A. Valeckienė. „Funkcinė lietuvių kalbos gramatika“

ACTA LINGUISTICA LITHUANICA LIETUVIŲ KALBOTYROS KLAUSIMAI XLII (2000) Reviews. Critiques. Observations. Opinions. Reviews. Observations Überblick. Rezensionen. Anmerkungen A. Valeckienė. Funkcinė lietuvių kalbos gramatika, Vilnius, 1998: Lietuvių kalbos institutas, 415 p. Linguists and all philologists were delighted by the publication of Functional Lithuanian Grammar by Adelė Valeckienė, a longtime senior research fellow at the Institute of the Lithuanian Language and a habilitated doctor. This is a theoretical work that synthesizes many decades of research into Lithuanian grammar, discussing and evaluating the syntactic and morphological structure of our language from a new linguistic perspective, and skillfully combining traditional and new methods of linguistic analysis. Of course, such a work could not have emerged out of nowhere; only an author with vast scholarly experience could have prepared it. A. Valeckienė had already published a substantial study, “The Use of Pronominal Adjectives in Contemporary Lithuanian,” in 19571, as well as an original monograph on the category of gender2 and numerous articles in Lithuanian and foreign-language linguistic publications. She is one of the principal authors of all four academic grammars of Lithuanian, and a compiler, editor, or editorial-board member for many linguistic publications. Her functional grammar is thus a synthesis of discussions and research into complex grammatical problems. The functional grammar consists of a preface, an introduction, and three substantial chapters: “Sentence Rank,” “Group and Word Rank,” and “Morpheme Rank.” One might ask why the author begins not with the smallest meaningful element of language—the morpheme—but with the principal one, namely the sentence, which is the most important unit of communication. But that is the author’s choice. What matters to the reader is that this arrangement causes no inconvenience and that there is a reasoned, logical connection among all three principal ranks of the language system. In the introduction, the author sets out the basic concepts and most important terms of functional grammar very concisely, yet clearly and accessibly, so that even a reader without the highest level of linguistic training can readily understand them. ¹ See Literature and Language 2, Vilnius: Institute of the Lithuanian Language and Literature of the Lithuanian SSR Academy of Sciences, 1957, 161–328. ² V a l e c k i e n ė A. 1984: Lietuvių kalbos gramatinė sistema: Giminės kategorija, Vilnius: Lietuvos TSR mokslų akademijos Lietuvių kalbos ir literatūros institutas, Lietuvos TSR mokslų akademijos Centrinė biblioteka. 209 In discussing sentence rank, the linguist devotes particular attention to the main functions of the simple sentence—the content, interactional, and textual functions—and thoroughly elucidates the grammatical forms that realize them. Since the verb is one of the most important elements of a sentence in our language, the verb’s transitivity is examined concisely; the properties of formally transitive and intransitive verbs and the processes they express are described, and the semantic functions of verb satellites are systematized. Semantics is an area in which it is especially difficult to avoid subjectivity in the interpretation of phenomena. It must be said that the author of the grammar, drawing on vast experience as an analyst of grammatical phenomena, handles this task impeccably. Her claims essentially raise no major doubts. However, because of the fine-grained differentiation of functions, in some places the boundaries between them seem not entirely clear. This might be said, for example, of the boundaries between the functions of percipient and experiencer (p. 48), and of some explanations and illustrations of the distinction between the instrument functions in subsections a) and b) (pp. 50–51). On the other hand, in some places one might wish for more differentiation. For instance, in discussing the function of time (p. 60), it is explained that the accusative, dative, instrumental, and locative mark a span, period, or interval of time associated with an action or state (it is also unclear what difference in time is expressed by these terms). The accusative, instrumental, and locative—yes. The dative, however, has a different meaning: in the sentences Save the bread for tomorrow, not the work; Having enlisted more old women for the night, the dative certainly does not express the time of an action, but rather the time for which the result of the action is intended. The same can be said about the time marked by the dative in the examples on p. 61. However, as noted, there are very few passages that give rise to similar doubts. This shows that the author of the grammar has a thorough grasp of semantics and differentiates its phenomena subtly. In the grammar, structural sentence types are classified on the basis of syntagmatic and semantic relations between words. According to these relations, two main sentence types are discussed: personal and impersonal, each of which is further divided into subtypes. Essentially, the same subtypes are identified here as those described in academic and other works on syntax. The author, however, does not merely present the results of previous research, but briefly characterizes the structural features of these types: what elements they consist of, what their functions are, and what orders their structural elements may take. In explaining the interactional function, particular attention is paid to sentence mood (modality). Sentence mood is linked here to communicative function, and is therefore understood somewhat differently from the usual sense in discussions of the verb mood category. Thus, in addition to the familiar indicative, imperative, conditional, and indirect moods, an interrogative mood is also distinguished; it is inseparably connected with interrogative intonation and is the principal distinguishing feature of interrogative sentences. This broadening of the concept of mood raises no doubts, is sufficiently well motivated, and is acceptable. It should also be noted that the interrogative mood differs from the other moods, which have clearly defined morphological forms, in that its means of expression are particles, interrogative pronouns, and interrogative adverbs. According to these 210 As means of expression, interrogative sentences are also divided into two groups: 1) verification questions and 2) content questions. What is new here is that it has been established that the root of the interrogative words—pronouns and adverbs—in all content questions consists of the consonant k, or begins with that consonant. It is emphasized that the role of moods in the sentence rank is not uniform: the indicative, imperative, and interrogative moods are related to the speech act, whereas the subjunctive and indirect moods differ from the other moods only in modal nuances and do not form new sentence types. In discussing textual function, the author is the first to examine the concepts of theme and rheme in depth in a Lithuanian grammar. Particular attention is given to explaining what the rheme is, what role it plays in the sentence, what constitutes it in declarative and interrogative sentences, how it is expressed morphologically, and what additional words help express it. All this is illustrated with ingeniously selected sentences that make the essence of the problem readily understandable. Carefully devised diagrams covering the complex themes of various sentence types help readers grasp the expanded discussion of themes. The section on complex sentences in this grammar is highly condensed and draws on the sections on complex sentences in academic grammars, one of whose authors is the author of the grammar under review. It largely follows the same principles for classifying complex sentences as “Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos gramatikoje” (V., 1994, 1996, 1997) and “Lithuanian Grammar” (V., 1997). Although the types and subtypes of complex sentences are discussed very concisely, new features of their structure are nevertheless brought to light—features not mentioned in earlier grammars. This attests to the author’s deep engagement with the problems of various complex sentences and her ability to reveal previously unexamined features of sentence structure and semantics. The classification of the fifth subgroup of compound coordinate sentences—marked coordination—alongside the conventional additive, comparative, adversative, disjunctive, and conclusive coordination sentences seems debatable. It is true that the author herself had distinguished and discussed marked coordination sentences in earlier academic Lithuanian grammars,3 However, their classification is based not on a single criterion—conjunctions, as was customary when dividing coordinate sentences into four subgroups—but also on additional criteria involving the particularities of the structure and semantics of sentence constituents. The second part of the grammar, “Group and Word Rank,” takes a fresh look at the so-called parts of speech and word groups. This part also combines tradition and innovation. According to what forms the nucleus of a group, three types of groups are distinguished: nominal, verbal, and adverbial. The nucleus of a nominal group is a noun, and the syntagmatic functions of nouns are therefore described next. 3 Grammatika litovskogo jazyka, Vilnius: Institut litovskogo jazyka i literatury, 1985, 715–716; Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos gramatika, Vilnius: Lietuvių kalbos institutas, 1994, 720; Lithuanian Grammar, Vilnius: Institute of the Lithuanian Language, 1997, 768–769. 211 Particular attention is devoted to discussing the main categories of nominal words—number, gender, and case—as well as the specific categories of degree and definiteness. These are closely related to their semantic function and the functions they perform in the syntagmatic structure of the sentence. Until now, no academic grammar or other work on the Lithuanian language has offered such a comprehensive analysis and synthesis of the number category of nouns, numerals, and pronouns, or of the features of its formal expression. Theoretical claims are supported throughout by aptly chosen illustrations. The noun is regarded as the nucleus of the nominal group. Words dependent on it are divided into two groups: modifiers and qualifiers. Adjectives and participles, and in certain cases numerals and pronouns, are considered modifiers. They agree with the noun. The grammatical features and syntagmatic functions of modifiers are clearly presented. Much attention is devoted to classifying pronouns according to their syntagmatic and semantic functions. The latter classification is considerably more precise than earlier ones and appears to be the most convincing and acceptable of all classifications proposed so far. Qualifiers are various case forms of nouns, or their case forms with prepositions, and sometimes indeclinable words, which are generally linked to a noun by government and, less often, by adjunction. Their position in relation to the head noun is described. The structure and functions of verbal and adverbial groups are presented just as concisely. The account of word groups in this grammar synthesizes earlier research on word combinations and presents an integrated picture of their grammatical structure and functions. Many new ideas and incisive observations are offered about conjunctions and particles, as well as interjections, which do not function as constituent elements of a sentence or group but perform important semantic functions in the sentence and approach the status of morphemes. It is noteworthy that the concept of the particle has been considerably broadened: alongside the words already listed as particles in grammars, onomatopoeic interjections and adverbial forms are also treated as particles. Readers accustomed to traditional grammatical stereotypes may initially find this approach startling, but the author’s arguments are sufficiently convincing to support a new assessment of these words and their classification as particles: in terms of their function, onomatopoeic interjections and adverbial forms do not in fact differ greatly from traditional particles. Their morphemic structure is another matter. However, given that traditional particles too differ in structure and origin, adding onomatopoeic interjections and adverbial forms to their class should not pose a serious obstacle—it is important to overcome inertial thinking. The section “Group and Word Rank” also discusses homogeneous and explanatory elements, as well as isolated sentence elements. These are traditionally called homogeneous parts of the sentence, parentheticals, and forms of address. Their place of discussion has not been clearly established in our grammars, so their inclusion in the “Group and Word Rank” section of the grammar under review should not give anyone serious cause for doubt. An important feature of the paradigmatic dimension of words in the nominal group is the category of gender. The author has already explored this problem from more than one perspective and more than once 212 for a decade in many of her earlier works, and so in this grammar she may be said to present a synthesis of research into this category. The category of nouns in Lithuanian is distinctive: nouns have two genders, while adjectives, participles, and some numerals and pronouns have three. Masculine and feminine gender in nouns is identified according to syntagmatic, formal, and semantic criteria. These criteria had not previously been clearly distinguished and discussed as consistently as they are in the grammar under review, although they had been relied upon intuitively. Here, for the first time, the derivational suffixes of masculine and feminine nouns that share the same lexical stem and denote people by sex are systematized; the derivational suffixes of so-called common-gender nouns with the same endings that denote people are catalogued; and the derivational meanings of such nouns are specified. The grammar rightly further establishes and justifies the traditional view that adjectives, participles, and some pronouns and individual numerals have forms for three genders. Since the neuter forms of the word classes mentioned have already become detached from masculine forms not only in contemporary Lithuanian but also—there being no neuter nouns—in the old monuments of our language, they are now no longer associated with anything and are used only substantivally. For this reason, our literature sometimes tends to deny them the status of a gender category, without clearly indicating what place they should occupy in the systematization of linguistic elements or what term should be used to designate them. Drawing on many years of research, the author of the functional grammar fully justifies assigning them the status of a gender category. The essence of the case category is presented briefly but informatively. In discussing the functions of noun cases, the author creatively applies the approach of the eminent Polish linguist J. Kuryłowicz. The verb is one of the most important structural elements of the Lithuanian sentence. All grammars devote the most space to its grammatical features. In the grammar under review, this word class and its categories are examined, one might say, quite concisely, but every statement is highly informative, substantial, and synthesizes earlier research on the verb by both other linguists and the author herself. Here, one must specifically mention Table 12 (pp. 283–284), which vividly shows the functional relations between the active and passive forms of the verb—relations that even a reader who has not delved too deeply into the theoretical statements can readily understand. The book’s third part, “Morpheme Rank,” is devoted to the problem of the constituent elements of Lithuanian words—morphemes. It describes the types of morphemes in detail, presents their classification and arrangement within the word, explains the concept of the stem and the types of stems, and so on. For the first time, the positional, derivational, and systemic variants of morphemes are comprehensively catalogued and examined in detail; the factors that determine their formation are discussed, 213 as well as their distribution. This is an important contribution not only to grammatical theory. A detailed description of all these variants is also essential for language practice. Having turned the last page of the “Functional Grammar of Lithuanian,” we must say that it is a monumental description of the grammatical system of Lithuanian, synthesizing not only the author’s own research into grammar but also that of many other linguists, and opening up space for the examination of newly raised problems. Not only professional linguists, but also Lithuanian-language teachers, philology students, and more proficient users of standard Lithuanian will find this work indispensable. This grammar, published with taste and appeal by the Institute of Science and Encyclopaedia Publishing with funds from the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language under the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania, substantially enriches the treasury of Lithuanian linguistics. Albertas Ružė Vilnius University Kaunas Faculty of Humanities NEW WORKS BY A FRENCH SCHOLAR ON THE LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE Daniel P e t i t Presentation of the Lithuanian language. – Lalies. Proceedings of the sessions on linguistics and literature 19, Paris, 1999, 7–22. Lithuanian phonology. Vowel system and accentuation. – Op. cit., 23–42. Lithuanian nominal morphology. The declension system and the expression of grammatical gender. – Op. cit., 43–74. Lithuanian verbal morphology. Diathesis and passive voice. – Op. cit., 75–111. Lithuanian syntax. Syntax of participles. – Op. cit., 113–135. On Lithuanian Sámbaris: The IE root *bher- in eastern Baltic. – Bulletin of the Société de Linguistique de Paris 93(1998), fasc. 1, 229–288. The study of the Lithuanian language in France has a long tradition, dating back to the time of Ferdinand de Saussure, Antoine Meillet, and Robert Gauthiot; it was later continued by Raymond Schmittlein, Paul Garde, Jean Haudry, and other linguists who wrote about Lithuanian and used its data in comparative and typological studies. In recent decades, however, as new Baltic studies centers were established in Poland, Italy, Germany, and other countries, Lithuanian studies in France had somewhat waned. Therefore, there is great interest in 214