ VIII remains, but it will be needed later.) So is this simply a development in meaning (whether we follow LKŽ VIII or, conversely, B. Kabašinskaitė), or is it already enantiosemy, or perhaps even homonymy? Further evidence helps us seek an answer (evidence B. Kabašinskaitė does not mention)—first of all, xniekadeja adv. 1. ‘as if nothing had happened’: Čia jam niekadėja pamaži bevaižiuojant su sykiu pradėjo labai skaniai kvepėti A. Schleicher’s “Litauisches Lesebuch und Glossar” 185. Atėjo ir sėdi sau niekadėja Griškabūdis. Aš taip, lyg nieko nemanydamas, niekadėja nuėjau ir užtikau juos vagiant Sudargas (2. ‘by chance,’ F. Kurschat’s dictionary). It is striking that the areas where both noun niekadėjas 1 and adverb niekadėja occur are not characteristic of Slavicisms (even translated or hybrid ones). Most importantly, their motivation is entirely transparent, unlike that of niekadėjo 2. ir 3. 62 Here an explanation needs to be inserted as to why there is no neuter-gender noun niekadeja, if there was geradėja, piktadėja. If geradėja, piktadėja have not survived to our times, adverbialization may have driven out the neuter form niekadaėja even faster (although the common gender was already displacing it as the more convenient—more distinctive—form). The intuition that these are Lithuanian words is reinforced and established in several ways by the fact that other forms of an adverb with the same meaning, clearly neither identical nor related to the form containing the non-Lithuanian element -dėjas (supposedly Lithuanianized), are: niėkdėlė 1. ‘without any purpose, having done nothing, as if by chance’: I’m just here, niėkdėlė. And drop by our place too, niėkdėlė Jurbarkas (2. ‘secretly, without anyone seeing’: When they have all sat down to eat, niėkdėlė creep up to the window and listen to what they are saying Skirsnemunė); nuleisti niėkdėlė ‘to pay no attention’: He paid no attention, niėkdėlė Daukšiai; niėkdėliais (niėkdėliais J. Barono dictionary, 1932), see niėkdėlė: 1. They’ll put me to work on anything, niėkdėliais, and make things better: they’ll assign me easier work, or send me off somewhere for half a day Žemaitė (2. Tell him, niėkdėliais, so the others don’t hear Girdžiai); niėkadėliais ‘as if nothing had happened’ (J. Jablonskis). Russian niegodiai is nowhere to be seen here. Nor is there the slightest trace of development from niekadejo ‘evildoer’. On the contrary, these adverbs are polysemous. There is even a noun semantically similar to niekadejas in senses 2 and 3: 1niėkdėlis ‘a poor, useless thing, a trifle’: Just so that some niėkdėlis doesn’t get caught by some old woman Žemaitė; 2niėkdėlis, -ė ‘idler, lazybones’: That niėkdėlė does no work at all, just loafs Panevėžys. The last sentence greatly extends the geographic range as well (although it is patchy). Now it is time to recall the omitted illustrative sentence for niekadejo 1.: Having done nothing (like niekadeja), I went to the neighbor’s Kvedarna. It has been inserted in the wrong place, but it directs our attention to another relevant line of inquiry—the phraseology of the pronoun and noun niekas (niekai): 1niekas pron. def. – nieku dėjęsis ‘as if having done nothing, as if nothing had happened, pretending’: Having entered the room, he sat down at the table for supper as if he had done nothing before K. Jurkšaitis’s Tales 11 (also found in the dictionaries of F. Neselman, F. Kurschat, and A. Juška); niekų (niekuõ) dėtas (nedėtas) ‘having nothing to do with something, not involved, innocent’: There was a little noble boy, innocent of anything, but a poor fellow M. Valančius. He is innocent of anything (has committed no offense), blameless J. Jablonskis; 2niekas noun – nieku dėti ‘to pay no attention’: He paid no attention to the fact that she was foolish, as long as she was pretty Švenčionys; 1niekai noun, plural; niekai – niekais leisti (nudėti) ‘to pay no attention’: I dismissed that bill as nothing Veiveriai. Thus, all that remains is to complete the semantic complex of Lithuanian motivation for niekadejo 1., niekadeja adv., niekdėlė, niek(a)dėliais with relevant data on the meanings and phraseology of the word dėti: dėti 14. ‘to assign (as)’ <…>|| ‘to regard (as)’: Are you crazy, or do you take me for a crazy person? Kartena. She was considered beautiful J. Balčikonis; 17. ‘to pretend, feign’: He pretends not to hear Tverečius. Pretending to joke, I said it Šatės [Also included here: Having done nothing (as if for no reason), I went to the neighbor’s Kvedarna]; 19. reflexive impersonal, ‘to seem’: How does it seem to you—did he do the right thing? Daugel iškis; dėti ant juoko ‘to make a laughingstock’: Why are you making a laughingstock of yourself with all that nonsense! Darbėnai; kaip dedamas ‘someone who does not react, is indifferent’: That man really is indifferent (do whatever you like to him, he won’t say a thing) Salantai; to dėtas ‘intended for that’ 63 ‘intended for that’: That day is meant for it—let’s go, even if it’s drizzling Plateliai. Here one might even add the phraseology of dėmės (: dėi) : dėl dėmės ‘pretending, not in earnest’: The child works dėl dėmės, that is, dėl slisties [that is, for appearances] A. Juška’s dictionary; tą dėmę daryti ‘to pretend to be doing something’: He does no work, just puts on that show Kvedarna; tai dėmei ‘just for the sake of it, in passing’: He’s only there for appearances and does no work Kretinga. This evidence can be capped with the treatment in Book II of the “Dictionary of the Lithuanian Written Language”: niekadėja adv. ‘without any particular intention, approximately’ (with a quoted sentence by A. Schleicher), niekėle adv. ‘immediately, without delay’ (here the interpretation is mistaken because the evidence is too limited and the cited literary example is misunderstood: Once the thought came to him to describe everything he had experienced; so, niekėle, he took a table and wrote the whole adventure down on it), niekėdeliais adv. = niekėdele. Thus, there are no marks or signs of foreignness, nor any rlt. (reinlitauisch) equivalents. Consequently, it is unquestionably Lithuanian. Niekadėjas ‘one who does nonsense—commits misdeeds—is a doer (evildoer)’ and ‘one who is (not) implicated in anything—is (not) considered (?), (not) appearing’ are meanings far apart, motivated by very different meanings of dėti , but neither homonymy nor enantiosemy should be posited here. Conclusions 1. “Doer of good, doer of evil, doer of nothing” are purely Lithuanian, not some kind of Slavic hybrids. The neuter forms “good deed,” “evil deed” make a Slavic origin quite impossible—Lithuanian -a cannot come from Slavic -ej. The second component to do means “to do”; therefore, these words are motivated in the same way as their synonyms doer of good, doer of evil, doer of nothing. “To do” meaning “to do” is archaic—it can be traced not only to the example “padėio aba padare” (I 381) from K. Sirvydas’s “Punktai sakymų,” cited by K. Būga as early as 1911, but also to the meaning “to happen” of “to happen” (“The weather is getting cold because of that” Zapyškis), as well as to other relics of semantic evidence (and Latvian dēties—alongside likties or notikt). Perhaps the existence of “doer of good” hindered the penetration of the Slavic word of the same pattern, dobrod(z)iejus (a Slavic borrowing dobras“rather good, large,” dòbrai, dòbriai, which has reached even the northern Aukštaitians). The synonyms doer of good, doer of evil, doer of nothing, semantically transparent, have also been known since olden times—they appeared (or perhaps merely spread) when “doer of good, doer of evil, doer of nothing” had (almost) lost the meaning “to do” and faded motivationally. 2. The opinion (unsupported by evidence) that niekadėjas in dialect means ‘one who is innocent of everything, uninvolved, knowing nothing (about something)’ (Father pretends to be innocent Joniškis) is a secondary meaning of niekadėjas of non-Lithuanian origin—and is even easier to refute. Its Lithuanian character is supported by the clearly Lithuanian motivation of the adverb niekadėja 1. ‘as if nothing had happened’ (He came and sits there, niekadėja Griškabūdis) (2. ‘by accident’): [‘having done nothing, being uninvolved in anything’], especially the variants niekėle, niek(a)dėliais 1. ‘without any purpose, having done nothing, as if by chance’ (And drop by our place too, niekėle Jurbarkas) (2. ‘secretly, without anyone seeing’), nuleisti niekėle ‘to pay no attention’ 64 (He lowered the little nobody Daukšiai) and the noun niekėdelis “a poor, worthless thing, a trifle” (niekėdelis, -ė “a loafer, idler”). 3. In considering whether the words geradėjas, piktadėjas, niekadėjas are normative, one should take into account the restoration of Lithuanian character, tradition, and style. Incidentally, niekadėjas in the sense “someone who is not at fault” is hardly used in the standard language. Received 1999 01 26 LITERATŪRA J. Balč RR II – Balčikonis J. Rinktiniai raštai 2, Vilnius: Mokslas, 1982. K. Būg RR I – Būga K. Rinktiniai raštai 1, Vilnius: Valstybinė politinės ir mokslinės literatūros leidykla, 1958. KNK – Kaip nereikia kalbėti. Sudarė Danguolė Mikulėnienė, Vilnius: Mokslas, 1991. KPP1 – Kalbos praktikos patarimai. Sudarė Aldonas Pupkis, Vilnius: Mokslas, 1976. KPP2 – Kalbos praktikos patarimai. Sudarė Aldonas Pupkis, Vilnius: Mokslas, 1985. KT – Kalbėkime taisyklingai. Sudarė Danguolė Mikulėnienė, Vilnius: Mokslas, 1990. LKI III – Zinkevičius Z. Lietuvių kalbos istorija 3, Vilnius: Mokslas, 1988. LKK XX – Lietuvių kalbos klausimai 20, Vilnius: Mokslas, 1980. LKŽ I2 – Lietuvių kalbos žodynas 1, Vilnius: Mintis, 1968. LKŽ II1 – Lietuvių kalbos žodynas 2, Vilnius: Valstybinė enciklopedijų, žodynų ir mokslo literatūros leidykla, 1947. LKŽ II2 – Lietuvių kalbos žodynas 2, Vilnius: Mintis, 1969. LKŽ III – Lietuvių kalbos žodynas 3, Vilnius: Valstybinė politinės ir mokslinės literatūros leidykla, 1956. LKŽ VIII – Lietuvių kalbos žodynas 8, Vilnius: Mintis, 1970. LKŽ IX – Lietuvių kalbos žodynas 9, Vilnius: Mintis, 1973. GERADĖJAS, PIKTADĖJAS, NIEKADĖJAS – PURELY LITHUANIAN WORDS Summary The words geradėjas (Eng. benefactor), piktadėjas (Eng. evil-doer, wrong-doer), niekadėjas (Eng. villain, loafer, wrong-doer) are purely Lithuanian and not hybrid Slavonic borrowings. The meaning of their second element dėti (Eng. put) is to do, to make, thus they are motivated as well as their synonyms geradarys (Eng. benefactor), piktadarys (Eng. evil-doer), niekadarys (Eng. evildoer, wrong-doer) (they obviously evolved or spread at the time when the motivation of the former ones faded). The meaning make, do of the word dėti (Eng. put) is archaic, derived from the relics, thus the faded motivation must have stimulated an interest in their origin, which was likely to be found in Slavonic languages. In Lithuanian dialects, the word niekadėjas is known in the meaning ‘the one who has done something’ and thus is obviously motivated. Its ‘Lithuanian-ness’ is supported by the adverbs niekada (Eng. as if nothing has happened), niekdėle, niek(a)dėliais (Eng. with no particular purpose, as if by chance) and the noun niekdėlis (Eng. trifle, a worthless thing) of the same root. 65