Keywords: agricultural reform; de-collectivisation of agriculture; restructuring of kolkhozes and sovkhozes; legal-organisational structure of agricultural producers; agricultural enterprises; private farms; household crofts; structure of utilisation of arable land
The democratic and market reforms inaugurated in Russia in the early 1990s marked also the beginning of a spontaneous process shaping a new legal-organisational structure of agricultural producers. The basis for the start of this process was the agricultural reform (de-collectivisation of agriculture) providing for the apportionment of arable land to the farm workers by means of the so-called stakes (some 12 million persons) and for the restructuring of kolkhozes and sovkhozes. The principal tendencies that characterise this process are: firstly, the formation – chiefly on the basis of the former kolkhozes and sovkhozes, of a new organisational-legal structure of agricultural enterprises based on private ownership, secondly, the emergence and development of a new group of agricultural producers (farmers) and, thirdly, the strengthening of an extremely large group of household crofts which have a very long tradition in Russian agriculture. The process is reflected also in the changing structure of land and labour resources and, consequently, in the structure of agricultural production which changes under the influence of the emerging forms of husbandry. The principal tendency in this process is growth in the number of private farms and household crofts and a decline in the number of agricultural enterprises. Demokratyczno-rynkowe przemiany, jakie rozpoczęły się w Rosji na początku lat dziewięćdziesiątych ubiegłego wieku, zapoczątkowały także żywiołowy proces kształtowania się nowej struktury organizacyjno-prawnej producentów rolnych. Podstawą tego procesu była reforma rolna (dekolektywizacja rolnictwa), zakładająca nadzielenie ziemią rolną pracowników poprzez tzw. udziały (około 12 mln osób) oraz restrukturyzację kołchozów i sowchozów. Podstawowe tendencje w tym procesie to: po pierwsze formowanie się, głównie na bazie byłych kołchozów i sowchozów nowej struktury organizacyjno-prawnej przedsiębiorstw rolnych opartej na własności prywatnej, po drugie powstanie i rozwój nowej grupy producentów rolnych, jakimi są gospodarstwa chłopskie (farmerskie), i po trzecie umocnienie się, mającej długą tradycję w rolnictwie rosyjskim, ogromnej grupy gospodarstw przydomowych. Proces ten ma swoje odzwierciedlenie w zmianach struktury zasobów ziemi i zasobów pracy, a w konsekwencji – struktury produkcji rolnej według kształtujących się form gospodarowania. Podstawowa tendencja w tym procesie to zwiększenie liczby gospodarstw chłopskich (farmerskich) i przydomowych, a zmniejszenie liczby przedsiębiorstw rolnych.
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Keywords: Derivatives; techno- loanwords
The paper gives an overview of derivatives with the international component techno- and offers their structural and semantic analysis. In Lithuanian usage the number of the above-type of words due to the impact of English and English-speaking countries is on the increase. Some of those words refer to concepts of sub-cultures; others should be treated solely as stylistically marked language innovations. A similar situation might be observed in German and Russian. The spelling of words with the component techno- varies. The most deviant is the usage of techno as an individual lexeme. It is important to observe and register the actual use of the new lexemes and give evaluation to it; however, it is also important to observe the existing spelling rules.
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Keywords: Language standardisation; borrowing; loanword; codification; prescriptive and descriptive methods
The paper sets out to examine measures which have been approved by the State Lithuanian Language Commission to standardise borrowings since 1998 (lists of unacceptable loanwords). The article also introduces principles of standardising new loanwords (adopted in 2007) and demonstrates the methodology of storing representative data of the usage of borrowings. The paper also gives illustrations from the new databank of loanwords used in written discourse in 1998-2008. It thus aims to demonstrate that the quality of standardisation could be improved by combining prescriptive and descriptive methods: to avoid being too prescriptive and promote access and dissemination of codified variants to the user.
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Keywords: Salantai; Skilandžiai
Salantai previously had the name of Skilandžiai. A change in the name was best attested in the 17th century birth register books of the church of Salantai. Entries made between 1631 and 1639 contain the name Skilandžiai spelled in different ways: Skiłąndzie, Skilandzie etc. The name Salantai is only found in the entries made in 1640 and later; the spelling of the word varies as well, e.g. Salanty, Sałąnty, Salonty etc. There are entries giving the reference oppido before the name: (de) oppido Sałąnty, (de) oppd. Salonty, some entries have the name with its ending missing: de Salont, de oppd. Saląnt٥. Latter form with the mark signalling the absence of ending can be treated as the town of Salantas. Presently used official form Salantai has been firmly established in the birth registers since 1654 (spelt Salanty).
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Keywords: Loanwords; standard language; variability; orthography
The paper deals with new loanwords referring to Italian cuisine, now very popular in Lithuania. The new loanwords appeared in 1990-2008 in Lithuanian written and electronic sources. Paper discusses major tendencies of the usage of the loanwords in terms of their variability, competition with equivalents, their relation with standard language norms and the prospect of standardisation. There were over 100 terms of Italian cuisine identified in the written and electronic sources of the above period. Most of them refer to the pasta dough, bread, cheeses, sweets and drinks. The causes of their appearance in Lithuanian are designatory and semantic: a need to name new things or identify differences in meaning when semantically old and new words partially overlap. Loanwords of Italian cuisine in Lithuanian are characterised by the variability of expression, e.g. cannelloni, canneloni, canelloni, caneloni; canelloniai; kaneloni; kaneloniai (It. cannelloni). The authentic orthography does not prevent the morphological adaptation of the loanwords; however, a change in the form which is most characteristic in the process of borrowing frequently leads to converging the orthography and morphology of the loanword. equivalents have been suggested for ca. one third of loanwords of Italian cuisine. equivalents are often expressed by descriptive phrases; however, they fail to meet the criteria of language economy, equivalence, meaning adequacy etc., which prevents their wider acceptance in actual use. search for equivalents should not prevent suggesting adapted forms of loanwords of Italian cuisine to the society.
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Keywords: Participle; sekantis
The participle sekantis (Eng. ‘following’) has aroused and still arouses a large amount of discussion. There are quite a few issues to be solved in its relation to the verb sẽka (sèkti). The verb sekti is ambivalent: it means going after someone or something and depends on the one who/which goes before him/her/it. It thus is possible to follow sb or sth (sekti) in space or time, e.g.: Šuo seka paskui žmogų (Eng. lit. ‘The dog follows after a man’); Nelaimės sekė viena kitą (viena po kitos) (Eng. lit. ‘Misfortune follows oneNomSg anotherAccSg/one after another’). Going one after another with no relation of dependency or causality is expressed by the verb eiti (Eng. ‘to go’) or another verb in the same meaning, e.g.: dienos eina (slenka) po dienų (Eng. lit. ‘Days go/drag after days’), autobusas eina (važiuoja) po autobuso (Eng. ‘Abus goes after a bus’ <one after another>). The participle sekantis is not fully compatible with the normative use of the base verb sekti. The participle can also refer to sb or sth going after another, but the causative relation can be excluded, like in the following: sekanti diena (Eng. ‘the next day’), sekantis autobusas (Eng. ‘the next bus’). There are also cases with no reference to previous events, rather, the focus is on further developments, e.g.: Darbų tvarka sekanti (Eng. ‘The work sequence is the following’). Such use is clearly deviant and is unanimously corrected. However, the first two examples (sekanti diena and sekantis autobusas) are debatable: some linguists replace the participle by the pronoun kitas (autobusas) (Eng. ‘another bus’), others tend to justify the given usage without any implied causality, because the pronoun kitas could equally refer to the immediate as well as any further item in a sequence. Traditional actual use has never accepted the participle sekantis in such utterances; it cannot be used in the language of formal register. However, it should not be treated as a gross and indisputable mistake either.
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Keywords: Word-building; derivatives; semantics
The well-formed word draugingas built from draug (and not from draugas) is usually corrected when it has the meaning of ‘friendly’. However, it should be preserved in the meaning of ‘fond of being with other people, sociable’ and disseminated in actual use. Jablonskis was very consistent in building new words; however, linguistics, and word-building in particular, has developed much further since then. Moreover, it cannot be overlooked that the meanings of some derivatives (e.g. svetingas, melagingas) are the result of semantic development rather than word-building. To express different shades of meaning, the language needs both: draugingas (which might serve as an equivalent of socialus) and bendringas (:bendrauti? cf. nértingas : nértėti), bendringumas which could replace more irritating foreign words komunikabilus, komunikabilumas.
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Keywords: Participle; sekantis
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, pasku, paskutnis); 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.
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Keywords: Blogs; blog language; lexis; mode of expression; sociolinguistics; medialect; standard language
More than a decade ago the first blogs appeared on the world web (www); around the year 2000 the Lithuanian internet set up its first blogs; in 2006-2007 it witnessed their boom. The article describes blogs as a new internet form of self-expression and communication, its role in social communication and its linguistic expression as well as possible frameworks of linguistic analysis. The article also discusses the problem of coining Lithuanian blog-related concepts and offers an overview of the terms in actual use. The analysis of almost a hundred of blogs produced by authors of different ages and focusing on different topics could hardly lead to any final conclusions and generalisations. However, the pilot linguistic investigation has resulted in identifying some new features of the blog language. The language of blogs is peculiar in that its written form evolves with no mediators or regulators; however, its texts are easily accessible to the public. Therefore, language specialists have a unique opportunity to research actual public written use, to investigate its characteristic features of linguistic expression and functions of the features in the texts. A large variety of blogs, different authors (and the data provided about themselves) give access to investigating the layers and origin of prevalent lexis, dominating modes of expression, specific features of occasional words, how language innovations come into use or are rejected etc. Moreover, all of the above can be related to the social features of the authors and the topics of the texts. The language of blogs can be defined as a new variety of free-style public written language, one of the forms of electronic medium, the so called medialects, and can be discussed alongside with electronic discourse (comments, e-mails, telephone text messages (SMS) and instant messages). The language of blogs functions on the periphery of regulated standard language and beyond its boundaries; it is much more varied. In many cases it is a mixture of elements from different language varieties and different languages (mainly English); therefore, it should not be treated as a perverse form of standard language. In the blogosphere the authors seem to take efforts to publicly negotiate language issues; moreover, the language use is influenced by the public opinion of the readers. Therefore, this language variety cannot be claimed as being completely chaotic. The popularity of blogs and their wide spread would presumably exert major influence on standard Lithuanian and the development of its norms. Thus the language of blogs can be treated as actual use with some obvious new developments, on the one hand, and a possibility to maintain the codification of the standard language or its modification, on the other hand.
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Keywords: Dictionary; lexis; non-standard language; dialectal words; jargon,
A shortage of data of spoken language in the Dictionary of Contemporary Lithuanian (Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos žodynas) currently poses a serious problem for translators and compilers of bilingual dictionaries where Lithuanian is the main language of explanation; it equally poses a problem for language learners. The paper introduces an investigation into the lexis characteristic of spoken language aimed at identifying words which are most frequent in contemporary spoken and proving or disproving the hypothesis that non-standard language tends to penetrate into public use. Results of the above investigation could be used in selecting spoken language data for the inclusion into currently compiled dictionaries. The above investigation was based on the method of questionnaires. In addition to the main question about the use of the lexis of spoken Lithuanian, there were two other questions included. They focused on the impact of age and gender, two social variables, on the responses. The questionnaires also included words of standard Lithuanian marked as spoken and included into the Dictionary of Contemporary Lithuanian (Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos žodynas) as well as dialectal and jargon words known and widely used by the majority of the language community. The results of the above pilot investigation have shown that the majority of the researched words are used in private discourse by over half of the respondents. The same words in public are mainly used by men in the youngest age group. An absolute majority of the respondents (almost 98 per cent) failed to identify a single word which is not used in the meaning characteristic of spoken language. Similar research should prompt lexicographers that they should consider the amount of spoken lexis to be included in the future Dictionary of Standard Lithuanian (Bendrinės lietuvių kalbos žodynas) and how to fill in the gap of actual use in Lithuanian lexicography.
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Keywords: Kalbos kultūra; Kalbos kultura
The article gives an overview of 80 volumes of the Kalbos kultūra which was founded in 1961. The journal was the first periodical in post-war Lithuania which focused exclusively on problems of practical language use. The journal established and consolidated major norm setting priorities of standard language and the tactics of language culture. The changes in the publication’s priorities were determined by external factors. In 1990 the monthly journal Gimtoji Kalba was re-established; from the very start it focused on the practical language use, which is why the Kalbos kultūra adopted a more theoretical viewpoint and shifted to more general issues of language culture. Continuing the age-old moderate norm setting tradition, the Kalbos kultūra provides evaluation and recommendations on different language phenomena, deals with the contemporary language use and problems concerned with the impact of new technologies on language. The relationships between language and society are among today’s top priorities. Also linguists attempt to identify reasons why sometimes the dialogue between linguists and language users is not very successful.
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Keywords: Language standardisation; lexis; lexicology
The paper gives an overview of circumstances of compiling the Dictionary of Contemporary Lithuanian (DCL; Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos žodynas) and the standardisation of lexis in its different editions. The idea of compiling a dictionary for practical purposes belongs to Kazimieras Būga (1879-1924). However, due to his early death the compilation of the dictionary was suspended and only resumed by Juozas Balčikonis (1885-1969) who headed the editorial board of the Dictionary of Lithuanian. Its manuscript was finalised after WW2 at the Institute of the Lithuanian Language. Manuscript was discussed at the Department of Social Sciences of the then Lithuanian Academy of Sciences in 1948. The Department advised to amend the Dictionary by adding the materials from Soviet newspapers and literature and by explicating the terms in the way they were explicated in dictionaries of the Russian There was an editorial board set up for editing the Dictionary. J. Kruopas (1908-1975) was appointed as its editor-in-chief. The Dictionary of Contemporary Lithuanian was published in 1954. To refer to the normative derivative variants of the lexis, synonyms and equivalents replacing loanwords the authors used the abbreviation žr. More attention to language standardisation was devoted in the second edition of the DCL (1972), which was published when the political censorship was not so heavy. The edition amply uses the abbreviation ntk. for unacceptable loanwords. Moreover, the dictionary was revised by lexicographers; as a result, prefixed verbs were given in separate entries. In the third edition of the DCL which was published after the restoration of Lithuania’s independence (1993) the evaluation of loanwords was even stricter.
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Keywords: Nationals and nations; language standardisation
The paper deals with the words referring to country nationals and nations. It acknowledges two problems: first, the two words are often confused and second, out of the total number of 200 words of the lexical semantic group only about a quarter have been standardised, the remaining words are left at the user’s disposal. The paper attempts to standardise all the above words according to four main principles as identified by the author: – tradition: if the word is found in a dictionary, encyclopaedia etc, it should not be changed, unless there are new facts to consider (e.g. a change in the name of the state leads to changing the name of its nationals, but not its nation). – analogy: if the word is missing in the above sources, it is built by analogy with other firmly established words in the language; thus, if we have perujietis, we can also introduce vanuatietis, if we have kostarikietis, we can introduce sanmarinietis as well-formed words. – systematicity: if the word has no tradition, neither can it be made by analogy, but the rules of word-building still apply, the word is made with the suffix -ietis, -ė. Language users coin new words according to the pattern and usually find it the easiest to apply. – distinctiveness: if the name of the state consists of several words and the process of making a single-word name might result in ambiguities, a national of the state should be then referred to as a national of that state. In any case, words referring to nationals of the country or nations, either in the process of building or changing them, should be treated within a system of language and beyond it.
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Keywords: Loanwords; word frequency; word-form ambiguity; homoforms Google; internet
The paper introduces the methodology which can be used to implement Google as a tool for data accumulation and storage and investigating the spread of a linguistic phenomenon in the internet. The method is described in the framework of an investigation aimed at identifying relative frequency count of new loanwords between 2007 and 2008. First section of the article describes the main principles of filling in the slot of a query: general as well as specific for a particular descriptive research. Rather than entering only the main word form, a proposal has been launched to enter the whole grammatical paradigm of the word or its major part considering that in the Google query slot the maximum number of key words is 32. The second section identifies the ways to narrow down the search domain and reasons why it should be done. This type of research is bound to face a problem of word and word-form ambiguity. The term of ambiguity has been selected to avoid confusion of more specific terms like homonyms, homographs, homophones etc. Moreover, the explication of the above terms often emphasises the phonetic aspect of the word, which for internet search is irrelevant. Above terms are not sufficiently precise for some cases of ambiguity, when, for example, the spelling of one word form coincides with another form of the same word. The method of search is instrumental in collecting various examples of language use as well as in investigating their frequency. Also the method of relative frequency of loanwords could be applied in language standardisation, e.g. in compiling lists of new loanwords which are considered grave mistakes.
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Keywords: Language culture; language errors; education; standard language; functional styles; language norms; variants
The paper claims that teaching the culture of language has lost its primary aim—to teach accurate standard language and educate language users so that they could freely make use of means of linguistic expression to satisfy the needs of their professional and everyday life. The culture of language eventually becomes a discipline of teaching language errors, the process of teaching is overloaded with examples of norm violation, which are not always relevant. Prevailing task type involves correcting errors in the texts of other students or texts artificially produced for the purpose of teaching rather than one’s own texts. The paper discusses several textbooks for students of colleges and higher education institutions. As a result, the following conclusions are drawn: 1. Ways should be sought how to make the teaching of norms of standard Lithuanian more systemic, creative and effective: the approach based on correcting errors and then explicating norms and generally going from form to function should be replaced by the opposite with the focus on the creative aspect of language. 2. Textbooks on standard Lithuanian norms and language culture should be written with more responsibility and more accurately, viz.: – the theory should be presented in a more systemic way, avoiding contradictions; the terms standard language, functional styles, language norms etc. have to be more precise; – a clearer distinction should be made between gross violations of standard language norms and stylistic variants of less constrained language; – the selection of examples of normative and non-normative language should respond to the linguistic needs of modern society; – some tasks should have a more clearly defined aim and wording so that students understand what and how should be done, what result is expected of them. 3. The question of two-tier system of teaching standard language should be discussed. first would focus on the foundations of language norms and key violations of the norm; the second would address exemplary language responding to the needs of a profession. Thus the process of teaching would not be overloaded with facts, after the foundations are laid, different variants of the norm and more subtle language expression and style could be taught. 4. Preserving the priority of standard language, schools should get access to the understanding of other language varieties (regional and social dialects, professional language) their functions and social value.
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Keywords: Loanwords; blogs; lexical variants; attitude of language users; coinage,
The paper discusses new loanwords with the root blog- and their Lithuanian equivalents: it investigates the tendencies of using lexical variants and attitudes of language users and the reasons for the non-/acceptance of equivalents. The paper also offers recommendations on the research-based preference of lexical variants. The actual use has over twenty loanwords with the root blog- and over ten coinages consisting of the same root and a Lithuanian component. Coinages should be treated as near-synonyms of loanwords or loanwords which take a component as a means to adjust to the grammatical system of the Lithuanian language. The most frequent of them are the following: blògas, blògeris, blòginti, blòginimas; blogosfera; audioblogas, fotoblogas, moblogas, videoblogas; blogorama, blogrolas. All of them have Lithuanian equivalents. They fall into two groups: some of them are related to the one-word coinage tinklaraštis, the others are derived from interneto dienoraštis, a two-word equivalent of the loanword blògas. The investigation has attested to the fact that among the names of one and the same realia currently preference is given to the group of equivalents of the tinklaraštis type. The acceptability of the equivalents has been supported by language users as well as bloggers. Moreover, the equivalents are in conformity with the criteria of equivalent evaluation laid down in the principles of norm setting of borrowings. Therefore, a shift in reducing the number of unacceptable variants can be presumed.
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Keywords: Rhetoric; parenthetical phrases; stylistics
The authors of present-day textbooks in rhetoric and stylistics often discuss vices of brevity; they also mention irrelevant verbiage, which is often treated much narrower, often at the level of lexical semantics and grammar, and includes pleonasms, tautologies, bywords, an excessive use of the so-called parasitic words and parenthetical phrases, pronouns, deverbal nouns and participial attributes. A. Baranauskas and K. Jaunius in their works mention the vanity of style; however, it is different from irrelevant verbiage. The vanity of style is a broader concept including all levels of language culture, and the ethics is not the least important among them. Politicians, people in high-ranking positions, TV presenters, advertisers, who often use abstract but meaningless words, manipulate the language, should learn from the first Lithuanian rhetoricians.
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Keywords: Oiconym; hydronym; onomastics; word etymology; toponym
The paper discusses tens of primary oiconyms originating from hydronyms and differing from them in paradigm, the quality of the root vowel etc. On the basis of the data stored in the card index of the Department of Onomastics of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language and word etymologies, an attempt is made to identify the authentic forms of the base and the derived toponym. To be able to compare them with the present-day forms, the data have been collected from the sources of standard language approved for official use: A Manual of Administrative-Territorial Division of the Lithuanian SSR (Lietuvos TSR administracinio-teritorinio suskirstymo žinynas, volume 2, 1976), A Manual of River and Lake Names of the Lithuanian SSR (Lietuvos TSR upių ir ežerų vardynas, 1963) and A. Vanagas’ Etymological Dictionary of Lithuanian Hydronyms (Lietuvių hidronimų etimologinis žodynas, 1981).
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Keywords: Meta-linguistic comments; post-position
In a large variety of meta-linguistic comments there is a distinct functional semantic type of comments where the addressor evaluates his/her expression (a word or a phrase) as important, relevant, most precisely worded and indispensable in the situation. Stereotypical meta-linguistic comments of the type include such phrases as kitaip nepasakysi / nepavadinsi; kitaip kaip (...) nepasakysi / nepavadinsi; kaip kitaip pasakysi / pavadinsi. The above comments most frequently occur in post-position, i.e. the commentary follows the language item which is treated as optimum, or the most precise. The final, post-positional, comment emphasises the preceding word or phrase; moreover, the comment can be treated as justification for a stronger expression or a slip of the tongue. The most frequent post-position of the comment presumably attests to the fact that the preceding words and phrases are created in a flow of speech and are definitely emotionally coloured; they are not instances of prefabricated language. In contemporary Lithuanian texts, comments of you cannot say otherwise type are four times less frequent in pre-position. They are usually used to signal a strategy of speaking: the addressee is warned beforehand that a stronger word is likely to be used. The meta-linguistic comments of the above type are used in the so-called free styles, mainly written publicist texts, in public and private spoken language. The data of ca. 700 meta-linguistic items has shown that comments of the above type are used with expressive evaluative expressions, usually with expressions referring to negative evaluation. In the corpus, the expressions referring to negative evaluation are 10 times more frequent than those referring to positive evaluation.
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