Dėl socialinio termino „rykūnia“ formos

LIETUVIŲ KALBOS SPECIALIOJI LEKSIKA LIETUVIŲ KALBOTYROS KLAUSIMAI, XXII (1983) J. KARACIEJUS ON THE FORM OF THE SOCIAL TERM RYKŪNIA In official documents of old Lithuania written in other languages (Belarusian, Polish, and partly Latin), quite a number of Lithuanian words are found1, and their spelling varies considerably. Consequently, it is not always easy to reconstruct the actual form of a Lithuanian word from the spellings found in these documents. Moreover, some Lithuanian words occurring in these documents are so distorted that at first glance it is even difficult to believe they are Lithuanian. This can readily be seen by looking at K. Jablonskis’s book “Lithuanian Words in the Language of the Chanceries of Old Lithuania” (K., 1941). For example: berel = bėralas is written in the documents as: берела, берала, барела, берла, барла, бярла, бэрла; biero-ta, berta (pp. 2–4); jevja = jauja: еѳ’я, яѳ’я, еѳля, еѳя, явя, е’ѳя, евѳя, еѳня, ягви (nom. dual.); iowia, iawia, jewia, iewia, iownia, jawia, jawgia, iawgia, jowia, jewnia, jownia (pp. 78–84). Thus, when attempting to determine the most authentic possible form of a Lithuanian word found in these documents (especially if it has already receded into the passive lexicon and is no longer used in spoken language), considerable difficulties often arise, since one may “reconstruct” not just one form but several. One such word, relatively common in non-Lithuanian documents and apparently found in Lithuanian documents only in J. Bretkūnas’s Bible (with a changed meaning) and K. Širvydas’s dictionary, but long obsolete in spoken language, has a Lithuanian form that remains unclear to this day: the social term rykūnia. Its spelling varies greatly in old documents written in other languages, while the nominative singular form given in K. Širvydas’s dictionary, rikunia(56)2, also raises doubts. K. Jablonskis, who collected and studied Lithuanian words from old administrative documents written in languages other than Lithuanian, reconstructs the singular form in the aforementioned book as rykūnė3. This form of the social term was also adopted by other historians from K. Jablonskis’s book4. On what grounds K. Jablonskis considered this form the most authentic is difficult to say precisely 1 K. Jablonskis states that in old documents written in languages other than Lithuanian he managed to find 218 common “basic Lithuanian words, and together with derived forms <…> there are about 320.” — See: Jablonskis K. Lithuanian Words in the Language of Official Documents of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Their Significance for the History of Lithuanian Culture and Society. — In: Jablonskis K. Lithuanian Culture and Its Figures. V., 1973, p. 273. 2 Here and below, the numbers following examples taken from K. Širvydas’s dictionary indicate the pages of its third edition. The facsimile edition of this dictionary was used. — In: The First Lithuanian Dictionary. V., 1979. 3 Jablonskis K. Lietuviški žodžiai senosios Lietuvos raštinių kalboje. — K., 1941, d. 1, p. 195. 4 Plg.: Būtenas D. Rykūnė. — Kn.: Iš lietuvių kultūros istorijos. V., 1958, t. 1, p. 243–247; Jurginis J. Lietuvos valstiečių istorija. — V., 1978, p. 33. 124 to say. The most reliable view on this question was set out not long ago by K. Pakalka5, who was the first to question the correctness of the reconstruction of this word. In K. Pakalka’s view, the nominative singular form of this word is not rykūnė but rykūnia or rykūnija6. However, it remains unclear which of these forms should be preferred, because, as already noted, the form rikunia given in K. Širvydas’s dictionary can in fact be reconstructed only as rykūnia or rykūnija, and in no way as rykūnė. Here is why. In the third edition of K. Širvydas’s dictionary, the ending -ė of nouns is most often written -e (≈ 760 times), less often -ie (≈ 42 times), and there is only one example in which the nominative singular is written with -ia in one place and -e in another, although, judging by the Polish and Latin words and their Lithuanian equivalents, this may have been done deliberately; for example: Obecnść | Praesentia. Buvtis | bumena, bukla, p. 229; potomność | potomny czas | Posteritas. potom, bumene, p. 336. It therefore follows naturally that in his dictionary K. Širvydas clearly distinguished the -ė-stem from the -i̯a-stem in writing. It is true that this edition of K. Širvydas’s dictionary contains a relatively large number of nouns ending in -ia. This ending is used in two cases: in some instances it is written in place of -i̯a (≈ 15 times), and in others in place of -ia (≈ 26 times)7. However, -ia = should undoubtedly be read as -i̯a in the following words: abacia 266, adweria 314, ceremonia 236, herežia 91, kanceliar-i-a 94, kanoni-a 95, matmažia 162, materia 124, 411, mumia 182, padwarui 73 (although old documents also contain padvarė), panonia 374, piwania 297, plebonia 285, stacia 420, suplikácia 427, Szalawia 432. It is easy to see from the examples cited that these are mostly words of Slavic origin or words from other languages that entered Lithuanian through Slavic languages8. Alongside these examples, K. Širvydas’s dictionary writes -ia for feminine nouns of the -i̯a-stem: bumenia 229, įbmonia 391, miebkieria 427, minia 36, nuomonia 14, 52, 381, ratušia 374, sumania 353, wiešnia 73, wišnia 481, žinia 2, and so on. Apparently, the -i̯a-stem was more widely used in K. Širvydas’s time than it is today. Since then, some words of this stem class have shifted to the -ė-stem in dialects for phonetic and morphological reasons, as interaction between these two stem classes can still be observed today9. Thus, to determine the most authentic form of this social term, other sources must be sought. The book by K. Jablonskis, mentioned several times already, contains a considerable number of excerpts from old documents in which rykūnia is used. However, in these documents the social term, used in various cases, appears morphologically to have been adapted more to the language of the document and is not an entirely reliable source for reconstructing its most authentic form. For example, documents written in the territories of Vilnius Voivodeship and Ukmergė District contain the following forms: 5 Pakalka K. On the History of Lithuanian Words (rykūnija, rykūnia and rykūnė). — Kalbos kultūra. 1974, fasc. 27, p. 68. 6 Pakalka K. Cited article, pp. 68–69. See also: Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language. V., 1978, vol. II, p. 518. 7 Examples in which -ia is written after e or o (gieradeia 29, nutripintoia 53), and after č or dž (giločia 4, nevedžia 14), are not counted here. 8 Skardžius P. The Slavic Loanwords in Old Lithuanian. — K., 1931, pp. 25, 49, 95, 126, 136, 150, 170, 205, 210. 9 Plačiau žr.: Zinkevičius Z. Lietuvių dialektologija. — V., 1966, p. 223—226. 125 rykūn'ja, rykūn'ja, rykūni, rykūn'jo, rykuni, rykuniey, rykunia; rykūnio, rykū- nia, rykūnini, rykūnia, rykūnia, rykunia, rykuniey, rykunij10. The fact is, this social term occasionally occurs in seventeenth-century Lithuanian oaths. However, even in these the word is written inconsistently, e.g.: Asz Palanya Adamaycia, rykunya pono Iono Purtikos prysiekiu, Upytė (1642)11; Asz Ona Jurgaitia Rykunnia12 Pona Albrychta Pousleyska prysiekiu, Upytė (1651). But these oaths, as is evident from their more authentic publications, were apparently written down by people who did not know Lithuanian very well, since sometimes two separate words are run together as one13. It seems that the most authentic form of this social term can be reconstructed on the basis of Lithuanian linguistic evidence. Apparently, all linguists acknowledge that the nomen agentis rykūnia is etymologically related to the verb rykauti, frequently found in old writings, meaning “to govern, manage, keep house, arrange.” Consequently, from the point of view of word formation, it should not be a very ancient archaism, since we can readily distinguish the root ryk- and the suffix -ūn- (cf. bėgūnas, tekūnas). Therefore, on the basis of K. Širvydas’s form rikunią and recalling that in dialects words with -iā- stems and -ė- stems often shift into one another14, one may suppose that the most authentic form of this social term is rykūnia (cf. viešnia). This reasoning also makes it easy to explain why J. Bretkūnas occasionally used the same word rykūne in the sense of “concubine, Keibsweib.” It should not be forgotten that Lithuanian has several feminine nomina agentis nouns with the suffix -ija: gabija, etc.; a neuter nomen agentis, beprotija, “a silly person, a fool” (LKŽ I² 758); meldija, “one who asks, one who begs” (LKŽ VII 1028); as well as masculine nomina agentis such as medijas, prekejas, etc. But in terms of word formation they all differ considerably from rykūnios: nomina agentis of feminine, neuter, and masculine gender are all formed by adding the suffix -ija directly to the root, not to a derived stem. Of the aforementioned feminine and neuter nomina agentis, the oldest is undoubtedly gabija15, while beprotija and meldija are apparently not very old formations, since, according to P. Skardžius, “generally speaking, we are not inclined to mark nomina agentis with the suffix -ija”16. This claim is partly confirmed by the academic Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language, which lists only two abbreviations—J, Sb—for these words, i.e. both are known only from J. Juška’s dictionary; meldija was also recorded in the Subačius area, although P. Skardžius knew both only from J. Juška’s dictionary17. 10 Jablonskis K. Min. work, vol. 1, pp. 195, 196, 197, 199, 200, 201. 11 Ibid., p. 329. 12 When J. Gerulis published this oath for the second time in 1927, he states that the original had the form rykūnica; its first publisher, J. Spruogis, “read Rykunia; apparently more correctly.” — See Gerulis J. Senieji lietuvių skaitymai. — K., 1927, p. 243, n. 1. — K. Jablonskis adopted this emendation by J. Spruogis as well, without even mentioning it. — See: Jablonskis K. Min. work, p. 203. 13 Cf.: Gerulis J. Min. work, p. 243. 14 Zinkevičius Z. Lietuvių dialektologija. — V., 1966, pp. 223—226. 15 Fraenkel E. Litauisches etymologisches Wörterbuch. — Heidelberg — Göttingen, 1962, Bd. 1, p. 126—127. 16 Skardžius P. Lietuvių kalbos žodžių daryba. — V., 1943, p. 83. 17 Ibid. 126 * Thus, the word’s very formation, together with other linguistic data, would indicate that the most authentic form of this social term is probably rykūnia, rather than rykūnija. Rykūnija, if it was used in Lithuanian at all, probably did not denote the rykūnia herself, but had some other meaning (cf. seniūnija, perkūnija, gyvūnija). Therefore, one should be very, very cautious about using rykūnija as nomen agenti fem., since Lithuanian seems to have not a single noun of such formation among its nomina agentis. Moreover, an analysis of the spelling of nouns with -ė- and -ią- stems in K. Sirvydas’s dictionary shows that neither K. Sirvydas’s writings nor other Lithuanian-language evidence provide any basis for restoring the spelling rykunia as rykūnija. The evidence presented would indicate that the most authentic form of this social term is rykūnia, rather than rykūnė. ON THE FORM OF THE SOCIAL TERM RYKŪNIA Abstract Official documents of the 16th–17th centuries from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, written in Belarusian, Polish, and, in part, Latin, contain many Lithuanian words, most of which are generally various social terms denoting specific features of the state’s political and economic life and long since become historical terms. The spelling (especially the morphological forms) of Lithuanian words found in these documents is highly varied, creating the impression that it depends on the language of the document. It is therefore by no means always clear which morphological form lies behind such varied spellings, particularly when the word is not attested in Lithuanian written sources of that period. One such Lithuanian social term, whose morphological form remains unclear to this day, is rykūnia, “a woman responsible for the household.” Official documents of that period contain the following forms of the word: rykūč’a, rykūnьa, rykūnia, rykūnio, rykūnio, rykūnii; rykūnia, rykūniey, rykūny, rykūnij, and others. In addition, K. Sirvydas’s dictionary has rikunia (nominative singular). K. Jablonskis, an outstanding expert on and researcher of old archives, reconstructed the nominative singular as rykūnė; that is, he thought the word had an -ė- stem. This form of the Lithuanian social term is also used in historians’ works. K. Pakalka was the first to question the validity of this reconstruction. In his view, this old social term can be reconstructed only as follows: rykūnia or rykūnija, and by no means as rykūnė. However, it is not entirely clear which of these two forms should be preferred. In the article, drawing on a statistical analysis of the spelling in K. Sirvydas’s dictionary and on Lithuanian word-formation patterns, the author attempts to show that the word’s genuine form is rykūnia, and that in the 16th–17th centuries this term had an -ā- stem. 127