LIETUVIŲ KALBOS SANDAROS TYRINĖJIMAI

LIETUVIŲ KALBOTYROS KLAUSIMAI, XXVI (1987)

STASYS TUMĖNAS

ON THE SPREAD OF PREPOSITIONAL CONSTRUCTIONS IN THE NORTHERN HIGHLANDER DIALECTS

Introductory remarks

Dialectologists usually devote the greatest attention to the phonetics, lexicon, and morphology of dialects—the areas that differ most markedly from the standard language. Syntactic features of dialects—word order in the sentence, the role of intonation, the entrenchment of prepositions and other analytic constructions, and so on—have so far received little study. Among the works discussing the use of prepositions, the articles by E. Grinaveckienė¹, J. Senkus², and J. Šukys³ are worth mentioning. In these works, the prepositions of individual dialects are presented in alphabetical order, and their more important meanings are indicated.

From a methodological perspective, the studies by J. Kilius⁴ are important for the investigation of prepositional constructions; they seek to establish the semantic differential features of individual locative prepositions in the standard language.

Prepositions are used in a highly varied manner in Lithuanian dialects. The entrenchment of prepositional constructions is a feature characteristic of almost all dialects. The role of not only prepositions but also conjunctions and particles is increasing; in some places, demonstrative pronouns become function words, so-called arthroids⁵.

In this article, the spread of prepositional constructions is regarded as a characteristic phenomenon of analyticism. One reason for the growing number of prepositional constructions in dialects is the influence of other languages. For example, many prepositional constructions became established in the speech varieties of the Klaipėda region under the influence of German⁶, while in Latvian this occurred under the influence of German and Russian⁷. However, this is not the only cause of the spread of prepositional constructions. The aim of this article is to examine texts from the speech varieties of the Northern Highlanders (the Panevėžys Eastern Highlander and Šiauliai Western Highlander dialects) in order to establish the relationship between the use of case constructions and prepositional constructions in those dialects.

¹ Grinaveckienė E. The meanings and use of prepositions in the southern dialect of the North-Western Highlanders. — In: Grammatical Structure of the Lithuanian Language (Questions of Lithuanian Linguistics). V., 1967, vol. 9, pp. 151—170.

² Senkus J. The use of prepositions and their more important meanings in the Kapsai and Zanavykai dialects. Works of the Lithuanian SSR Academy of Sciences. Series A, 1960, vol. 1(8), pp. 125—150.

³ Šukys J. The main cases of the penetration of prepositional constructions in the Pontininkai and Western Puntininkai dialects. — In: Questions of Lithuanian Linguistics. V., 1963, vol. 6, pp. 275—286.

⁴ Kilius J. The system of locative prepositions and cases in standard Lithuanian/Kand. diss. [typescript]. — V., 1973.

⁵ Rosinas A. Lietuvių bendrinės kalbos įvardžių semantinė struktūra. — V., 1984, p. 48—52.

⁶ Laigonaitė A. The meaning and use of locative cases in contemporary Lithuanian. — V., 1957, p. 33.

⁷ Нитинь Д. Система предлогов в латышском письменном языке: Автореф. дис.... канд. филол. наук. — Вильнюс, 1981; Нитинь Д. К вопросу о влиянии русского языка на латышские предложные конструкции. — В кн.: Контакты латышского языка. Рига, 1977.

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To identify changes in the use of prepositions, data collected from dialect speakers of the older and younger generations were compared with texts recorded by A. Baranauskas at the end of the 19th century.⁸ The study drew mainly on connected texts of everyday speech and folklore from 11 locations in the Panevėžys subdialect: Siesikai, Raguva, Krekenava, Šeduva, Rozalimas, Pasvalys, Pušalotas, Joniškėlis, Linkuva, Pašvitinys, and Žeimelis, and from 6 locations in the Šiauliai dialect: Kėdainiai, Šaukotas, Šiauliai, Pakapė, Kriukai, and Joniškis.

More characteristic cases of preposition use

As a result of phonetic changes, newer variants of prepositions have arisen in the northern Aukštaitian subdialects: åpe ‘about’, ap’l’ọjk ‘around’, nò ‘from’, prėš ‘before’, pò ‘after’, ọnt ‘on’, sò ‘with’, terp ‘between’, and so on. However, many prepositions have meanings similar to those in the standard language; only some prepositions, especially ọnt, par, prọ, sə, terp, have a considerably broader range of use.

The illative has almost disappeared and is used only in the eastern part of the Panevėžys subdialect. Prepositional constructions have replaced the declining illative. At the end of the 19th century, the northern Panevėžys speakers apparently still used the illative, since in Joniškėlis A. Baranauskas recorded the sentence: Łape inkżšti leńgwiai ińkżiśe gałwą uzbònən… (see ibid., p. 155). On the other hand, in another text of the same folk tale we find the sentence recorded: Łãpia ikiśt lùngwe ikiśżia gálwo unt uzbòno…

The prepositions ing, int have almost fallen out of use—they have been displaced by the construction į + accusative. In the Šiauliai subdialect, the preposition ing is not entirely synonymous with the preposition į. It is used when a direction needs to be indicated approximately (in the sense of ‘toward’). In A. Baranauskas’s time, instances of the preposition ing were recorded as follows: 13 in Joniškis, now 5; 7 in Kriukai, now 2; 3 in Pakapė, now 0. The preposition nuog / nọg is no longer used almost anywhere; it was recorded only around Kriukai.

The following discussion concerns those prepositions in the dialects under consideration whose semantics differ most from those of the standard language.

ọnt|ọn⁹ ‘on’. This is the most commonly used preposition in the northern Aukštaitian subdialects. Excluding the 76 clearly translated constructions with the genitive, its frequency in texts of approximately two author’s sheets, representing different periods in the development of the language, is roughly as follows: Pašvitinys 24: 20: 27¹⁰, Pušalotas 23: 21: 28, Siesikai 18: 7: 14, Joniškis 30: 19¹¹, Pakapė 14: 21, Šiauliai 30: 22.

⁸ Specht F. Litauische Mundarten gesammelt von A. Baranowski. – Leipzig, 1920, Bd. 1.

⁹ In the Panevėžys subdialect, two variants of this preposition are distinguished—ọnt or ọn. The consonant t is not pronounced at the end when the next word following the preposition begins with a voiceless consonant, e.g.: ọn kiẽ ma ‘on the yard—in the yard’, ọn tãka ‘on the path’. When the following word begins with a vowel or diphthong, the consonant t is clearly audible, e.g.: ọnt áukštą ‘on the upper floor’, ọnt ãk’ù ‘on the eyes’. The preposition ọnt is also used when the first sound of the following word is a voiced consonant, e.g.: ọnt gãtv’ės ‘on the street—in the street’, ọnt žė’mės ‘on the ground’. Before the sonorants l, m, n, r, the preposition’s form varies, e.g.: ọn, rupò’nulọnt_rupò’n’ù. Variation between the forms ọnt/ọn is more readily observed in the speech of older dialect speakers.

¹⁰ The first numeral indicates the number of prepositional constructions in texts from the end of the 19th century, the second those from the mid-20th century, and the third those recorded from the speech of the present-day younger generation.

¹¹ For the western Aukštaitian Šiauliai subdialect, statistical data are provided only for texts recorded at the end of the 19th century and for the speech of the present-day younger generation.

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In literary language, the general meaning of the preposition ant is being above, in contact with the surface of something.

In the dialects discussed here, this preposition is used in a much wider range of ways, and its construction with the genitive in many cases replaces the locative in literary language, e.g.: ne-būket’ onˌlieˌtos, onˌsáˌules padėˌk | tuoˌį ež’dž’uvi’s, al’ˌkep ti’c’onˌkiema priˌrištos tōˌs kár’v’es’, onˌteiˌsma tōˌpāˌt’ pasāˌke.

The preposition ont|on with the genitive often also indicates the direction of movement, e.g.: māˌte jīˌ onˌklet’es’ noaiˌnant’, novėje kaškōˌr ontˌmiˌška | musdūˌ kár’v’u mil’š’t’.

In these cases, the preposition ont|on with the genitive can replace the construction i…+pū.se “side,” e.g.: ontˌmiˌška = iˌmiˌška pū.se.

In the northern Aukštaitian dialects, the prepositional construction under discussion is also used in cases where literary language has the dative, e.g.: onˌtieˌk gi.vol’u viens pieˌmo “for such a herd of animals, only one shepherd,” onˌtieˌk vi.štu t’okˌviens gaid’s’ “for such a flock of chickens, only one rooster.”

Par “through; across; by.” The preposition par most often denotes place, distance, time, manner of action, and comparison; it can also describe a business or profession. E.g.:

parˌtōˌbāˌle neparei’s’ | t’ok r péˌl’k’e jonˌbu.va, jós nāˌk’t’ parˌdarž | parˌdarž eˌpabėˌga, veži.ms važ’uō’i parˌmiˌško, jósˌnedorns žmogė’l’s’ | jaunī’s’t’e parˌpasā’ul’ kel’ā’v’es’, parˌlaū’ks nū.take kepˌāk’s’ eždēˌg’es’ (cf. literary language laukais ‘through the fields’), pas’k’auˌ toksˌg’r’ōv’s’ ē’je parˌlaū’ko, trōs mets tarnāvo parˌbe’no, kō’igsˌpāšekę tęˌt’ok parˌdārbo.

From the examples it can be observed that in the northern Aukštaitian dialects the prepositional construction par with the accusative displaces the instrumental case. An increase in the use of the preposition par is observable; for example, in Kriukai, 1: 3, and in Šiauliai, 8: 14.

Prọ “through; past.” The preposition prọ is used with the accusative and denotes a place that is either crossed or passed by. Members of the younger generation sometimes confuse the prepositions par and prọ, using them synonymously, whereas members of the older generation distinguish them more clearly. Use of the preposition prọ is increasing: in Pašvitinys prọ was recorded at 1: 2: 5; in Pasvalys, 0: 2: 4; in Siesikai, 0: 2: 4; and in Kriukai, 1: 6. E.g.:

That river flows along the meadow; but not everyone follows it. Mother walks farther uphill, where the alder trees grow along the slope; the farmer’s field stretches along the edge of the village, and the farmer’s wife works in the fields. The young girl is already grown up.

Po “under; after.” In the northern Aukštaitian dialects, the preposition po is used with several cases—the genitive, dative, accusative, and instrumental. It can express time, place, and manner. It is used more often in the Šiauliai dialect than in the Panevėžys dialect, for example: in Joniškis, 16: 17; in Kriukai, 14: 19; in Pašvitinys, 6: 1: 8; in Pasvalys, 3: 1: 4; in Siesikai, 7: 6: 8. E.g.:

She drove along the road; the children went along eating baked potatoes; the old woman likes to walk along the shore. The baked bread is for the cows, and the milk is for the calves. The cattle graze along the edge of the meadow; the red ones walk along the tree line. There is enough room for everyone on the ground. If they have grown tired of us, there will be a new young one; until then…

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gèr’ l’òne užā’uga, savā’ite po_savā’ites’ e_uprai’n me’te, nereik’ ai’t’ ne_po_ vir / ne_po_mar’c.

So ‘with’. This preposition expresses companionship, manner, means, time, purpose, object, and quality. It is especially frequent in the dialects discussed here. It has been observed that in the northernmost Aukštaitian areas, where stress is retracted most strongly and word endings are reduced, the singular instrumental without the preposition so is almost never used, whereas the plural instrumental is used both with and without the preposition, since no homonymous cases arise in the plural paradigm. The ratio of instances of the preposition so is 19: 16: 28 in Pašvitinys, 16: 17: 22 in Linkuva, 9: 8: 13 in Pasvalys, 11: 14: 17 in Siesikai, 25: 29 in Joniškis, 16: 21 in Pakapė, and 12: 17 in Šiauliai. E.g.: atjó·je so_var’kòl’, atvaž’āvo so_auto.bos, sen’aū· ā·rdavam t’òk so_var’k’l’es’, nebeži.na kõ· dā·ra | t’òk mósuo·i | mósuo·i so_kèr’v’, mā·na babū·tes’ namē·l’s’ so_sen’ stóg. A. Baranauskas recorded the following sentences in Joniškis: nēs wienām žmógus nū sawēs gīndamas nudrāške weida su nāgais; nāmai daugiaus medinei su lantētems dengti…; senõbēj Jōniškes apīgarda būwa stauni prekiāwimu sù āpyneis.

Terp ‘between’. The construction terp with the genitive in place of the inessive is a striking, distinctive feature of the northern Panevėžys dialect. The use and distribution of this construction have been discussed¹².

In the Panevėžys dialect, in texts of the same length, the construction terp with the genitive expressing location was recorded only 7 times in the speech of the late 19th century, but as many as 32 times in the speech of the present generation; cf. Linkuva 1: 4: 5, Pušalotas 1: 4: 5, Pasvalys 0: 2: 4, Siesikai 0: 2: 1. It is less frequent in the Šiauliai dialect: Joniškis 1: 4, Pakapė 1: 3, Kriukai 0: 2. E.g.: v’ōšt vē·rd terp_púo·da, v’ės’ pi.neg terp_kišē·n’es’, vā·rn tū·p’ terp_mē·dže, sósį.mušē jie· terp_savēs’ po_gegužī·nes’, terp_panē·l’u mā·t’es’ e_neprāstu.

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The inessive tends to be replaced by prepositional constructions not only in the northern Aukštaitian dialects but also in the western Samogitian dialect¹³. The trend toward analyticism also affects the literary language, in which the inessive is likewise replaced by prepositional constructions in certain cases; compare the inessive characteristic of folklore: Kalne rugelių tu nerīši and the literary-language construction ant with the genitive.

From older people, it was possible to record sentences in which, instead of the prepositional constructions customary for many speakers of the dialect, cases without prepositions are used, e.g.: ka amėręko kõr važ’uo·i vės’ sudie.v atai·dava sakī’t’; tam_dvar’ dā·rba bū·dava je-go_kēt’ ešvaž’uo·dava gevē·n’t’ rigō·; jon_cāp’t’ e_esedē·je kišē·ne palovī· budam, vie·ns t’òk ešē·je kar’uo·mene | tuõj mi.re.

Apparently, such examples reflect an earlier state, when prepositional constructions had not yet displaced the corresponding forms without prepositions.

¹² See Laigonaitė A. Op. cit., 32; Tumėnas S. A few remarks on the distributional boundary of the preposition terp in the northern Panevėžys dialect. — In: Questions of Syntax and Semantics / Abstracts of the scientific conference dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the founding of the USSR. Šiauliai, 1982, pp. 47—49.

¹³ Laigonaitė A. Op. cit., p. 32.

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General patterns

The results of comparing texts from Northern Aukštaitian dialects recorded at different times confirm the hypothesis of a regular relationship between the establishment of prepositional constructions of the analytic type and morphological changes caused by the reduction of endings¹⁴. The relationship between cases and prepositional constructions in the Panevėžys dialect is determined by two factors: historical and geographical. Prepositional constructions are currently used much more frequently than in texts recorded at the end of the 19th century; they are especially common in the speech of the younger generation of this dialect. The role of the geographical factor is even more pronounced in the Panevėžys dialect. Southern Panevėžys speakers characteristically show conditional stress retraction, whereas northern Panevėžys speakers have general stress retraction. As one moves from south to north, the degree of ending reduction increases. The farther north one goes, the more homonymous forms appear in the declensional paradigm. To avoid homonymy and differentiate meanings, the use of prepositional constructions is expanded. The number of instances of preposition use in dialect texts increases, like the reduction of endings, from south to north. For example, in texts of the same length, the preposition į is recorded 17: 12: 16 times in Linkuva, 1: 11: 10 times in Pušalotas, and 3: 8: 6 times in Siesikai; prē is recorded 4: 7: 11 times in Pašvitinys, 2: 6: 10 times in Pasvalys, and 1: 2: 2 times in Krekenava.

In the west, the Panevėžys dialect borders the Šiauliai subdialect of Western Aukštaitian. Šiauliai speakers retract stress much less and reduce endings less. This is reflected at the syntactic level as well. In the Šiauliai subdialect, the geographical factor has almost no significance for the establishment of prepositional constructions. The distribution of prepositions in the southern and northern parts is almost identical. For example, the preposition ant|ont was recorded 19 times among the younger generation of Joniškis residents, 21 times in Pakapė, and 16 times in Šaukotas; the preposition iš 17, 14, and 18 times, respectively; and the preposition pro 7 times in Joniškis, 6 times in Kriukai, and 8 times in Šaukotas. However, the role of the historical factor in the increase of prepositional constructions is evident. For instance, the ratio of occurrences of the preposition pro in Joniškis is 2: 7, in Kriukai 1: 6, and in Šiauliai 2: 5; that of the preposition su is 25: 29, 16: 21, and 12: 17, respectively; and that of prieš is 0: 4, 1: 5, and 0: 3.

It should be noted that prepositional constructions are much more frequent with singular forms, since homonymous cases do not arise in the plural paradigm, and consequently the need for syntactic differentiation is less pressing.

THE SPREAD OF PREPOSITIONAL CONSTRUCTIONS IN NORTHERN AUKŠTAITIAN DIALECTS

Abstract

This paper describes those prepositions in the Northern Aukštaitian dialects of Lithuanian whose use and semantics differ from the standard language: ant|on “on,” pro|pr “through, past,” per|par “across,” po|po “under,” terp “between,” su|so “with.”

Statistical data establish a connection between the spread of prepositional constructions of the analytic type and the reduction of endings caused by phonetic processes.

¹⁴ Tumėnas S. Linksnių ir prielinksnių konstrukcijų santykis panevėžiškių tarmėje. – Kn.: Jaunųjų filologų darbai, V., 1986, t. 2.

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The relationship between case and prepositional constructions depends on historical and geographical factors.

In the Panevėžys subdialect, accent attraction and the reduction of endings become more pronounced from south to north. The same direction is characteristic of the spread of analytical prepositional constructions. In the northern localities of the subdialect (Žeimelis, Pašvitinys, Linkuva, etc.), prepositional constructions are used much more frequently than in the southern localities (Raguva, Sesikai).

In the western Aukštaitian Šiauliai subdialect, accent attraction and the reduction of endings are weak compared with the Panevėžys subdialect. Therefore, differences in the spread of analytical constructions across the subdialect’s territory (the geographical factor) are insignificant.

However, comparing data from the subdialect at its current stage of development with records from the late 19th century also clearly points to the increasing use of analytical constructions.