LIETUVIŲ KALBOTYROS KLAUSIMAI, XXX (1993)

PERIFERINĖS LIETUVIŲ KALBOS TARMĖS

Notes. Reviews

A FEW NOTES ON THE HYBRID stigavóti

The hybrid stigavóti, “to assert, affirm, believe (refl. to argue, object),” and its derivatives (įstigavóti, pastigavóti, par-/per-stigavóti, susistigavóti; stigavójimas, stigavónė) are common and fairly widespread in the Samogitian dialect, especially in the northwestern subdialects. This is also shown by LKŽ (XIII 770). The entry for stigavóti includes illustrative examples from as many as fourteen locations in the Samogitian dialect, most of them from northwestern Samogitia (Als, Ggr, Gršl, Klp, Ms, Rt, Slnt, Šts, Šv, Vvr).

This word and its derivatives are also frequent in the writings of the nineteenth-century cultural and literary figures S. Daukantas and M. Valančius, who wrote in Samogitian. This is also evident from the sentences cited in LKŽ; there are even more in the dictionary’s citation files.

The only uncertainty concerns the spelling of this word. LKŽ gives as the headword the form with a long root vowel, į-stigavóti, while also listing a form with a short vowel: stigavóti. The illustrative material, however, presents the opposite picture. Northwestern Samogitians pronounce stigavóti and its derivatives with a short i. The two instances with a long i cited in LKŽ come from southern Samogitian (stygavós, įstygavólja; Užv, Up), although an example with a short i is also found there (stigavójo; Rs). The forms used by S. Daukantas and M. Valančius have likewise hitherto been written with a short i (cf. their works edited by J. Balčikonis, J. Talmantas, and Z. Zinkevičius¹, and A. Kalniaus’s dictionary of S. Daukantas’s writings²). The examples from M. Valančius’s writings in LKŽ are also given with a short i (stigavojo, susistigavojo, stigavonė), whereas those from S. Daukantas are spelled in two ways (stigavoti, susistigavojo, but stygavojimas). Yet there is no basis for spelling the word with a long i. This is clearly shown by the dialect of S. Daukantas’s region, and his spelling alone is unreliable evidence, since S. Daukantas was inconsistent in writing long and short vowels. An illustrative example in LKŽ, taken from S. Daukantas’s “Darbai”³, confirms this (here the letter y most often denotes a short, lowered i; cf.: Wynog tu wiru stygawoyimas nieka nie darodis, p. 20).

Examples cited from old dictionaries or other writings also support a short i. The forms of this word given with both a long and a short i in M.

¹ Žr. Valančiaus Raštai. Redagavo ir žodynėlį pridėjo J. Balčikonis. K., 1931. P. 481; Daukantas S. Lietuvių būdas. Redagavo ir žodynėlį pridėjo J. Talmantas. K., 1935. P. 353; Daukantas S. Rinktiniai raštai. Sudarė M. Lukšienė, tekstą paruošė Z. Zinkevičius. V., 1955. P. 465.

² Kalniaus A. Simano Daukanto raštų žodynas (the typescript is held in the Dictionary Department of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language). P. 99.

³ Simanas Daukantas. Darbay senuju Lituwiu yr Žemaycziu 1822. Spaudai paruošė Vaclovas ir Mykolas Biržiškiai. K., 1929.

214

The forms in Niedermann’s dictionary¹ probably arose through the merger of two entries in that dictionary (Ndž99). Besides the example with a long i from “Tėvynės Sargas” cited in LKŽ, the citation files contained a sentence from the same source in which the word is written with a short i: jisai jug stigavoja apie mūsų probočių dievobaimingumą (1901, IV-V, 14).

Since the illustrative material shows that the headword should be the form with a short i, it is unclear why the opposite choice was made. One may suppose that the hybrid stigavoti with a long i was aligned with stýgauti, “to say, express an opinion, assert” (LKŽ XIII, 769), which is listed under the first meaning of stigavóti; however, the decision to give this word as a headword with a long root i is also questionable. LKŽ illustrates stygauti with a long i using three examples: from the writings of J. Balvočius, J. Basanavičius’s collection of folktales (which also provides the example įstygavojimo), and S. Daukantas’s “Darbai.” However, the example with a long i from S. Daukantas’s “Darbai,” as in the first case, is not reliable, since it gives only the spelling. In fact, S. Daukantas’s example is also unsuitable here, because the sentence in question contains not the past-tense form of stigauti, but the present tense of the verb stigavoti. This is clear from the context: Pinkerson's stygaw[o]ja sawa rasztuse jog Eurley yr Sarmatay winos gymynies buwa yr wina kalba kalbieja. Tą patį saka antras garsus wir's Maltburn stygawodamas... (p. 11). So would it not be more reliable to follow the form stigauti (with a short root i) given in the dictionaries of A. Kuršaitis, M. Miežinis, and M. Niedermann, and list the form with a long i, stygauti, as a variant? Also cf. the following words with the same root listed in LKŽ (XIII): įsistigti, “to stubbornly insist” (p. 773); stignėti, “to assert” (p. 771); stiguoti (p. 774).

Birutė Vanagienė