Dėl sudurtinių daiktavardžių pirmojo sando neutralizacijos

LIETUVIŲ KALBOS LEKSIKOS RAIDA LIETUVOS TSR MOKSLŲ AKADEMIJA ON THE NEUTRALIZATION OF THE FIRST COMPONENT OF COMPOUND NOUNS V. DROTVINAS Compound words in Lithuanian generally arise from word combinations. A word combination very rarely matches the components of a compound word in the forms of its constituent elements: there are very few cases of combination in which the members of a word combination are already fully formed components (cf. cold beet soup >cold-beet-soup1). When members of a word combination become components, their form depends on the structural-semantic type of the compound word. Two methods are used to turn the members of a word combination into components and combine them into a single structurally and semantically new formation: 1) combining components with connecting vowels and 2) combining components without connecting vowels. The origin of the connecting vowel is usually apparent from the origin of the first component². The first component of compound nouns (as of other parts of speech) comprises not only the first connecting stem but also the means by which the two components are joined into a single compound word, i.e. it also includes the connecting vowel³. Thus it is useful to clarify what happens when the members of a word combination become the components of a compound word. School grammars state that a connecting vowel combines two words into one and that, thanks to this combination, we obtain a new formation—a compound word. This is, of course, correct. The function of the method of combining components that first comes to mind is morpholo- 1 The second component of a compound noun more often remains unchanged by the combination, e.g.: piktžolė, cf. žolė. In addition, a word combination differs from a compound word in that the latter has a single stress. 2 For a more detailed account of the formation of compound words with regard to their constituent components and the connecting vowels used, see V. Urbutis, Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos sudurtinių daiktavardžių daryba, “Dabartinė lietuvių kalba”, Vilnius, 1961, p. 65—121; V. Drotvinas, XVI-XVIII a. lietuviškų raštų sudurtinių daiktavardžių daryba dėmenų atžvilgiu, “VVPI Mokslo darbai”, III, 1957, p. 203—220; V. Drotvinas, XVI-XVIII a. lietuviškų raštų sudurtinių daiktavardžių dėmenų jungimo būdai, “VVPI Mokslo darbai”, VIII, 1959, p. 59—90; V. Drotvinas, Lietuvių literatūrinės kalbos sudurtinių būdvardžių struktūriniai-semantiniai tipai (remiantis XVI-XVIII a. raštų medžiaga), “Kalbotyra”, VI, Vilnius, 1963, p. 75—97. 3 The concept of the connecting vowel was first introduced into Lithuanian linguistic scholarship by A. Schleicher; see Litauische Grammatik von August Schleicher, Prag, 1856, p. 132. The means used to join the components of Lithuanian compound words was first named in Lithuanian by K. Būga in 1910, initially calling it “jungiamąja balse”. In his 1911 work “Apie lietuvių asmens vardus”, K. Būga used the term “jungiamojo balsio”. J. Jablonskis also contributed to the adoption of this term; see P. Kriaušaičio ir Rygiškių Jono Lietuvių kalbos gramatika. Etimologija, Vilnius, 1919, p. 186—187. The latter term took root and became established throughout Lithuanian linguistic scholarship. 14* 211 logical, constructive: to join the members of a word combination, as they become components, into a single compound word. However, the use of the connecting vowel (as well as the direct method of combining components) at the juncture of words is by no means limited to this immediate function. Before the components of a prospective formation can be joined, those components must first exist. More specifically, the first component comes into being when, through the juncture (in this case, the connecting vowel), the first member of the word combination acquires a form it did not previously have in Lithuanian. Thus the connecting vowel joins into a single formation not words in the forms they have in the word combination serving as the basis of the compound, but words in forms known only as elements at word boundaries. For example, the forms arkli-, dango-, pigy-, žvaka- are understood not as inflected forms of the corresponding words, but only as the first components of the compound nouns arkli-gonė, dango-raižis, pigy-metis, žvaka-galis. From this it may be concluded that the connecting vowel at the juncture of Lithuanian words also performs another important function, namely, the neutralization, or isolation, of the grammatical meaning of the first component. It should be noted here that the neutralizing function also applies to compound words without a connecting vowel. When components are joined directly, the first component (including cases involving a consonant stem) likewise acquires a grammatically neutralized form, just like components joined with connecting vowels. The degree of grammatical neutralization of the first component of compound nouns varies. It is determined by the diversity of connecting vowels or, more generally, by the varying nature of the first component. Cases of complete and partial grammatical neutralization of the first component are to be distinguished. Compound nouns whose connecting vowel arose by analogy, i.e. is independent of the nature of the first component, exhibit complete grammatical neutralization of the first component, as we saw from the examples arkligonė, dangoraižis, pigymetis, žvakagalis. Nouns with a consonant stem serving as the first component of a compound noun are also completely grammatically neutralized: no case form of this paradigm is used as the first component, and the newly arisen connecting vowel does not itself form a case form either, cf. šun(ia)galvis. Finally, the first component of compound nouns without connecting vowels is also completely neutralized, since forms such as darb- in the word darbdavys do not occur independently in Lithuanian. The first component is only partially neutralized in stem-derived compound nouns. For example, the first component darba- of the noun darbadienis is practically unused in Lithuanian, but this form is an indicator of the inflectional paradigm of the whole word darbas. Incidentally, partially grammatically neutralized first components of compound nouns are very common, since stem-derived compound nouns are far more numerous in contemporary Lithuanian than case-derived ones. What about grammatical neutralization of the first component in cases where it is an inflected form of a nominal? In case-derived compound nouns, the first component is morphologically quite readily understood, and at the same time the word combination serving as the derivational basis of the compound noun itself is easily reconstructed (apart from a few semantically more complex exceptions), cf. darbotvarkė “order of work, arrangement of tasks”, darbovietė “place of work”, kojūgalis “foot end”, rytomiegis “morning sleep”, vargovaikis “a poor person, a person of hardship”. Such a nature- 212 The connecting vowel, as an organic structural part of the word occurring as the first constituent, clearly performs no neutralization function. Thus, if from the perspective of the present-day language the connecting vowel coincides with a case ending, we have no grounds for speaking of grammatical neutralization of the first constituent of such a compound noun. It is easy to understand that in the compound noun arkliaganvs,-ė (and arkliagonis,-ė), the connecting vowel -ia-, as the stem-final vowel of a noun with an ia stem, belongs solely to the first constituent. However, the first constituents of compound nouns such as arklaganas, arklagonė no longer have the stem-final vowels characteristic of nouns with ia stems. Since no case form of the noun arklys has the forms arkla-, arkli-, in nouns of this type the connecting vowel belongs to the first constituent not organically, by virtue of the origin of the first constituent, but only formally, by analogy with formations of a different nature that have one or another vowel in the first constituent. Thus, the connecting vowel within the first constituent is generally of two kinds: inflectional, when it is of stem or case-ending origin, and derivational, when it arises by analogy with other stem-final vowels4. However, the grammatical neutralization function performed by the connecting vowel should not be overstated. For as long as both constituents of a compound noun retain their original structural form—or, in other words, have not yet been affected by de-etymologization—the grammatical significance of the constituents is determined by the very manner in which the words are joined (more precisely, by the whole range of factors that cause a word combination to become a compound word), and not by a single element of the juncture—the connecting vowel. Let us take, for example, two forms of a compound noun: the older sielavartas PS I 106 (incidentally, still in use today in the Eastern Aukštaitian dialect) and the present-day sielvartas. Both the constituent siela and siel- are morphologically frozen, i.e. equally isolated and neutralized. Thus, we encounter here a case in which the first constituent is neutralized despite having no formal, morphemic expression. As we have noted, it is important that its form as it occurs here does not coincide with the form of the word used in the language in practice. Thus, in Lithuanian, grammatical neutralization of first constituents is possible even without a connecting vowel. The grammatical neutralization function of the first constituent is therefore performed by a connecting vowel of various origins; however, when it often drops out, the function is also performed by the very manner in which Lithuanian words (stems) are joined. The first constituent of compound nouns becomes even more neutralized when not only the connecting vowel but also the entire syllable of the first constituent drops out with it; cf. kirvakotis > kirvkotis > kirkotis. Such cases, however, belong to the de-etymologization of compound words and constitute a separate topic, so we will not discuss them here. Having reviewed the functions of the connecting vowel in Lithuanian compound nouns, we see that they are not uniform. They are interdependent and condition one another. Which of these functions is more important at the juncture of words? Undoubtedly, the more important one is the function of grammatical neutralization of the first constituent. This is understandable: the joining of constituents cannot take place until the grammatical neutralization of the first constituent has performed its task, that is, until the first member of the word combination has become the first constituent of a compound word through neutralization. Thus, we can say that the neutralization function is primary and that, in fact, only once it has taken place can the second function—the joining of constituents 4 A connecting vowel of derivational origin, -o-, also occurs, for example, in the compound noun rankogalis, where -o- is a remnant of the suffix -o- (cf. rankovgalis). 213 —can take place. Thus, the joining of constituents follows neutralization and is impossible without grammatical neutralization. An exception is formed by the first constituents of compound nouns derived from case forms: they are not affected by grammatical neutralization, yet the constituents are joined. When the constituents of a compound word are joined directly, the grammatical neutralization function of the first constituent remains. This also makes the function of joining the constituents possible. Thus, here the neutralization function, having zero grammatical expression, seems to merge with the function of joining the constituents. The question of the asemanticity of the connecting vowel is also closely related to the grammatical neutralization function of the first constituent. Linguists do not agree about the functions of the connecting vowel. Some linguists, willingly or unwillingly, ignore the connecting vowel’s grammatical neutralization of the first constituent and assign it only the auxiliary role of joining the two constituents. These linguists hold that the connecting vowel has no semantics in the word and propose treating it as an “asemantic morpheme.” So what is the semantic status of the connecting vowel in Lithuanian compound nouns? This depends on the origin of the connecting vowel. When the connecting vowel is a case ending, we have no grounds for speaking of its asemanticity. To regard a connecting vowel of this origin as an asemantic morpheme would be to regard as asemantic the case endings that express the relations between words in a sentence. However, as we have seen, the origins of connecting vowels in Lithuanian compound nouns are not uniform. Consequently, all connecting vowels that arise by analogy are, naturally, asemantic, although they too perform both the grammatical neutralization function of the first constituent and the function of joining the constituents. The asemanticity of the connecting vowel is indisputable also when a change in or the loss of this vowel has no effect on the meaning of the word. Thus, the asemanticity of the connecting vowel is a fairly pronounced feature of Lithuanian word juncture5. In conclusion, we can draw the following brief conclusions: 1) the connecting vowel is one of the morphological-structural (not phonetic) features of juncture in Lithuanian nouns (and words in general), characterizing the nature of the first constituent of compound words and the way in which the two constituents are joined into a single formation; 2) the connecting vowel (or its absence for certain reasons, i.e. the direct joining of constituents itself) performs two functions at word juncture: a) grammatical neutralization of the first constituent and b) joining the constituents into a single formation; and 3) the semantic status of the connecting vowel is determined by its origin, while the necessity for it to occur as a structural part of the first constituent of a compound word depends both on its origin and on the phonetic laws that affect the compound word as a whole. 5 In other languages, for example German, the loss of the connecting element (usually a consonant) changes the meaning of a compound word, whereas in Russian connecting vowels cannot change, vary, or drop out, as they do in Lithuanian. Compound words without a connecting vowel are very rare in Russian; cf. дурачок, поклонка, ночлег. 214 ON THE QUESTION OF THE NEUTRALIZATION OF THE FIRST COMPONENT OF COMPOUND NOUNS V. DROTVINAS Abstract The article discusses how the form of the first component of compound nouns in Lithuanian often differs from the form of the first constituent of the phrase from which the compound word is formed. The method of compounding also characterizes the nature of the first component. Therefore, compounding in general, and in particular compounding with a connecting vowel, performs not only the “service” function of joining components into a single word, but also the function of grammatical neutralization of the first component. The grammatical nature also determines the semantic status of the connecting vowel, which is usually an asemantic morpheme (except when the connecting vowel is a case ending). The asemantic nature of the connecting vowel is confirmed not only by its nature, but also by such a feature of Lithuanian compound words whereby the connecting vowel may be omitted entirely or replaced by another without any effect on the semantics of the compound word. 215