LIETUVIŲ KALBOS SPECIALIOJI LEKSIKA

LIETUVIŲ KALBOTYROS KLAUSIMAI, XXII (1983)

J. KLIMAVIČIUS

RECLAMATION, DRAINAGE, IRRIGATION: LOAN TRANSLATIONS, SYNONYMS, AND HYPONYMS

(Historical, systemic, and usage features)

I. Reclamation

1. Origin and history of reclamation

Reclamation is as old as agriculture (to use the Lithuanian and modern term, farming)—the beginning and foundation of all culture (of the mind and body, or physical—up to bodybuilding; spiritual—up to acculturation, counterculture, and material—up to aquaculture and mariculture) and all kinds of cultivation (agricultural—of grain, legumes, and other monocultures and polycultures; forest, microorganism, and tissue cultures, i.e., explantation, as well as aquaculture). The word itself is considerably newer. Once again, Latin (first found in Justinian’s Code) melioratio is related to the suppletive (different-stem) comparative form bonus’s melior, “better” (Lithuanian milžinas is cognate with it), and thus means “improvement—making better.” In French, amélioration (améliorer < from Old French ameillorer < from Latin ad- and French meilleur) has existed since 1421 (rare until the 17th century); however, the derivative bonification, from the verb bonifier, “to improve,”¹ related to the positive-degree adjective bon, “good,” has also been used since 1584 with the meanings “improvement” and “agricultural reclamation” (which would give “improvement—making good”; thus this distinction between terms is probably connected with nuances of meaning). It also means “bonification—a certain surcharge on the price for quality, that is, a premium (direct) or discount (reverse),” “a bonus premium, bonuses,” and, in sports, “extra points or bonus time (a time deduction)” (cf. the meanings of améliorer’s synonym amender, “to charge interest on overdue payments,” “to become cheaper,” and the meaning “to reduce taxes” of amender’s synonym alléger²). Which of these two terms’ meanings of “reclamation”—

¹ French to improve also means “to fertilize” (to improve a piece of land — to fertilize the soil). Its synonym to enrich, and also to enrich, to amend, also has the meaning “to fertilize,” that is, “to apply fertilizer” (to fertilize with fertilizer — to manure, with manure — to manure, with compost — to compost, cf. compost), as well as “to feed, fatten” and “to grow fat, become plump” (for the semantics, cf. phosphate fertilizers and feed phosphates, feed additives in the form of phosphate fertilizers, fertilizers nourish the soil, rich soil, lush grass); the plural amendments of its derivative amendement, meaning “fertilizing,” has the meaning “land improvement,” indicating a semantic connection between “land improvement” and “fertilizing,” which is now only one of its components (cf. the terms ameliorative fertilizing Piev₂ 107, green manure MelŽ: French plantes améliorantes “green-manure plants,” the fertilizing effect of irrigation). Russian удобрять “to fertilize”: добрый “good” (cf. the etymological homonym удобрять “to make good, to put in a good mood” СССРЯ XVI).

² French bonification and bonificateur (“reclaimer”) are related to the international word bonitetas (site, stand, soil, and climate quality ratings), that is, goodness—grade, quality, value (though, for example, stand quality classes, or bonitet classes, and commercial value classes are distinguished),

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although more normatively appropriate, our lexicography does not agree. Both are used somewhat in other languages too (German Bonifikation, Polish amelioracja), but with the very general meaning of “improvement” or “getting better.” Only German Amelioration stands apart, although Melioration (Bodenmelioration) is also more usual, as are the calques Bodenverbesserung, Wiederherstellung, Wiedergewinnung.

In English there are melioration and amelioration [soil(a)melioration – soil amelioration, agricultural amelioration – agricultural amelioration, agromelioration, although the latter in English is also soil conservation, while conservation also means “(nature) protection,” in American English “reserve,” and conservatory means “greenhouse”], but they more often mean not “agricultural amelioration” but “improvement, getting better” in general. The meaning “agricultural amelioration” is usually expressed by the calque betterment (of land) (betterment also means “getting better, improvement,” as well as “refinement,” even “modernization,” “increase in real-estate value”) and foreign-derived formations—improvement³ of land / of soil or land / soil improvement (< improve “improve, refine” < Norman French emprouer “plow, dig, cultivate, use” < Old French en- and prou “use” < Vulgar Latin prōde “useful”); land reclamation (< reclaim “plow up; expand; ameliorate; utilize; use up” < Middle English reclamen “call back” < Old French reclamer < Latin reclāmāre < re- and clāmāre “call”), which also means “drainage” and “breaking new land” (and reclaiming, while reclaiming of land means “land amelioration”⁴); less often soil amendment (< amend “get better, improve,”

bonitation (of forests, hunting grounds, lands, arable lands, agricultural land, animals, cattle, sheep, wool), or (as)sessment T 1977 73 2, also agrobotination M and G 1977 1 11, bonitator, or assessor; further: bonus, bonistics, bona, bonifraters, bon vivant; benefice [Polish and benefactor, beneficence, English and benefication “(en)richment,” while beneficial insects are useful insects AŽŪŽ], beneficiary (German also Benefiziat), benefit performance, benefit performer, benediction, Benedictines, Benedictine, Benedict, Benigna, Bonaventure and Boniface (English Boniface, slang “publican”). In English, bonitation / assessment is judge (by the way, it also means “judge,” “connoisseur,” “expert,” “arbitrator”) and valuation, which also means “appraisal,” “valuation”; cf. the international terms valvation, evaluation, devaluation, revaluation, currency, valorization, revalorization, …; further: equivalent, valency, ambivalence, invalid, revalidation, convalescent, Valent(in)e, Valeria. Taxation, tax assessment is estimate survey in English (also appraisal, assessment) AŽŪŽ. Sometimes “tax” and “assess” are combined pleonastically, e.g.: <…> assess <…> the taxational indicators of the forest MG 1977 6 18. Assessment of stand taxational indicators MG 1977 6 19. The aspectual possibilities of the Lithuanian verb are well illustrated by the form nuvertėti: <…> At the beginning of the twentieth century, gold began to replace silver, which had depreciated as a monetary metal T 1977 146 3.

³ Hence the American Lithuanian imprūmentas, imprūvinimas “improvement, refinement” in the book: Margeris A. Amerikos lietuviai ir angliškųjų skolinių žodynas. – Chicago, 1956.

⁴ English reclaim also means “repair; restore, reinstate,” “reform morally, reclaim,” “civilize,” “tame,” whereas reclame means “artistic creation or activity that brings a bad name, disgrace.” For the sense of advertising, “means of making something known and attracting the public, consumers, buyers,” the word used is no longer reclame but publicity (when speaking Russian in American Rostov slang, “advertising” is rendered наблцити, see Ф. Филлин, Ф. П. Сок или друзья, обсужива-ние или сервис? – В кн.: Теория языка. Англистика. Кельтология. М., 1976, с. 153); in the derogatory sense “noisy promotion of someone or something”—sensation, racket, ballyhoo; in the sense of “announcement, poster”—advertisement, (bill-)poster; placard. The meaning of “to promote by means of advertising” corresponds to to advertise, (American) to publicize, while “to make a claim” corresponds to to make reclamation, to make a claim (see Англо-русский и русско-английский словарь „ложных друзей переводчика“. Под общим руководством Акуленко В. В. – М., 1969).

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“repair” < French amender < Latin ē(m)endāre “repair, improve” < ex- and mendum / menda “defect, obstacle; error, mistake”), which also means “fertilization” and “soil amendment” (as well as “removal of defects, correction; amendment,” etc.); (land)development (< develop “use land,” “develop, expand” < French développer “develop” < Old French desveloper < Latin dis- and French veloper “cover, surround, conceal”), generally meaning “evolution, development, growth,” as well as “breeding (of varieties)” (cf. also development engineer “amelioration engineer”). For example, Русско-английский политехнический словарь (М., 1980) gives the following usage of these terms: мелиорация – (land)reclamation, amelioration, drainage and irrigation: сельскохозяйственная м. – agricultural reclamation, агротехническая м. – cultivating reclamation, техническая м. – engineering reclamation, биологическая м. – biological reclamation, лесная м. – forest reclamation, химическая м. – chemical reclamation, полная м. – full-scale reclamation, осушительная м. – drainage amelioration, обводнительная м. – irrigation amelioration, водная м. – water amelioration, hydroamelioration, м. почвы – soil development.

As the kinds and methods of amelioration increase, its objects expand (for example, not only soil but also subsoil amelioration M and G 1978 9 15, sometimes even the relief or the entire natural environment), and its quality improves, a term related to Latin bonus and the superlative form optimus “best” also emerges: optimization, supposedly “improvement—making something the best.” For example:

At all higher stages in the development of human-nature relations (agriculture, forestry, recreation, urban economy), various measures to improve natural properties are necessarily applied when preparing land for use. The system of improvement measures is called optimization. For example, to prepare a field one must burn down the forest, plow the land, fertilize it, drain it, and so on. Krašt 171. Thus, adapting to natural landscape conditions requires diversifying land uses, land-use optimization measures, settlement layouts, homestead forms, building structures, road routes, and so forth. We propose calling this adaptation the principle of natural landscape adaptation Krašt 173.

⁵Here we see a flaw in English terminology—verbosity, or polyonymy (for the term, see Суперанская А. В. Общая теория имени собственного. – М., 1973, с. 300, 301, 303; the term polyonomia is also used, see Девкин В. Д. Немецкая разговорная лексика. – М., 1973, с. 77)—most often also associated with polysemy. The verbosity of English technical language is also noted by its researcher A. Chernukhin [see Чернухин А. Е. Интралингвистическая пермеативность английского языка и интеграция терминологических инноваций (Анализ современных трудностей перевода английской технической терминологии). – В кн.: Теория языковой коммуникации и перевода научной и технической литературы. Челябинск, 1974, кн. 2, с. 41]. In A. Chernukhin’s view, English alone among the world’s languages has such enormous permeability (a capacity to absorb, penetrate, and “conduct” innovations), a capacity for innovation and its integration (see ibid., p. 40). It may also be added here that regulation of moisture (or irrigation) is sometimes also called conditioning [usually “measures for maintaining a condition,” “(air) conditioning”]. By the way, French, in addition to bonification and amélioration, also uses a third term, assainissement (also “health improvement,” “sanitation”), e.g., assainissement agricole “agricultural amelioration,” “agromelioration,” which also means “drainage,” e.g., amélioration par assainissement “drainage amelioration” [drainage is also assèchement (du sol)].

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Thus, this latest optimization (previously only mathematical) no longer belongs to the science of land improvement:

From this principle, which also ensures the protection of landscapes used in farming, geonics will have to emerge in the future—the science of adapting technical systems as perfectly as possible to natural systems Krašt 173.

But that is not all. Alongside the terms bonification, (a)melioration, optimization, terms created in economic geography as their antonyms, so to speak, include deterioration (< Lat. dēterus, dēterior, dēterrimus “bad, inferior” < de- and tero “I rub away”) and pejorization (< Lat. malus, pēior, pessimus “bad”). For example:

As the most general term for all processes denoting the deterioration of the habitat and the environment, the term deterioration is proposed. This term was first used in 1972 by the well-known American ecologist B. Commoner (<…>) <…>. In Russian, this term was first used in 1973. <…> Ek geogr 148. To some extent, the term “destruction of the landscape,” or pejorization, is comparable with the term “pollution”: that is, a disruption of the aesthetics of the habitat with a negative impact on people’s psyche Ek geogr 149. A distinction is made between chemical and visual deterioration Ek geogr 151.

In general, these words are not new; here, they are simply being very seriously established as technical terms, along with deterioration’s antonym amelioration, which, as already shown, is not new either:

If we accept the term “deterioration,” then it would be logical to introduce the term amelioration (<…>) to designate processes and measures that reverse deterioration Ek geogr 150.

Thus, the history of these terms is rich and unfinished, and their system is fluid and open.

Although the history of land improvement in Lithuania already spans more than 120 years, its name was first recorded (in the form melijoracija) only in J. Šlapelis’s “Glossary of Foreign and Obscure Words” (Tilsit, 1907). In the 1936 and 1969 “Dictionaries of International Words,” amelioracija seems to be merely a dictionary entry, not a living (and already needed) term. Land improvement took hold only in the postwar years. The prewar Kėdainiai land-improvement school and land-improvement technicians mentioned in the press today were in fact called the Higher School of Land Management MLTE II 113 and land-management technicians MLTE II 552. Indeed, from 1929 to 1940, the professional surveyors’ and land-management technicians’ journal “Land Management and Land Improvement” MLTE III 904 was published in Kaunas. According to J. Skaisgirys, “In 1938, such an important land-improvement department was organized at the Ministry of Agriculture” Šv 1977 9 10. And after Soviet rule was established in 1940, a Department of Hydraulic Engineering and Land Improvement was set up in the Faculty of Construction at Kaunas State University M and T 1977 9 39. Today, with concepts and especially names having changed somewhat, we even have cultural-technical land improvement.

The term land-improvement worker⁶ seems to have come into use only in Soviet times. In the past, a land-improvement worker was popularly called zimagōras (zymagōras), simagōras,

⁶The occasionalism melioracininkas should also be mentioned (Dulaitienė-Glemžaitė E. Kupiškėnų senovė. – V., 1958, p. 32). It should be noted that similar pairs of agent nouns sometimes have completely different meanings, e.g.: shareholder and actor, expedition member and forwarding agent, exploita-

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sometimes also meaning “woodcutter,” “stump puller,” “road worker,” even “a vagrant from elsewhere,” and often having a pejorative rather than ameliorative sense. It is most likely a borrowing from Russian dialectal псн. зимогор “vagabond, ragamuffin, a person without steady earnings” ССРЛЯ IV — its motivation of meaning would be similar to Lithuanian žiemkentys, -ė usually plural “winter cereal or plant” (for example, žiemkentis rap- sukas LF III 556) and “a ram or sow kept over the winter” (also figuratively žiem- kentės gulbės, žiemkentėlis kuoduotasis vieversys MG 1976 4 24).

2. Types of land improvement. Linguistic and philosophical amelioration

The invariant meaning of melioracijos is “improvement.” Agricultural amelioration is merely the most common semantic variant. Melioracija and its cognates are also used in the terminology of other sciences.

Pirmiausia minėtina lingvistinė melioracija⁷. Nors lietuvių kalbotyroje šis terminas dar nėra gyvas, tačiau jo antonimas pejor(iz)azija jau po kiek vartojamas. Aukštinamosios, taurinamosios reikšmės žodis yra melioratyvas, jo antonimas — pejoratyvas (gimininis šių rūšių, taip pat deminutyvo ir augmentatyvo pavadinimas — kvalitatyvas). Dažnesni už šiuos terminus būdvardžiai melioratyvinis, -ė (žodis, reikšmė, priesaga, priešdėlis, afiksas) ir pejoratyvinis, -ė, tai yra menkinamasis, kitaip deterioratyvinis, depreciatyvinis (< lot. de- ir prex, precis „vertė, kaina“)⁸. Prie lingvistinės melioracijos kiek šliejasi – pagal objektą, o ne pobūdį – okazionalizmas teksto melioracija, pvz.: Stiliaus lakoniškumas, iliustracijų vaizdingumas, teksto „melioracija“ ir kitos redagavimo meistriškumo priemonės — štai knygos apimties mažinimo būdai NKn 1977 8 5.

In the history of philosophy, meliorism (< English meliorism) is known as “an idealist, reactionary doctrine of the gradual improvement of bourgeois society.”⁹

tacininkas and exploatatorius (not to mention distinctions between deverbal agents and instruments, e.g.: kolekcininkas and kolektorius, reakcininkas and reaktorius, selekcininkas and selektorius, ventilacininkas and ventilatorius).

⁷ The term amelioration has not yet entered dictionaries of linguistic terminology, but it is used and discussed in the literature. For example: Под мелиорацией условно понимается „завышение“, под пейорацией „снижение“ <...> (Девкин В. Д. Min. veik., p. 93); мелиорация, или семантическое завышение (Шувалов В. И. Семантические процессы мелиорации. — В кн.: Вопросы немецкой филологии. М., 1975, с. 140); мелиоративные и нейтральные действия (Копыленко М. М. О семантической природе молодёжного жаргона. — В кн. Социально-лингвистические исследования. М., 1976, с. 82).

⁸ Some authors tend to distinguish pejorative words, i.e. words with a negative denotative meaning, from depreciative words, i.e. words with a derogatory connotation and a stylistically devalued neutral or positive meaning (cf. Девкин В. Д. Min. veik., p. 93). English depreciation means not only “devaluation” (deprecation means “condemnation”), but also “depreciation, wear and tear.” The terms respective and dispective meanings (or words) are used occasionally.

⁹ American meliorist means “optimist” (English optimist). Optimist, optimism are related to the suppletive superlative form of Latin bonus, optimus “best”; cf. also optimal (not gradable), optimum, optimates — the aristocracy of ancient Rome (: Greek ἄριστος “best”; cf. Aryans: Sanskrit ārya), whose interests were reflected by the nobles (: Latin nōbilis “noble”; cf. nobilitation, nobilitate). Prognosticators have already devised optimistic and pessimistic variants of meaning M and G 1977 1 10.

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3. Various non-agricultural land improvement

Nevertheless, land improvement is most common not in linguistics and philosophy but in nature and farming. Before turning to the most familiar agricultural land improvement and land-improvement specialists, let us look at some less common forms. There are quite a few. The simplest way to reveal their content and meaning is not through definitions (not all of them have any), but simply through examples of usage. Here they are:

On waterlogged land, heather is a natural land improver. By drawing up and pu-rifying water, it naturally claims territory for itself Kom T 1974 181 4 [Grudzinskas L. Laiškai beržo tošyje. — V., 1976, p. 121 (with the regrettable proofreading error gerindami vandenį)]. Considerable debate among naturalists concerns the regulation of wolf numbers as a biological land improver KV 1976 13 15. And yet pike are particularly useful biological “land improvers,” feeding on low-value fish T 1976 235 4.

Without disputing the significance of natural and biological land improvers, the following should be noted about these specific examples. Heather acts not as a natural land improver but as a soil-drying plant. Predators—wolves and pike—perform biological (more precisely, zoological) selection rather than land improvement. (It is also inaccurate to call them nature’s sanitarians. Those are scavengers, or necrophages, such as hyenas, jackals, crows, some beetles—in general, decomposers. Wolves and pike are consumers.) Not every improver is called a land-improvement specialist. A breeding animal (bull, stallion, boar) that improves a breed is not titled a breed-improvement specialist. Birds that destroy rodents and pests carry out natural selection and improve harvests, but for that reason they are called neither breeders nor land-improvement specialists. And in popular writing, journalists would presumably do better to rely more on ordinary words and terms.

Fish that feed on plants (herbivorous fish) are another matter; their activity, for example: <…> silver carp and grass carp, by feeding on plants, <…>, help to address successfully the now highly topical problem of biological improvement of waters MG 1977 4 23. <…> grass carp are also useful to water bodies as biological land improvers T 1979 147 4. <…> a female land-improving fish T 1977 66 4 [about the grass carp, which consumes the vegetation in canals]. Thus, here we have improvement of the waters themselves, rather than of land—by improving the water regime. This is in fact something like ichthyological land improvement of waters.

However, these two different things are sometimes carelessly confused—and predatory fish are called biological land improvers of waters (or even water bodies) T 1978 81 4) biological land improvers MG 1975 7 29. There is even mention of biological improvement of ponds T 1980 205 4. And yet there are also terms with other meanings: fishery, fish-breeding, and pond land improvement. For example: Fishery specialists call the improvement of water bodies and fish catches land improvement. Since biological methods are used here, this work is therefore called biological land improvement M ir G 1973 11 28. In pond farming, fish-breeding land improvement is of great importance; its task is to restore, maintain at the prescribed level, and increase the natural fish productivity of ponds Tvenk 50. Land improvement of fish-breeding ponds Tvenk 50. When a pond is completely drained, its fish-breeding characteristics must be enhanced not only with fertilizers but also by appropriate land-improvement work on the pond basin

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treatments Tvenk 83. Russian has рыбохозяйственная мелиорация, Latvian zivsaimnieciskā meliorācija Hidromet dictionary.

These types of land improvement could be called hydrobiological land improvement.

Kita melioracijos rūšių grupė susijusi su mišku arba su mišku ir kartu su žeme. Bandoma ją vadinti agrobiologine melioracija. Melioruojami patys medynai: Miško priežiūros (auklėjamieji)¹⁰ kirtimai kai kada vadinami melioraciniais, t.y. pagerinančiais miško augimą kirtimais, <…> Bendr mišk 427 (tai atitinka angl. improvement cutting felling, rus. улучшающая выборочная вырубка), plg. medyną reikia gerinti MG 1977 6 19. Dažnesnė yra ne medynų, o paties miško melioracija. «<…> miškų ūkis naudojasi agronominėmis miškų melioracijos priemonėmis“ Bendr mišk 348. Ji apima „miškų sausinimą ir vėjo pustomų smėlynų stiprinimą bei apželdinimą mišku“ MLTE II 553. Miško ar miškų melioratorius (rus. лесмелиоратор СССРЯ VI) lietuvių kalboje retas, pvz.: <…> nuo 1943 metų Baškirijos ATSR <…> dirbau <…> rajono žemės ūkio įstaigoje — vyresniuoju laukų ir miškų melioratoriumi Šv 1977 9 11 (J. Skaisgiris).

Land is also improved by means of forests—mountain slopes and sandy areas. For example: Forest improvement work in mountainous areas is carried out with the aim of eliminating, wholly or partly, surface water runoff in mountain regions by applying forestry and engineering measures, <…> Mišk kult 389. Improvement of sandy areas Mišk kult 363 means stabilizing them with mechanical (inert) barriers and plantings (living barriers).

However, most often the land, the soil, is ameliorated by means of forests. In English this is called agrosylviculture, in Latvian agromežmeliorācija, or lauka | lauku mežmeliorācija (cf. mežmeliorācija | mežu melioracija — forest | forest amelioration). Lithuanian agromiškomelioracija means “a system of forestry measures intended to improve natural conditions somewhere (! — J.K.), eliminate or partially reduce harmful natural factors that reduce (!— J.K.) fertility (dry winds, erosion, etc.)” Melž does not conform to Lithuanian morphology. The term agromiškomelioracija is not only defective in form but also imprecise—it points not to the concept “amelioration of soils by means of forests,” but to “improvement of soils and forests.” Moreover, with the emergence of new words agromiškas “agricultural, collective-farm, non-state forest” and agromiškininkas KV 1976 40 15, as well as agromiško želdiniai or agroželdiniai MG 1978 8 7, if the form agromiškomelioracijos were adapted to Lithuanian, it would yield something different—agromiško melioracija. Changing the elements around, as proposed¹¹, would also alter the meaning—miško agromelioracija would mean “improvement of forest lands.”

This practice also has other names. Melž and PolŽ give forest engineering land improvement— cf. protective forest belts, “trees and shrubs planted in strips to provide protection from the wind, reduce evaporation, and so on” (they mention protective field belts, moisture-regulating belts, water-absorbing belts, and windbreak forest belts), as well as protective forest plantings, and even simply forest plantations, “planting trees to stabilize sandy areas, improve moisture conditions, and for other purposes”; also forest engineering

¹⁰ A more precise term now in use is tending felling Medž.

¹¹ Žr. Valeckienė A. Kitų kalbų kilmės sudurtiniai žodžiai. — Kalbos kultūra, 1968, sąs. 15, p. 23.

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measures (Drek 226 forestry engineering measures) see forestry measures “the use of the forest as a factor protecting against various adverse climatic and meteorological influences (combating droughts, regulating the water regime).” Such a profusion of terms, often overly broad and imprecise, is undesirable. Unfortunately, the diversity is even greater in the literature. For example: A separate type of land reclamation consists of shelterbelts established in areas lacking moisture, protecting fields from dry winds and other adverse natural factors Saus 8. Measures used to protect soil from water and wind erosion also constitute a separate type of land reclamation — <...> Saus 8. A separate type of land reclamation consists of shelterbelts protecting fields from dry winds and other adverse natural phenomena Dirv mel 6. Protective shelterbelts, anti-erosion measures, etc., are sometimes further distinguished as separate types of land reclamation Mel 10. Separate types of land reclamation consist of shelterbelts and protection against water and wind erosion Mel 10. The establishment of protective shelterbelts and anti-erosion measures may be regarded as separate types of land reclamation Agr 165. <...> forest reclamation anti-erosion measures Eroz 136. With a remarkably similar stylistic template, so many types and names have been coined here as there are measures, although in other cases land reclamation is classified not by the measures themselves but by its purpose.

LTE I agroforestry reclamation is directed toward afforestation reclamation. This is acceptable. More convenient and closer to the terms used in other languages would be agroreclamation forestry and agroreclamation forests. The term agroreclamation forest plantations is already in use. ŽŪ 1976 11 4.

In meteorology, the term climate reclamation (improvement) is used. MetŽ.

4. Agricultural land reclamation and its types

The main type of land reclamation is agricultural land reclamation. It is highly diverse. This is evident from the definitions as well: In general, land reclamation is understood as the improvement of the water-air and wind regimes over a land area Mišk kult 352. The science of the principal measures and methods for improving land by changing unfavorable soil, climatic, and hydrological conditions is called land reclamation science Mel 5. In agronomy, land reclamation is understood as the improvement of unsuitable land Tvenk 50. This description perhaps reveals the essence of land reclamation most accurately: The main task of land reclamation is to regulate the water regime in the soil Saus 5¹². Accordingly, the first distinction is water-regime reclamation—hydrotechnical (carried out by means of hydraulic engineering measures) reclamation (hydroreclamation¹³).

It is of two kinds: drainage reclamation MelŽ, or drainage land reclamation Hidrogeol 92, and irrigation reclamation MelŽ, or irrigation land reclamation Drėk 5 /

¹² Essentially correct, though a little comical: Moisture is regulated by specialists in this field—the reclamation engineers Augal 343. Zenonas Budrikas, the rain master at the Žemaičių Naumiestis state farm. Šv 1976 20 1. Almost like the play “The Rainmaker” by American playwright Richard Nash, or a emotions specialist T 1976 265 4.

¹³ There is also a term for the specialist: hydroreclamation engineer MelŽ.

2. 1019

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irrigation melioration Hidrogeol 13¹⁴. This is also called simply drainage¹⁵, irrigation. Drainage also combines well with dewatering, used in other senses: Before installing drainage, it is recommended that preliminary dewatering be carried out using ditches Mel 67 and overdrying Melž, Piev ir gan 212, MG 1967 5 4 (corresponding to Russian пересушка, English overdry).

Occasionally dewatering is used, even distorting the names of administrative institutions (e.g., dewatering systems directorate T 1976 287 3); it has no new shade of meaning and is therefore unnecessary (no one has yet coined rewetting). Incidentally, drainage need not be only hydromeliorative: Hydromeliorative and agromeliorative drainage measures are distinguished. The former include ditches and drainage systems; the latter include mole drainage, ridging, subsoil loosening, and ridge plowing Mel 47 (though the measures would more accurately be called hydrotechnical and agrotechnical). Therefore, for greater precision, the terms drainage hydromelioration Mel 10 and irrigation hydromelioration Mel 10 are used.

Two more specialized methods of draining flooded areas should be mentioned: polders, or drainage by polder systems Hidrogeol 302, polder drainage systems Hidrogeol 312; that is, a system for protecting the coastal marshes (in Holland and West Germany) situated below sea level GeogrŽ, or the bends of the lower Nemunas and its delta, against flooding: embankments, pumping water out from behind the embankments, drainage by drains and ditches, and colmation—not lowering the water table in the soil, but raising the surface of the land enclosed by embankments by depositing (cf. English

¹⁴ These are terms of almost identical value; the participial construction, however, sometimes becomes ambiguous, cf. drainage ditches Mišk kult 400. For the author’s opinion on this disputed issue, see Mūsų kalba, 1972, No. 8, pp. 35–37. P. Kniūkšta (like V. Būda and A. Kucinskaitė; see ibid., pp. 38–42) defends “the polysemy of participles” and is skeptical of their “emphasis on the primary meaning,” which “is supported by terminologists” (Kniūkšta P. Priesagos -inis būdvardžiai. – V., 1976, p. 192; see also pp. 133–134, 191), but does not investigate terminological meanings. K. Gaivenis, having examined this phenomenon “not only from a grammatical (syntactic) aspect, but also with regard to the thought being expressed” (Gaivenis K. Dvižodžiai sudėtiniai terminai dabartinėje lietuvių kalboje. – In: Lietuvių terminologija. V., 1975, p. 65), and taking the “basic, principal component of the word combination” (p. 70) into account, while noting that this “does not always coincide with their semantic dominant” (p. 61), reaches more reliable conclusions. He observes: “When a secondary component of a compound term indicates a work operation performed by an instrument or agent” (p. 71), that component “is more often expressed by a noun in the genitive case than by a <...> passive participle” (p. 72). Thus, “alongside ‘cultivating’ type terms, newer terms of the ‘cultivation machine’ type also have a right to exist” (p. 75). The picture might be clarified somewhat further by distinguishing patients alongside agents and instruments. In general, much would be gained by compiling a complete inventory of genitive and passive-participle constructions (and their actual and possible transformations), since a narrow range of material usually also limits theoretical assumptions and conclusions.

¹⁵ Of course, drainage can also be non-meliorative, cf.: Horse manure is criticized for being too hot and therefore drying out dry soil even more Vad 33. Or, for example, draining a peat bog for exploitation rather than cultivation or agriculture, as well as draining quarries, mineral deposits, sports grounds and other fields, airfields, settlements, building sites, roads, and so on. Various technical objects, rather than land, can also be drained: a ship (its underwater section), holds, and engine rooms, using caissons (for repairs) or emergency drainage pumps; ships’ refrigeration equipment includes a dehumidifying unit (for separating water from liquid freon), dried insulation, and so on. Even steam drying is used. However, the term with a qualifier—drainage of wet or excessively moist land—raises no doubts.

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raising the surface of the land enclosed by embankments by depositing (cf. English deposition — sediment, deposits; colmatage ĄŽŪŽ) the mineral load carried by river water that is continuously or periodically flooded (through a colmatage canal) (English colmatage/colmation equivalent warping: warp “deposited silt”) and fertilizing the land with it (not practiced in Lithuania), or covering marsh soil with a layer of sand.

Drainage by plants is even rarer (for example, planting eucalyptus in warm-climate regions) Žem kul 54. However, natural, non-meliorative drainage of this kind is quite common. Besides the previously mentioned example by L. Grudzinskas, heather—nature’s meliorators, i.e. drainers, one may also cite the folk expression: the lake was drained with reeds (i.e. sweet flag) Adomynė.

Sometimes to drain is used in the sense of “to lower, let out (water),” e.g.: Hence the need arises to leave fish-breeding ponds drained for a longer period <…> Tvenk 51–52. The best way to control aquatic vegetation is to drain the pond and work its bottom with disc harrows or a rotary tiller Tvenk 54–55. Sometimes drain a pond is used alongside lower the pond: The pond should preferably be made drainable so that it can be drained completely Tvenk 59. Or drain a pond is used alongside let the water out: A pond can be drained in cases when the water can be let out <…> Tvenk 59. This even purports to be terminology: draw a pond — drain a pool, pond ĄŽŪŽ. This is unnecessary. There is nothing to object to in the sentences: Drainage of a part of the Mediterranean Sea MG 1976 9 22. The first stage of draining the lake took place <…>. A narrow strip around the lake became meadows and plowed fields, <…> MG 1977 4 30. For here, sea and lake are used not in the sense of water, a basin, or an aquatic area, but of the bottom, area, or territory. The situation is different with watercourses than with ponds, e.g.: The aim is to preserve at least 80 percent of small streams undrained and unconverted into drainage ditches MG 1977 4 10. Here, dewatering would probably be more appropriate.

A consequence of drainage is drying. However, natural forces also cause drying, cf. MetŽ drying (out) of soil [drying], overdrying of (the soil), drying (out) of crops.

Alongside the causative form drainage, the factitive form having drained can also exist, cf. The gentleman had that little wood cut down too; now he is having the meadows drained J. Jablonskis. The factitive form is now completely unused. In general, factitives are unfortunately disappearing from contemporary language.

Perhaps not without the influence of melioration, humorists have taken a liking to drain and dry. For example: He dried out healing herbs, roots, snakes, and other raw materials—horrors soaked in bottles K. Saja. Salt drives the fluid (=liquid) from the lungs, while booze dries it out ŠI 1974 17 6. We manage to dry up rivers of cognac and wine while sitting around ŠI kal 5. Even a sobering-up station has been nicknamed a “drying house” ŠI 1978 7 13.

Meliorative irrigation is “a set of measures intended to artificially replenish the water reserves lacking in irrigated areas” MelŽ; in Russian, орошение. There is also non-meliorative moistening of a material: “increasing the moisture content of a material by allowing it to absorb moisture in a gaseous or liquid environment”—увлажнение, Anfeuchtung MedŽ. Similar to the term used in wood science, moistening is also used in textiles. Air is also humidified: If the apartment is dry, it needs to be humidified TM 1979 4 P5.

2*

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Moistened and continuously maintained clean ambient air [in the ward] SA 1977 6 22. Naturally, it is possible to moisten not only the soil but also seeds and plant roots (just not the plants themselves). In land improvement, moistening is distinguished from moisture accumulation, moisture enrichment – накопление влаги “enriching the soil with moisture by means of certain measures, such as planting shelterbelts, retaining snow, autumn ploughing, constructing ponds, etc.” MelŽ. Rendering the concept “supplementing water beyond the hygroscopic moisture content” with the term wetting (Russian увлажнение) in MelŽ is not sufficiently precise—its meaning would be better captured by excessive wetting or soaking.

Used very interestingly in a figurative sense is “little irrigation”—fallowing T 1978 260 4.

Irrigation may also serve other purposes: there is fertilizing Drėk 5, Mel 140, ŽŪŽ, PolŽ, heating Drėk 6, Mel 140, ŽŪŽ, and purifying irrigation Drėk 6, Mel 140, ŽŪŽ. In Russian, even the name for ordinary irrigation has its own determinant—увлажнительное орошение. Blindly following this pattern, Lithuanian sometimes also attempts to use moistening irrigation Drėk 5, Mel 140. However, the semantic relation between the components here is rather the reverse of that in Russian: Russian орошение, etymologically related to роса (: Lithuanian rasa, Latin rōs, rōris, French rossée “dew”; cf. French arrosage “watering; irrigation”; Old Indian rasā “moisture,” rāsas “juice, liquid”), is semantically apparently closer not to moistening but to dampening. Drėkinti is related to drėkti, -sta, -o / drėgti, -sta, -o “to become damp,” drėkti, -ia, -ė “to rain, snow,” drėkti, drėkia, -ė “to befoul, pollute,” drėkuoti “to drizzle,” drėkva “rainy weather, foul weather,” drėgnas¹⁶, drėgnuoti “to rain,” drėgnoti “to drizzle” and “to sleet,” drėgenti “to romp” (further, also with dėrkti “to befoul, pollute” / dėrgti “to pollute” and “to be foul-weathered,” dūrgti “to be befouled, get wet,” “to rain,” “to become barren, infertile,” “to wander about in foul weather,” dārgi “to get wet, become foul,” dargana, drengti, …), the neologism drėgmens¹⁷ (A. Vireliūnas), drėgulai (K. Būga) “precipitation.” Drėgnumas in old writings (by K. Širvydas and P. Ruigys) meant “juice, sap”: And its taste was like the taste of the finest oily juice S. Chilinskis. Drėgninti is sometimes used to mean “to make damp (by watering)”: Take a jug of water and moisten the flowers Kūr­tuvėnai. Vilgyti, although etymologically related to Russian влажный, влага, differs considerably in meaning. Влага means “liquid, water”; it is used of tears and saliva, and of a body or surface of water, for example: зеркальная влага (пруда), серебристая влага (родника), голубая влага (океана); of moisture, for example: влага тучи (for among its cognates are German Wolke and Old Indian vṛjani, meaning “cloud”), ночная влага; in elevated poetic style, of wine or drink, for example: Вакхова влага (: Latin ūmor Bacchi), драгоценная влага, огненная влага, играющая влага, живительная влага

¹⁶ At first, moistening was also used to mean “irrigation,” for example: land improvement—improving land by drying, moistening, and fertilizing (Šlapelis J. Svetimų ir nesuprantamų žodžių žodynėlis). Moistening might be a better fit for the meaning of the previously mentioned forestry term moistening.

¹⁷ Today drėgmena is used to mean “moisture deposited by fog,” Russian наморось MetŽ.

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ССРЛЯ II. Lithuanian has no corresponding (etymological) noun¹⁸ [related forms valgis, pavalga(s), pavalgis, pavilga “food accompaniment—meat, fat, milk, cheese, eggs—not bread, potatoes, or soup,” pavilgas “food accompaniment” and “sauce, dip” have meanings that have diverged—Russian волога “liquid, liquid fat as an accompaniment,” “stew” […] is rendered as dew, moisture, liquid, or the like. In MelŽ suvilgymas—смачивание is cross-referenced to wetting. Vilgyti (a causative derived from vilgti “to become slightly wet, damp”) denotes an action somewhat different from and less intense than moistening. (Of course, it is completely wrong to write: Fish is fried <…> after moistening with flour or breadcrumbs T 1977 98 4). However, when speaking of rain, fog, and dew, these verbs are used synonymously; cf.: rain moistens the earth and rain dampens the earth; dew moistened the earth and dew dampened the earth (also: the rain made dew); damp clothes, i.e. wet clothes A. Juška’s dictionary. This is so in folk speech and poetry, for example: It moistens the hard dry land, the forest, the field, and every place; Brooks send mists like smoke, with their dampness wetting meadows and bushes Litauische Mundarten, Gesammelt von Baranowski A. Leipzig, 1920, Bd. I, S. 432 (from Kupiškis). Journalists sometimes use vilgo (“dampens”) instead of drėkina (“moistens”), too: There, high in the sky, huge masses of snow and ice—the deserts await their wetting T 1978 103 4. But the pleonastic semantics of the components in the terminological expression moistening irrigation is unnecessary and unacceptable. Both опоситель MelŽ and увлажнитель MetŽ are rendered in Lithuanian as drėkintuvas¹⁹. An equally inept name for the principal type of casting is moistening casting. A generic, non-specialized term does not need a subtype determinant. Although there is also ventilated drainage MelŽ, the ordinary term drainage is not modified with dewatering. Опошаемая культура is irrigated crop in Lithuanian ŽUŽ, since plants and cereals are not moistened, cf. also irrigated agriculture, although land can be irrigated, watered, or flooded ŽUŽ. Turkisms such as bogar farming ŽUŽ (богарное земледелие), AŽUŽ (dry farming) and bogar crop ŽUŽ (богарная культура), AŽUŽ (rain crop), seem quite unnecessary in Lithuanian. In Lithuanian these are non-irrigated agriculture, non-irrigated crop. The motivation behind English rain crop and the corresponding Russian дождевая культура. is interesting.

¹⁸ Only the dialects use vilgatis “moisture”: Ūdrija, Rudaminā, Veisiejai, Leipalingis, Nemunaitis, Druskininkai, Varėna, Švenčionėliai, Pelesa, Ródūnia; vilgastis Vilkaviškis, Dievėniškės; vilgmastis A. Juška’s dictionary; vilga Jonava.

¹⁹ In PolŽ, ŽUŽ, BŽ II увлажнитель, and in AŽUŽ dampener and humidifier are translated as drėkintuvas, vilgytuvas, but their difference is unclear (humidor is a device for humidifying air). Drėkintuvas is commonly used. Incidentally, terminology is not strictly differentiated in English either; cf.: moistening — drėkinimas AŽUŽ [ground moistening — podirvio (grunto) drėkinimas AŽUŽ], увлажнение Гидр сл, moisture — влажность; влага; сырость Гидр сл; damp — 1. сырость; влажность || смачивать: увлажнять || сырой, влажный, 2. илистый Гидр сл, dampness — dampness, moisture AŽUŽ; wet — moisture, dampness || to wet; soak; moisten (soil) || wet, damp (of soil); rainy (of weather) AŽUŽ; wetting — moistening, dampening AŽUŽ, wetness — dampness AŽUŽ, увлажнение Гидр сл; water — 2) to water, moisten AŽUŽ, 2. орошать; <…> Гидр сл; madefaction — смачивание; увлажнение Гидр сл; maceration — wetting; dampening; soaking; maceration AŽUŽ; bedabble — орошать; обрызгивать Гидр сл [and dew “to moisten, sprinkle” and “dew; tear, drop,” bedew “to sprinkle, water, moisten, bedew”]. Cf. note 5.

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There are several irrigation methods.

1) Subsoil MelŽ, Drėk 141 (cf. also covered, see closed irrigation system MelŽ), Russian подпочвенное орошение Гидр сл. Its international synonym infiltration irrigation: upward irrigation – subsoil, infiltration irrigation AŽŪŽ, English also subirrigation Гидр сл, is less common. Sometimes it is incorrectly called underground irrigation and, even more inappropriately, underground watering M ir G 1980 5 34. The flood (basin) irrigation used in greenhouse horticulture Liet 150 (Pots are placed on a growing medium, and through a hole in its bottom the soil draws up moisture, <….>) should probably be called basin irrigation.

2) Surface MelŽ, Drėk 56 (cf. also open irrigation system MelŽ) – flood Drėk 57 (areas such as rice fields are continuously flooded with water throughout the growing season Drėk 57) and inundation²⁰ MelŽ, Drėk 57: in furrows—running (shallow) Drėk 65 (where the soil surface has sufficient slope Drėk 65) and flooded (deep) Drėk 65 (otherwise: running Mel 161 and blind flooded / blind, flooded²¹ Mel 162) – as well as in strips Drėk 69. MelŽ also had watering, flooding, “a single artificial moistening of the soil by pouring water over the surface or sprinkling”: surface watering “watering by pouring water over the surface” (and surface irrigation) and flood watering “полив затоплением”; drainage watering “a watering method in which excess water can drain away” (and gravity-fed watering) and non-drainage watering; strip watering, see furrow watering and watering in furrows: dead-end furrow irrigation and irrigation in drainable furrows. This classification is less acceptable: it confuses verb aspects, and the semantic relations between the components are unnatural. This also applies to the principal type designation irrigating watering (its Russian equivalent is the same as that of moistening irrigation – увлажнительное орошение), coined alongside the specialized terms refreshing and leaching watering. In terms of the semantics of watering, only pit watering MelŽ is appropriate, along with the new method drip watering Liet 150 (or drip irrigation ŽŪ 1976 11 4, M ir G 1978 9 15).

3) So-called sprinkling, or irrigation by sprinkling²² ŽŪŽ, MelŽ is only hoseless sprinkling, although it also lists sprinkling pipe, sprinkler nozzle. Incidentally, systems or devices for sprinkling are often also used for watering, e.g.: create <….> automated sprinkling systems with a capacity of 10–15 irrigation hectares per worker shift, at an application rate of 400 cubic meters of water per hectare ŽŪ 1976 11 4 (cf. also liquid-manure irrigation and liquid-manure sprinkler ŽŪ 1977 3 12). <….> switch to watering by spraying water with sprinkling devices Armand 50–51. Since these devices spray water (cf. also: a sprinkling pipe—a pipe intended for sprinkling, fitted with sprinklers to spray water MelŽ, a long-range sprinkling nozzle—the working component of a long-jet sprinkler

²⁰ Blogai taiso „Kalbos praktikos patarimai“ (V., 1976): drėkinimas apliejant, apliejimu (= užliejamasis drėkinimas). Tai skirtingos sąvokos.

²¹ Flood furrows are certainly unsuitable for inundation irrigation.

²² It is very strange that sometimes not only irrigation is replaced by watering, but also by sprinkling, for example: Proper agroforestry planting is the most economical way to sprinkle fields. Sprinkling with trees! There is even irrigation sprinkling systems Šv 1978 6 5.

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rods MelŽ, short-jet sprinkling devices Liet 52, watering jet MelŽ), this method could be called spray watering | jet irrigation | irrigation. T. Ivanauskas uses simply spraying (=spraying) Vad 58, 61. Rain-like | rain-like watering or melting | melting is also possible. In Russian, besides дождевание and орошение дождеванием, there is also струйчатое орошение Гидр сл. Similar in formation to the proposed terms are the English terms flush irrigation, spray irrigation, sprinkler irrigation Гидр сл (somewhat different is overhead irrigation Гидр сл); cf. also sprinkler head system — дождевальная система с насадком-дождевателем, sprinkler pipe system — дождевальная установка с перфорированными трубами and, in terms of meaning, under-ground sprinkler system — система подземного орошения Гидр сл. In Polish, besides deszczowanie and sztuczne zraszanie, there is nawadnianie zraszające (whereas irrigation, увлажнительное орошение — nawadnianie zwilżające). Sprinkling should be reserved for meteorology [cf. Latvian liედēšana (mākslīgā) — дождевание (искусственное), while lietēšana means дождевание, полив дождеванием Hidromet vard. Neither DŽ₁, DŽ₂ nor LKŽ VII gives lieti (or lietyti, lietauti) the meaning “to make it rain.” And under no circumstances should spray watering be called artificial rain: A pumping station and “Volzhanka” sprinkling equipment have been installed. They will refresh 200 hectares of cultivated pasture with artificial rain T 1977 131 2. Sprinkler (cf. Russian дождеватель) “artificial rain apparatus” A. Kaulakienė. — Kalbos kultūra, 1977, issue 33, p. 27 should likewise be something like spray irrigator.

Among the more specialized irrigation methods, mention should be made of liman irrigation MelŽ, ŽŪŽ, Mel 187, Drėk 205—a single flooding with water retained from a flood or (less often) from specially retained snowmelt (hence its English name catchwork irrigation AŽŪŽ; interestingly, in Polish liman irrigation is nawadnianie polderowe). Closely related is snow-melioration MetŽ—the retention of snow in the steppes for irrigation; more simply, snow retention GeogrŽ 125.

Closely related to irrigation is the so-called water-supply melioration, “improvement of water supply in arid regions for cultural, domestic, and economic needs” MelŽ. The calques apvandeninimas, nuvandeninimas [: Russian обводнение, обезвоживание, German Bewässerung—also “irrigation” (and Berieselung), Entwässerung—also “drainage,” English watering “irrigation,” “watering, flooding,” “dilution” (there is also water-supply — водоснабжение, cf. urban water-supply — municipal водопровод, and also water feed — питание водой and водоснабжение Гидр сл), dewatering “water removal,” “dehydration”] are unusual formations. A more Lithuanian term for this concept could be the neologism vandentieka MetŽ “водоснабжение”: Vandentieka denotes the centralized, continuous supply of water of suitable quality to various water consumers. A vandentieka system, or vandentiekių, is a complex of engineering facilities and measures that centrally supplies good-quality water ŽŪVand 5 (Russian водоснабжение); cf. drėgmėtieka MetŽ “влагообеспечение” (this word has already been in use for 40 years). Using vandentiekį²³ for this purpose, as in PolŽ (for both водопровод and водоснабжение), would be unsuitable—the water-

²³ Vandentiekis is also used in anatomical nomenclature: cerebral aqueduct — aqu(a)eductus cerebri MedicŽ, Žmog anat 527, Gyv anat 321, 330, vestibular aqueduct — aqu(a)eductus vestibuli MedicŽ, Žmog anat 625, Anat I 68, Gyv anat 362, and the cochlear aqueduct—

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supply includes not only water supply systems, but also water transported by tankers, as well as reservoirs, wells, etc. In English, the term water service is used in this sense. AŽŪŽ. A new concept, water management, is emerging. T 1977 258 6.

In other terminologies, the international terms hydration, “addition of water,” and dehydration, “removal of water,” are used with similar meanings. For example: During hydration, minerals bind water Hidrogeol 39; hydration — addition of H₂O; hydrated oil and dehydrated meat (in English also slaked lime is dehydrated lime); dehydration — removal of water — обезвоживание, дегидратация ЧhŽ; обезвоживание — dewatering, dehydration MetŽ (while the reflexive обезводить — to drain, to lose water [moisture] MetŽ); pulp dehydration — dehydra(ta)tio pulpae, обезвоживание пульпы StomatŽ. English also has desiccation — обезвоживание; сушка Гидр сл, meaning drying, desiccation; drainage AŽŪŽ; cf. the international terms sicative, desiccation, desiccant, desiccator, exsiccation, exsiccate, exsiccant (: Latin siccus “dry”). In meteorology, climatology, and hydrology, the terms aridity, dryness MetŽ, arid zone / dry zone / dry [arid] zone MetŽ, arid [dry] climate MetŽ, desertification of arid regions M ir G 1976 12 12; English arid — dry, infertile (of soil) AŽŪŽ, aridity — soil drought AŽŪŽ, semiarid — semi-arid AŽŪŽ, and humid, moist MetŽ, humid zone MetŽ, humid [moist] climate MetŽ; English humidification — moistening, wetting AŽŪŽ, увлажнение Гидр сл, humidify — moisten, wet AŽŪŽ, humidity — moisture, dampness AŽŪŽ, humid farming — irrigated farming AŽŪŽ, humid area — увлажнённая область Гидр сл, dehumidification (land reclamation) — drainage, dewatering AŽŪŽ, dehumidify — drain, dry AŽŪŽ [: Latin aridus “dry” and (h)ūmidus “moist”].

The usual international equivalents for drainage and irrigation are drainage (see Section II) and irrigation.

Hydromelioration activates the land itself, or agrotechnical (carried out by means of agrotechnical methods) land reclamation (agromelioration): mole drainage (burrowing²⁴)— a particular short-term, dense, shallow mole (burrow) drainage system that stores moisture, increases the soil’s permeability to water, while also draining it, improving soil aeration, and loosening the subsoil; as well as deep plowing, deepening (thickening) the plow layer, narrow-strip plowing, ridging, corrugating fields²⁵ or other land profiling, land leveling (grading), etc. Agromeliorator is unheard of.

aqueductus cochleae Žmog anat 625. In J. Elisonas’s “Collection of Materials on the Terminology of Biology and the Comparative Anatomy of Vertebrate Animals (Including Humans)” (Švietimo darbas, 1924, Nos. 1–9), water-conducting device. Vandentraukis (perhaps a calque from Polish wodociąg) was used by J. Basanavičius, A. Vireliūnas, A. Poška, and Vaižgantas. In folk speech, vandentraukis sometimes refers to a brook, for example: A little brook runs through our field, but it has no name, just such a vandentraukys Păbiržė.

²⁴ Žr. Kučinskaitė A. Ar geri terminai kurminimas, kurmint uvas. — Žemės ūkis, 1973, Nr. 11, p. 39.

²⁵ Žr. Balašaitis A. Dirvų subangavimas. — Žemės ūkis, 1976, Nr. 9, p. 31. Taip pat žr. G. aivenis K. Ne dirvų banguotavimas, bet bangojimas. — Kalbos kultūra, 1981, sąs. 41, p. 63.

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Cultural-technical land reclamation involves removing shrubs, stumps, stones, and tussocks, as well as initial cultivation (reclamation plowing, disking or milling, rolling) and initial fertilization (in meadow farming also called reclamation fertilization Piev₂ 107).

Chemical land reclamation is the use of chemical amendments²⁶: liming acidic soils²⁷ (in Russian also удобрение известью, cf. also Lithuanian lime fertilizers T 1976 40 1, 287 3), gypsum treatment of saline soils ŽŪ 1976 11 3 (in Russian also удобрение гипсом), with the aim of demineralization / desalination; and also sowing and plowing under green-manure crops || green-manure crops | green-manure plants (leguminous plants, for example lupines), in other words, using green manuring, or green manure (English sideral fertilizer AŽŪŽ) — green fertilization.

Distinct from this is phytomelioration M ir G 1979 6 9, a term only now beginning to be used here (Polish fitomelioracja Słownik wyrazów obcych. Redaktor naukowy Tokarski J. – Warszawa, 1971); that is, land reclamation by means of plants (cf. agromelioration forests | plantings | plantations || afforestation-based land reclamation, drainage by means of plants).

If there are plans to reclaim individual landscapes MG 1977 2 28, perhaps it will not be long before some kind of landscape or comprehensive land reclamation²⁸ appears as well.

5. Improvement or improvements

Since there are many kinds of land improvement, some authors, without thinking it through, have introduced the plural form melioracijos. For example:

Agricultural land improvement is divided into hydraulic, agronomic, land-cultivation, and chemical improvement. Protective forest belts, anti-erosion measures, etc., are sometimes further distinguished as separate types of land improvement.

²⁶ Polish meliorant also means “land reclamation specialist” (although meliorator is more usual). There are more such parallels, for example: informant and demonstrator, demonstrator and demonstrator, obsolete amatas and amateur, Russian секундант and секундантор “a fraternity member’s flogger,” фабрикант and фабрикатор “one who manufactures,” оркестрант and оркестратор “one who orchestrates,” as well as preservative and conservator, though their meanings are usually different (спекулянт – спекулятор and пренумерант – пренумератор have identical semantics). Similar agent–instrument pairs also usually differ: фумигант and фумигатор “smoke fumigator,” реагент and реактор, антитранспирант and транспирантор, вариант and вариатор, секант and секатор “garden shears,” although дезодорант and дезодор(из)атор, транквилант and транквилизатор, стимулант and стимулятор are used with the same agent meaning (the first variants are preferred; compare also антидепрессант, адстрингент, релаксант, фотосенсибилант, although оксидатор). The (bio)стимулятор has the meaning of a device.

²⁷ Compare: Under pond-farming conditions, liming is an important land-improvement measure Tvenk 52. Calcium is used as a land-improvement and disinfecting agent Tvenk 82.

²⁸ This conjecture from the first version of the article (1977) was confirmed very quickly. First, land improvement was discussed as a complex of measures MG 1973 3 6, T 1973 52 4, then as a complex of land-improvement works M ir G 1978 9 15 and their complex nature M ir G 1978 9 14, complex land-reclamation works T 1978 67 2, that the work program is becoming comprehensive T 1978 129 3, land improvement is becoming increasingly comprehensive T 1978 67 2, and finally, it was proclaimed as a slogan: The main direction is comprehensive land improvement T 1978 70 1 (article title). Incidentally, comprehensive drainage appeared somewhat earlier—MG 1976 10 7. Less common is landscape biological improvement Šv 1978 19 22.

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Hydraulic land improvement, or hydromelioration, is further divided into drainage and irrigation Mel 10.

An even greater fault is that this plural is not used consistently, being confused with the singular. For example: Land improvements are highly significant, <…>. This branch of science is especially important today Mel 3. The science of the principal measures and methods for improving land, <…>, is called the science of land improvement Mel 5. Although the practical application of land-improvement measures (drainage and irrigation) goes back several millennia before our era, the broader theoretical development of the science of land improvement began relatively recently Mel 5. In our republic, scientific work in the field of land improvement is carried out on the broadest scale by the Lithuanian Research Institute of Hydraulic Engineering and Land Improvement Mel 6. Abroad, much work has been done in the field of land-improvement science by <…> Mel 6. Our country’s land-improvement science owes much to <…> Mel 6. At present, several dozen institutes in our country are engaged in developing the science of land improvement Mel 6. <…> land-improvement planning Mel 227. <…> land-improvement work plan Mel 228. Similar variations abound elsewhere, for example: irrigation land improvement Hidrogeol 13, but drainage land improvement Hidrogeol 92; hydraulic agricultural land improvements Drėk 3, but irrigation land improvement Drėk 5; land-improvement systems Vand ūk 48 and land-improvement systems Vand ūk 66, 90, 134, 170. One book by J. Čeičys is entitled “Soil Improvement,” another “Agricultural Land Improvement. Drainage,” although the unnecessary plural is already present in the first, for example: Long-term improvements of soils carried out by agronomic measures are called agromelioration Saus 6. K. Ramanauskas’s book “Water Management Economics” uses the phrase economic efficiency of land improvements Vand ūk 186, 200, 204 (also Mel 235), but there are also V. Mališauskas’s “Economic Efficiency of Land Improvement” (V., 1970), and S. Šešelgienė’s “Land-Improvement Efficiency in Soviet Lithuania” (V., 1973).

This confusion comes from Russian. For example, in 1965 two books were published in Moscow: Панцадиди А. Д. et al., Сельскохозяйственная мелиорация, and Розин В. А., Безменов А. И., Луганский В. Д., Сельскохозяйственные мелиорации. Of course, this is no excuse for us. Land improvement could have a plural only in the specific sense “land-improvement systems” (cf.: they installed land improvement(s), the land improvement(s) work well, the land improvement(s) broke down). But it does not have this meaning (as, for example, constructions, operations, organizations, reparations, repetitions...), just as sewerage, mechanization, automation, filtration²⁹… do not.

The worst thing is that plural examples of land improvement are also found for drainage: Installations for carrying away or lowering groundwater are called drainages Autokel 106 (although Various cases of drainage installations Autokel 106, types of drainage Autokel 107), When roads are built, the following drainage systems are installed: <…> Kel 129; irrigations: Special types of irrigations Mel 185 (although types of irrigation Mel 140, methods of irrigation Mel 140); waterings: types of waterings Mel 151, vegetation waterings Mel 151. Even technicians are trying to assert themselves: At the collective farm, repair work on the technicians is proceeding harmoniously and in a mechanized manner< ŠI 1977 10 9 (from the press). >… prints made using intaglio or lithographic techniques. New approaches to resolving themes called for new techniques, among which the most popular—

²⁹ Such a meaning is sometimes found in poetry: I will walk the highways and the paths, past the land improvements, once slender L ir M 1980 4 10.

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various types of etching and mixed techniques became more common P 1977 6 132. However, they have no specific meaning, like ploughings, weavings, and therefore cannot be tolerated. Plurality is expressed not only by grammatical plural forms.

6. Improvement

Since, once again, Latin melioratio means “improvement”³⁰, this word is central in explanations and descriptions of melioration. E.g.: melioration – the fundamental improvement of unfavorable natural conditions in order to obtain abundant and stable yields of agricultural crops MelŽ; agromelioration – the fundamental improvement of soil properties by agromeliorative measures MelŽ; hydromelioration – the fundamental improvement of land by hydromeliorative measures MelŽ; melioration – the fundamental improvement of land: <...> TŽ 1936, melioration, land improvement – the fundamental improvement of land for agricultural purposes, <...> TŽ 1969; only fundamental, long-term improvements to soil may be called melioration Saus 7; The science of the principal measures and methods for improving land, <...> is called the science of melioration Mel5. The explanations vary somewhat—some refer to land, soil, or its properties, others to natural conditions (and still others to the water-air and wind regime, Mišk kult 352)—but in all of them, alongside the core meaning “improvement” and its object (land, soil...), there is a third element of meaning, the modifier fundamental (that is, capital). Despite this, one also sometimes encounters current and fundamental melioration works Tvenk 50 or fundamental land improvement Armand 38 (apparently understood as hydromelioration), cf. Russian коренная мелиорация, Polish melioracja podstawowa.

Improvement is not only the most important element in explaining (defining) melioration, but is also used—as a rule, only in dictionaries—as a term in its own right. Thus, ŽOŽ gives улучшение – improvement (alongside the term “improvement of varieties” in genetics, selection, and eugenics, there is also improvement of land); AŽOŽ gives soil improvement – soil melioration, improvement; MelŽ has pagerinimas – улучшение, “increasing desirable properties and reducing undesirable ones in terms of the expected results,” and pagrindinis pagerinimas – коренное улучшение, “improvement of land areas by long-term measures requiring a considerable investment of labor and funds” (in other words, melioration).

Sometimes it is not even melioration that is explained as improvement (without the modifier “fundamental”), but the reverse, for example: Long-term improvements to soils carried out by agrotechnical measures are called agromelioration Dirv mel 6. The most important measures for improving agricultural landscapes are irrigation in dry landscapes and drainage melioration in humid ones, Krast 173.

In popular writing, land improvement is sometimes used as an explanation or description of melioration, e.g.: <...> the subject of melioration, in other words land improvement, seems to have faded from view among us L ir M 1977 23 16 (R. Sadauskas).

³⁰ Sometimes this is also written incorrectly: the Latin word melioratio means fundamental improvement of land for agricultural purposes by draining marshes, stabilizing shifting sands, artificially irrigating, and creating water bodies M ir G 1973 11 28.

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In meadow farming, although there are a meadow-melioration unit MelŽ and a meadow-melioration station MelŽ (Russian лу гомелиоратор ССРЛЯ VI), the word melioration itself is used very rarely, e.g., surface and fundamental land improvement Armand 110. In specialist literature the customary term is improvement, e.g., improvement of meadows, improvement of pastures ŽUŽ; pasture improvement – improvement, betterment of pastures AŽUŽ (also improved meadows T 1977 97 1). It is fundamental and surface, partial³¹, e.g.: Fundamental improvement is when all the former vegetation is destroyed and new vegetation is established; for this reason it is also called establishing sown meadows Piev₂ 74; surface improvement of meadows – improvement of meadows without ploughing the turf MelŽ. Other sources discuss two ways of establishing meadows and pastures: fundamental and surface Augal 345 (Russian залужение), but also use fundamental improvement Augal 346. The term surface improvement is somewhat odd. More oddly still, fundamental improvement ends with fundamental (pre-sowing) fertilization Piev₂ 90, whereas surface improvement ends with meliorative fertilization Piev₂ 107. The terminological oppositions are not perfect.

In general, land improvement has a somewhat vague meaning; it lacks terminological precision. Cf.: The book’s second aim is to gather <…> the experience accumulated by farmers, melioration specialists, agronomists, and researchers who have tirelessly worked on land improvement and the eradication of all kinds of soil contaminants, <…> Žem kult 3. The same law is in force in India, where the land of a negligent farmer may be confiscated for ten years and returned after it has been improved and used to cover the costs Armand 12–13. Sometimes the claim goes too far: The land is perfect and generous by nature; people love it, take pride in it, and therefore improve and repair it L ir M 1971 33 10. Why improve what is perfect? Often (im)provement and to improve are used in a sense clearly different from “melioration” and “to meliorate,” but the boundary is not always clear, cf.: More than 100 ha of infertile land in the Sapro pel iu have been improved (<…>), and <…> the use of sludge to improve soils should become a separate type of melioration T 1979 112 4. Manure is a general means of improving soils Vad 28. <…> we transport peat to improve the soil T 1977 47 4. <…> mineral fertilizers are not the principal means of improving our crops, but merely supplementary Vad 32. The bleak, gloomy black forest of these environs stood in the way of bread-winning. To cut it down meant to brighten, improve, and cultivate the land P 1978 9 124. The same can be said of an improver: Legumes are the best green manure, <…> improvers of soil aeration, moisture, and temperature regimes MG 1977 2 25. Research has established the role of the forest as an improver of the chemical and organic composition of soils M ir G 1981 1 37. Of course, these observations should not be understood as a condemnation of such usage.

Melioration has become so well established that, occasionally, entirely Lithuanian derivatives of it also appear, for example, “post-melioration” settlements MG 1976 10 6.

Although deterioracija has not yet been recorded in Lithuanian, its calque blogėjimas (“deterioration”) is already encountered: A threatening sign of ecological crisis is the deterioration of environmental quality M ir G 1978 12 7.

³¹ It is sometimes called by both names—Piev₂ 74—and sometimes by only one: surface Gyvul 93, 114, partial Piev₁ 212 (Russian поверхностное).

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7. Functional shortcomings

The history and functional-semantic structure of reclamation are rather confusing and somewhat paradoxical. And its flourishing present sometimes blossoms with entirely barren flowers. Here I will point out one or two more characteristic shortcomings in usage.

Only as pretentious pleonasms (concealed tautologies) should the following examples be regarded: The natural quality of the land could be improved by reclaiming the fields <...> M ir G 1978 5 27. By reclaiming and cultivating land, its productivity is improved Šv 1980 3 13. Land that is extensively reclaimed, intensively transformed and improved yields ever heavier ears T 1976 31 1. <...> the reclamation condition of 300 thousand hectares of irrigated land has been improved. Irrigation systems have been reconstructed over an area of 300 thousand hectares T 1972 19 2. <...>the reclamation condition of 92 thousand hectares of irrigated land has been improved, and irrigation systems have been reconstructed over an area of 76 thousand hectares T 1973 172 2. What does reclamation condition mean? Admittedly, MelŽ has soil reclamation conditions — почвенно-мелиоративные условия, but this “term” is not explained. Apparently, it means the same as soil conditions, “the soil’s water, air and nutrient regime, mechanical composition, presence of carbonates” MelŽ (cf. condition of soil surface — состояние поверх-ностной почвы Гидр сл), only viewed from the perspective of land reclamation³². Only the natural state and natural conditions can and should be improved; even after improvement they do not become reclamation conditions, but cultivated ones. What does it mean to reclaim extensively (or narrowly)? Probably neither reclamation engineers nor linguists know. It is clear only that such journalistic curiosities need to be thoroughly “reclaimed”—the water drained and the thickets of thought cleared away. Irrigation watering systems M ir G 1980 1 22 is also a pleonasm.

There are two shortcomings in the general use of the word reclaim and its hyponyms (partial synonyms, implicational designations)³³ drain, provide drainage, and irrigate. The first is the use of the related word (hyperonym³⁴) reclaim in place of the specific term (hyponym) drain or provide drainage. This usage is not declining, although irrigation is increasingly practiced alongside drainage. For example: Reclamation is finishing the job of draining ponds and exterminating shrubs T 1977 187 4. In 1975, the average grain yield on reclaimed land was 8.1 cnt/ha higher than the yield on undrained land Šv 1976 20 4. More than 4 million hectares of land undergoing reclamation in the Soviet Union were drained using multi-bucket excavators manufactured in Estonia (in Lithuania, 97 percent of the areas under reclamation were drained with them) Šv 1978 4 17. After areas with excessive moisture were reclaimed, the reported sharp decline in the number of storks slowed somewhat T 1978 75 4. Lithuania plans to reclaim 540 thousand hectares of excessively wet land during this five-year period T 1977 90 2. Reclamation engineers [reclaimed] boggy, excessively wet

³² A similar case is reclamation map, “a map on which the terrain of an area is represented by conventional symbols” MelŽ.

³³ Dėl šių terminų žr. Lyons J. Wstęp do językoznawstwa. — Warszawa, 1976, s. 496. Dž. Lajenzas hiponimiją apibrėžia kaip vienpusę implikaciją (p. 497), arba inkluziją (p. 496), o sinonimiją — kaip abipusę, arba simetrinę, hiponimiją (p. 498). Žr. taip pat Степанов Ю. С. Основы общего языкознания. — М., 1975, с. 52.

³⁴ For the term hyperonymy (and hyponymy), see Agricola Ch., Agricola E. Wörter und Gegenwörter. Antonyme der deutschen Sprache. — Leipzig, 1979, S. 15. Both terms have already been included in a textbook. — Новиков Л. А. Семантика русского языка. — М., 1982, с. 241.

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the earth’s surface into fertile fields Ekspl 283. <…> indication of excess water, which reclamation removes precisely (!) and systematically M ir G 1977 8 11. V. Šileika’s “Reclamation of Waterlogged Areas” (V., 1956) deals only with “the problems of draining waterlogged areas” (p. 5), not with all types of reclamation. Also out of place is the joke reclaiming one’s pockets Šl 1976 10 6 (=drainage), and the authors of “Burtai” suggest reclaiming N 1975 6 59—that is, to put it in Samogitian, “dry the child out.” In general, reclaim is awkwardly formed, with a prefix transferred from drain; it is equivalent to improve—that is, to spoil something by improving it too much.

Nor is drainer an established professional designation. It is true that drainage workers, who always call themselves reclamation engineers, sometimes use this word, but incorrectly—in the sense of “drainage device.” I came across drainer only in a poem by the verbally inventive Albinas Žukauskas KV 1976 29 4.

drainage ditches Mel 10 are rare; reclamation or reclamation ditches are used most often. V. Šileika’s book is entitled “Reclamation Ditches” (V., 1968), although it discusses only a drainage network (pp. 3, 9). The same applies to the definitions in MelŽ: the regulating component of a reclamation system—the aggregate of drains in a drainage system; and the conveyance component of a reclamation system—the aggregate of conveyance channels in a drainage system, <…>. Specialists seem ashamed to write simply and precisely.

The second flaw is the juxtaposition, or even conflation, of the hyponyms to drain, to irrigate, to water with the hyperonym to ameliorate. For example: By improving waterlogged stands through amelioration (drainage) <…> Mišk kult 398. The drainage of forest lands, or their hydrotechnical amelioration Mišk kult 397. It is unrealistic to abandon amelioration and drainage altogether in the surrounding areas; therefore, when coordinating drainage project plans, the aim is to ensure that economic activity affects the reserve as little as possible (! — J. K.) MG 1976 8 7. <…> how land-irrigation and amelioration works affect biocenoses M ir G 1979 10 16. Irrigation and amelioration play an ever greater role in further intensifying agricultural production and increasing its economic efficiency, <…> T 1978 238 1. The state and collective farms invested 6.6 billion rubles in irrigation and amelioration construction T 1976 26 2. This is reflected even in administrative structures; cf.: From 1949 to 1963, the drainage and reclamation of wetlands was carried out by amelioration machine stations (MMS). <…>. Since 1963, amelioration works have been carried out by amelioration construction administrations (MSV), <…>. Amelioration works are planned and monitored by <…> (since 1963) drainage systems administrations MLTE II 553. This usage is equivalent to agriculture or farming, agriculture and farming, and the like. Such classification fallacies should be avoided.

Another problem is the distortion of the semantic government of the international word reclaim. For example: Meanwhile, we have nothing of the kind concerning Lakes Druskonis and Ilgis, which are currently being reclaimed T 1974 256 4. At the foot of the hill—the Kražantė, straight as an arrow, reclaimed L ir M 1979 7 13. Here the verb should be “drain,” not “reclaim.” This is also a sin of writers and humorists: <…> boldly and demonstratively, so to speak, “reclaimed” for us are the streams and little brooks of familiar poetic beauty, closed logical self-entanglement, and emotionally open-hearted argumentation Šv 1979 18 11. And the waiter “reclaims” both the cognac and the bitter liqueur … Šl 1976 10 6.

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The final oddity is artificial moistening: the modifier artificial is unnecessarily attached, redundant, since this element of meaning is already contained in the grammatical causative form, expressed by the suffix -inti—“to make [something] become moist,” “to cause [something] to become moist” (active, anthropogenic causative) or “to allow [something] to become moist” (passive, natural causative). Dictionaries do not avoid this shortcoming either. Here are their definitions of irrigation: artificial moistening of fields, watering M. and S. “Dictionary of Foreign and International Words,” artificial moistening of fields, watering TŽ 1936, artificial moistening of fields TŽ 1951, DŽ₁, DŽ₂, artificial moistening of fields GeogrŽ. MetŽ is similar: орошение — ирригация, иригация, (дқрб-тиніс) дрėкинimas, орошение — (dirbtinis) drėkinimas, irigavimas, искусственное орошение — dirbtinis drėkinimas. The same applies to the definitions of melioration: the primary improvement of land: draining marshes, improving soil, artificial moistening, stabilizing shifting sand TŽ 1936, the primary improvement of land <…>, <…>, <…>, by moistening artificially, <…>, <…> TŽ 1969. This is how it is also written in texts, e.g.: About 20 percent of the world’s agricultural land is now artificially irrigated ŽŪ 1976 8 31. We will install artificial irrigation over an area of more than 1,000 hectares MG 1976 10 5. It is clear where this phenomenon has its roots: in Russian, which does not have similar action diatheses as a characteristic feature. Of course, the cause of such interference is psycholinguistic; thus, Russian is not to blame here, but our own lack of command—our failure to understand the Lithuanian language and its differences from Russian. The term natural moistening, which arose in the same way, is also unjustified, e.g.: Marshes are stretches of land that are heavily moistened (=very wet, waterlogged) Kel 295. Endogenous phenomena also include such things as the drift of Earth’s magnetized core, which causes fluctuations in the gravitational field (…) that in turn affect the anticyclonic nature of atmospheric circulation, determining the rhythm of moistening (=moisture, humidity) in the Northern Hemisphere M and G 1980 5 36. Thus the opposite term natural irrigation also arises: It is used <…> for natural as well as artificial irrigation of fields, <…> Armand 14.

Artificial two-slope irrigation is of a different origin—irrigation in which water is poured from an irrigator in both directions along an artificially created slope MelŽ. It should be called sloping, or more precisely downslope, two-slope irrigation.

Drainage is never called artificial: Russian, after all, has the diatheses осушение and высыхание³⁵.

II. Drainage

There are many types and methods of drainage. E.g.: perfect and imperfect drainage Hidrogeol 268 (cf. perfect drain Hidrogeol 268 and imperfect drain Hidrogeol 269, perfect well Hidrogeol 252 and imperfect well Hidrogeol 252, “perfect” well MelŽ and “imperfect” well MelŽ); intensive and extensive drainage

³⁵ In the first edition, the author may have made a slight mistake—something of this kind does sometimes occur, admittedly, among non-specialists, e.g.: Etruscan <…> agriculture was possible only after the marshes had been artificially drained Maškina s N. History of Ancient Rome. — V., 1955, p. 80. Č. Kudaba even uses artificial watering—L ir M 1971 33 40.

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ŽŪŽ [intensive drainage “drainage in which the regulating part of the drainage system (closed or open drains) has been carried out (! – J. K.)” MelŽ]; sys-tematic drainage “drainage in which the drains are laid parallel to one another at specified intervals” MelŽ; full systematic drainage “undiluted systematic drainage” MelŽ and selective, thinned-out systematic drainage “thinned-out systematic drainage in which only selected, most necessary drains are laid, while following a certain system and maintaining parallelism” MelŽ, so that “omitted drain lines can be installed (! – J. K.) additionally” Mel 56 (and detailed drainage by ditches Mel 72) and non-systematic drainage “drainage in which drains are laid at irregular intervals, without maintaining parallelism, only in places where excess moisture occurs” MelŽ, or selective drainage / partial drainage see selective drainage “non-systematic drainage in which drains are installed not across the entire area, but only in places requiring drainage” MelŽ. Sometimes similar methods merge, e.g.: 1920–39 intensively (in detail) drained <...> MLTE II 552, or are confused through carelessness, e.g.: At present, 2.2 million hectares have been drained in the republic, of which 1.7 million have been drained intensively (i.e. with all land-reclamation and land-cultivation works carried out) Šv 1976 20 4.

The pair of terms vertical and horizontal drainage also raises a problem. MelŽ explains horizontal drainage as “drainage by which water is carried away,” not entirely horizontally, but along a simple gradient, and vertical as “drainage in which drainage is carried out through vertical pipes, by which water is either discharged into deeper permeable layers (Dutch drainage), or brought up to the ground surface (California drainage).” However, road engineers try to classify drainage not by the direction of water conduits, but by the direction of filter layers in the drainage trench, e.g.: Rational vertical drainage, in which the filter layers are laid not horizontally but vertically: fine-grained material next to the water-bearing soil layer, and coarse-grained material in the middle of the drain Kel 130–132. Thus this is a primitive variant of conventional horizontal drainage—drainage without a hollow water conduit (pipe), similar to stone drainage, only uncovered and, instead, improved with lateral sand and gravel filters. It is inadvisable to call it vertical, since this confuses the terms.

The greatest problem, however, is the relationship between the meanings of conventional horizontal drainage and its Lithuanian equivalent, draining, their differentiation—desynonymization and its consequences (pleonasms and oxymorons).

The history of Lithuanian drainage is short—it began just over half a century ago, nearly two centuries after modern drainage emerged (clay drainage was already used in Mesopotamia 4,000 years ago). In M. and S.’s “Dictionary of Foreign and International Words,” drainage is defined as follows: “Draining land by means of certain underground pipes.” By contrast, the definition in TŽ 1936—“drainage of wet soil by pipes and channels dug into the subsoil”—apparently refers to open channels (since channels cannot be dug in). The definition in TŽ 1969 is similar: “drainage of marshy soil by open ditches or porous (or laterally perforated) pipes laid underground.” The specialist literature describes it similarly: A drainage structure may be a ditch, trench, gallery, line of pipes laid underground, or other structures that lower the water level

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Hydrogeol 268. From this, a fundamental conclusion is drawn: In theory, the basic operation of all horizontal drainage installations is similar. Therefore, below we will simply call them drains or drainage Hydrogeol 268. Thus, essentially, a ditch is also a drain. Kel 129 simply states: The simplest drainage is an open ditch excavated into an aquifer. An open ditch is equivalent to a drainage ditch, and both are the opposite of closed drainage: Closed drainage is most commonly installed (Fig. 2.3.3). A water-conveying device—a drain—is laid at the bottom of the ditch Kel 129. Thus, drainage here is already ambiguous. Other authors hold the opposite view: Artificial underground water pathways for draining (removing) excess soil and groundwater are called drainage Mel 51.

Which view is more accurate or in what respect it is superior can best be shown by the original meaning and development of drena and drenažas—natural and artificial, that is, land-improvement drainage. A greater digression into hydrology is preferable to leaving blank spots.

1. Natural, or environmental, drainage

In Lithuanian, drena means 1. “a line of drainage pipes installed for drainage purposes”; 2. “a drainage pipe” MelŽ. This twofold meaning has already been identified (as undesirable) even in general works on terminology (theory)³⁶. However, it is more prevalent in dictionaries than in practice: drena is more commonly used to mean a drainage tube only in folk speech: Drainage pipes, or, colloquially, drenos, are nothing new in Lithuania. The first were made as early as 1855 Vas 199. (In dialects, drėnė also occurs; in medical usage, drenas.) Pipe drainage is also rare in ŽŪŽ (and pipe drainage in Šv 1978 16 13). The English drain has a much broader meaning—“drainage, drain, drainage channel; outflow” AŽŪŽ, 1. “дренаж; дрена; дренажная канава”; 2. “водосток; водоотвод” Гидр сл. The meanings of draining are correspondingly broader—“drainage; drain; outflow; (out)flow; drainage” AŽŪŽ—as are those of drainage, which primarily means 1. “водосбор, бассейн”; 2. “речная сеть” (and only then 3. “дренаж”; 4. “дренирование; осушение”): lake drainage – водосбор озера, drainage lake – проточное озеро (opposite: drainless lake – бессточное озеро), drainage basin – водосборный бассейн, водосбор, lake drainage basin – водосборный бассейн озера, sink drainage – сточная система Гидр сл. Blind / closed drainage means not only закрытый дренаж, but also бессточный бассейн (cf. closed basin – 1. бассейн, не имеющий стока в море; 2. закрытый бассейн; 3. непроточный водоём, and inland basin – бессточный бассейн) Гидр сл. Finally, the English have autogenetic drainage – дренажная сеть, созданная самой рекой, well drained stream basin – хорошо дренированный речной бассейн, poorly drained stream basin – слабо дренированный речной бассейн Гидр сл. “The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English” (Fourth Edition Revised by E. McIntosh) explains drainage in general terms—as “draining; system of drains, artificial or natural”.

The natural, or environmental, drainage sense has not yet made its way into Lithuanian dictionaries, but it is the most widely used in specialist literature. However, in land-reclamation texts

³⁶ See Keinys S. Terminologijos abėcėlė. – V., 1980, p. 32.

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for the meaning of natural land drainage—as contrasted with artificial drainage—the Lithuanian equivalent sausinimas is generally used, since it is more general. For example: The drainage network consists of streams of various sizes and ditches serving various purposes Mel gr 3. Measures for draining an area may be natural (streams, rivers, lakes) or artificial (ditches, channels, drains) Mel 39. By contrast, hydrogeology uses drenažas, drenavimas, drenavimasis. As in land reclamation, the first meaning to note is land drainage, that is, the collection of water (cf. English the river drains the whole countryside – the river collects the water of the whole area) and its removal from the land, but by natural watercourses, for example: Good natural drainage, because the rivers have cut deeply into the land: the difference in elevation from the river channel to the watershed is 15–18 m (=difference in elevation) Hidrogeol 309. Naturally drained loamy soils M ir G 1978 12 15, natural soil drainage ibid. 16. However, in hydrogeology, water also drains, that is, it removes water from water basins: There are many lakes in Trakai district (295), but they cover only 3.30% of the district’s area. Their level has fallen considerably as a result of natural drainage Krašt 81. Groundwater flow generally moves (=flows) toward the lowest landforms: rivers, streams, ditches, valleys, lakes, hollows, which drain it Hidrogeol 134. When a river or lake drains a confined aquifer, the piezometric water surface declines toward the drainage point, <...> Hidrogeol 164. When the groundwater level is higher than the level of interstratal water, groundwater then replenishes the confined interstratal water. This is called natural drainage of groundwater Hidrogeol 144. The natural, spontaneous character of this process, when the factor causing it is not specified, is expressed by the reflexive form: An area where the groundwater-bearing layer approaches the land surface and groundwater flows out onto the land surface is called an area of groundwater discharge Hidrogeol 135. The examples make clear why the Lithuanian equivalent sausinimas or sausėjimas is unsuitable here: water cannot “dry” water or land; watercourses carry water away, lower or convey it downstream (cf. English to drain into the river – to convey water into the river (of a tributary)], and water does not dry out either, but flows away, runs off, or spills over. Although soil waters are often the object of land-reclamation drainage Hidrogeol 131, they are not themselves drained; only soils are drained—their moisture regime is regulated. Sometimes water basins are drained: But we have enough meadows, and the Curonian Lagoon is very dear to us, for us to let nature drain it Vas 90.

Natural | environmental drainage | drainage || spontaneous drainage is only one part of the water cycle on land. It is linked to the opposite process—water replenishment. For example: In areas with a moderately or very humid climate, groundwater mainly feeds rivers and other natural surface water bodies, or a river drains groundwater Hidrogeol 141. The discharge area of confined groundwater consists of stretches where the aquifer emerges at the land surface, lying below the recharge area Hidrogeol 158. Lowland bogs or waterlogged lands are fed mainly by groundwater or interstratal water that emerges at the surface Hidrogeol 311. Bogs store large reserves of water and feed streams, rivers, and lakes M ir G 1978 7 36. <...> rivers flowing into lakes are fed only by underground springs <...> T 1980 25 4. Therefore, the rivers of Central Asia are transi-

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tial, i.e. not fed by surface runoff, but carrying only the meltwater of high-mountain glaciers T 1980 203 4. In areas beyond the glacier’s limits, river channels were fed by water from the melting glacier Hydrolog 48. These [interstratal] waters may be fed by groundwater, rivers, and even confined water Mel 28. Groundwater, in turn, is fed by precipitation Hidrogeol 144. And conversely: <…> melting snow and ice feed not only streams and rivers, but also clouds forming near the mountain Galv 148.

Incidentally, the opposite of feeding (nourishment) is not only drainage (drain), but also discharge or outflow; compare: In infiltration-type confined-water systems, groundwater filtration takes place from higher-lying recharge areas toward drains of local or regional significance Hidrogeol pagr 9 and A hydrogeological region is a geological structure, or part of one, characterized by common conditions for groundwater formation, encompassing its principal recharge, transit, and discharge areas, and <…> ibid. 7. <…>groundwater recharge and discharge areas T 1980 209 2.

To feed is also used in land reclamation or amelioration and optimization, e.g.: <…> the river was assigned another task—to feed the irrigation canals with water L and M 1976 46 13. <…> an irrigation system feeds large rice-growing areas T 1980 111 3. A 419-ha pond, fed by the Dubysa T 1979 194 4. Several large ponds are planned, to be fed by the waters of the Senegal River. <…> T 1980 37 3. Water feeding (without specifying an object) is also found in MelŽ: groundwater feeding ‘the feeding of a river, canal, or well by groundwater’; unconfined water feeding ‘the feeding of an area of land by water that enters it without pressure’—apparently natural (cf. also recharge area ‘an area from which groundwater or surface water flows into a watercourse or aquifer’), although it may also be exploited by humans, and there is artificial pressure-fed water feeding ‘the feeding of an area of land with water under pressure’ (sic—J.K.); cf. pressure-fed (confined) subsurface irrigation ‘irrigation in which water is forced into the soil’ MelŽ³⁷. Groundwater feeding (of rivers) is also found in GeoIž³⁸.

³⁷ In English polyonymous terminology (cf. notes 5, 19), feeding corresponds to feed: feed by lake — озёрное питание, groundwater feed — грунтовое питание, spring feed — 1. весеннее питание; 2. родниковое питание, water feed — питание водой; водоснабжение (о gravity feed — подача самотёком), cf. feeder canal — питающий канал, feeding canal — питательный канал, feeder — 1. приток (реки); канал, 2. источник, ключ; collecting area — 1. площадь питания; 2. водосборная площадь, cf. collector / collector drain; infiltration area — 1. площадь инфильтрации; 2. площадь питания грунтовых вод; reception basin — водосбор, речной бассейн питания, приёмный бассейн; influent river — река, питающая грунтовые воды [opposite: effluent river — река, вытекающая из водоёма другой (подземной) реки или озера]; recharge — пополнение; питание; подпитывание; artificial groundwater recharge — искусственное подпитывание грунтовых вод, recharge area — область питания, opposite: discharge — расход (воды) (see below in the text, water-balance expenditure): hydraulic and phreatic discharge — выход грунтовых вод на поверхность, groundwater discharge area — площадь выхода грунтовых вод (cf. the synonym for water drainage mentioned earlier in the text, water outflow), discharge canal and channel — отводящий канал, canal discharge — расход канала, discharging — истечение, стекание Гидр сл. Glacier feeding is rendered differently in MetŽ, but again not consistently:

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Neretai greta arba vietoj gamtinio drenažo, drenuotas ir maitinimo, maitinamas vartojami sausumas, sausas ir šlapumas, šlapias. Pvz.: Mėlynynai užima šlapokas, mažiau drenuotas vietas Bendr mišk 314. Ilgasamaniai miškai užima silpnai drenuotas, šlapias vietas ten pat 315. Ąžuolynai pilkuose priemoliuose (<…>) auga statesnėse atšlaitėse su sausesniais drenuotais ir dar daugiau susilainėjusiais (pajurusiais) dirvožemiais ten pat 335. Plg.: Kerpiniiai miškai užima labai sausus smėlio arba akmeningus, humusu neturtingus (=nehumusingus) dirvožemius ten pat 315. Ypač dažnas vietoj maitinimo drėkinimas, pvz.: Viršutinių sluoksnių gruntai gausiai drėkinami kritulių Kel 119. Šios grupės eglynai auga lygiose žemose vietose su gausiu stovinčio vandens drėkinimu Bendr mišk 318. Dirvožemiai maistingi, puveniniai, dumblingi, pavasarį dažnai užliejami, šlapi arba drėgni, bet su tekančio vandens drėkinimu ten pat 319. Slėninis eglynas (Pic. fontinale) auga siauruose upelių, upokšnių slėniuose, maistingesniuose puveniniuose, smarkiai drėkinamuose dirvožemiuose ten pat 319–320. Kintant dirvožemio-podirvio sąlygoms tiek drėkinimo ir aeracijos atžvilgiu, tiek ir podirvio turtingumo maistinėmis medžiagomis atžvilgiu, pastebima, kad kinta (ploto ir laiko atžvilgiu) ir tipai ten pat 316. Paskutiniuose dviejuose sakiniuose greta dirvožemio maistingumo tegalimas jo drėkinimas, o ne maitinimas (net vandeniu). Plg. angl. subirrigation — rus. подпочвенное орошение: artificial — искусственное ir natural — естественное Гидр сл, taip pat irrigation basin — оросительный бассейн, pršng. drainage basin — водосборный бассейн, водосбор Гидр сл. Beje, šis drėkinimas niekur niekada nevadinamas gamtiniu, nors iš esmės toks yra, ir šitai neduoda pagrindo melioracinį drėkinimą vadinti dirbtiniu (apie šią klaidą žr. p. 47).

However, artificial feeding is possible in amelioration: <…> artificial feeding of aquifers and protection against pollution and depletion M and G 1979 4 16. Nevertheless, artificial water-feeding facilities Šv 1976 9 9, installed

alimentation of glacier — 1. питание ледника; 2. нарастание ледника, region of alimentation — область питания, accumulation area — область аккумуляции, область питания (ледника), surplus area — область аккумуляции; область питания (ледника), condition of nourishment — условия питания (ледника), cf. artificial nourishment of shore — искусственное питание берега наносами Гидр сл. In Lithuanian, only the legal terms alimentai (Latin alimentum ‘food’), alimentininkas, -ė, alimentinė prievolė are used; in medicine, alimentinis is known: Alimentary dystrophy is a disease caused by malnutrition. For the early stage, at least, the term “Alimentary exhaustion,” proposed by G. Gelšteinas, is more precise (in fact, the first term is pleonastic: <dystrophy from Greek dys and trophē ‘nutrition’). The form alimentarinis in TŽ 1969: alimentarinė distrofija TŽ 1969; Other authors believe that alimentary factors promote the development of caries M and G 1976 12 20 is inferior.

³⁸ Besides water (and glaciers) and land, dune nourishment is also known T 1976 114 4 (V. Gudelis). The metaphorical use of “to feed” is also common, e.g.: Literature—as a spring—<…>—is living, clear, and abundant as long as it is fed and revitalized by deep springs P 1974 7 125. Perhaps this is why the poet’s work is so strongly attached to folklore, to those inexhaustible springs that have nourished Lithuanian poetry for so long L and M 1981 3 4. It is possible without water, too: For now, this kindness is not yet banal; it is nourished by personal drama L and M 1980 34 5.

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an artificial system for replenishing water layers T 1979 87 4 are pleonasms: the words “devices” and “equipped” here duplicate the semantics of the word “artificial.”

Finally, alongside or instead of natural drainage, the simple term runoff. For example: <...> soil is less rich in nutrients (= contains nutrients), with more slowly draining water Bendr mišk 320. Excess water does not necessarily drain only over the surface. Subterranean drainage of lakes also occurs quite often MG 1977 5 16, cf. closed-basin lake Hidrolog 24, 156 and outflowing — flow-through lake ibid. 156.

In popular style, to feed and moisten is well rendered as to drink and to water: Jacques-Yves Cousteau studied Lake Victoria. <...> the Nile drinks from here T 1980 78 3. All the rivers flowing through Ukraine into the Black Sea — <...> — have been dammed many times, “watering” the canals M ir G 1980 9 30.

The entire system of soil replenishment and drainage—natural and artificial—looks like this: Water-balance inputs, or sources of water replenishment Mel 36. — Soil moisture reserves are continually replenished by natural and artificial water sources, which are classified into the following types: 1) atmospheric, 2) surface, 3) groundwater or subsurface, 4) floodplain, 5) artificial irrigation ibid., 36–37. — Atmospheric replenishment occurs everywhere, since precipitation in the form of rain or snow occurs in all parts of the globe ibid., 37. Condensation in the soil of water vapor present in the atmospheric air is also included in atmospheric replenishment ibid. Precipitation, especially when more intense, does not have time to infiltrate the soil, forms surface runoff, and supplies water to lower-lying areas ibid. Groundwater or subsurface replenishment <...>.<...> consists of water flowing underground from higher ground, S₁, and water flowing in from deeper soil layers, R₁ ibid. Floodplain replenishment occurs in river valleys when, during a flood, the river overflows its banks and inundates the floodplain or valley. Floodwater usually saturates the valley soil to its full moisture-holding capacity (all pores are filled with water, <...>) ibid., 38. Replenishment by irrigation ibid. (of course, in the reclamation sense). — Soil water-balance losses consist of five main components: 1) total evaporation, 2) surface runoff, 3) subsurface runoff, 4) water draining into deeper layers; 5) runoff collected by land-drainage measures (rivers, canals, drainage systems, etc.) ibid. As already mentioned (see p. 50), land-drainage measures may be natural (streams, rivers, lakes) or artificial (ditches, channels, drains) ibid., 39.

Similarly, sources of river supply may be: 1) surface waters flowing over the land surface when it rains or when snow and glaciers melt, and 2) groundwater Hydrolog 63. Correspondingly, there is rainfall supply, snowmelt supply, glacier or glacial-meltwater supply, and groundwater supply ibid.

Natural drainage (runoff) and irrigation (replenishment), as interrelated processes, can turn into one another: <...> for one landform, the same amount of water can

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be surface runoff for one landform and surface replenishment for another Mel 39, cf. drainage system — hydrological network; drainage network; irrigation system Hydr sl.

2. Drain and drainage

Although natural, or naturally occurring, drainage exists, there are no natural drains. Therefore, the essence of the question of what a drain is comes down to this: what kind of drainage watercourse is it—any kind, or only an underground one? First, let us look for an answer in the word’s etymology and the history of the concept.

English drain means not only “to drain (by means of drains),” but also “to dry out” (cf. marsh drainage — draining of a marsh AŽŪŽ), “to dry,” “to dry (usually dishes; cf. drainer — dish drainer and, of course, a discount channel), cf. dry “to dry,” “to dry; to dry out,” “to wipe oneself dry”; “dry, dried,” “arid,” “thirsty”; “drought,” “dry land”; drought “drought,” “dryness (of the air), lack of moisture”; droughty “arid; dry; dried,” “thirsty”; not only “to flow out, to run off, to flow together” (cf. drainless — бессточный Гидр сл, dry “to run dry”), “to seep (through), to filter, to strain” (even “to drink,” that is, figuratively, to dry out, strain, suck up; to drink up), but also “to let down; to lead away; to release; to pump out, to suction out.” Thus in Lithuanian, too, it is entirely correct to say: a device that drains water — a drain Kel 129. For in road engineering there is no such thing as drying as such; here the water level is merely lowered. On the other hand, when water is drained, the soil is dried out, that is, soil drying is the result of draining water. Sometimes the cause is stated very aptly and elegantly alongside its result: <…> a special device—a drainage system—is used to dry out the ground. The main purpose of drainage is to lower the groundwater level, <…> Kel 127. When constructing roads, the following drainage systems are installed: a) slope drainage to dry out cut slopes; <…>; c) drainage <…> to drain water flowing together behind bridge abutments; <…>; e) road-surface foundation drainage to drain water from beneath the pavement Kel 129. The phrase to drain water, is also used directly, for example: The longitudinal gradient of a drain is determined so that the water being drained does not wash away the soil Autokel. 108. <…> the ditch drained the subsoil waters Armand 20, cf. English drain water — Russian дренированная вода Гидр сл. Apparently, the phrase draining sand: It is very important to ensure good runoff of groundwater and atmospheric water from the draining sand sublayer and median strip M ir T 1977 7 49—50 is related to the sense “to filter.” Similarly, to drain is used figuratively in humorous writing: We’re developing land reclamation, <…> At the bar we all drain cognac, Until we become… dry Valaitis L. Kelmai ir kelmučiai. — V., 1973, p. 41—42.

One meaning of English drain is “(drainage) ditch”: agricultural drain — drainage ditch, drain Hydr sl (elsewhere also — drainage ditch, drainage pipe). In Lithuanian, drain does not mean a ditch, but scientific descriptions express a similar idea, for example: The simplest drainage system is an open ditch, <…> Kel 129 (even pleonastically emphasizing it as an open ditch). Of course, drain would have had only this meaning (and drain would have acquired it too, had it been needed—for after all, we have the word ditch), were it not for the improvement of drainage systems. Ditches become silted up, so people began reinforcing them—

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to fill them with stones, place poles, laths, brushwood, and bundles of brushwood, called in Lithuanian žabynis MelŽ, DŽ, žabinis TŽ 1969, žabynas AŽŪŽ (DŽ – “a forest of brushwood, bushes”), and internationally fašina³⁹; and because such filled-in ditches, too, divide the field and take up land, they began to fill them with earth over an underlayer of draining sand⁴⁰. Pipes then appeared to improve water runoff, at first wooden—plank-built, bored (with a hole drilled or milled through them)—then clay, later concrete, and finally rubber (rubber drain – a rubber drainage pipe AŽŪŽ) and plastic. Language then also needed to distinguish a drainage ditch—(open ditch (and to ditch, “to dig a ditch” and “to drain by ditches”)—from an underground drainage watercourse: drain pipe – дренажная труба; compare also pipe drainage – трубчатый дренаж (also pipeline – трубопровод, piping – 3. трубопровод, as in water-pipe | water piping, water-line – водопровод) and drainage tube – дренажная труба; compare also tube drainage – трубчатый дренаж Гидр сл, as well as drainage way | drainageway – дрена and even drain canal – дренажный канал; дрена Гидр сл.

In Lithuania, drainage apparently gained wider scope when the predominant type of drainage watercourse was the underground pipe. Thus Lithuanian drena means “an underground channel (pipe) for carrying away groundwater or lowering its level” TŽ 1969. Although the general expression požeminiai takai – drenos is sometimes used (Dirv mel 26), what is generally meant is vamzdinė drena Saus 200, MelŽ, ŽŪŽ (cf. drenažo vamzdis MelŽ), vamzdinis drenažas MelŽ, ŽŪŽ, PolŽ, or simply keraminių (molio) vamzdžių drenažas PolŽ. As drainage technology advanced and came closer to nature, non-pipe underground drainage watercourses also emerged. These, too, are called drenomis. One such type is karminė drena—“a draining tunnel of a prescribed diameter made at a certain depth with a special (mole) plough,”

³⁹ Fašina < German Faschine < Latin fascina “bundle of brushwood”; compare Latin plural fasces “bundles of rods bound with straps, with an axe in the middle—the insignia of Roman magistrates, carried by lictors marching before them; fasces.” Compare anatomical fascija “band” [< Latin fascia “band” < fasciare “to (bind) wrap”], botanical fascijacija “flattening and banding of a stem or branches”; an information-technology term for a companion to information and often its substitute is fascinacija (< Latin fascinatio “fascination, bewitching, enchanting, incantation”; in medicine, fascinacija means complete drowsiness (hypnosis)” MedicŽ) and its opposite kontrfascinacija Šreideris J. Ženklų sistemų logika (Semiotikos elementai). – V., 1976, p. 71; fašizmas (< Italian fascismo < fascio “union” < “bundle”). In English, besides fascine, fagot is also used Гидр сл, more often meaning “a small bundle of brushwood for fuel” (< Italian fagotto “bundle”; compare fagotas “a woodwind instrument with a double reed”), kidding Гидр сл, bavin (bavin drainage – fascine drainage AŽŪŽ)

⁴⁰ Of course, each type of drainage has particular advantages and is used selectively, without abandoning older types. For example: Fired-clay pipes are used to drain mineral and peat soils Mel 52. Fascine or loose-brushwood drainage is used mainly in peatlands Mel 53. Stone drainage <...>. <...>. <...>, <...> is frost-resistant and does not become overgrown with roots, so it is well suited to draining gardens, parks, and spring-fed areas Mel 54. In indoor (potted) floriculture, drainage is done differently again, for example: A layer of drainage made of pieces of charcoal is placed at the bottom of the pot A b r a m o v a E. Cacti in the Amateur’s Collection. – V., 1973, p. 18. The drainage holes in the saucers are plugged with shards; pieces of charcoal and then more broken shards are placed on them, and prepared soil is poured over the top ibid., p. 23. <...> drainage made of unwashed soil Guide to Flower Growing. – V., 1971, p. 170.

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similar to one made by a mole” MelŽ (also PolŽ and ŽUŽ; ŽUŽ also has kurminis kanalas) and kurminis drenažas MelŽ, Saus 234, 239; compare Latvian kurmju drena and kurmjaltu drenāža Lauk teh vārd, English mole drain—Russian кротовая дрена, кротовина (and molehill — кротовина, mole — 3. кротовина, not crotovine — кротовина) Гидр сл, Russian кротовой дренаж MelŽ. Urvelis is used not only to describe a kurminei drenai but sometimes as its synonym, for example: kurminės drenos (urveliai) Saus 200, Dirv mel 34. Dirv mel 34 also says that they are rausiamos (“dug”), although immediately afterward it says: Kurminių plūgu <…> padaromas urvelis. Kurminis plūgas “an implement for digging mole drains” (! – J. K.) MelŽ (also odd is kurminis ėjimas and its definition—“the passage of a special (mole) plough across a drained area; <…>”) is also called drenažinis plūgas “a plough for making mole drainage” MelŽ and kurminio drenažo plūgas. Attached to it is a dreneris—“the working part of a mole-drain plough, which makes tunnels in the soil for water to run off” MelŽ. In Lithuanian, dreneris is called kurmint uvas, for example: The mole-drain former (dreneris) is attached to the plough Pav saus 51. The mole-drain former is fastened to the second body of a five-furrow plough Mel 79. A tunnel made by the mole-drain former Mel 53. It is attached to the kurminio peilio “the blade of a mole-drain plough, used to make a drain at the required depth” MelŽ. A type of mole drainage is plough-layer drainage: Shallow mole drainage, applied not as a hydromelioration but as an agromelioration measure, is called plough-layer drainage PPMel 111. There is also kurminis raižymas (kurminimas)—“the systematic formation of artificial tunnels of a prescribed diameter in the sub-plough layer” (! — J. K.) MelŽ (Russian кротова́ние — English moling Гидр сл), carried out with an implement called kurminis raižytuvas (kurmint uvas)—“a tool for carrying out mole drainage in the soil” MelŽ (Russian кротователь, машина для кротового дренажа — English moling machine Гидр сл). Although the subject here is the creation of tunnels, compare also kurminis urvelis “a tunnel made by a mole-drain cutter (mole-drain former)” MelŽ (Russian кротовина, which also means kurmiarausis, by the way). However, the semantics of the words raižymas, raižytuvas, as well as the definition of raižytuvo as “щелеватель—slitter, a tool for making slits; compare mole-drain cutter” MelŽ, suggest that what is called kurminimas is close or even identical to the term plyšinė drena — щелевая дрена “a slit made in soil (ground) for drainage purposes” MelŽ and plyšinis drenažas Saus 237, made with a disc or auger machine⁴¹.

⁴¹ All this should be borne in mind when reaching a final decision on A. Kučinskaitė’s interesting and ingenious proposal to replace kurminimą, kurmintuvą with urvinimu, urvintuvu (see note 24). Such a replacement would also be hindered by the motivation of these terms: their international character, a certain vividness and folk-like associative transparency, as well as their emotional and expressive character, which is by no means alien to terminology—more precisely, nomenclature (on this, see П. Пороховава В. Н. Актуальные проблемы современной русской лексикологии. — М., 1973, с. 48; Арзуманян Э. Р. О некоторых закономерностях в подборе эквивалентов к терминам, образованным лексико-семантическим способом. — В кн.: Русский язык. Вопросы теории и методики. Ереван, 1976, с. 135—136). At least kurmine drena, kurminis drenažas, not to mention kurminį plūgą ir peilį, seem even more precise than urvinis, -ė. kurminis urvelis fits neatly alongside them. Therefore, even if urvinimą and urvintuvą are adopted, they should be qualified by the modifier kurminis.

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In Russian, there is безтрубный дренаж Slow tech, but this term may refer either to the general concept of mole and slit drainage, to drainage using stones, poles, wooden slats, brushwood, or fascines, or to both groups together.

There is also kombinuotas drenažas – комбинированный дренаж – “pipe drainage combined with mole drainage or mole ploughing” Melž (also Mel 54–55, Saus 239). Russian комбинированный дренаж Slow tech is defined as a combination of subsurface and vertical drainage.

The mole plough, or mole-burrowing plough, is also used to install plastic pipe drainage: Plastic drainage can be installed by trenching or trenchless methods. <…> in the trenchless (=non-trenching) method, pipes are pulled into a small tunnel made by a mole plough Mel 53. Incidentally, the making of mole drains also belongs to trenchless methods⁴².

A machine for laying drains (or a universal machine for laying drains and making mole drains) is called in Russian дренажер Slow tech, дреноукладчик – Latvian drenu licējs Lauk teh vārd. In Lithuanian it would be drenuotuvas, drenų klotuvas.

Thus, the meaning of Lithuanian drenos has broadened quite recently. It is equivalent to the meaning of Russian дрена—“underground artificial watercourse (pipe, borehole, cavity) <…>” Политех сл, “underground artificial watercourse (pipe, cavity)” БСЭ, VIII 496, although not only трубчатые and полостные (кротовые, щелевые) дрены, but also с заполнителями (гравийные, фашинные) are mentioned there. Thus this is already approaching the meaning of English drain, which is even broader—it includes not only a “ditch” but also a “sewer pipe” (cf. drain—“channel carrying off liquid, artificial conduit for water, sewage, etc. <…>” The Concise Oxford Dictionary … by E. McIntosh), cf. English drainage “sewerage,” although canalisation also means “sewerage” (as well as “canalization—the laying out of a distribution network for gas and electric cables”) and “construction of canals” and “canal system.”

3. Drainage and land drainage

As the concept of a drain narrowed or broadened, the scope of the meanings of Lithuanian drena, Russian дрена changed accordingly, whereas English drain remained a stable, capacious term. The same is true of drainage. This is how the development of these concepts (and the meanings of the term) is reflected in a Russian encyclopedia. Дренаж – 1) осушение, 2) система канав и труб, проложенных для осушки грунтов и почв, 3) в технической литературе – способ осушения путем прокладки на нек-рой глубине под поверхностью земли системы гончарных, деревянных и др. труб <…> или устройство траншей, заполняемых водопроницаемым материалом (камень, хворост) Энц сельхоз сл; – „сеть подземных труб (дрен)“, nors „дренажная сеть может включать в себя и открытые каналы“ БСЭ, XV. Twenty years later, БСЭ, VIII describes дренаж сельскохозяйственных земель as “спо-

⁴² It is written that: <…> the drained area is not covered throughout by a network of drains; they are laid only where most needed (in depressions in the ground surface) Mel 56, one should not assume that this is some kind of surface drainage—this is merely dressing up the simple concept of “covering” with the bookish word “network.”

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methods of land drainage by means of underground artificial waterways—drains, hence it is also classified as underground; they specifically write that “abroad (USA, Great Britain), D. is understood to mean any kind of drainage”.

In English, the meaning of drainage (like that of drain) has not changed along with the development of the concept. It goes without saying that it could not have been otherwise, since drainage means drainage. The development and system of the concept are reflected in the system of specific terms formed with qualifying determinants: open (cut) drain — open drain and blind drain — closed drain Hydrol. Dict., open (cut) drainage — open drainage and blind drainage — 1. closed drainage (2. drainage without an outlet) / closed drainage — closed drainage / covered drainage — closed drainage (≠ indirect drainage — hidden drainage) Hydrol. Dict., surface drainage — surface drainage AŽŪŽ and subsurface drainage — closed drainage [cf. subsurface irrigation / subirrigation — subsurface irrigation, subterranean irrigation — underground irrigation, cf. broad irrigation — surface irrigation (or surface irrigation — irrigation with surface water AŽŪŽ) / subdrain — closed drainage (and subdrainage — underground drainage AŽŪŽ) / underdrainage — closed drainage (and closed drainage AŽŪŽ), internal soil drainage — internal soil drainage Hydrol. Dict.⁴³.

As we can see, in translated dictionaries English drainage is rendered everywhere as дренаж (and открытый), drenažas (and paviršinis). Of course, these are merely the generous authors’ translations, dictionary inventions, not living terms—just like PolŽ’s paviršinis drenažas, and the translation of ditch in the English–Lithuanian Dictionary (Vilnius, 1975): 2) to drain soil by means of open ditches, or Armand 50, where it is particularly important to move from open drainage to closed drainage. In English there is only drainage, while Lithuanian has two corresponding terms: drenažas and drainage: Excess moisture can be removed from areas to be drained by draining them or by conveying water away from them through ditches and furrows (surface drainage) Fig. Drainage 6. Drainage by drains is drainage only by means of drains, while a drain is a method of drainage that removes excess moisture through (closed) waterways (e.g., pipes) MelŽ. Etymologically, the first definition is pleonastic (a concealed tautology), equivalent to draining by drainage, while the second is too narrow, corresponding only to the concept of closed drainage. MelŽ says of it: “sometimes this is used as a general name for drainage.” And MelŽ explains open drainage as: 1. “drainage whose trench is filled to the top with water-permeable material (e.g., crushed stone)”; 2. “sometimes (rarely) used in this sense for drainage”.

⁴³ The final encounter with the truly frequent polyonomy and polysemy of English hydrological terminology (see also notes 5, 19, 37) calls for a qualification. Although this is not considered ideal, it is not an exceptional (perhaps only more frequent) shortcoming of English terminology either. Such deviation is entirely regular. “An ‘ideal’ term should be unambiguous, but in practice quite frequent cases occur of polysemy within one terminological system, homonymy between terminological systems, synonymy that cannot always be reduced to doublets, and emotional-expressive markedness <...>,” says E. Arzumanyan (Арзуманян Э. Р. Min. veik., p. 135). I. Volnina states directly: “One of the features of scientific terminology is polysemy” (Волнина И. В. О специфике научного стиля. — В кн.: Язык и стиль научной литературы. Теоретические и прикладные проблемы. М., 1977, с. 26), although she acknowledges that texts aim for monosemy (ibid., p. 32).

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ditches.” In reality, however, the first meaning is not entirely precise (= drainage | drainage with open fill); moreover, it is no longer current, but merely historical, whereas the second meaning is usually expressed not by open drainage but by (surface drainage (by ditches)). Open and surface drainage, as already mentioned, are not living terms. In Lithuanian, the synonym of drainage is not closed drainage, but closed drainage by drains, Latvian term for subsurface drainage.

Rūšinių terminų (hiponimų) (uždaras) drenažas ir sausinimas (grioviais) (skiriamas paviršinis nusausinimas „žemės paviršiuje esančio vandens pašalinimas“ ir dugninis nusausinimas „durpyno nusausinimas visu durpių klodo storiu“ MelŽ) gimininis pavadinimas (hiperonimas) yra sausinimas: Sausinimo sistemos gali būti atviros, uždaros ir mišrios⁴⁴ Mel 50, plg. atviras nusausinimo tinklas — atvirų nusausinimo griovių sistema MelŽ, uždaras nusausinimo tinklas — drenažo sistema⁴⁵ MelŽ, arba uždaras (dengtas) nusausinimo tinklas — drenažas Saus 170. Logiškai bet kurios sausinimo sistemos vandentakis turėtų būti sausintuvas, tačiau praktiškai atvirojoje sistemoje — sausinime yra griovys, o uždarojoje — drenaže — drena, o gimininis sausintuvas retkarčiais pavartojamas tik kaip apibūdinimas: Sausinant grioviais, sausintuvai yra atviri grioveliai, o drenažo sistemoje jie yra uždari (drenos) Dirv mel 18 (stilius ir logika nekomentuojami…) arba kaip sisteminis žodynų terminas: atviras sausintuvas „sausintuvas griovys“ ir uždaras sausintuvas „sausintuvas drena“, taip pat drenažo sausintuvas | drenažinis sausintuvas MelŽ arba atviras sausintuvas ir drenažinis sausintuvas ŽŪŽ. Praktiškai sausintuvas dažniausiai vartojamas hierarchiškai žemiausio sausinimo tinklo elemento reikšme. Aukštesnis yra rinktuvas, o drenažo tinkle prie tarptautinio drenažo taikosi kolektorius, nors MelŽ ir rinktuvui bando teikti sisteminę gimininio termino reikšmę: vandens rinktuvas „griovys ar drena, kurį iš sausintuvų surenka vandenį“; griovys-rinktuvas ir drenažinis kolektorius žr. drenažo rinktuvas | drenažinis rinktuvas. Skiriasi ir aukščiausio tinklo elemento pavadinimai — nuvestuvas ir nutekamasis | nuvedamasis kanalas || požeminis surenkamasis kanalas, taip pat nehierarchiniai pavadinimai — gaudytuvas ir gaudančioji drena.

Thus, the etymology of the words and the development of the concepts most clearly show how this muddle arose. The original meaning of English drainage is “drainage,” while drain means “a drainage watercourse.” But “ditch” (drain, ditch) > “filled ditch” (drain) > “covered filled ditch” (drain) > “covered ditch with a pipe” and “small channel” (drain, drain), while “drainage” (drainage, drainage) > “closed drainage” (drainage, drainage). Thus, the terminology systems of Lithuanian, like Russian, are complicated and split: they contain ditch and drain, drainage and drainage, as well as a combination of desynonymized synonyms—a pleonasm (concealed, or etymological, tautology)—drainage by drains. It should be assumed that this is a general feature of borrowing-

⁴⁴ In addition to the previously mentioned combined drainage, several more specialized methods are used in road and railway construction: drainage beneath roadside ditches Roads 129, 132, under-ditch drainage Railway 28 (Russian has not only подкюветный дренаж, but also прикюветный дренаж Slow tech).

⁴⁵ However, drainage itself is systematic and non-systematic MelŽ, so it would follow that there is also a non-systematic drainage system.

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a feature of the lexical and semantic structures of borrowing languages, distinguishing them from languages that borrow.

A complication begets a complication. It should simply be called paradoxical: as the meaning of drainage narrows, the meaning of drain widens: “a drainage watercourse” > “a reclamation watercourse.” Unnatural, artificial combinations of antonyms arise, so-called oxymorons, or a clash between modifier and modified word (Latin contradictio in adiecto): irrigation drain MelŽ, ŽŪŽ, irrigation drain PolŽ. Moreover, the scope of the narrow meaning of drainage is also extended: drainage irrigation ŽŪŽ and irrigation drainage sluicing Saus 264 emerge (semantically, this is a different type from ventilating drainage MelŽ). From an etymological point of view, the result would be an irrigation dewaterer, drained irrigation. These are oxymorons that have arisen spontaneously, organically, unlike deliberate poetical expressions full of deep meaning such as sounding silence, bitter joy, sweet pain or witty paradoxes such as eloquent silence, an open secret⁴⁶.

Naming borrowed phenomena is always more difficult than naming indigenous ones. Naming transitional phenomena is more complicated still. As long as all shops were staffed, we called them shops, stores; when the form of retailing began to change, the term self-service shop appeared (but we did not coin staffed shop, although that form still exists). As long as everything was sold from shelves, it was simply retail; when we began buying from bins as well, container retailing emerged (although we did not create the antonym shelf retailing). But once these innovations become established everywhere, self-service shop and container retailing will lose their meaning—we will once again have (if our linguistic intuition does not grow dull) only shops and retail. The same applies to drainage. Only when there are no ditches left—and there certainly will be none⁴⁷—will the question arise not of distinguishing drainage from drainage, but

⁴⁶ The aforementioned oxymoronic terms are all the more dangerous because they are spreading—and will undoubtedly become established: drainage-irrigation systems Saus 266, that is, systems for regulating moisture in both directions (not double, as in Armand 59, T 1978 70 1). Even now, one element of an irrigation system is a drainage network—ditches or drains intended to carry excess water away from an irrigated area after irrigation or during rainfall Mel 141. Here, irrigators are connected to a drain Mel 165. These examples are poorer: Subsoil irrigation <…> through mole drains Mel 164. The cheapest material for irrigators is ordinary drainage pipes 5 or 7.5 cm in diameter Drėk 148. Utter nonsense is: <…> on rainy days, irrigators replace dehumidifiers Drėk 148 (= irrigators act as dehumidifiers). Here the subtle advantage of English pipe, tube over drain, drainage becomes apparent.

⁴⁷ It is a pity that the process of replacing ditches with underground watercourses, once begun, came to be described inaccurately. For example: <…> ditches became a serious obstacle. <…> maintenance of the ditches had become something of a burden: <…> So the idea arose <…> to build closed conduits T 1976 267 2. Usually reclamation engineers sewer the ditches ibid. Our team also sewers the ditches by installing large-diameter collectors T 1976 268 2. But this is not about turning a ditch into a conduit (and if it were a conduit, would we turn a conduit into a conduit?!), that is, changing the size of the watercourse, but about changing its cross-sectional form—converting an open one into a closed one. To sewer also means “to install a sewer system,” whereas here we have something like drainizing. This kind of writing is very strange and wholly undisciplined too: Ditches—underground (news item headline) T 1977 239 1. <…> work has begun on putting open reclamation ditches into conduits. The Raseiniai reclamation engineers have “hidden” almost 5 kilometres of ditches underground ibid. Every year now, we hide a hundred kilometres of ditches underground Šv 1978 6 5. An attempt is also being made to use the word bury for this, for example: <…> we plan to bury them all

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the question of their synonymy and possible competition (if the ditch, drain is no longer used in land reclamation, drainage may strengthen its position).

You cannot lift yourself out of a bog once you have fallen in, while dry. Yet it must be lifted, and the bog drained too, without waiting until the ditches have disappeared and the drainage system has worn out. Of course, this is first and foremost a matter for specialists, not linguists. The objections and paradoxes raised can be overcome in two ways. A radical, but probably unrealistic, solution would be to eliminate them—use drainage and dewatering synonymously. Then the opposition between the specific terms would be systematic: closed—open—mixed drainage | dewatering, just as dewatering systems would be compatible with an irrigation system—subsurface irrigation MelŽ | subsurface irrigation PolŽ—surface irrigation MelŽ, PolŽ, as well as covered, see closed, irrigation system—open irrigation system MelŽ. Colloquially, we could also have pipe drainage (through a pipe network) and ditch drainage (through a ditch network). Having arranged matters this way, a drain would also be needed alongside a dewaterer. The more realistic way to overcome the objections is to know them and understand thoroughly the history and causes of their emergence. This can help us make sensible adjustments—perhaps abandoning the aforementioned oxymoronic terms, guarding against other stylistic oddities, and, above all, avoiding similar shortcomings in the future.

4. Non-reclamation drainage

Since the etymological meaning of drainage is “letting down,” the semantics and sphere of use of this term extend beyond land reclamation. Drainage is not only the draining or outflow of water, nor even of liquids alone.

In geology, reservoir drainage is used to mean “the process whereby oil flows out of a reservoir into the well that has opened it up” TŽ 1969. In mechanical engineering, drainage is the dehydration of a steam pipeline (дренирование паропровода Slow tech). The erosion cycle in English terminology is not only erosion cycle, but also drainage cycle Гидр сл. In chemistry, drainage means “cathodic protection of underground structures against corrosion” ChŽ.

Drainage (and drain MediČ) is widely used in medicine (Latin umoris deductio: wound drainage, lung drainage, active drainage, siphon drainage (for treating pleurisy). In German, the term here is no longer Entwässerung (“dewatering,” “sewerage,” “dehydration”), but Drainage (Dränage).

open reclamation ditches MG 1976 10 6. But this is very inaccurate—for a filled-in drainage trench Hidrogeol 269 means something quite different (cf. also a backfill for a drainage trench, a bulldozer blade T 1976 76 1). One also finds to level | fill in | backfill a channel, for example: At present, <…>, reclamation channels are levelled and replaced (= converted) by large-diameter enclosed pipelines, <…>. LHMMTI has prepared appropriate measures to prevent the intensification of erosive processes at the sites of filled-in channels MG 1974 4 11. <…> channels are backfilled and underground watercourses laid in their place T 1980 43 4. This is very inaccurate: on the contrary, a pipeline is first laid in the channel, and then it is backfilled and levelled. And this is no kind of sewering: the channels here become underground pipelines, not channels. More accurately: fill in, after laying concrete pipes Šv 1978 6 5 or replace ditches with pipes M ir G 1978 9 14. In addition to the aforementioned ditch (and channel) drainizing, ditch piping might also work, cf.: covered, see closed, irrigation system—a system in which water is conveyed to and distributed over the irrigated area through covered waterways (e.g., pipes) MelŽ, and ditch digger.

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There is also gas drainage. In mining, this means methane removal, demethanization (дренаж метана Slow tech); in aviation, it means deaeration in general (дренаж Slow tech).

Farthest from its original meaning is drenažas, used in electrical engineering, for example: current drainage – 2. потребление тока; 3. отдача тока; 4. утечка тока Мельникова М. М., Смирнов И. П. Англо-русский словарь по электрохимии и коррозии. М., 1976; drain – 2. эксплуатационный ток разряда, режим разряда (of a galvanic cell); 3. потребление тока; also elektri- cheскый дренаж – дренаж электрических подземных устройств Slow tech, and the Polish equivalent of “draining” — odprowadzanie prądu, drenowanie prądu Slow tech.

English drain also means “(of a country’s wealth, funds, or strength) depletion; (of health) undermining” [by contrast, French drainer means “to accumulate, seize (capital)”] and occurs in the expression brain drain – brain drain (on this meaning, compare: Emigration drained a whole fourth of Lithuania’s healthy, young blood). The metaphorical use of Lithuanian drenuoti is very recent and rare, for example: Someone once said that ambition drains all other feelings, just as alcohol drains the vitamin B complex from the body L ir M 1975 9 9.

As early as 1932, B. Havránek and V. Mathesius, members of the Prague Linguistic Circle, which laid the strongest theoretical foundations for language culture, wrote on behalf of all their like-minded colleagues: “Linguistic theory provides powerful support for the development of terminology, and this work is endless”⁴⁸. Theory is especially important for the study of the semantics of terms. In the initial stage of structural linguistics, when both the method was being developed and it was being tested on the simplest structures (phonology), neither time nor energy was left for semantics; its role was often deliberately downplayed or even ignored (for example, in American descriptivism). In recent years, the situation has improved. As early as 1963, in his article “Some Problems of Contemporary Linguistics,” V. Ivanov listed the description of meaning fifth among seven priorities. The study of meaning is being ever more insistently elevated to the status of the principal task of language analysis in linguistics worldwide. This was likely also influenced by investigations in general (philosophical) and logical semantics. One can no longer play hide-and-seek with meaning and study language structures without regard to problems of semantics, says R. Jakobson in his article “Verbal (Linguistic) Communication” (1972). A viable theory of semantic structure is essential to a general theory of language, asserts V. Cheff in his book “Meaning and the Structure of Language” (Russian edition, 1975). The problem of meaning is now a general scientific one, believes V. Kodukhov. V. Mažiulis, a participant in the 12th International Congress of Linguists, states that semantics was the most pressing problem at the congress. Yet J. Lyons is not alone in thinking that no one has so far offered a satisfactory and reasonable theory of semantics. Semantic research is characterized by a diversity of methods. Structural semantics is also emerging. Componential analysis is applied even in etymology. Attempts are being made to provide a structural basis for the long-established field theory. In general, the semasiological rather than the onomasiological approach to language (and especially to the lexicon) is gaining ground. It is supported by the gradually expanding, long-

⁴⁸ General Principles of Language Culture. – In: Foundations of Language Culture. Contributions of Prague Linguistics to Language Theory and Language Cultivation. Berlin, 1976, vol. 1, p. 84.

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established theory and practice of ideographic (semantic) lexicography. The revival of semantics is also strengthened by the resurgence of linguistic typology (apparently also stimulated by the achievements of structural linguistics). With interest in nomination (naming), its motivation (the grounding, interpretation, and reinterpretation of naming), the inner form of the word, and the relationship between realities and words having greatly increased, these questions are being examined on a broader and more general basis: the motivation of lexical and semantic groupings (within one language or across several, even closely unrelated languages) is being investigated, and their typology—universals, analogies, and specific features—is being sought. These questions are not only theoretically vital to terminology as a branch of lexicology and one of the most important determinants of the future of language. Critically assessed insights from the Wörter und Sachen (“words and things”) school (H. Schuchardt, R. Meringer, et al.) are being fruitfully applied, especially in the extensive studies of folk terminology (Russian, Latvian, and Lithuanian) that, in quality, truly surpass research on scientific and technical terminology. That school developed a synthetic method—not a comparative one, but an interdisciplinary interpretation of linguistic and ethnographic, historical, and archaeological evidence; it paired etymological research (in the traditional, classical sense of reconstructing the root or etymon) with historical and cultural inquiry; connected the history of a word with its geography (comparing isopragms with isoglosses); and refined two onomasiological operations: studying word formation (investigating why an object is named) and word usage (tracing the subsequent semantic history of a word).⁴⁹. It is true that words denoting things—the so-called denotative (onomasiological) words—make up the marginal, most changeable part of the lexicon (relics, archaisms, ethnographisms, historicisms, dialectisms, neologisms); more promising and fruitful today are studies of designative (semasiological) vocabulary, of enduring, polysemous, universal key (core) cultural words (Schlüsselwörter, ключевые слова) (E. Benveniste, R. Budagov)⁵⁰. However, nomenclature makes up a large part of terminology, and the methodology and theory of its study are an urgent task.

Explaining the meanings and senses of terms, their shades of meaning and changes, is very difficult but necessary. It is highly relevant in practice. Half a century ago, A. Peshkovsky wrote: “I ask you to remember how much time in our disputes is spent on truly clarifying the truth and how much on clearing up verbal misunderstandings, agreeing on what words mean <…> — and the reader will agree with me that difficulties of understanding are an inevitable companion of cultured literary speech… Savages simply ‘talk,’ whereas we always want to say something. Everyone fully understands only their own language.” This is how all philology came into being. Danielius Kleinas, author of the first Lithuanian grammar, perceptively observed more than three centuries ago: “Indeed,”

⁴⁹ V. P. Gavdis. On the place and significance of the “Words and Things” movement in the history of linguistics. — In: Romance and Germanic Linguistics. — Minsk, 1977, issue 7, pp. 105—106, 108—109,

⁵⁰ Structuralism of the third (French) generation (C. Lévi-Strauss, R. Barthes, J. Lacan, M. Foucault) goes even further—in its methodology, it assigns three functions to the word: object of cognition, basis (method) of cognition, and instrument of cognition (see Автономова А. С. Философские проблемы структурного анализа в гуманитарных науках. — М., 1977, с. 243. This is linguocentrism: an overestimation of the role of language as “the immediate reality of thought” (K. Marx), “sign fetishism,” and the absolutization of the linguistic-symbolic aspect of culture (see ibid., pp. 251—252).

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it is necessary for understanding words and their elegant arrangement to take precedence over knowledge and use of things. And to the extent that we err over words, we lose sight of the thing itself; <…>. We must first agree on words; then the forthcoming voyage across this ocean will be easier and more fortunate, without striking rocks or risking shipwreck.”

Here, an attempt has been made to clarify only a small stretch of that course. It is more complex than it first appeared. “The terminology of every branch of science is marked by a fundamental contradiction—the contradiction between the systematic nature of terminology and its historical formation. A system of terms reflects a system of scientific concepts. This is precisely what makes terminology systematic. But the development of science and new discoveries alter the old system of concepts; scientific concepts acquire new relationships. The scope and character of a concept change, while the words naming it remain unchanged for a time. This compels the old system of terms to change and gives rise to discrepancies between old and new terms”⁵¹. This can also be seen in the composition of the article. The links between subject-matter are deliberately repeated in some places; elsewhere, by contrast, despite considerable effort, they remain tenuous and stretched out, although they are genuine. A linear composition is impossible here; it is more like a hydrographic network with winding streams, tributaries, and rapids. The shortcomings of the terminology may seem somewhat exaggerated. This was done only to highlight them and make them easier to understand, not to magnify them. It seems that only in this way can we strive to correct and improve it.

An analysis of the development of the systems of the principal reclamation terms (internal, intralinguistic, and international, interlinguistic) also permits a more general conclusion about terminological theory: terminology, though a specialized branch of lexicology and subject to deliberate regulation, obeys the general laws of semantics and does not escape polysemy, synonymy, pleonasms, oxymorons, and other genuine or apparent shortcomings.

Brief conclusions

1. Melioration is an international word, but in some languages other internationalisms are used in its usual sense of “the basic improvement of land” (French bonification, amélioration…), calques of these (English betterment), or entirely different terms (English reclamation, improvement…). All of them are polysemous as well. New members are entering this open system of terms: the third word from the Latin suppletive adjective bonus, melior, optimus – optimization, and the antonyms deterioration and pejoration.

2. Melioration is a universal term, used in many other fields as well—linguistics, philosophy, fisheries, forestry, climatology, and ecology.

3. The concept and term agricultural melioration are broad in content. Even some of its components are used with the modifier ameliorative—plowing, fertilization. The main types of melioration are drainage (and draining) and irrigation | irrigation.

4. The plural is unnecessarily used (and inconsistently) to refer to the totality of types of melioration.

⁵¹ Ицкович В. А. О словаре новой лингвистической терминологии. — В кн.: Лингвистическая терминология и прикладная топономастика. М., 1964, с. 33.

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5. Melioration also has the Lithuanian equivalent *gerinimas* (“improvement”), but it is not entirely adequate, terminological, or viable.

6. Land reclamation and the usage of its hyponyms drainage, irrigation have functional shortcomings (pleonasms, use of a hypernym instead of hyponyms). The more universal and less precise a term is, the more relevant and frequent it is, and the more usage errors it attracts.

7. Drainage and drainage are not distinguished intrinsically, but only as a result of historical development and traditional usage.

8. Drainage (draining) can be artificial or natural (and natural drainage, runoff, and also dryness). The opposite of natural drainage is recharge (irrigation, and also wetness).

9. A drain is a watercourse for artificial drainage: in English (drain) it can be any kind, whereas in Lithuanian (and Russian) it is only a covered underground conduit. This difference arose because drainage, which spread from England, became established on a wider scale in Lithuania at a time when the predominant type of drainage watercourse was no longer a ditch but an underground pipe (or line of pipes).

10. The narrowing of the meaning of *drainage* is similar: English drainage means any kind of drainage, Lithuanian drenažas means closed underground drainage, while open drainage is simply drainage or ditch drainage (the latter term gives rise to the antonym drainage by drains). The system of generic and specific terms in Lithuanian is complicated and not entirely logical (it contains pleonasms).

11. This gave rise to a genuine paradox: as the meaning of drainage narrowed, the meaning of drain broadened: “drainage conduit (underground)” → “melioration conduit (underground),” e.g., irrigation drain. Alongside this oxymoron, we even find drainage irrigation.

12. This deterioration of the system will disappear when there are no more ditches in melioration. But then the issue will arise of synonymy—or, more precisely, doublets and competition—between drainage and drainage. If ditches are replaced by drains, drainage may prevail. For the same reason, it will also be difficult to get rid of irrigation drains and drainage irrigation. Perfection, once lost, is difficult to regain.

Abbreviations

Agr — Agronomijos pagrindai. — V., 1973.

Armand — Armandas D. Mums ir anūkams. — V., 1967.

Augal — Dereškevičius K., Subačienė A., Tuminas A. Augalininkystė. — V., 1972.

Autekel — Autokeliai ir jų eksploatacija / Red. E. Palšaitis. — V., 1954.

AŽŪŽ — English–Lithuanian Dictionary of Agricultural Terms / Compiled by D. Čeponienė, R. Gelūnienė, J. Kazėnas, R. Kelbauskienė (editor-in-chief). — V., 1977.

Bendr mišk — Kolpikovas M. Bendroji miškininkystė. — K., 1948.

БСЭ₂ XV — Большая Советская Энциклопедия. Изд. 2.—М., т. 15, 1952.

3. 1019

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БСЭ₃ VIII — Большая Советская Энциклопедия. Изд. 3. — М., т. 8, 1972.

BŽ I and II — Russian–Lithuanian Dictionary / Prepared by V. Baronas, V. Galinis. — V., 1967, vols. 1 and 2.

ChŽ — Daukšas K. Chemijos žodynas. — V., 1960.

Dirv mel — Čeičys J. Dirvožemių melioracija. — V., 1951.

Drėk — Diršė A., Ziberskas J. Drėkinimas. — V., 1967.

DŽ₁ — Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos žodynas. — V., 1954.

DŽ₂ — Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos žodynas. — V., 1972.

Эк геогр — Алаев Э. Б. Экономико-географическая терминология. — М., 1977.

Ekspl — Astrauskas J. ir kt. Mašinų-traktorių parko eksploatacija. — V., 1972.

Энц сельхоз сл — Encyclopedic Agricultural Dictionary-Reference Book (Concise). — M., 1959.

Eroz — Visockis O. Dirvožemių erozija. — V., 1971.

Galv — Galvydis J. Kodėl ir kaip žmonės pradėjo tikėti? — V., 1978.

Gelžkel — Aksionovas I., Sujazovas I. Textbook for Studying the Technical Operating Rules of the USSR Railways. — V., 1955.

GeogrŽ — Agapovas S., Sokolovas S., Tichomirovas D. Geografijos žodynas. — K., 1972.

GeolŽ — Gudelis V. Geologijos ir fizinės geografijos terminų žodynas. — V., 1956.

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Gyvul — Gyvulininkystės pagrindai. — V., 1952.

Hidrogeol — Kinderis Z. Hidrogeologija ir gręžyba. — V., 1974.

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LF III — Flora of the Lithuanian SSR. — V., 1961, vol. 3.

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L ir M — Literature and Art.

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3°

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Vas — Šniukas D., Šiekštele A. Žalioji tėviškės vasara. — V., 1977.

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MELIORACIJA, DRENAŽAS, IRIGACIJA: КАЛЬКИ, СИНОНИМЫ И ГИПОНИМЫ (ЧЕРТЫ ИСТОРИИ, СИСТЕМЫ И УПОТРЕБЛЕНИЯ)

S u m m a r y

A study of the rich Lithuanian literature on land improvement and related subjects, as well as terminological and general dictionaries, allows the following brief linguistic conclusions to be drawn:

1. Lithuanian melioracija “land improvement” is an international word, but in some languages other internationalisms are used in its ordinary sense of “fundamental improvement of land” (French bonification, amélioration...), their calques (English betterment...) or entirely different terms (English reclamation, improvement...). All of these are also polysemous. New members are beginning to enter this open system of terms: the third word from the Latin adjective bonus, melior, optimus—optimization—and the antonymic terms deterioration and pejoration.

2. Land improvement is a universal term used in many other fields—linguistics, philosophy, fishing, forestry, climatology and ecology.

3. The concept and term agricultural land improvement has broad content. Even some of its components are used with the modifier “improvement-related”—ploughing and fertilization. The main types of land improvement are drainage (and draining) and irrigation.

4. The plural is unnecessarily used to denote the set of types of land improvement (and not consistently at that).

5. Lithuanian melioracija also has its calque gerinimas “improvement,” but it is not entirely adequate, terminological, or viable.

6. The use of Lithuanian melioracija and its hyponyms sausinimas “drainage” and drenkinimas “irrigation” exhibits functional shortcomings (pleonasms, use of a hypernym instead of hyponyms). The more universal, vague and current a term is, the more errors occur in its use.

7. The distinction between the meanings of drainage and drying is not natural; it is merely historically established and traditionally maintained.

8. Drainage (draining) may be artificial or natural (also runoff). The autonym of natural drainage is recharge (rarely, moistening).

9. A drain is a watercourse of artificial drainage: in English (drain), it may be any kind, while in Lithuanian (and Russian) it is only an underground, covered one. This difference arose because drainage, which spread from England, took root in Lithuania when the predominant type of drainage watercourse was no longer a ditch, but an underground pipe (or line of pipes).

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10. The concept of drainage narrowed in a similar way: English drainage means any kind of land drainage, Lithuanian drenažas means closed subsurface drainage, whereas open drainage is simply sausinimas, “drainage,” or sausinimas grioviais, “drainage by ditches” (the latter term gives rise to the antonym sausinimas drenažu, “drainage by drains”). The system of specific and generic terms in Lithuanian is beset by complications and is not logically impeccable (there is pleonasm).

11. This gives rise to a genuine paradox: the concept of drainage narrows, while the meaning of drain broadens: “a drainage (subsurface) watercourse” → “a (subsurface) land-reclamation watercourse,” e.g., irrigation drain. Alongside this oxymoron, even drainage irrigation occurs.

12. This doubling of the system will disappear when there are no longer ditches in land reclamation. But then the question of synonymy arises, or more precisely, of doublets and competition between drainage and draining. If ditches are replaced with drains, drainage may prevail. For exactly the same reason, it will also be difficult to get rid of irrigation drain and drainage irrigation.