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Summaries
INGA HILBIG
Politness as a relative linguistic, social and cultural phenomenon
The article deals with the pragmatic notion of linguistic politeness,
encompassing more than just the research domain of language etiquette.
Politeness is conceived not just as a fixed property of certain expressions or
phrases that can be studied at utterance level or in the broadest social and
cultural context. It is determined by the individual situation in which an
utterance is used, and in which, for the realisation of his communicative
purposes, the speaker can avail himself of virtually any verbal means to convey
respect or friendliness. When speaking of the cultural relativity of politeness it is
emphasised that merely on the basis of the linguistic expression of politeness no
cultural community can be considered more or less polite than others. Different
cultural groups may prefer different politeness strategies and their realisations.
In the final section of the article, a small qualitative investigation into the way
requests are made in trade and service encounters in Vilnius. The investigated
situations are characterised by a highly transactional way of communicating,
with usually very brief and direct requests, often without any negative
(distancing) politeness; the means used aim at stressing social distance and
differences in authority. The negative evalutaion of the Lithuanian politenesss in
the said situations results from different sociocultural notions about what
communication in such situations, especially with unacquainted persons in the
public space, should be like. The hypothesis advanced here is that Lithuanians
generally favour positive types of politeness, but in order to corroborate this
more empirical research into living colloquial usage would be required.
DAINIUS RAZAUSKAS
Lithuanian auka and aukuras: origin and semantic motivation.
The article consists of two parts, dealing with the etymology of Lith. auka
‘offering, sacrifice’ and aukuras ‘altar’ respectively.
Since Kazimieras Būga it has been customary to regard auka as a
neologism coined by Simonas Daukantas, even though doubt has been voiced
about this assumption from the very start. Finally, in 1989, Jonas Palionis found
attestations of auka predating Daukantas’ writings. In agreement with the
cautious conjectures of other authors, starting with Fraenkel, Palionis suggests a
connection with the verb aukuoti ‘rock (a baby)’. In 2006, Aleksas Girdenis, while
agreeing that the word count not have been invented by Daukantas, proposed
another explanation, deriving auka from *avikà ‘sheep’, as sheep were among the
main sacrificial animals. But neither are there any typological parallels for this,
nor were sheep the most important sacrificial animals in Lithuania. On the other
hand, historical and mythological sources show that an act of ‘lifting up’ must
have been an important sacrificial gesture in ancient Lithuanian religion. The
meaning of ‘elevating’ underlies several Lithuanian words that were once
connected with rituals (iškilmės ‘celebration’, pokylis ‘feast’ etc.). Finally, there is
ample typological evidence for a connection between offering and the meanings
of ‘elevating’ and ‘elevation’ (cf. Lat. altāre from altus). All this suggests that auka
must be connected with aukuoti ‘rock, lift up’ < ‘lift, elevate’.
Since Būga, aukuras has also been regarded as a neologism coined by
Daukantas (auk-kuras), and until recently opinion was almost undivided on this.
Yet in 1611, the annual reports of the Jesuit order (considerably predating
Daukantas, of course) mention a deity called Bieaukuri, generally read as
beaukuris ‘without altar’, which would contradict Būga’s verdict. In fact this
theonym provides additional evidence for the authenticity of auka, and decisive
proof for that of aukuras. Besides, this word is also attested from the late 19th
century in the form aukaras, which Būga, without sufficient grounds, considered
to have been coined by the editors of the journal Lietuvis in 1907. Taking both
variants into account, we may assume that the word is not a compound but a
derivative of the root auk- with the competing suffixes -ura- and -ara-, also found
in many other pairs of alternating Lithuanian word forms (kaukuras : kaukaras
etc.).
We may thus regard auka and aukuras / aukaras as authentic and ancient
Lithuanian religious terms.
WOJCIECH SMOCZYŃSKI
Addenda to Słownik etymologiczny języka litewskiego Part I
This article consists of addenda to the author’s Słownik etymologiczny języka
litewskiego, Vilnius 2007. It also contains a list of errata to this dictionary.