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Summaries
Laima Grumadienė
HOW IS THE LANGUAGE POLICY GOING TO BE IMPLEMENTED
The Parliament of the Republic of Lithuania adopted the Guidelines of the State Language Policy in
2003–2008 (Valstybinės kalbos politikos 2003–2008 m. gairės) prepared by the State Lithuanian Language
Commission. The article considers the issue in more detail.
More than once the language policy in Lithuania has been of double standard – one serving the interests
of the (temporarily lost) state and the nation and the other, the official one – working in the interests of the
then authorities. Some manifestations of such policy have been preserved until now (cf. the English
language and the European Union). The language elite can also be discussed in terms of double standard,
since an aim to create the ideal language set up by the Lithuanian Language Association in 1936 seems to
have been preserved until now despite the fact that the situation has changed, and a large part of the society
have mastered standard Lithuanian.
The Guidelines aim at increasing the language users’ pride of their own language, since the success of
the implementation of the language policy much depends on the language prestige. The article sets out to
discuss ways of implementing the language policy in the modern democratically-minded society and
accepting the role of linguists in it, the increasing role of (regional) dialects in fostering national
consciousness, the relation between the language and its varieties (including regional varieties).
The article focuses on the role of information technologies in promoting standard Lithuanian,
implementing new instruments in language teaching and fostering its well-formedness, the importance of
term data banks and other language data banks when providing information and involving the society into an
active participation in their language preservation and development.
Rita Miliūnaitė
NON-STANDARD PHENOMENA OF GRAMMAR
AND PECULIARITIES OF THEIR EVALUATION
The article deals with non-standard grammatical phenomena and their evaluation. The general feature of
such issues is their non-compliance with the laws and rules of standard Lithuanian and the fact that they are
not codified as a norm of the standard language.
Non-standard grammatical phenomena can be divided into two groups. One group covers obvious and
gross violations of the norm, language mistakes that must be rectified. Usually the phenomena violate the
grammatical system of Lithuanian, go beyond its limits. They come into Lithuanian mainly through foreign
languages and also by some narrowly used dialectisms occasionally slipping into the standard usage.
The second group of non-standard grammatical phenomena includes minor violations of the norm, which
for a variety of reasons cannot be considered as gross mistakes. They are usually intermediate, transitional
cases between the norm and the violation. The main reasons of their occurrence are concerned with
unfavourable tendencies of standard Lithuanian influenced by other languages and the undefined status of
some features within the language itself (living–non-living, abstract–concrete, agent–instrument etc.). The
phenomena that have received little attention from the researchers and those causing contradictory views
should not be given very strict evaluation.
Pranas Kniūkšta
FROM THE NOUN VIRŠUS TO THE PREPOSITION VIRŠ
The preposition virš (‘over, above’) used in the meaning of excess has long been considered nonstandard. However, the attitude towards its usage has gradually changed. Some utterances, like virš
normos, virš jėgų (‘above the norm, above one’s powers, strength’), have found their place in dialects, they
are also given in linguistic works. The preposition correlates with the standard prefix virš-. The preposition
virš in its meaning and origin is related to the words with the root virš-, like virš-us (‘top’), virš-yti (‘to exceed’).
The article concludes that the preposition virš is a result of language development and hence should be
considered as secondary variant to the norm rather than language error.
Ramunė Vaskelaitė
THE DATIVE CASE IN THE WORD GROUPS WITH DEVERBAL
NOUNS
The article discusses cases when the verb-governed Accusative in the utterances with deverbal nouns
could be replaced by the Dative. There are the following reasons for choosing the Dative established: the
split of the deverbal noun governing the case from the base, avoidance of the Genitive due to possible
ambiguities or chains of Genitives, the position of the Genitive being occupied by the subjective Genitive. In
the sentence, the Dative can be also predetermined by the verb.
Rasuolė Vladarskienė
USE OF ILLATIVE IN MODERN LITHUANIAN
On the basis of the research into the actual usage of Illative, it can be stated that Illative is an actual
dialectal form, actively used in everyday language as well as in some areas of standard Lithuanian. Its usage
is limited by syntactic relations and usage area. The Illative is restricted to a limited number of words, which
would be a result of the spread of clichés rather than the influence of dialects. If an utterance with the Illative
occurs in administrative language, it is equally frequent in other areas of standard language use; however,
traditional Illatives are excluded from the usage of administrative Lithuanian. The Illative of nouns with the
administrative meaning is a feature of the publicist style.
One of the reasons for still preserving the Illative in standard usage is the language economy principle.
The Illative is shorter and more convenient than the construction Accusative+prep. į.
Elena Valiulytė
PRIEDAS (PRIEDO) AND THE RELATION OF ADDITION
The article sets out to describe the usage of the noun priedo which is the Genitive case of the noun
priedas (‘addition’) used with transitive verbs and nominal in the Accusative and denotes the motive of
action. The article also discusses the unacceptable and non-standard though widely spread priedo usage
pattern in written Lithuanian, when it occurs in parenthesis and denotes addition or attachment (instead of
the standard be to – ‘in addition’).
Marija Razmukaitė
DEFINITE FORMS OF THE ADJECTIVE AUKŠTAS, AUKŠTA
IN PLACE NAMES
The article reviews and discusses place names originating from the definite forms of the adjective
aukštas, aukšta (‘tall’), the variety of their flections and spread in Lithuania.
Pranas Kniūkšta
THE CODE IS NEW, BUT THE LANGUAGE PROBLEMS
REMAIN THE SAME
The article deals with language issues of the draft of the Lithuanian Code of Violations of Administrative
Law (Administracinių teisės pažeidimų kodeksas). The problems are important for the language of the law on
the whole. Legal issues of the Code are approximated to the language; the result, however, is not always as
good as expected. There are a number of long and sophisticated sentences, which are difficult to
comprehend. The main idea is sometimes blurred due to a number of Genitives given in succession, wrong
choice of half-participles.
The Code also contains several instances of violations of language laws. Some patterns of wrong usage
are particularly widely spread, e.g. nusikaltimo sudėtis, įstatymo nežinojimas neatleidžia nuo atsakomybės
etc. The author of the article suggests substituting them by correct usage patterns. Other shortcomings are
sporadic or transferred from everyday usage.
The article also discusses the usage of conjunctions; it defines correct usage patterns for each
conjunction and points out the most typical abusage facts. For example, the conjunction ir (‘and’) should not
be used when defining fines for both – physical and juridical entities, since the two categories of violators are
not always fined together.
Vitas Labutis
WHEN WE HAVE WAITED FOR THE NEW PUBLICATION
ON LANGUAGE ADVICE FOR TOO LONG
The preparation of the new publication on language advice has been delayed. Initially planned publication
Kalbos praktikos patarimai (Advice on Language Practice) has finally evolved as Kalbos patarimai
(Language Advice), which is being prepared in a different way and in many cases is based on different
principles. The prepared and published tentative issues of Kalbos patarimai have been focussing on
grammar and manifest a tendency to make the publication too academic, overcrowd it with small but largely
irrelevant things (particularly dialectisms), increase the number of rules and exceptions to them, present
them by symbols and schemas. Therefore, the author of the article is concerned about the society’s inability
to comprehend and use the new publication. When preparing it, it might have been more useful to make a
clearly defined selection of issues to include, to give less detail and present one or more issues in a more
simplified form.
Rūta Marcinkevičienė
SHORTENINGS–ACRONYMS–NEW WORDS
The article tackles the problem of the definition and status of acronyms as they are conceived and
presented in the theoretical sources of the Lithuanian and English languages. It pinpoints the inadequacies
of description of acronyms in the Lithuanian sources, supports the criticism with counter-examples and
suggests that the comprehension of the notion of acronyms should be broadened to include a greater variety
of widely-spread examples. Moreover, the author presents her arguments supporting the view that acronyms
should be interpreted as specific words and hence, dealt with respectively, i.e. discussed from the point of
view of their borrowing, translation and reading conventions.
Jurgita Mikelionienė
COMPOUNDS WITH SAVIThe paper deals with two types of word formation, i.e. compounds and derivates with the pronominal
component. The data obtained from the Lithuanian Language Corpus of Vytautas Magnus University reveal
that in addition to regular compound nouns or adjectives with the first component savi- and the second
verbal or nominal component, there are an increasing number of irregular or simply redundant words of this
type. Therefore, the author suggests that hybrids and words that are at the same time compounds and
derivates with a suffix or a suffix and a prefix combined with a reflexive particle should be avoided. Such
words should not replace common word combinations or reflexive verbs.
Agnė Bielinskienė
ASPECTS OF THE USE OF THE CONJUNCTIONS BET AND O
The conjunctions bet (‘but’) and o (‘but, while’) in the Lithuanian language are described as expressing
relations of comparison and opposition. The conjunctions bet and o enters constructions with some particles
in coordinative noun phrases, which differ from predicative phrases. The conjunction bet, when used with the
particles ne (‘no’) and tik (‘only, just’), forms the basis for the framing conjunction ne tik… bet ir (‘not only…
but also’). The framing conjunction is the most frequent indicator of the comparison of the coordinative
constructions and the conjunctions o and bet when used with the negation ne (ne… o and ne… bet), which
refer to the opposition between coordinative components.
Algirdas Malakauskas
ACCENTUAL PATTERNS OF THE DEFINITE FORMS
OF PRESENT ACTIVE PARTICIPLES
The article discusses accentual patterns of the definite present active participles in academic publications
and teaching aids and textbooks. The author concludes that the above participles in prestigious language
should have a fixed stress (tikintysis, tikinčioji; tikintieji, tikinčiosios). The stress on the flection of such
participles of masculine gender in the Nominative singular is not considered a violation and is within the
standard, e.g. tikintysis (alongside with tikintysis), kalbantysis (alongside with kalbantysis). However, other
singular and plural forms in standard Lithuanian have a stress on the stem (either root or suffix).
Asta Kazlauskienė
ACCENTUAL VARIANTS OF NOMINAL COMPOUNDS
IN STUDENTS’ SPEECH
The article analyses 126 compound nouns and 15 compound adjectives. Weak-stem words in nouns vary
more often than strong-stem words in adjectives. There were 40 students of Lithuanian from Vytautas
Magnus University participating in the experiment. They gave preference to the second variation three times
more frequently, whereas they only reserved the first variation of stress pattern to 20 words. In a large
number of nouns the stress fell on the syllable that was nearer the joint.
Regina Kvašytė
LATVIAN PLACE NAMES IN THE LITHUANIAN PRESS
Language practice gives a wide variety of spelling patterns of proper names originating from other
languages, like personal names, place names, symbolic names etc. A review of Latvian place-names used in
the Lithuanian press (names of ethnic regions, cities and towns, rivers and lakes) has shown that the
majority of problems arise due to the violation of presentation rules. It is not easy to make the place names
Lithuanian by adding Lithuanian flections, which involves choosing an appropriate ending and gender. It is
particularly important when choosing the declension and making case forms. The spread of Latvian place
names in Lithuania is not equally frequent in terms of categories of names – names of cities and rivers are
much more frequent than names of smaller objects. The less known the name is, the greater the probability
that its usage in Lithuanian causes difficulties, because it is not yet well-established and has no traditions.
Gintautas Akelaitis
LANGUAGE FASHION AS A SOCIAL ISSUE
Language fashion is a sudden intensive, usually temporary use of a language element (usually a word
form, sometimes an utterance). Instances of language fashion are not systemic; they all belong to the sphere
of speaking. As a concept, the language fashion is of the same type as calques, cliches, all kinds of
stereotypes. Elements of language fashion belong to different language levels with the highest frequencies in
lexis: atributas (‘attribute’), geras (‘good’), skaidrus (‘transparent’), teisingas (‘correct, just’); praktiškai
(‘practically’), realiai (‘actually’), stipriai (‘strongly’) etc. The most frequent word forms in fashion are plural
forms of abstract nouns and some by-words, e.g. ta prasme (~‘I mean’).
Abundant use of language fashion elements violates the language norm, since the majority of fashionable
elements are now used in their non-standard meanings or are meaningless. The elements of language
fashion also violate the norms of rhetoric and demonstrate the speaker’s carelessness in respect to the
language resources and shades of meaning. They also diminish the expression of one’s individuality.
Irena Smetonienė
TROPES AND OCCASIONALISMS IN THE TEXTS
OF ADVERTISEMENTS
Advertisements in Lithuania is a new and unexplored area with no established boundaries and language
requirements. Advertisements overemphasise the function of impact, which is best expressed by occasionalisms and unusual tropes. What has been investigated by specialists of word-formation as individual cases in
a particular style now is becoming almost everyday practice.
Regina Koženiauskienė
ON THE USE OF THE WORDS AUTORITETAS AND GARSENYBĖ
IN MASS MEDIA
In recent years Lithuania has witnessed a remarkable devaluation of prestigious words, confusion of positive and negative meanings: the same words with positive implications autoritetas, garsenybė, įžymybė refer
to honourable people as well as criminals. This is primarily concerned with the system of cultural values of
our epoch as well as the society’s way of thinking and its orientation in respect to moral values. Mass media,
unlike anything else, carry the responsibility of the prestigious language user and main language signpost.
Vilija Celiešienė
ACADEMIC YOUTH’S SPEECH CULTURE
Academic publications and spoken language of MA students, which are discussed in the article, abound in
non-standard vocabulary, mistakes of translation from English, inaptitude of formulating Lithuanian
sentences, unknown meaning of international words, lack of logic etc. The language of students tends to
improve; their linguistic skills exert enormous influence on the higher education institution itself as well as all
of its education elements (modal programmes of language culture studies, academic community relation with
language, the language of the school’s/university’s publications, announcements and other public scripts,
academic culture etc.) and predetermines interaction between all of these elements.