LIETUVIŲ KALBOTYROS KLAUSIMAI, III

LIETUVOS TSR MOKSLŲ AKADEMIJA

THE PREDICATIVE IN LITHUANIAN

P. TROST

I. We still have no satisfactory explanation for the loss of the neuter in the Baltic languages. Following Endzelin¹, Vaillant² teaches, for example: The loss of the neuter must be connected with a feature characteristic of the Baltic languages, the complete merger of the third-person singular and plural of verbs; it must have originated from the nominative plural. In a sentence such as Lithuanian vartā ar-siverē, now vartai atsiverē, one could not tell whether vartā was a neuter plural or a feminine singular; the neuter plural had taken on the appearance of a feminine collective in the singular, but with plural masculine inflection in the oblique cases. This led to a twofold normalization: the neuter plural was converted either into a feminine singular, Old Prussian warto, wartin, or into a masculine plural, Lithuanian vartai. So far, Vaillant. This is certainly a case of normalization, but why did it occur here at the time in question? Whether a nominative form was a feminine singular or a neuter plural depended on the paradigm class of the word concerned. The form was a neuter plural if that word had a neuter singular.

The loss of the neuter occurred in historical times in several Indo-European languages, while many others have preserved the neuter to this day³. The homonymy of the endings therefore cannot be considered a satisfactory explanation for the loss of the neuter, since it did not lead to homonymy from the point of view of the word as a whole.

II. After the neuter had disappeared from nouns, the singular neuter form remained in Lithuanian, apart from the demonstrative pronoun, with adjectives and all participles that can be used predicatively. This form is now used exclusively in a predicative function, and is therefore called the predicative here. The adjectival

¹ J. Rozwadowski, Symbolae grammaticae, 1, S. 11 f., Warszawa, 1928.

² A. Vaillant, Grammaire comparée des langues slaves, 2, S. 15 f., Lyon, 1958.

Regarding the loss of the neuter in so-called Lithuanian Yiddish, all that can be said is that an explanation based on Lithuanian language influence is doubtful in view of the cultural-historical circumstances and the absence of other established Lithuanian influences on Yiddish.³

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and the participial predicative occurs both in one-member sentences, i.e. without a nominative subject, and in two-member sentences, i.e. with a nominative subject.

In Lithuanian, finite verbal sentences—at any rate, all two-member ones—can in principle be transformed into participial sentences. This can be done throughout in both the active and the passive. Sentences with m- and t-participles, or the participles themselves, are considered passive. Passive participles are formed from both transitive and intransitive verbs, and the transformation of a finite verbal sentence into a participial sentence proceeds consistently. That is, if the verb is transitive, in the transformation the nominative becomes genitive and the accusative becomes nominative; if the verb is intransitive, the nominative likewise becomes genitive, while there is no accusative. The active participles agree, but when a nominative subject is present, the passive ones may exhibit the incongruent predicative form. The question arises as to what purpose the two kinds of participial sentences and the incongruent predicative forms in two-member sentences serve.

There is no doubt that the active participles serve as the modus relativus and that the m- and t-participles of transitive verbs serve as the passive. Problematic, by contrast, are the m- and t-participles of intransitive verbs, which cannot semantically be regarded as passive, as well as the incongruent forms of those same participles from transitive verbs, which must semantically be regarded as passive. Jablonskis had also presented the incongruence of the m- and t-participles as a means of marking indirect speech, and, moreover, as expressing “not merely a fact, but rather the discovery of a fact”⁴. But he was not very clear and ultimately had to admit that incongruence also occurs in direct speech, and indeed wherever it should not occur.

When a language has an active and a passive, the use of one or the other in any particular case cannot be justified. The range of use of the passive is broader in Lithuanian than in other languages, because intransitive verbs, too, form passive participles. Their semantics needs to be clarified. Sentences with m- and t-participles of intransitive verbs have, at least in part, an impersonal character. How do impersonal and passive character relate to one another? The passive indicates that in the given sentence the nominative subject is the passive pole (the goal, not the point of departure) of an action. Semantically, one can speak of the passive only when a nominative subject is present. Passive and impersonal character occur together when the agent is not mentioned in the passive. But, as in other languages, in Lithuanian too the agent can be mentioned alongside the passive; however, it is expressed in the genitive rather than the nominative, i.e. not at the center of the sentence but in a peripheral position. This results in sentences of a relatively impersonal character. All sentences with m- and t-participles, whether or not they have passive character, are impersonal or relatively impersonal in character.

⁴ J. Jablonskis, Rinktiniai raštai, 1, pp. 465 ff., Vilnius, 1957.

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Lithuanian uses a passive of intransitive verbs, just as other languages do, e.g. Latin ivur as in agitur, New High German es wird aufgestanden as in die Sache wird gemacht, but what is distinctive here is the generalization of the sentence type that is relatively impersonal without passive character, as well as the incongruences in sentences of passive character. Whereas there the peculiarity of the sentence is given by the peripheral position of the agent, here it is given by the formal independence of the predicate. Both types contrast with the “normal” sentence model, characterized by the co-dominance of nominative subject and predicate⁵. Incongruence ensures an expression of action, as opposed to the expression of property and state. It is consistent with this that incongruence usually occurs together with the mention of the agent.

III. Not all adjectives are used in the predicative form; rather, relatively few are, subject to formal and semantic restrictions. These are adjectives that express an attitude rather than properties of objects; they are adjectives that allow what is called a dative subject. Adjectives in the predicative form occur in one-member and two-member sentences; they occur on their own with an infinitive and also together with a nominative that is added to the infinitive. For example, sunku pasakyti and šienas sunku piauti. — Here the same incongruence is found as with m- and t-participles in semantically passive sentences. In this way, feelings and evaluations are distinguished from the assertion of properties.

IV. Is the development of the distinctive Lithuanian sentence types attributable to the existence of the predicative form? Or, conversely, does the predicative form exist because of these sentence types? Were these sentence types inherited from an earlier period, or are they bound to the distinctive type of Lithuanian?

The distinctive character of Lithuanian lies not only in the elaboration of one-member sentences, but also in the existence of a type between the one-member and two-member sentence. In detail and as a whole, the following types are involved: 1. Alus gardu. 2. Šienas sunku piauti. 3. Mūsų šalyje žmonių dirbama ir norima dirbti. 4. Kieno čia būtų? 5. Senų miškai mylėta.

Some of these types are also found in other languages, where the Lithuanian predicative form corresponds to the singular neuter form from which the predicative originated: 1. Greek (Homeric) οὐκ ἀγαθὸν πολυκοιρανίη; Russian (17th c.) ерѣхъ сладко и человѣкъ падко. 2. Old Irish uisse in boill do ass on chiunn “it is right that the limbs grow on the head”; ⁶ Polish poloneza czas zaczac. 3. Old High German iz ist geschrieben fona thir. Types 4 and 5 can scarcely be attested in other Indo-European languages; they are connected with type 3. Types 3 to 5 are jointly based on an impersonal verbal form, which is formed from all verbs and can be used both passively and non-passively. It is impersonal insofar as the agent, if mentioned at all in the sentence, appears in a peripheral position. Only the process is at the center.

⁵ Cf. A. Ozols, Zinātniskie raksti, Latvijas Valsts Universitāte, vol. XVI, scr. II, pp. 17 ff., 1957.

⁶ H. Lewis – H. Pedersen, A Concise Comparative Celtic Grammar, § 457,2, Göttingen, 1957.

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Types 1 to 3 were the prerequisite for the development of the others. Stripped of agreement and nominal character, the predicative form was reinterpreted as a paradigmatic impersonal verbal form. The impersonal mode of expression was merged with the passive. There is no difference between personal and impersonal modes of expression other than a stylistic one; the use of one or the other cannot be justified in every individual case. It is evident that the expansion of the impersonal mode of expression was not brought about by the development of thought at a particular stage.