DOCSLIB.ORG

Nominal Compounds in Old Latvian Texts in the 16Th and 17Th Centuries

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Nominal Compounds in Old Latvian Texts in the 16Th and 17Th Centuries !"#$ #%&"" ' ( ( )#"& !"# * + , #- #$ &* + , . &* + &. + + . + &* + . &* , + , & ( + . + & * . (+ + / ( ( ( ( & ( + & ,0&120&1& ( ,&3 + , . ( ,+ 4 & ( . + &3 4 ( + + (+ , &* ( . + &* ( + . , ( 5 & ( , & . ( / + + ( &6(/ + ( . + , & $ % !"#$ 722 && 2 8 9 77 7 7 ##: $" 3;<$ <#$-:< $!< 3;<$ <#$-:< $=- 3;"! #%:$ & '( # #( )*) & #) + (#"-<# NOMINAL COMPOUNDS IN OLD LATVIAN TEXTS IN THE 16TH AND 17TH CENTURIES Kristina Bukelskytė-Čepelė Nominal Compounds in Old Latvian Texts in the 16th and 17th Centuries Kristina Bukelskytė-Čepelė ©Kristina Bukelskytė-Čepelė, Stockholm University 2017 ISBN print 978-91-7649-872-9 ISBN PDF 978-91-7649-873-6 ISSN 0281-5478 Cover: "Die Statt Riga" in S. Münster’s "Cosmographia" (ca. 16th c) Printed in Sweden by Universitetsservice US-AB, Stockholm 2017 Distributor: Department of Slavic and Baltic Studies, Finnish, Dutch and German, Stockholm University To my family Contents Abbreviations ............................................................................................... xi List of Tables ............................................................................................. xiii Acknowledgements ..................................................................................... xv 1 Introduction .............................................................................................. 17 1.1 Relevance, purpose, aims .................................................................... 17 1.2 What is covered in this thesis .............................................................. 18 1.3 Sources and material ........................................................................... 21 1.3.1 Early Written Latvian texts of the 16th and 17th centuries .......... 22 1.3.1.1 Texts of the oldest period (16th century – the first half of the 17th century) ................................................................................... 23 1.3.1.2 Georg Elger ......................................................................... 24 1.3.1.3 Georg Mancelius ................................................................. 24 1.3.1.4 Christophor Fürecker .......................................................... 25 1.3.1.5 Johann Langius ................................................................... 25 1.3.1.6 Manuale Lettico-Germanicum ............................................ 26 1.3.1.7 Summary ............................................................................. 26 1.3.2 Orthography ................................................................................. 26 1.3.2.1 Texts of the oldest period (16th century – the first half of the 17th century) ................................................................................... 27 1.3.2.2 Georg Elger ......................................................................... 28 1.3.2.3 Georg Mancelius ................................................................. 28 1.3.2.4 Christophor Fürecker .......................................................... 29 1.3.2.5 Johann Langius ................................................................... 29 1.3.2.6 Summary ............................................................................. 29 1.4 The presentation of material in this study ........................................... 31 1.5 Outline of the following chapters........................................................ 34 2 Background .............................................................................................. 35 2.1 Definitions .......................................................................................... 35 2.2 Previous accounts of compounds in Old Latvian ................................ 40 2.2.1 Skujiņa’s (2006) analysis ............................................................. 40 2.2.2 Amato’s (1996) analysis .............................................................. 43 2.2.3 Conclusion ................................................................................... 45 2.3 The classification of compounds used in this thesis ........................... 46 2.3.1 Determinative compounds ........................................................... 47 2.3.2 Possessive compounds ................................................................. 48 2.3.3 Verbal governing compounds ...................................................... 49 2.3.4 Copulative compounds ................................................................. 50 2.3.5 Compounds in the Baltic languages ............................................. 51 2.3.5.1 The form of the first component ......................................... 51 2.3.5.2 The form of the second component ..................................... 54 2.4 Summary ............................................................................................. 55 3 Determinative compounds in Old Latvian ............................................. 57 3.1 Formally ambiguous cases including two nouns ................................ 57 3.2 Groups of determinative compounds .................................................. 61 3.2.1 Dependent determinative compounds .......................................... 61 3.2.2 Attributive determinative compounds .......................................... 63 3.3 The form of the first component ......................................................... 64 3.3.1 Determinative compounds with linking elements ........................ 64 3.3.1.1 Dependent determinative compounds ................................. 66 3.3.1.2 Attributive determinative compounds ................................. 78 3.3.2 Determinative compounds without linking elements ................... 81 3.3.2.1 Compounds originally coined with linking elements .......... 82 3.3.2.2 Compounds originally coined without linking elements ..... 87 3.3.2.3 Compounds without linking elements in the dictionary of Langius (1685) ................................................................................ 90 3.4 The form of the second component..................................................... 94 3.5 Summary ............................................................................................. 99 4 Possessive compounds in Old Latvian .................................................. 101 4.1 The use of possessive compounds: adjectives vs. nouns .................. 102 4.2 The form of possessive compounds .................................................. 105 4.2.1 Groups of compounds according to the form of the second component ........................................................................................... 106 4.2.1.1 Compounds with the compositional suffix -is (m.)/-e (f.) . 106 4.2.1.2 Compounds without suffixes............................................. 108 4.2.1.3 Compounds with ambiguous second components ............ 108 4.2.1.4 Compounds with the adjectival suffix -īg- ........................ 109 4.2.2 The form of the first component ................................................ 113 4.2.3 The form of the second component ............................................ 115 4.2.3.1 Compounds with the compositional suffix -is (m.)/-e (f.) and unsuffixed examples ..................................................................... 115 4.2.3.2 The spread of the adjectival suffix -īg- ............................. 118 4.3 Summary ........................................................................................... 119 5 Verbal governing compounds in Old Latvian ..................................... 121 5.1 The meaning of the verbal governing compounds ............................ 121 5.2 The form of the verbal governing compounds .................................. 123 5.2.1 Groups of compounds according to the form of the second component ........................................................................................... 123 5.2.1.1 Compounds with the compositional suffix -is (m.)/-e (f.) . 124 5.2.1.2 Compounds ending in -a ................................................... 126 5.2.1.3 Compounds ending in -s ................................................... 127 5.2.2 The form of the first component ................................................ 128 5.2.3 The form of the second component ............................................ 132 5.2.3.1 Compounds with the compositional suffix -is (m.)/-e (f.) . 132 5.2.3.2 Compounds ending in -a ................................................... 133 5.2.3.3 Compounds ending in -s ................................................... 135 5.2.3.4 Other suffixes used in forming agent nouns ..................... 138 5.3 Summary ........................................................................................... 142 6 Compounding in the oldest texts of Latvian (16th century – the first half of the 17th century) ..........................................................................
Load more

Recommended publications
  • VALTS ERNÇSTREITS (Riga) LIVONIAN ORTHOGRAPHY Introduction the Livonian Language Has Been Extensively Written for About
    Linguistica Uralica XLIII 2007 1 VALTS ERNÇSTREITS (Riga) LIVONIAN ORTHOGRAPHY Abstract. This article deals with the development of Livonian written language and the related matters starting from the publication of first Livonian books until present day. In total four different spelling systems have been used in Livonian publications. The first books in Livonian appeared in 1863 using phonetic transcription. In 1880, the Gospel of Matthew was published in Eastern and Western Livonian dialects and used Gothic script and a spelling system similar to old Latvian orthography. In 1920, an East Livonian written standard was established by the simplification of the Finno-Ugric phonetic transcription. Later, elements of Latvian orthography, and after 1931 also West Livonian characteristics, were added. Starting from the 1970s and due to a considerable decrease in the number of Livonian mother tongue speakers in the second half of the 20th century the orthography was modified to be even more phonetic in the interest of those who did not speak the language. Additionally, in the 1930s, a spelling system which was better suited for conveying certain phonetic phenomena than the usual standard was used in two books but did not find any wider usage. Keywords: Livonian, standard language, orthography. Introduction The Livonian language has been extensively written for about 150 years by linguists who have been noting down examples of the language as well as the Livonians themselves when publishing different materials. The prime consideration for both of these groups has been how to best represent the Livonian language in the written form. The area of interest for the linguists has been the written representation of the language with maximal phonetic precision.
    [Show full text]
  • Andra Kalnača a Typological Perspective on Latvian Grammar
    Andra Kalnača A Typological Perspective on Latvian Grammar Andra Kalnača A Typological Perspective on Latvian Grammar Managing Editor: Anna Borowska Associate Editor: Helle Metslang Language Editor: Uldis Balodis Published by De Gruyter Open Ltd, Warsaw/Berlin Part of Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Munich/Boston This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 license, which means that the text may be used for non-commercial purposes, provided credit is given to the author. For details go to http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/. Copyright © 2014 Andra Kalnača ISBN 978-3-11-041130-0 e- ISBN 978-3-11-041131-7 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available in the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. Managing Editor: Anna Borowska Associate Editor: Helle Metslang Language Editor: Uldis Balodis www.degruyteropen.com Cover illustration: © Ieva Kalnača Contents Abbreviations I Introduction II 1 The Paradigmatics and Declension of Nouns 1 1.1 Introductory Remarks on Paradigmatics 1 1.2 Declension 4 1.2.1 Noun Forms and Palatalization 9 1.2.2 Nondeclinable Nouns 11 1.3 Case Syncretism 14 1.3.1 Instrumental 18 1.3.2 Vocative 25 1.4 Reflexive Nouns 34 1.5 Case Polyfunctionality and Case Alternation 47 1.6 Gender 66 2 The Paradigmatics and Conjugation of Verbs 74 2.1 Introductory Remarks 74 2.2 Conjugation 75 2.3 Tense 80 2.4 Person 83 3 Aspect 89
    [Show full text]
  • Latgalian, a Short Grammar of (Nau).Pdf
    Languages of the World/Materials 482 A short grammar of Latgal ian Nicole Nau full text research abstracts of all titles monthly updates 2011 LINCOM EUROPA LATGALIAN LW/M482 Published by LINCOM GmbH 2011. Contents Preface ............................................................................................................................ 3 LINCOMGmbH 1. Introduction .............................................................................................................. 4 Gmunder Str. 35 J .1 General information .................................................................................................. 4 D-81379 Muenchen 1.2 History ....................................................................................................................... 4 1.3 Research and description ........................................................................................... 7 [email protected] 1.4 Typological overview ................................................................................................ 8 www.lincom-europa.com 2. The sound system ..................................................................................................... 9 2. 1 Phonemes, sounds, and letters ................................................................................... 9 webshop: www.lincom-shop.eu 2.2 Stress and tone ......................................................................................................... 13 2.3 Phonological processes ..........................................................................................
    [Show full text]
  • The Incidence and Evolution of Palatalized Consonants in Latvian
    City University of New York (CUNY) CUNY Academic Works All Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects 5-2015 The Incidence and Evolution of Palatalized Consonants in Latvian Linda Zalite Graduate Center, City University of New York How does access to this work benefit ou?y Let us know! More information about this work at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/1198 Discover additional works at: https://academicworks.cuny.edu This work is made publicly available by the City University of New York (CUNY). Contact: [email protected] THE INCIDENCE AND EVOLUTION OF PALATALIZED CONSONANTS IN LATVIAN by LINDA ZALITE A master’s thesis submitted to the Graduate Faculty in Linguistics in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, The City University of New York 2015 © 2015 Linda Zalite All Rights Reserved ii This manuscript has been read and accepted for the Graduate Faculty in Linguistics in satisfaction of the dissertation requirement for the degree of Master of Arts. Juliette Blevins Date Thesis Advisor Gita Martohardjono Date Executiv e Officer THE CITY UNIVERSITY OF NEW YORK iii Abstract The Incidence and Evolution of Palatalized Consonants in Latvian by Linda Zalite Advisor: Professor Juliette Blevins This thesis traces the evolution of the palatalized rhotic /rj/ in Baltic languages with focus on the continuation of this segment in Latvian and its recent neutralization with /r/. Historical, phonological, phonetic, and synchronic data is gathered as evidence to further our understanding of the Latvian palatalized rhotic and its near-disappearance in the 20th century. Previous typological works of Endzelīns (1922, 1951), Dini (1997), Rūķe-Draviņa (1994) and Ābele (1929) were considered intending to answer three central questions.
    [Show full text]
  • Baltic Languages and White Nights Contacts Between Baltic and Uralic Languages
    Baltic Languages and White Nights Contacts between Baltic and Uralic languages International Conference University of Helsinki, 11–12 June 2012 Programme Abstracts Participants Conference Programme Monday 11 June Registration 9.30 – 10.00. Metsätalo - Forsthuset, Unioninkatu - Unionsgatan 40, III Floor. Plenary session 10.00 – 17.00, Room 8, III Floor. Moderated by Santeri Junttila and Laimute Balode. 10:00 Arto Mustajoki, University of Helsinki. Opening of the conference. 10:15 Santeri Junttila, University of Helsinki: The contacts between Proto-Finnic and Baltic: do we know anything Thomsen did not? 10:45 Riho Grünthal, University of Helsinki: Livonian at the cross-roads of language contacts 11:15 Anna Daugaviete, Saint Petersburg State University: The development of unstressed syllables in Latvian: Lithuanian and Baltic-Finnic parallels 11:45 Tea and coffee 12:00 Karl Pajusalu, University of Helsinki: On phonology of the Salaca Livonian language 12:30 Laimute Balode, University of Helsinki/ University of Latvia: Criteria for determining of possible Finno-Ugrisms in Latvian toponymy 13:00 Lunch 14:30 Pauls Balodis, Latvian Language Institute: Surnames of Finno-Ugric origin in Latvia 15:00 PƝteris Vanags, Stockholm University/ University of Latvia: Latvian and Estonian names for traditional feast days of the Christian church: Common history and sources 15:30 Tea and coffee 16:00 Adam Hyllested, University of Copenhagen: The origins of Finnish aika 'time' and aita 'fence': Germanic, Baltic, or Slavic? 16:30 Janne Saarikivi, University of Helsinki: On the stratigraphy of borrowings in Finnic. Reconsidering the Slavic and Baltic borrowings. 17.30–19.30 Reception at the Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania, Rauhankatu - Fredsgatan 13 A Tuesday 12 June Section I.
    [Show full text]
  • Estonian and Latvian Verb Government Comparison
    TARTU UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE OF ESTONIAN AND GENERAL LINGUISTICS DEPARTMENT OF ESTONIAN AS A FOREIGN LANGUAGE Miķelis Zeibārts ESTONIAN AND LATVIAN VERB GOVERNMENT COMPARISON Master thesis Supervisor Dr. phil Valts Ernštreits and co-supervisor Mg. phil Ilze Tālberga Tartu 2017 Table of contents Preface ............................................................................................................................... 5 1. Method of research .................................................................................................... 8 2. Description of research sources and theoretical literature ......................................... 9 2.1. Research sources ................................................................................................ 9 2.2. Theoretical literature ........................................................................................ 10 3. Theoretical research background ............................................................................. 12 3.1. Cases in Estonian and Latvian .......................................................................... 12 3.1.1. Estonian noun cases .................................................................................. 12 3.1.2. Latvian noun cases .................................................................................... 13 3.2. The differences and similarities between Estonian and Latvian cases ............. 14 3.2.1. The differences between Estonian and Latvian case systems ................... 14 3.2.2. The similarities
    [Show full text]
  • Comments on Cedilla and Comma Below (Revision 2)
    Comments on cedilla and comma below (revision 2) Denis Moyogo Jacquerye <[email protected]> 2013-07-30 1. Summary The document provides comments on the recent discussion about cedilla and comma below and the proposal to add characters with invariant cedilla. With the evidence found, our conclusion is that the cedilla can have several forms, including that of the comma below or similar shapes. Adding characters with invariant cedilla would only increase the confusion and could lead to instable data as is the case with Romanian. The right solution to this problem is the same as for other preferred glyph variation: custom fonts or multilingual smart fonts, better application support for language tagging and font technologies. 2. Discussion In the Unicode Standard the cedilla and comma below are two different combining diacritical marks both inherited from previous character encodings. This distinction between those marks has not always been made, like in ISO 8859-2, or before computer encodings where they were used interchangibly based on the font style. The combining cedilla character is de facto a cedilla that can take several shapes or forms, and the combining comma below is a non contrastive character only representing a glyph variant of that cedilla as historically evidence shows. Following discussion about the Marshallese forms used in LDS publications on the mpeg-OT-spec mailing list, Eric Muller’s document (L2/13-037) raises the question of the differentiation between the cedilla and the comma below as characters in precomposed Latvian characters with the example of Marshallese that uses these but with a different preferred form.
    [Show full text]
  • Overview and Rationale
    Integration Panel: Maximal Starting Repertoire — MSR-4 Overview and Rationale REVISION – November 09, 2018 Table of Contents 1 Overview 3 2 Maximal Starting Repertoire (MSR-4) 3 2.1 Files 3 2.1.1 Overview 3 2.1.2 Normative Definition 3 2.1.3 Code Charts 4 2.2 Determining the Contents of the MSR 5 2.3 Process of Deciding the MSR 6 3 Scripts 7 3.1 Comprehensiveness and Staging 7 3.2 What Defines a Related Script? 8 3.3 Separable Scripts 8 3.4 Deferred Scripts 9 3.5 Historical and Obsolete Scripts 9 3.6 Selecting Scripts and Code Points for the MSR 9 3.7 Scripts Appropriate for Use in Identifiers 9 3.8 Modern Use Scripts 10 3.8.1 Common and Inherited 11 3.8.2 Scripts included in MSR-1 11 3.8.3 Scripts added in MSR-2 11 3.8.4 Scripts added in MSR-3 or MSR-4 12 3.8.5 Modern Scripts Ineligible for the Root Zone 12 3.9 Scripts for Possible Future MSRs 12 3.10 Scripts Identified in UAX#31 as Not Suitable for identifiers 13 4 Exclusions of Individual Code Points or Ranges 14 4.1 Historic and Phonetic Extensions to Modern Scripts 14 4.2 Code Points That Pose Special Risks 15 4.3 Code Points with Strong Justification to Exclude 15 4.4 Code Points That May or May Not be Excludable from the Root Zone LGR 15 4.5 Non-spacing Combining Marks 16 5 Discussion of Particular Code Points 18 Integration Panel: Maximal Starting Repertoire — MSR-3 Overview and Rationale 5.1 Digits and Hyphen 19 5.2 CONTEXT O Code Points 19 5.3 CONTEXT J Code Points 19 5.4 Code Points Restricted for Identifiers 19 5.5 Compatibility with IDNA2003 20 5.6 Code Points for Which the
    [Show full text]
  • Revisiting Proto-Indo-European Schwebeablaut
    UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Revisiting Proto-Indo-European Schwebeablaut A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Indo-European Studies by Kaspars Ozoliņš 2015 © Copyright by Kaspars Ozoliņš 2015 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Revisiting Proto-Indo-European Schwebeablaut by Kaspars Ozoliņš Doctor of Philosophy in Indo-European Studies University of California, Los Angeles, 2015 Professor H. Craig Melchert, Chair This dissertation examines the phenomenon of Proto-Indo-European schwebeablaut (German Schwebeablaut “floating vowel gradation”), whereby a number of reconstructed forms are observed to alternate in their root shape between CeRC (termed State I) and CReC (termed State II). This mechanism of Proto-Indo-European (PIE) root ablaut has long been tacitly accepted (in one form or another) by scholars; however, the only comprehensive treatment has been Anttila (1969), and the matter therefore merits a thorough review. This dissertation reviews material from the daughter languages considered to be evidence for schwebeablaut by using some of the same techniques employed in the work of Anttila, only in an updated fashion. A large majority of the remaining cases are explained without requiring recourse to schwebeablaut, while several more difficult forms are discussed in individual chapters. The second part of the dissertation examines a unique subtype of roots extended by an s-formant that exhibit the following alternation: CeRC : CReC-s. It is argued that the descriptive schwebeablaut inherent in these formations may legitimately be traced to PIE. An Optimality Theoretic account for this phonologically motivated metathesis is offered, which likewise eliminates the need to invoke schwebeablaut (as classically defined).
    [Show full text]
  • Verbal Categories in Salaca Livonian Grammar1 Darbības Vārda
    Kategoriju robežas gramatikā Verbal categories in Salaca Livonian grammar1 Darbības vārda kategorijas Salacas lībiešu gramatikā Karl Pajusalu University of Tartu, Institute of Estonian and General Linguistics Jakobi 2, Tartu, 50090, Estonia E-mail: [email protected] The Latvian territory in the central Baltic region has historically been a core area of the Baltic Sea Sprachbund. Besides the Baltic languages, several Finnic varieties have been spoken in this region. The present study focuses on verbal categories of one variety among them – Salaca Livonian, the only ancient Vidzeme Livonian dialect for which a language corpus is available. In the research history of Finnic languages, Salaca Livonian has often been seen as a mixed variety of Estonian and Livonian. However, it has actually been a mixture of at least three languages – Estonian, Livonian, and Latvian. This paper is an attempt to analyze Salaca Livonian verbal categories according to Estonian and Latvian grammatical traditions. Two main hypotheses are studied. First, it is shown that Salaca Livonian verb forms combine Finnic and Latvian grammatical categories. Secondly, the forms which allow different descriptions indicate weak boundaries or transitions between categories. Salaca Livonian verb morphology unites a number of archaic and innovative features in the making of verb paradigms. Keywords: morphology, morphosyntax, verbal categories, Livonian, Estonian, Latvian Introduction Language data of the Salaca Livonian dialect is the most important source to explain what the language of the ancient Vidzeme Livonian people might have looked like. The variety was named after the river Salaca in northern Vidzeme, but the language data come from a broader region in the vicinity of the rivers Salaca and Svētupe and along the Gulf of Riga in the area of the ancient Livonian Metsepole County.
    [Show full text]
  • Overview and Rationale
    Integration Panel: Maximal Starting Repertoire — MSR-5 Overview and Rationale REVISION – APRIL 06, 2021 – PUBLIC COMMENT Table of Contents 1 Overview 3 2 Maximal Starting Repertoire (MSR-5) 3 2.1 Files 3 2.1.1 Overview 3 2.1.2 Normative Definition 4 2.1.3 HTML Presentation 4 2.1.4 Code Charts 4 2.2 Determining the Contents of the MSR 5 2.3 Process of Deciding the MSR 6 3 Scripts 8 3.1 Comprehensiveness and Staging 8 3.2 What Defines a Related Script? 9 3.3 Separable Scripts 9 3.4 Deferred Scripts 9 3.5 Historical and Obsolete Scripts 9 3.6 Selecting Scripts and Code Points for the MSR 10 3.7 Scripts Appropriate for Use in Identifiers 10 3.8 Modern Use Scripts 11 3.8.1 Common and Inherited 12 3.8.2 Scripts included in MSR-1 12 3.8.3 Scripts added in MSR-2 12 3.8.4 Scripts added in MSR-3 through MSR-5 13 3.8.5 Modern Scripts Ineligible for the Root Zone 13 3.9 Scripts for Possible Future MSRs 13 3.10 Scripts Identified in UAX#31 as Not Suitable for identifiers 14 4 Exclusions of Individual Code Points or Ranges 16 4.1 Historic and Phonetic Extensions to Modern Scripts 16 4.2 Code Points That Pose Special Risks 17 4.3 Code Points with Strong Justification to Exclude 17 4.4 Code Points That May or May Not be Excludable from the Root Zone LGR 17 4.5 Non-spacing Combining Marks 18 Integration Panel: Maximal Starting Repertoire — MSR-3 Overview and Rationale 5 Discussion of Particular Code Points 20 5.1 Digits and Hyphen 20 5.2 CONTEXT O Code Points 21 5.3 CONTEXT J Code Points 21 5.4 Code Points Restricted for Identifiers 21 5.5 Compatibility
    [Show full text]
  • Impersonal Constructions with Personal Reference. Referents of Deleted Actors in Baltic and Estonian
    BALTIC LINGUISTICS 11 (2020), 12–21 Impersonal constructions with personal reference. Referents of deleted actors in Baltic and Estonian L L Vilnius University & University of Tartu N N Vilnius University & Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan BĖ SĖ Vilnius University A LĖ Vilnius University This paper explores referential features of deleted actors in impersonal passive and impersonal constructions in three languages: Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian. Though cross-linguistically passive or impersonal verb forms of intransitive verbs are generally associated with indefinite human agency, our study shows that this correlation is not absolute: in the investigated languages passives and impersonals of intransitives, apart from generic and indefinite actors, may also imply contextually given, definite actors, and for some constructions, e.g. Estonian impersonals with the auxiliary saama ‘get’, this is actually their main use. Data for our study comes from large comparable corpora of web resources. In a small quantitative study we determine the factors that condition a personal use of an impersonal verb form in the three languages. The most important factors are verbal lexeme (certain lexemes show a greater preference for certain types of covert actors), as well as construction type: of two formally distinct impersonal (passive) constructions, one is preferred in non-impersonal functions where the covert actor is a contextually given person. Keywords: voice-related impersonal constructions, impersonal, passive, Estonian, Lat- vian, Lithuanian, covert actors, cumulative construction, experiential perfect . Introduction1 The topic of this paper is constructions with a passive participle as predi- cate where the actor, though syntactically deleted, has a referent known to speaker and addressee.
    [Show full text]