Latvių liaudies dainų sintaksė

Endzelīna Darbu izlasē,” pp. 38–39). Among the articles on other topics published in the volume, one would first like to draw attention to P. Vanagas’s article “The Origin of the Text of the 1586 Latvian Catechism” (“1586. gada latviešu katehisma teksta izcelsme,” pp. 52–62), which presents a careful analysis of the sources of this Latvian-language monument. Other articles published here may also be of interest to Lithuanian linguists: M. Rudzytė’s “On the Lexicon of the Braslavians” (“Par braslaviešu leksiku,” pp. 40–43), V. Rūke-Dravinija’s “Old Fences in Northern Vidzeme around Valmiera” (“Senie žogi Ziemeļvidzemē ap Valmieru,” pp. 44–51), A. Rekena’s “Features of Verb Forms in J. W. Goethe’s ‘Faust’ in Translation” (“Verba formu īpatnības J. V. Gētes ‘Fausta’ atdzejojumā,” pp. 63–71), A. Kalnača’s “The Category of Tense in Latvian Grammars” (“Laika kategorija latviešu gramatikās,” pp. 72–80), and J. Grigorjevs’s “Acoustic Characteristics of Vowels in the Latvian Literary Language” (“Latviešu literārās valodas patskaņu akustisks raksturojums,” pp. 81–83). P. Vanagas reviews a new edition of Adolphijo’s Latvian grammar (1685), prepared by the Australian linguist T. G. Fennell. He also provides a very detailed survey of Lithuanian linguistic literature from 1993–1994. L. Baluodė writes about the international seminar “Lithuanian Studies at the World’s Universities,” held at Vilnius University in 1994, and about the conference “Lithuania–Latvia: Past, Present, Future,” held in Kaunas that same year at Vytautas Magnus University. A. Stikanė reports on the activities of the Latvian Society of Philologists, T. Karma on a conference held at the University of Tartu devoted to the problems of written languages among the peoples of the Baltic area, and S. Kliavinia on the seminar “Language and Technology in Europe after the Year 2000: A Baltic Perspective,” held in Riga. The memory of the distinguished Latvian linguist Alysė Laua (1914–1994) is commemorated. Algirdas Sabaliauskas THE SYNTAX OF LATVIAN FOLK SONGS At last, we have received the monograph “Lettische Syntax: die Dainas”1 (Latvian Syntax: (Folk) Songs), written several decades ago by the distinguished Latvian linguist Alfred Gāters. Drawing on a very extensive corpus of folk songs, it provides a thorough analysis of the morphosyntax of the language of Latvian folk songs. A. Gāters is the only researcher to have devoted a separate, substantial study to the syntax of Latvian folk songs (the analytical and synthetic parts of the book together comprise 648 pages). A little about the author of this work. A. Gāters was born on April 24, 1921, in Spīvuļi, in Kalnciems Parish in northeastern Latvia. After graduating from Madona Gymnasium in 1941, in 1942 he began studying Germanic philology and Indo-European linguistics— 1 Gāters A. Lettische Syntax: die Dainas. Herausgegeben von Hildegard Radtke. Frankfurt am Main; Berlin; Bern; New York; Paris; Wien: Lang, 1993. 679 p. 220 He began his studies in Russian at the University of Lithuania. Among others, J. Endzelīns (Endzelīns) was also his teacher there. In 1943, Gateris was drafted into the Latvian Legion. In 1945, he continued his studies in Germanic philology, classical languages, and comparative Indo-European linguistics at the University of Hamburg under the supervision of Professor E. Fraenkel (Fraenkel). There, in 1949, he also defended his doctoral dissertation, ”Beiträge zur Bedeutungsgeschichte der ins Lettische entlehnten mitteldeutschen Nomina” (The history of the meanings of Middle High German nouns borrowed into Latvian). From 1957 to 1963, still in Hamburg, he successfully completed medical studies as well and, until his death on July 2, 1986, worked as a physician. A. Gateris continued his research in philology too, publishing many articles on Baltic linguistics and Latvian literature in journals and encyclopedias in various countries. In 1977, he published the monograph ”Die lettische Sprache und ihre Dialekte”2 (The Latvian Language and Its Dialects). Unfortunately, he never completed his final work, ”Lettische Literatur” (Latvian Literature). A. Gateris finished writing the monograph ”Lettische Syntax” more than thirty years ago, but it has still never been published. Why did this happen? At the time—in the late 1950s—it was impossible to find the necessary funds or a publisher willing to bring out the book. Later, having refused to make extensive cuts to the manuscript and grown disillusioned, the author no longer even wanted to speak about it, as though it no longer existed. As a result, for nearly 30 years A. Gateris’s friends were convinced that the ”Lettische Syntax” manuscript had probably been burned by its author. However, after A. Gateris’s death, it turned out that this was not the case. A. Gateris’s friend A. Dzenis has written about the very long and complicated path this monograph took to reach its readers, in an article entitled ”Kāda manuskripta neparastais liktenis” (The Unusual Fate of a Manuscript.—Laikr. ”Brīvā Latvija”, January 10–17, 1994). The monograph has now been published, as A. Dzenis writes, thanks to three optimistic and energetic women: A. Gateris’s sister J. Bergholce provided the necessary funds, Dr. R. Gryslė, PhD in Philology (Grīsle), edited the manuscript, and Dr. H. Radtke, MD, found a publisher and directed the technical work. Although, according to A. Dzenis, A. Gateris had refused to cut the ”Lettische Syntax” manuscript, someone (perhaps the author himself after all) did cross some things out3. The abundance of examples was reduced most heavily, but in places the author’s own text was also shortened (in some cases, even entire paragraphs were removed), especially where it discusses paradigmatic relations between nominal case forms (i.e., instances of their parallel use), e.g., pp. 123–124, 132, 157, 175, or some of their secondary meanings and functions in the sentence, e.g., pp. 77, 157, 187. In places, remarks were also deleted about the distribution of certain forms and constructions in Latvian dialects (there are very few such remarks in the monograph overall), e.g., p. 131, 303, or about their equivalents in other Indo-European languages (Latin, Ancient Greek, Gothic), e.g., pp. 78, 120, as well as about the original meanings of individual words or the reconstruction of roots, e.g., pp. 120, 224. It is difficult to understand why the aforementioned passages, and others, were crossed out in the manuscript. Perhaps the author felt that they were not so important for the study of the syntax of Latvian folksongs, and that such minor details might distract from the main point. Or perhaps, over time, he began to doubt the accuracy of some statements and thought that this or that still 2 K a b e l k a J. (Review) — Baltistica. Vol. 14(2), 1978. Pp. 159–161. 3 The published monograph retains the complete manuscript text, but the locations of the cuts are indicated by square brackets []. 221 needed to be checked. Besides, the cuts may have been made simply to reduce the book’s length—only those sentences and paragraphs that could be done without were removed. Unfortunately, all of this is now just speculation. On the whole, the cuts mentioned above, and the fact that the author himself no longer wanted to speak or hear about this work for nearly thirty years, suggest that the syntax of Latvian folksongs should be regarded as an unfinished study (though this in no way diminishes the significance of the publication). Since the complete version of the manuscript has nevertheless been published, the book may be regarded as a unified work and assessed as such. A. Gateris’s study ”Lettische Syntax: die Dainas” differs considerably overall from traditional /contemporary/ syntactic studies, both in its structure (especially that of the first part) and, in certain respects, in its content (for example, it does not address one of the principal objects of syntax—the text; it does not discuss word order in the sentence, cases of assimilation and contamination among individual sentence constituents, and so on). Instead, it examines (i.e., inventories in detail and thoroughly) matters of morphosyntax. This is also reflected in the division of the monograph: the first, analytical part (an examination of the use of parts of speech) comprises about five hundred pages, while the second, synthetic part (classification of sentences and subordinate clauses, analysis of word groups) amounts to only about one hundred and fifty pages. It seems that A. Gateris followed the example of Prof. J. Endzelīns’s ”Latvian Grammar” here, since it too dealt mainly with the syntax of word forms—the use of nominal cases and verb forms (although it was classified under the study of words, i.e., morphology). Indeed, the larger half of the first part of A. Gateris’s monograph consists of descriptions of various word forms and their use, explanations of the paradigmatic relations between these forms and function words (which form or word can substitute for another form or word), and an enumeration of the functions that each part of speech or one of its subgroups can perform. All of this is illustrated by numerous interesting and fairly complex examples from Latvian folksongs, with translations into German (the monograph is written in German)4. In the second, much shorter part of A. Gateris’s monograph, as noted above, sentences and word combinations are analyzed. The sentences are examined according to their semantics, the parts of speech that make them up, and the nature of the syntactic relations between their individual components (asyndetic or syndetic coordination). Some of the most common word combinations are also investigated here from a diachronic perspective; for example, on p. 558 it is explained that the frequently used combination in Latvian folksongs tēvs māmīna ‘parents’ (literally, ‘father mother’) is paralleled by the same kind of combination not only in Lithuanian but also in Ancient Indian and Tocharian A. There are not many passages in the monograph discussing correspondences with forms in such distant languages (Ancient Indian, Tocharian, Albanian) or the roots of Proto-Indo-European, and they therefore stand out from the main text (e.g., in the discussion of pronouns, pp. 206–207, 231, 4 A. Dzenis writes that when asked why he took on such a burden, since it would have been much easier to write in Latvian, A. Gateris replied very simply and logically: ”Dainas are one of the greater cultural treasures of our small nation, but the world does not know them because there is no literature. If we do nothing ourselves, things will stay that way.” (Translated from the aforementioned article by A. Dzenis.) And since everyone who has tried translating Latvian folksongs knows how difficult it is, we should not fault translations that are not always successful, but should instead appreciate how much A. Gateris did to introduce Latvian songs to people of other nationalities as well. 222 235, 238, on conjunctions — p. 579). Most often, throughout the book, the Latvian folk-song texts under discussion are compared with corresponding texts from the closest language itself — Lithuanian folk songs, as well as examples from contemporary language5; less often, with equivalents in Germanic, Latin, and Ancient Greek. Among Latvian linguists, the work draws most heavily on studies by J. Endzelīns, A. Uozuolo (Ozols)6, K. Dravini (Draviņš), V. Rūke—Dravinios (Rūķe—Draviņa), and other authors, as well as “Mūsdienu latviešu literārās valodas gramatika” (Grammar of Contemporary Latvian Literary Language. Riga, 1959—1962. Vols. 1—2). Although a long time elapsed between the writing and publication of the monograph, its author’s broad perspective, thoroughness of analysis, and the enduring relevance of the material itself mean that it has not become outdated. We hope that this scholarly work by A. Gateris, having laid a solid foundation, will encourage further research into one of the greatest treasures of Latvian culture — folk songs. The monograph itself (as A. Dzenis requested in the above-mentioned article), one may assume, will receive the attention it deserves and competent reviews. Evija LIPARTĖ NEW DOCTORS OF LATVIAN PHILOLOGY Since Baltic studies encompasses not only Lithuanian studies but also Latvian studies, we report on some of the most important developments in Latvian linguistics in recent years. Since the restoration of independence (1990), Latvian linguistics has advanced considerably, both qualitatively and quantitatively. On November 13, 1990, the prominent Latvian linguist Antons Breidaks defended his doctoral dissertation in philology (this degree is now equivalent to the habilitated doctor’s degree), “Latviešu valodas latgalisko izloksņu fonētika: diahronija un sinhronija” (“Phonetics of the Latgalian Dialects of the Latvian Language: Diachrony and Synchrony”) at Vilnius University. A couple of years later, when new regulations for awarding doctoral and habilitated doctoral degrees were introduced in the Republic of Latvia, he was joined by a fairly large group of new doctors at both levels. The period from spring 1993 to autumn 1994 was particularly prolific. At that time, 11 prominent Latvian linguists were awarded habilitated doctorates in philology for their research, while 9 language researchers defended doctoral dissertations in philology 5For this purpose, extensive use was made of folklore collections (folk songs collected by J. Balys, J. Dovydaitis, and A. Juška), grammars by M. D. Klein, A. Schleicher, K. Jaunius, Rygiškių Jonas, J. Otrebski (Otrębski), and other authors, Lithuanian-language dictionaries, studies of the Lithuanian language by K. Būga, J. Jablonskis, S. Daukantas, E. Fraenkel, E. Hermann, Z. Zinkevičius, and other linguists, as well as various Lithuanian publications. 6 Since, by the time the monograph under discussion here was published, A. Uozuolo’s book “Latviešu tautasdziesmu valoda” (The Language of Latvian Folk Songs. Riga, 1961) had been the most thorough systematic study of the vocabulary and grammar (especially syntax) of Latvian folk songs, it is understandable that A. Gateris drew extensively on the above-mentioned work by A. Uozuolo and on other works by this researcher of Latvian folk songs, which in turn also refer to A. Gateris’s studies. 223