AXEL HOLVOET, ROLANDAS MIKULSKAS (ED.)

THE NATURE AND EXPRESSION OF GRAMMATICAL FUNCTIONS

Vilnius: Vilniaus universitetas, Asociacija „Academia Salensis“, 2009, 202 (+2) p., ISBN 978-9955-33-466-8 [Acta Salensia 1]

The collection of articles edited by Axel Holvoet and Rolandas Mikulskas fills a gap in theoretical research on contemporary Lithuanian grammar, which arose when the series Studies in Lithuanian Grammar ceased publication in 2006. The articles in the collection are based on papers presented in the theoretical grammar section of a summer school in linguistics held in the summer of 2008 at the manor in Salos village, Rokiškis district. The collection comprises six articles by five authors. They refine and develop the conception of describing the grammatical structure of Lithuanian set out in the volumes of Studies in Lithuanian Grammar. The articles draw on different theoretical frameworks, but are united by their focus on sentence functions and their aim of renewing the methodology of research on contemporary Lithuanian.

In Axel Holvoet’s introductory article, “Argument Hierarchies and Grammatical Functions,” general theory of sentence functions is linked to current problems concerning sentence functions in Lithuanian, and key terms are discussed. In place of the term sentence constituent, customary in Lithuanian linguistics, which is supposedly “too general and ambiguous” (p. 1), the term grammatical function is chosen and used throughout the collection (although it too is not convenient in every respect). The fundamental concepts of predicate, noun phrase, and sentence are discussed, as is the relationship between grammatical functions and semantic and pragmatic functions. Several types of conceptions of grammatical functions are distinguished: some are regarded as primary and non-derived (called “primitive” by the author), while others are derived. The definitions of the latter and the rules for deriving them depend greatly on broader theoretical perspectives. The author then surveys several conceptions of grammatical functions proposed by different schools of theoretical grammar: configurational (represented above all by generative grammar), empirically oriented approaches (Lucien Tesnière’s structural syntax, relational grammar, prototype definitions, those based on the accessibility of noun phrases to syntactic

A. HOLVOET, R. MIKULSKAS. Gramatinių funkcijų prigimtis ir raiška

337

operations (English accessibility) and approaches based on semantic functions. After this brief but highly informative overview of general theory of sentence functions, the discussion returns to Lithuanian linguistics and briefly considers the treatment of sentence functions in earlier works on Lithuanian syntax. Most attention is given to The Grammar of Contemporary Lithuanian. The interrelations between the concepts of syntactic relation and agreement, on which these works base their classification of sentence functions, are critically discussed. The article then pauses to consider the conception of sentence functions presented in the volumes of Studies in Lithuanian Grammar, especially the volume devoted to grammatical functions¹, and highlights its theoretical foundations. The article concludes by raising the most pressing questions in the study of sentence functions: the indirect object, the distribution of subject and object properties, and the distinction between central and peripheral grammatical functions.

Axel Holvoet’s second article, “Diffuse Subjects and Objects,” is closely related not only to the first article but also to the aforementioned volume in the Studies in Lithuanian Grammar series, which is devoted to problems of sentence functions. The article first discusses several disputed cases of genitive-marked subjects (a genitive subject that does not alternate with the nominative and one that does, as well as the latter’s relationship to a more remote object). It then examines similar cases of uncertainty in assigning the direct-object function in a sentence (the direct genitive object, the ambiguity of a genitive quantifier or an independent object, and cases involving a secondary direct object in ditransitive constructions). The status of Lithuanian indirect objects is also raised and examined separately. In addressing it, the article proposes distinguishing primary and secondary (or demoted) objects in cases where object assignment is uncertain—in sentences with a ditransitive structure—and discusses the properties of the latter. Secondary subjects are distinguished correspondingly. The article proposes calling dative-marked subjects that denote arguments of verbs quasi-subjects. For example, in the sentence Jonui pagailo draugo (‘Jonas felt sorry for his friend’), it proposes distinguishing the dative-marked quasi-subject of an intransitive verb, Jonui, and the genitive-marked secondary subject, draugo. The only non-subject verb arguments expressed in the dative, for example the dative in the sentence Jonas padeda savo tėvams (‘Jonas helps his parents’), are called quasi-direct objects. The article contains many new interpretations that are unusual and unexpected in Lithuanian linguistics. They are presented very concisely, often drawing on

¹ Axel Holvoet, Rolandas Mikulskas (eds.). Studies in Grammatical Functions, Vilnius: Institute of the Lithuanian Language, 2005 [Studies in Lithuanian Grammar 3].

338

KALBOS KULTŪRA | 82

typological arguments, and are therefore not always sufficiently clear; in the future, they should be further substantiated and tested.

Kristina Lenartaitė’s article, “Direct Objects and the Question of Ditransitive Constructions in Lithuanian,” examines questions similar to those in A. Holvoet’s article discussed above, but draws on different theoretical foundations and therefore reaches different conclusions. First of all, the article discusses the concept of the direct object and the criteria for identifying it in Lithuanian linguistics. The analysis presented is concise but precise and perceptive. Unlike Vytautas Ambrazas, who once insisted on a strict distinction between the levels of a sentence’s syntactic and semantic structure², the author proposes understanding the object (and sentence functions in general) as a grammatical function encompassing two levels of language analysis—the semantic and the morphosyntactic (expression) (cf. p. 71). Drawing on Sebastian Shaumyan’s applicative grammar, the article proposes identifying direct objects with reference to predicate transitivity, which participates in the process of primary predication and makes it possible to formulate rules of sentence formation. The author distinguishes several levels of predication—a point that connects with the layered semantic structure of the sentence in Simon Dik’s functional grammar, presented in Agnieszka Rembiałkowska’s article. The analysis of the sentence Vaikas gerai valgo košę (‘The child eats porridge well’) gives rise to some doubt (p. 78): the author distinguishes the operand valgo and the result gerai valgo, and the operand košę (rather than valgo košę) and the result gerai valgo košę. The article goes on to explain well the differences between the Anglophone linguistic concept of indirect object (English direct object) and the Lithuanian linguistic concept of indirect complement. Indirect objects in Lithuanian are not examined as thoroughly in the article as direct objects, and this inquiry should be considered preliminary. Nevertheless, the view that there is no need to distinguish ditransitive constructions in Lithuanian is convincing. At the end of the article, several more challenging cases of assigning sentence functions in Lithuanian are examined from different theoretical perspectives. The author answers in the negative the question of whether a predicate can allow two alternative choices of direct object, but this answer does not seem sufficiently substantiated. The author’s approach of grounding the analysis of Lithuanian syntactic phenomena in typological data is to be welcomed.

Although Rolandas Mikulskas’s article, “The Role of Nominal Apposition in the Expression of Secondary Predication,” is presented by the author as a discussion paper concerning the reference and functions of appositional noun phrases with the conjunction kaip (‘as’),

² Cf. Vytautas Ambrazas. “Units of the Syntactic and Semantic Structure of the Lithuanian Sentence.” – Questions in Lithuanian Linguistics 25: Studies in Lithuanian Syntax, 1986, 4–44.

A. HOLVOET, R. MIKULSKAS. Gramatinių funkcijų prigimtis ir raiška 339

However, it examines a much broader problem—the typology of Lithuanian appositions and the interaction of semantics, pragmatics, and syntax. It offers a critique of the traditional understanding of apposition in Lithuanian linguistics and explains the choice of the term *apposition*. Drawing on linguistic works by Western authors, it distinguishes two types of nominal apposition—close and loose—and examines the reference of each, the functions of their constituents and the syntactic relations between them, as well as their classification as sentence constituents. The article is timely and innovative in many respects. The author had to overcome considerable difficulties in rendering English specialist terminology in a Lithuanian text, perhaps which is why the text is difficult to read in places. This article in the collection is particularly closely connected with earlier publications and discussions by the new school of Lithuanian grammar.

Jurgis Pakerys’s article “The Marking of Obligatory Predicatives in Lithuanian Action-Noun Constructions” contains perhaps the fewest theoretical reflections. Using data from the Corpus of the Contemporary Lithuanian Language, it examines competition between the case forms of nominal derivatives in –imas / –ymas that function as subject or object predicatives. It finds that the strategy regarded as standard in the literary language—agreement with the case of the subject or object—is the least common. The predicatives under study are most often expressed in the instrumental, following the pattern of infinitival constructions, or because of a tendency to generalize the instrumental as a special predicative case. The study is methodologically sound, and its conclusions are well supported.

In her article “Free Datives in Lithuanian and Levels of Predication,” Agnieszka Rembiałkowska provides a good overview of earlier and more recent research on the interpretation of free datives in Lithuanian. One must agree with the author that “there is a great need for a comprehensive analysis that, on the one hand, covers all free datives as a morphosyntactic phenomenon and, on the other, differentiates types of free datives not merely on the basis of conventional ‘meanings’” (p. 149). The theoretical foundations for interpreting free datives are then explained: the conception of a layered semantic sentence structure, adopted from Simon Dik’s functional grammar. Finally, the article turns to applying the methodology described to identify types of free datives in Lithuanian. Unfortunately, this part of the article is very brief. The empirical procedures—nine types of tests—are discussed only in passing, and some of them (relativization and licensing) are left wholly unexplained. Examples of how the tests are applied are sorely lacking. Perhaps for this reason, the article has no conclusions, only closing remarks. These state that the types of free datives in Lithuanian

340 KALBOS KULTŪRA | 82

may be associated with different layers of sentence predication. Substantiating and describing this claim in detail remains a task for future research.

One of the most pressing problems facing works of theoretical grammar written in Lithuanian is terminology. The book under review contains many new terms. The indexes of Lithuanian, Latin, and English terms, placed after the combined bibliography for all the articles, help readers locate them. In many cases the terms have been chosen successfully. Some had already been used in earlier works by the same authors. Nevertheless, a number of the proposed equivalents for English terms give cause for doubt.

The term primitive semantic functions (p. 5 et seq.) seems unsuitable because the word primitive has negative connotations in Lithuanian. Might primary, fundamental semantic functions be more appropriate here? For the same reason, the equivalent syntactically downgraded predication for the term downgraded predication does not seem entirely suitable (p. 34). Perhaps lower-level (or lower-rank) predication would work, or, finally, secondary (or subordinate) predication (when speaking of a complex sentence); compare also “downgraded” intransitive subject (p. 63), and so on. The international words kontroliuoti, kontrolė have acquired meanings in Lithuanian that do not fully correspond to the meanings of English to controll, controller, so I would suggest replacing them in expressions such as “[subjective datives] control reflexivization” (p. 61) and “do not show the control of reflexivization characteristic of the aforementioned quasi-subjects” (p. 63). Perhaps in these cases it would suffice to say simply “they can be reflexivized” or “they form reflexive constructions,” and “reflexivization characteristic of quasi-subjects” or “reflexive constructions characteristic of quasi-subjects.” It is awkward Lithuanian to write that a secondary function is “superimposed” on a primary one (p. 81; later, without quotation marks). The English term deputative beneficiary is inaccurately translated in the text as substitute recipient (p. 154); the index corrects the term to substitute beneficiary (p. 199). The proposed equivalent noun hierarchy for Edward Keenan and Bernard Comrie’s term obliqueness hierarchy is far too broad and therefore imprecise (cf. pp. 15, 37), while the direct equivalent (noun) phrase accessibility hierarchy for noun phrase accessibility hierarchy (p. 15) seems to be missing—the concept of accessibility has to be explained (accessibility for various syntactic operations; cf. p. 15). The term experiencer, used throughout the book as the name of a semantic function (or case) (p. 48 and elsewhere), might perhaps be better rendered in Lithuanian linguistics as experient (cf. patient, beneficiary...). The proposed term predicative frames (English frames) (p. 160) is used, yet the singular frame also appears here: in Lithuanian, this noun is used in the sense ‘degree, limits’ only

A. HOLVOET, R. MIKULSKAS. Gramatinių funkcijų prigimtis ir raiška

341

in the plural, so even when referring to a single verb, one should use frames.

In presenting S. Dik’s functional grammar, use was made judiciously of terms previously used by Vitas Labutis in writing about it: some were adopted (e.g., extended predication, English extended predication), while others were refined; for example, core predication was proposed instead of nuclear predication (cf. English core predication), and state of affairs – an elementary situation instead of state of affairs. The terms operators (English operators) and satellites (English satellites) are derived, but the latter is not used subsequently—the direct borrowing satellite suffices. The scope of the Lithuanian equivalents of Kees Hengeveld’s terms (semantic levels) representational and interpersonal plane is left unexplained (p. 160). It was overlooked that all these functional grammar terms were omitted from the index.

The collection of articles is well prepared. Nevertheless, undesirable variation in terminology occurs here too, for example: secondary double function and secondary two-layer function (p. 84). Some terms are inconsistently placed in quotation marks—sometimes with them, sometimes without. Finally, the footnotes (of which there are many in this collection) and page numbers are printed in very small type, making the text difficult to read.

The book The Nature and Expression of Grammatical Functions offers many new ideas to readers interested in theoretical Lithuanian grammar, while its disputatious character encourages debate, the search for new solutions, and the testing and rejection—or renewed substantiation—of earlier ones. This collection of articles sets out to launch a new series of publications devoted to theoretical linguistics, Acta Salensia. One can only hope that the other books in this new series will be just as interesting and of as high a scholarly standard as the one briefly reviewed here.

Received 2009 12 11

ARTŪRAS JUDŽĖNTIS

Institute of the Lithuanian Language

5 P. Vileišio St., LT-10308 Vilnius

[email protected]

342

KALBOS KULTŪRA | 82