Dėl „sekančio“ klausimo

D I S C U S S I O N S DAINIUS RAZAUSKAS Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore ON THE FOLLOWING QUESTION to my son Daugilas, who prompted me to examine this question more thoroughly This essay came about as I tried to make sense of the acceptable and unacceptable meanings of the participle sekantis, and of its permitted and impermissible usage. Although I am not a professional linguist, I presume to have some right to this—to attempting to understand matters of my mother tongue. All the more so since I first tried to understand them by turning to linguists, and only later, perhaps partly out of despair, dared to think about the matter myself. Let those who understand the subject far better judge these attempts of mine as harshly as they wish; for some reason I cannot fathom, they did not deign to explain it. Was it not the first to consistently correct the use of the participle following that patriarch of our standard language, Jonas Jablonskis1, did? For example: The performance has been postponed to the n e x t (= f o l l o w i n g) Saturday; The n e x t congress is scheduled for two years later in Moscow, corrected to: The following congress is scheduled for two years from now in Moscow; I can advise a farmer to treat sick pigs in the f o l l o w i n g way, corrected to: Treat the pigs in t h i s way…; (One must) rub the whole pig with the f o l l o w i n g solution, corrected to: The pig should be rubbed with t h i s solution… (Jablonskis 1935: 107, 179; 1936: 159, 161; 1959: 108, 184, 448, 450). And by way of summary: “Following, next = 1) another, 2) this, that. Examples: 1) the next meeting (not: the following meeting) will be on Wednesday; these people (not: the following people) were killed.” 1 I would like to thank Dr. Pranas Kniūkšta for advising me to consult J. Jablonskis’s prewar writings, instructing me to make use of the Language Culture indexes, pointing me to the essay by Mantas Adomėnas mentioned below, offering some valuable substantive comments, and simply showing goodwill. 224 KALBOS KULTŪRA | 81 “For this purpose, I tend to use these ordinary words of our language: 1) following in sequence now (abbr., next) meeting will be this Wednesday; 2) killed (shot, murdered, executed...) were these people from Burbulai: Antanas, Jonas, and Petras. I would by no means want to say in these words of mine that the words following, next are not to be used in the language, or that they are always to be corrected: these two words of our language are unsuitable only when there is no reason to use them...; they (following, next) should be corrected only where the writer has used them in an inhuman way” (Jablonskis 1936: 202). After Jonas Jablonskis came another great Lithuanian language standardizer and purist, Juozas Balčikonis. His correction worth mentioning first is: Per s e k a n č i ą (= kitą...) savaitę įvykiai gerokai apibuko. He explains this correction as follows: “E. Viskanta wants to leave uncorrected ‘sekančią dieną, sekančią savaitę, sekančią pamoką’, because, he says, this is required by ‘linguistic precision’. But what sort of precision can there be if we give words in our language a meaning they do not have! Do we say: ‘Which day seka tomorrow?’ ‘Which month seka after that?’ ‘Which lesson seka now?’ If we do not use it that way, then we cannot use “sekančią dieną”, “sekantį mėnesį”, “sekančią pamoką” either. For this purpose we have: “kitą dieną”, “kitą mėnesį”, “kitą pamoką”, “ateinančią savaitę”, “ateinantį mėnesį” (cf. “What is the name of the month that ateina?”), “ateinančiais metais”. If I say “ateinančią savaitę važiuoju į sodžių” [“I’m going to the countryside next week”], “ateinančiais metais gyvensiu mieste” [“I’ll live in the city next year”], could anyone still be unsure what I mean?” Here are a few more of his corrections: susitardavo, kur ir kada sekantį (= kitą) kartą sueiti; (bitė) palypėjo žemyn prie sekančio (= kito) žiedo; dar sekančią (= kitą) dieną dvidešimt vyrų... turi stoti į dvarą; sekančių (= kitų) metų pavasarį barkūnas buvo patręštas (Balčikonis 1978: 145, 155–156, 225, 288, 292, 307). Later workers in our language also follow in the footsteps of its great figures, though not all of them. We will briefly review the principal opinions expressed. Nijolė Sližienė writes: “When asked to suggest people for the honorary presidium, we sometimes hear: garbės prezidiumą siūlome šios sudėties or sekančios sudėties and even garbės prezidiumą siūlome sekančiai. These expressions, too, are literal translations. The participle sekančios is especially objectionable here, being used in place of the pronouns šios, šitokios, tokios, while the adverb sekančiai is entirely unacceptable in these cases. One should say: į garbės prezidiumą siūlome... (or į garbės prezidiumą siūlome šiuos draugus...)” (Sližienė 1969: 18). Kazys Ulvydas states: “It must be said that the verb sekti and its derivatives are very often used inappropriately, especially in the speech of intellectuals. Here are some concrete errors in the use of this verb and its derivatives: D. RAZAUSKAS. Dėl sekančio klausimo 225 It s e k a follows from this that they will not come to help; In view of the material set out above, s e k a …; This shows s e k a n t į; The Commission states (notes) s e k a n t į; Below (further on) s e k a the signatures; We see this from the s e k a n č i o s table; The work is distributed s e k a n č i a i. Such use of the verb sekti and its derivatives is un-Lithuanian. It is nothing other than a poor translation of the German verb folgen and its derivatives, or the Russian следовать and its derivatives. In Lithuanian one can say only this: What follows from this? It follows from this that they will not come to help; The material set out earlier shows the following; This shows the following; The Commission states (notes) the following; Below (further on) come the signatures; We see this from this table; The work is distributed as follows” (Ulvydas 1972: 25–26). Klementina Vosyl ytė’s article “The meanings of the verb sekti” is worth noting. Having emphasized that the verb sekti is polysemous and listed its meanings, the linguist adds: “Besides the meanings listed, the verb sėkti (sėka, sėkė) is also used in written texts with the following meanings: 1) ‘to come, occur, or take place immediately after something’, e.g.: po poliklinikos s e k d a v o (= būdavo, prasidėdavo) vizitai pas ligonius į namus; 2) ‘to follow from, become clear, be evident’, e.g.: Iš to s e k ė (= išaiškėjo) išvada, kad valstietis niekada neper­siims teisinga pažiūra į gamtą. The verb sekti is not to be used with these meanings, since they are foreign meanings. The inadmissibility of these meanings has already been discussed in earlier issues of ‘Kalbos kultūra’. The participle sėkantis, -i is likewise inadmissible in the sense ‘this, such’, e.g.: The range of questions raised is s e k a n t i s (= toks); The order of the work is s e k a n t i (= tokia).” However, the participle sėkantis, -i in the sense ‘which comes after something, next’ is acceptable in Lithuanian. This is also sanctioned by the Dictionary of Contemporary Lithuanian (both editions), e.g.: S e k a n t i s laikraščio numeris; Išlipsim s e k a n č i o j e stotelėje”. The following are three examples from LKŽ, one of them by Donelaitis: Therefore each one must take care... that each day, having eaten his fill, should not forget to provide for the following day as well. And the explanation is given: “The words kitas, ateinantis, tolesnis proposed for this purpose may cause confusion or make the thought unclear. Nevertheless, when the words kitas, ateinantis, tolesnis express perfectly what sekantis does, they should be used. For instance, the sentence K i t ą vasarą atostogausiu pajūryje (‘I’ll spend next summer on the coast’) is perfectly clear and understandable, so there is no need to say S e k a n č i ą vasarą atostogausiu pajūryje” (Vosyl ytė 1978: 50; examples see LKŽ XII 318). Again, K. Ulvydas, but now more precisely and clearly: “Likewise, one should not correct the word sekantis when it is used in the sense ‘which comes after something’. ‘The Dictionary of Contemporary Lithuanian 226 KALBOS KULTŪRA | 81 In the Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language, the following meaning of the word sekantis is confirmed as standard, and examples are given: The next issue of the newspaper; We’ll get off at the next stop. There is no reason not to recognize this meaning. In other cases, however, the word sekantis is simply unacceptable. For example, the expressions This is shown by the following table; The composition of the Commission is as follows should be corrected as follows: This is shown by this table; The composition of the Commission is as follows” (Ulvydas 1986: 6). Of course, we must not fail to mention the Practical Advice on Language Use compiled by Aldonas Pupkis (hereafter KPP), which also states that the verb sekti “is not to be used in the sense ‘to be, to come immediately after something’: What follows (= What comes, what is) immediately after winter? Signatures follow (= come, are) below. There followed (= There were) two accurate strikes (Then, further on – two accurate strikes). Further on follows (Further on comes, is; Further on –) information about the leading workers at the Vilnius drill factory.” As for the participle sekantis, it is said not to be used with the meanings: 1. this, such (before a list): The following (= these) exhibitions are now on in Vilnius. The collective made the following (= these, such) commitments. We need the following (= such) specialists. A commission of the following composition has been formed (= a commission of this composition). We get the following (= these, such) equations. The following (= such; better: Children are recommended to sleep this much) duration of sleep is suggested for children. Treatment can be carried out in the following (this, such) way; 2. here is what, here is why (before an explanation): In reply to your letter, I inform you as follows (= I inform you of this; I inform you). This shows the following (= this). The decision was upheld for the following (= for these reasons, grounds; that is why; because...). It is, however, used as follows: Following the wolf’s tracks, the hunter looked around. The people following him stopped” (KPP 256–257). Finally, a resolution of the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language establishes that the word sekantis,-i is not to be used with the meanings: 1. “this, such” (before a list): The following (= these, such) exhibitions are currently on in Vilnius: [...]; 2. “here is what; here is why” (before an explanation): In reply to your letter, I inform you as follows (= here is what):... (LKKN 145). I do not claim to have presented all linguists’ opinions on this question; perhaps I have overlooked something, but even from what has been said, it is clear—there may indeed be a certain contradiction or disagreement, but in fact what we see is a lack of consistency and precision, or even a (partly) conscious omission. For now, let us confine ourselves to a single question: is the meaning of the verb sekti “to come after (something)” acceptable or not, and consequently, is the meaning of the participle sekantis “coming after” or “one who comes after” acceptable or not? D. RAZAUSKAS. Dėl sekančio klausimo 227 J. Jablonskis emphasizes that the word sekantis is not generally unacceptable—it is unacceptable only “without any need,” “unnaturally”; however, some of the examples he corrected (The performance has been postponed until the following (= next) Saturday; the next meeting (not: the following meeting) will be on Wednesday) show that he also regarded the meaning “coming after” as “unnatural.” J. Jablonskis says nothing about the verb sekti itself meaning “to come after” (Jablonskis 1935: 107; 1936: 202). J. Balčikonis rejects this meaning of the verb and on that basis rejects the corresponding meaning of the participle (“Do we really say: ‘What day comes seka tomorrow?’... If we do not use that, then we cannot use ‘the following day’ either...”; see p. 225), and, among other things, suggests the verb ateiti and the participle ateinantis instead (Balčikonis 1978: 155–156). In K. Vosyl y tė’s view, the verb sekti is not used in the sense “to come, be, or take place immediately after something,” “but the participle sekantis, -i ‘which comes after something, next’ is used in Lithuanian”; this is also recognized in both editions of the Dictionary of Contemporary Lithuanian. She also provides examples from our classics, thereby confirming that the tradition of using the word sekantis in this sense is quite old. Indeed, “the words suggested for this purpose—kitas, ateinantis, tolesnis—may cause confusion or make the meaning unclear,” since kitas is a much broader concept than merely “next, immediately following.” And yet, for some reason, “there is no need to say I will spend the following summer at the seaside”—is this a tribute paid to the authorities? (Vosyl y tė 1978: 50). According to K. Ulvydas, it is likewise “inappropriate to correct the word sekantis when it is used in the sense ‘which comes after something,’ since ‘there is no reason not to recognize this meaning’” (Ulvydas 1986: 6). KPP likewise advises that the verb sekti is not to be used in the sense “to be, to come immediately after something” (KPP 257), but it evades addressing the corresponding use of the participle sekantis: it is simply left unmentioned—there is no reference to it, either directly or by way of an example. Unfortunately, the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language did exactly the same. Was it perhaps hoped that no one would notice? It may also be added that in the comprehensive Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language (LKŽ XII 338–339), the first meaning of the verb sekti is defined as “to go, proceed behind, following close on,” while the second, “to be or occur immediately after something,” is marked as a Slavicism and thus not recommended. In turn, the Dictionary of Contemporary Lithuanian (DLKŽ) gives only the meaning “to go, proceed behind” for the verb sekti. The participle sekantis from the third 228 KALBOS KULTŪRA | 81 leidimo (1993) apibūdintas kaip nevartotinas reikšmėmis „kitas 3“ („ateinantis, tolesnis“) ir „šis 1“ („tas, šitas (rodant laiko ar erdvės atžvilgiu artimą asmenį ar daiktą)“, bet nieko nepasakyta apie reikšmę „kitas 4“ („einantis po šito“), pvz.: Ar lipsite kitoje stotelėje? Vadinasi, pastarąja reikšme dalyvis sekantis nėra nevartotinas, vengtinas? Ir paklausti Ar lipsite s e k a n č i o j e stotelėje? nėra jokia kalbos klaida? O jei taip, tai kodėl jis šia reikšme iš visur – ir pirmiausia iš visuomeninio transporto pranešimų – guite išguitas? Since linguists, as it appears, are not helping us make sense of this question, I will try to consider it myself, using my own judgment. I will try to do this in several steps: f i r s t, compare the two meanings of the verb sekti mentioned above, the one that is recommended and the one that is not; s e c o n d, look indirectly at the meanings of the verb sekti, through some of its derivatives, familiar and unquestionably acceptable words from the same root; t h i r d, discuss the act of sekimo itself, as following behind, from the standpoint of logic; f o u r t h, see how corresponding words are used in other languages. I will therefore call my arguments, albeit provisionally, semantic, lexical, logical, and typological. 1) S E M A N T I C A R G U M E N T The main meaning of the verb sekti is defined as “to go, travel along behind” (DLKŽ), “to go, travel behind, in someone’s wake” (LKŽ XII 338); the second, non-recommended meaning—as “to be, occur immediately after something” (LKŽ XII 339), “to be, come immediately after something” (KPP 257), “to go, be, occur immediately after something” (Vosilytė 1978: 50). It is striking that the definitions do not essentially differ. True, in defining the first meaning, “to be” is never used; “to go” is given first. But in defining the second, “to go” is also included (once even in first place). Yet is “to be immediately after something” different from “to go immediately after something”? The most obvious apparent difference is that the action in the first meaning takes place “behind, in someone’s wake,” whereas in the second it takes place “immediately after.” Unfortunately, the difference is only apparent, since the preposition po here denotes, according to the DLKŽ definition, “the s e q u e n c e of place or time”; in turn, nuoseklus, according to the LKŽ definition, means “o n e f o l l o w i n g a n o t h e r, occurring,” that is, “following”; but (from nuo)seklus is precisely what seka (for the relation between the words themselves, see the lexical argument below). Thus “to go after” = “to follow” = “to go behind, in someone’s wake.” One might expect that these two meanings are simply defined poorly, but are otherwise clearly distinguished by the appropriate and inappropriate examples provided. However, among D. RAZAUSKAS. Dėl sekančio klausimo 229 Among the appropriate, impeccable examples LKŽ gives for the first meaning of the verb sekti (figurative, to be sure), there are also the following: Ancient words followed (explanation: they were inherited, passed from mouth to mouth) and have come down to the present day (Antašavà, Kupiškis district). Misfortune follows misfortune (written sources); ...he tells the apostles of the troubles that will follow them (explanation: which they will experience), J. Bretkūnas’s Postilė (would it not be the same to say “which will come after that”?); Misfortunes sometimes come quite unexpectedly, and usually they follow one another (A. Vienuolis). Examples in LKŽ of the second, non-recommended meaning are few and unclear, making it impossible to draw any conclusions from them: After the outpatient clinic, home visits to patients followed; The end follows the laying to rest (LKŽ XII 338–339). But if one misfortune can follow another, and one hardship another, why could joy not follow joy, happiness follow happiness, and, in general, one neutral event follow another, or simply one time follow another sekti? So, too, one meeting follow another, one session another, one (newly published) newspaper issue follow the (previously published) issue, and so on sekti? On what basis are some examples distinguished from analogous ones and deemed unacceptable? What, after all, is the basis for distinguishing the first, primary (only figurative), and the second, non-recommended meanings of the verb sekti? Unfortunately, I have been unable to discern any real basis. 2) LEXICAL ARGUMENT Let us look at what some other Lithuanian words of unquestionably legitimate usage indirectly attest to—the derivatives of the verb sekti. One of them has already been mentioned: the root adjective of the verb sekti, nuoseklūs, meaning “following one another, one after another; occurring or being done in sequence,” as well as “doing something systematically, in order”; there is also the adverb nuosekliai, for example: He learns his lessons well, but cannot set out his thoughts systematically for others (LKŽ VIII 953). If thoughts can be set out nuosekliai, then they form a seka, in other words, they seka one another. Any things that can be nuoseklūs can be so only because they seka one another. Since the adjective is derived from the verb, and not vice versa, nuoseklus has this meaning only because the corresponding sense—“to go, occur, or be done one after another, in sequence”—belongs, or at least once belonged, and may legitimately belong to the verb sekti. Otherwise, as Mantas Adomėnas aptly wrote, “if we are to be consistent, we should probably give up consistency as well” (Adomėnas 1995: 4). 230 KALBOS KULTŪRA | 81 The other derivative of the verb sekti just mentioned—the noun sekà—means “the succession of events, phenomena, or things, one after another” (LKŽ XII 318), that is, once again, “going after.” It may be a neologism coined a century or so ago, but it too attests that the verb sekti from which it was formed had the meaning “for events, phenomena, or things to go one after another.” If there can be a sequence of thoughts, words, sentences, paragraphs, pages, as well as poles, stops, and so on, and ultimately of wholly abstract numbers, then they seka one another (similarly, they can have an eilė, or “order,” only because they = one after another eina). Words sharing the root of the verb sekti also include the preposition paskui, “behind, in pursuit,” the adverb pãskui, “behind” (cf. also its forms pasekomìs, pãseku, and so on), and the adverbs paskuĩ, paskiaũ, meaning “then, once the preceding action has been performed (marking actions occurring one after another in sequence)” or “after some time, later” (LKŽ IX 462, 463, 481, 490–491). The latter clearly evokes “going behind” not in space but in time, and defines one action in relation to an earlier one as “occurring after,” essentially “going after.” Since this adverb is derived from the verb, and not vice versa, its meaning rests on the corresponding meaning of the verb; that is, the verb sekti can describe not only “going behind” in space, but also “going after” in time (see argument 3 on the latter). In turn, the adjective paskutinis (and pãskutinis) is derived from the adverb. Its primary meaning is “that after which there are no more of the same kind of things or phenomena; occurring at the end of a series of things or phenomena, final, ultimate” (LKŽ IX 498). There is no need even to give examples of its use: everyone knows that there can be a paskutinė valanda (last hour), a paskutinė diena (last day), a paskutinė vakarienė, paskutinis šokis, paskutinis žodis (last supper, last dance, last word), and whatever else one likes. It is the thing that seka (“follows”) all the others that came before it. (Incidentally, Russian has an adjective послед-ний, “last,” formed in precisely the same way from the verb следовать, “to follow”; surely this has not become a pretext for restricting the use of the Lithuanian word paskutinis!) Finally, the word paskesnis, “coming afterward, later,” is a synonym of sekančio; no one disputes its second meaning either, “being or coming after something (in a sequence)” (LKŽ IX 481). This means that the verb sekti, from which this adjective was formed, also had and may have the corresponding meaning “to be or come after something” (precisely the meaning denied to it!), and that the participle sekantis may be used to mean “being or coming after something.” (Incidentally, why have linguists not proposed replacing sekančio with paskesnis?) D. RAZAUSKAS. Dėl sekančio klausimo 231 On the basis of the words reviewed, it follows that a thought, word, sentence, paragraph, page, as well as an hour, day, month, supper, dance, pole, stop, and so on, can all quite correctly be sekantis, -i. 3) LOGICAL ARGUMENT The primary meaning of the verb sekti is “to go behind, to follow.” But eiti (“to go”) can refer not only to space but also to time, as attested by Lithuanian words such as at-eitis (“future”) and pra-eitis (“past”), and confirmed by linguists’ proposal (albeit an unfounded one) to replace sekančią dieną (“the following day”) specifically with ateinančia diena (“the coming day”). And since eiti (“to go”) can be used in a temporal sense, so can sekti (“to follow”), as is clearly shown by the aforementioned pre-action forms paskui, paskiau (“after, afterward”). J. Balčikonis, invoking as an example in his critique the question “Which month seka? (‘follows’)?”, was inconsistent in this respect. In general, we perceive movement in two ways: as our own (the observer’s) movement in relation to stationary objects in the surroundings, or as the movement of objects in the surroundings in relation to us (the observer)—whether the observer is standing on the ground while something passes by, or is standing, for example, on a bus while roadside poles rush past outside the window. The same applies to movement in the temporal sense, or to time itself passing. When the observer moves in relation to time, the praeitis (“past”) is what he has already praeita (“passed”), while the ateitis (“future”) is where he will ateis (“arrive”) (spatial metaphors when speaking about time are not only characteristic, but altogether unavoidable). On the other hand, when time passes by a stationary observer, the praeitis (“past”) is what has already praėjo (“passed”), while the ateitis (“future”) is what ateina (“comes”). This distinction is expressed perfectly well in the language, for example: p r a e i t a diena, p r a e i t i metai ir p r a e j u s i diena, p r a e j ę metai. In this way, the primary spatial meaning of the verb sekti, “to go behind,” can readily be transferred to time. In the first case, I seku what eina (“goes”) ahead of me—in other words, what first crosses the present moment before me; and since I, as an observer, am always in the present, I always seku what has just praėjo (“passed”). It is precisely this view of time that underlies the concept of a sekėjo (“follower”): although a follower does not follow everyone (or, in this sense, not everyone), he nevertheless necessarily follows the one who went first, who has already passed. In the second case, which is more relevant to us this time, the future seka the past. In other words, any future event that comes after another seka it, that is, “goes behind it,” or “comes after it.” Sometimes, incidentally, an event comes at once in both time and space—as, for example, an approaching cloud and the rain from it; and if another follows it, the latter certainly seka the former in the literal sense of the verb (and therefore the cloud approaching behind it, and with it the rain, is precisely sekantis). In fact, 232 KALBOS KULTŪRA | 81 Time is measured only by events in space, and no other way. If so, then it can also be put abstractly: if event A occurs earlier than event B, then the latter occurs after, that is, follows event A (i.e., comes after it), and therefore event B follows event A. Suppose event A is one day, and event B is the next day, immediately following it; then day B is the next day after A, and if day A is today, then tomorrow is simply next. The same, naturally, applies to a week, a month, or a year. Or suppose event A is the trolleybus stopping at the Sapiegų stop as an observer rides along Antakalnio Street toward the city, while event B is the same trolleybus's subsequent stop at the Menų gimnazijos stop: the Menų gimnazijos stop follows the Sapiegų stop and is therefore the next2. Similarly, if event A is the reading of one page of a book by a reader, and event B is the reader's reading of the next page, immediately following it, then the latter page—in temporal terms!—really does follow the first, and is therefore the one following it, or simply the next page. The same, naturally, applies to a paragraph, a line, and a word. Logic might ask us to correct the expression next after (what), proposing following (what) in its place. For example, the next word is, of course, the first after the one uttered, but it is next to it, not following after it. But neither other nor coming word following can logically stand in for it in any way; and when sometimes “it is clear to the listener what is being talked about,” as J. Balčikonis expected, that is rather the listener's credit—they are being made to “understand what is being talked about.” In any case, other means any one that is “not this one”; if among all the others it happens to be “the next,” that is merely accidental and not necessarily so, depending solely on context. Coming means any one of those approaching (for example, one of the coming days is the day after tomorrow), although in a particular case it may, of course, also be the next (tomorrow), but again not necessarily so, and rather according to context (likewise subsequent). Well, one could say that language does not necessarily have to obey logic, or that language has “its own logic.” Nevertheless, language and logic are inseparable, and there is all the less reason to set them against each other when language itself does not require it. 2 It is encouraging (but also disappointing—are we really talking to a brick wall?) that Mantas Adomėnas was thinking along very similar lines more than a decade ago. I read his words after I had essentially finished writing my essay: “The word sekantis is now permitted only when someone follows someone or something. Yet that is exactly what it looks like when you are riding a trolleybus: one stop follows another; language perfectly reflects the experience of the person who is r i d i n g. Indeed, as Drazdauskas has observed, linguists’ practice rests on one unreflected positivist assumption: that there exists an ‘objective’ reality in which stops ‘stand’ in place, while the observer moves from one to another. Perhaps soon it will no longer be permitted even to say ‘the sun rises’ and ‘the sun sets’? For in ‘objective reality’ it is not the sun that ‘rises’ and ‘sets’; rather, we revolve around it and around the Earth’s axis! Is not all speech, first and foremost, metaphor [...]?” (Adomėnas 1995: 3) D. RAZAUSKAS. Dėl sekančio klausimo 233 4) TYPOLOGICAL ARGUMENT J. Balčikonis has emphasized: “What other languages have, we may not have, and conversely—what we have, other languages may not have. [...] We may use only what our language permits, rather than take examples for our usage from other languages” (Balčikonis 1978: 155). But examples in other languages corresponding to what our language permits and could have do no harm. All the major European languages also use equivalents of the word sekantis in the sense “coming after.” In addition to the aforementioned Russian следующий and German folgend, compare also English following, French suivant, and finally Latin secundus, “following,” and hence “second” (as in “following the first”). Latvians, too, have no obstacle to using sekojošs, sekojošais, “following” (in colloquial usage). It is true that Polish następny derives from stąpać, archaic stępáć, “to step, stride, walk,” and corresponds to Russian наступающий, “stepping forward” (or even “treading on one’s heels”); yet as such, it means precisely “following behind,” and thus “following”: Of course, the latter argument is not decisive, only suggestive; but even without it, as we can see, there are no obstacles to using the word sekantis in the sense of “subsequent” in a wide variety of contexts. The last possible objection is that Lithuanian supposedly has no tradition of using this word in that way. Quite the contrary: does not the linguists’ century-long fight against such usage itself attest to a tradition?! (Let us also recall the examples from our literary classics cited by K. Vosylaitė!) In Lithuanian, the word sekantis has (otherwise it would not be fought against) and rightly has the meaning “subsequent, coming after”; therefore, fully agreeing with K. Ulvydas, “there is no basis for refusing to recognize that meaning.” Not the slightest. Its incorrect use in other cases is an entirely different matter, so these distinct cases of usage must be separated as rigorously as possible. The Language Commission should formulate its position on this question very clearly. LITERATŪRA Adomėnas M. 1995: Prieš kalbininkus (Laiškas redaktoriui). – Naujasis židinys – Aidai 1. Balčikonis J. 1978: Rinktiniai raštai 1, Vilnius. Jablonskis J. 1935: Jablonskio raštai 4, Kaunas. Jablonskis J. 1936: Jablonskio raštai 5, Kaunas. Jablonskis J. 1959: Rinktiniai raštai 2, Vilnius. KPP: Kalbos praktikos patarimai. Sudarė Aldonas Pupkis. II pataisytas ir papildytas leidimas, Vilnius, 1985. 234 KALBOS KULTŪRA | 81 LKKN: Lietuvių kalbos komisijos nutarimai 1977–1998. Trečiasis pataisytas ir papildytas leidimas, Vilnius, 1998. Sližienė N. 1969: Pastabos apie susirinkimų kalbą. – Kalbos kultūra 17, 17–20. Ul vydas K. 1972: Netaisyklinga gerų žodžių vartosena. – Kalbos kultūra 23, 12–30. Ul vydas K. 1986: Penkiasdešimt „Kalbos kultūros“ sąsiuvinių. – Kalbos kultūra 51, 3–6. Vosylytė K. 1978: Veiksmažodžio sekti reikšmės. – Kalbos kultūra 35, 48–50. Gauta 2008 06 09 ON THE USE OF SEKANTIS Summary The paper gives an overview of the main claims of linguists on the abuse of the word sekantis. The author focuses on a single case of such use: the verb sekti in the meaning ‘to go after’ and the participle sekantis in the meaning of ‘going after’. More attention is given to different approaches of linguists to the use of the above words in such meanings. An attempt is made to provide arguments for their well-formedness in the following four ways: 1) by demonstrating that the distinction between the verb sekti in its main meaning of ‘to follow sb or sth’ and the meaning under discussion ‘to go after’ is arbitrary; 2) by focusing on the respective meanings of the derivatives of the word sekti: nuoseklùs, sekà (pãskui, paskuĩ, paskutìnis); 3) by investigating the action of “following” in logical terms; 4) by referring to the ordinary, typical use of equivalent words in other languages. The paper concludes that the word sekantis in the meaning of ‘going after’ should be accepted for use; it should also be noted that the collocation sekantis ką (Eng. ‘following what’) should be preferred over sekantis po ko (Eng. ‘following after sb/sth’), e. g. trečias puslapis yra sekantis antrąjį (Eng. page three follows page two) and therefore page three is the following in respect to page two. DAINIUS RAZAUSKAS Lietuvių literatūros ir tautosakos institutas Antakalnio g. 6, LT-10308 Vilnius [email protected] D. RAZAUSKAS. Dėl sekančio klausimo 235