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Jūlijs Kārkliņš – nozīmīga personība latviešu valodniecībā

Author(s): Jānis Valdmanis / Language(s): Latvian Issue: 5/2014

The article deals with the personality of Jūlijs Kārkliņš and analyses his point of view regarding the concept of syntax. The personal characteristics of Kārkliņš are considered from two viewpoints, firstly, as a university lecturer on syntax at the University of Latvia (until 1982), and, secondly, as a colleague. Kārkliņš is characterized as a capable and hardworking person and researcher, a representative of modern linguistics (in comparison to comparative-historical philology and traditional grammar). Kārkliņš’s view on syntax is logical and systemic, it integrates linguistic theory with a language material. Kārkliņš was the first in Latvia to use structural and statistical methods in syntactic studies. This led him to reconsider the main problems of syntax, for example, a precise formulation of the object of syntactical studies, defining the aspects of research and structuring syntax as a subsystem of language. The syntactic subsystem is structured in the level of words, simple sentences, compound and complex sentences and text. These were new ideas at the time of Kārkliņš. All of them are reviewed in this article. At the end of the article, Kārkliņš is characterised as a demanding and precise university lecturer who was democratic and humane, and had a great sense of humour.

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Latviešu valodas noteikto un nenoteikto adjektīvu opozīcija: sintakse un semantika

Author(s): Axel Holvoet / Language(s): Latvian Issue: 5/2014

This article examines an opposition that would, at first sight, seem to correspond ideally to the notion of a linguistic opposition as conceived by the structuralists, viz. that of the definite and indefinite forms of the adjective in Latvian. It is binary, asymmetric and seemingly based on one invariant, viz. semantic definiteness (identifiability of the referent by the addressee of the utterance). In the article a number of less straightforward uses of the definite forms are discussed –basically instances where these forms are used beyond the domain of proper semantic definiteness. It is thus established that the contrast of adjectival forms can be a based on a whole array of features, partly semantic but partly also purely syntactic. It is difficult to represent a category of this type in the form of a classical binary category, but it can more successfully be represented with the aid of the semantic map method.

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Nolieguma un modalitātes attieksmes

Author(s): Andra Kalnača / Language(s): Latvian Issue: 5/2014

Traditionally, the analysis of modality in Latvian is mainly concerned with the mood system, and partly with the observation of some modal verbs; affirmation or negation of the predicate in different moods is not the object of discussion. Therefore, it is important to discuss the relations between negation and modality in Latvian theoretically and practically. The analysis of the negated mood forms in Latvian shows, however, that in general negation and modality function separately. However, in the phrases of politeness, if they are expressed by the negated verb in the conditional mood, can the interdependence of modality and negation be observed.

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Infinitīvs kā sekundāri predikatīvs komponents

Author(s): Agita Kazakeviča / Language(s): Latvian Issue: 5/2014

The infinitive may be analysed as a semi predicative component in sentences where its function is to expand the underlying structural pattern of a simple sentence. It is possible to distinguish between two principal types of such constructions in modern Latvian – constructions with semi predicative subject infinitives and constructions with semi predicative object infinitives.The study provides a summary of the treatment that the infinitive has received in the past in the work of Jūlijs Kārkliņš and other syntacticians as a semi predicative component. The resulting synthesis of approaches is then used as a basis for analysing and classifying the collected language material. The overall (more general) objective of the study has been to catalogue the types of sentences that incorporate the infinitive in their structure in one way or another in modern written Latvian.The infinitive is, clearly, a widespread means of expressing additional, viz. secondary or subordinate, predication in Latvian, and it is arguably more laconic, economical in form than, for example, participial clauses and some other types of constructions used to express additional action. The status of the infinitive following a noun as a semi predicative component, however, remains controversial in Latvian linguistics and requires further research.

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Noliegtie runas verbi oriģinālā un tulkojumā

Author(s): Svetlana Polkovnikova / Language(s): Latvian Issue: 5/2014

Contemporary linguistics still pays much attention to studying the category of negation. Studies of research literature lead to the conclusion that the category of negation is mostly regarded as a logically grammatical, functionally semantic and communicatively pragmatic one. Negation in language is actualized in two ways – implicitly and explicitly, and both means of negation are mutually related. Implicit negation as compared to the explicit one is not verbally marked; its semantics is revealed by the structure of the word meaning or syntactical constructions. From the formal standpoint, explicit negation is easier to perceive, whereas in disclosing implicit negation context plays a great role along with the speech situation and other extra-linguistic factors.Negation as a universal linguistic category is to a greater or lesser extent realized at all language levels, therefore in studying it there exist numerous approaches and theories. One of the traditional approaches is the semantic-functional one, according to which the devices of negation are regarded in close connection with their pragmatic load in the expression. The aim of the given research is to reveal the peculiarities of the realization of the category of negation based on the material of Latvian and Russian speech verbs. The empirical basis of the research is constituted of approximately 200 Russian-Latvian parallels that are excerpted from A. Chekhov’s stories and translations to Latvian. The excerpted examples may be divided into two groups. First, these are the negated speech verbs, i.e. verbs derived by the prefix ne- (the Russian analogue being a speech verb in combination with the particle of negation не) and that point in the context to the process of speech. Second, these are verbs with the semantics of silence or other semantics that ought to be analyzed in relation to the regarded topic. In this case we mean examples where negation as a semantic component is a part of the structure of the meaning of the speech verb.Contrasting Russian-Latvian parallels reveals that the semantics of negation is usually rendered consequently in translation. As a result, not only the meaning of the negated speech verb but also the whole expression acquires specific emphasis. The excerpted examples show that the semantics of negation is often actualized in dialogues and figurative descriptions, as negation is a powerful means of exerting influence that along with the speaker’s subjectively objective attitude towards the reality endows the context with manifold emotionally expressive connotations.

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Apzīmētāja, sekundāri predikatīva komponenta un izteicēja robežgadījumi

Author(s): Baiba Saulite / Language(s): Latvian Issue: 5/2014

The article deals with two kinds of borderline cases – the borderline between the secondary predicate and the attribute, and the borderline between the attribute and the nominal predicate. The borderline between the secondary predicate and the attribute is analyzed taking into account the typical features of the secondary predicate and the attribute, the context and the position in the sentence. The borderline between the predicate and the attribute is analyzed in context with the lexical and the copular use of the verb būt ‘to be’. Though to distinguish these two functions of būt the environment of the syntactic form should be regarded, in particular cases this distinction is not possible, therefore it seems that the position of the word in the sentence can influence its syntactic function. The possible changes of the position in the sentence cause the shades of the meaning connected with the predicativity of the utterance, with the modality and tense, with the communicative structure, and the emotional connotation. Often all of these shades can not be distinguished and recognized.

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Ja un jā, ne un nē funkcijas

Author(s): Evelīna Zilgalve / Language(s): Latvian Issue: 5/2014

There is a little observed issue in Latvian linguistics from the aspect of oppositions in this paper: the different and common functions of jā and nē, ne and nē, ja and ne are analyzed.Assertion particle jā and negation particle nē are often used as discourse markers in the same functions. There are four common functions stated: assertion, concretization, generalization, substation of the predicate.Ne and nē are both related to negation, and nē is often used in the place of ne which is considered wrong from the aspect of language norm. However, this use is due to the polarity – nē is opposed to the whole situation mentioned before, e. g. Ja tas otrs to ievēros, saskatīs, saklausīs, sapratīs – tad jūtas ir abpusējas. Ja nē – tad šis cilvēks nav uz viena viļņa ar jums. ’If the other person notices, discerns, hears and understands it – then the feelings are mutual. If no – then this person is not on the same wavelength with you.’ The word group vai nē used after an affirmative verb is used in disjunction, analogically as in the use of jā vai nē, e. g. Ar laiku bērns apzinās, vai vecāki viņu mīl vai nē, vai viņš ir saviem vecākiem vajadzīgs, nozīmīgs. ‘By the time the child understands if parents love him or no, if he is necessary, important to his parents.’ So a choice from two given possibilities a or b has to be made.Ja and ne are used in questions when the speaker wants the addressee to agree to what the speaker has said, e. g. Es saprotu, ka @CVK_zinas provizoriskos balsošanas rezultātus strukturētā formātā nemaz nepiedāvā, ja? Oh well.. ‘I understand that @CVK_zinas do not offer the preliminary voting results in a structured format, right? Oh well..’ In these cases ja and ne are used in the functions of turn-final discourse markers. Ja in this use should be considered as a particle like ne.There are seven functions stated in this paper, there are at least two of the words ja, jā, ne and nē used in each of them.

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Teikuma struktūra un pārejamība

Author(s): Līga Ciematniece / Language(s): Latvian Issue: 4/2014

Transitivity and intransitivity build opposition, which have been analyzed syntactically in Latvian linguistics – the realization of transitivity in syntactic structure of sentence has been analyzed. As per author’s opinion syntactic view does not completely reflect the essence of transitivity, therefore attention is in this article paid to understanding transitivity and transitive verbs as well as means of object expression.Division in transitive and intransitive verbs was based on transitive verb object being expressed in accusative (occasionally in genitive), thereby leaving outside of transitive verbs group the verbs having object being expressed in different case. Such division is not reasonable as per author’s opinion; therefore this article underlines opinion, that transitivity should be analyzed from point of view of semantic structure. Examples being discussed in this article confirm that grammatical expression means of object do not have a role in determining if the verb is transitive or intransitive. Transitive or intransitive use of verb depends on every particular communicative situation.

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Some remarks on Latvian aspect

Author(s): Daiki Horiguchi / Language(s): English Issue: 4/2014

The article provides some remarks on Latvian aspect. It discusses some semantic oppositions and cases of aspectual neutralization, and also proposes one of the criteria determining the aspect of aspectually neutral verbs in the context – case of temporal adverbials locative/accusative. Overall, the Latvian aspect can be characterized by its non-rigid expression of aspectual opposition and the possibility of mutual replaceability.

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Regulārie vārddarināšanas procesi: starp vārddarināšanu un formveidošanu

Author(s): Tatjana Pakalne / Language(s): Latvian Issue: 4/2014

The principal objective of the article is to draw attention to the major intrinsic differences between two kinds of derivational processes, namely, regular and non-regular derivational processes, in Latvian. The range of issues discussed includes the dissimilar functions of the two types of processes in language, the distinct features of the derivational meaning of regular derivational models as opposed to non-regular models, the implications that the distinction between regular and non-regular derivational processes has for productivity measurements and for the traditional division of morphology into two isolated branches – inflectional and derivational morphology.

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Kategoriju robežu noteikšanas problēmas mutvārdu tekstā

Author(s): Linda Lauze / Language(s): Latvian Issue: 4/2014

Up to now there are some fundamental issues related to fixing boundaries between categories in spoken text. The present paper highlights three of these issues. First, fixing boundaries between the simple and composite sentence refers to both written and spoken text. Special attention is given to utterances where the predicates are expressed by positive and negative verbs and the role of proposition. It is agreed that the simple sentence is composed of one predicate.The second and the third issues, that is, fixing boundaries between quasi-sentences and utterances and between parcellation and reduction, are important when implementing the structure of the sentence in spoken text. For instance, communicative units consisting of prepositions or conjunctions are not considered being quasi-sentences, because only part of the sentence structure is verbalized and a syntactic zero form (or several zero forms) is stated.

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Verbāls sastata izteicējs latviešu valodā

Author(s): Ilze Lokmane / Language(s): Latvian Issue: 4/2014

Verbal compound predicate in Latvian consists of the copular verb and the infinitive. In the position of the subject there can either be another infinitive or the dative form of a noun. The first type of sentences is comparatively rare due to its specific semantics, namely, these sentences are mostly proverbs. The most striking peculiarity of the second type of infinitive sentences is that the copular verb may only be used in the past and the future, while the present indefinite form of copula būt ‘to be’ is not possible. This has raised the question whether infinitive sentences with and without copula belong to the same syntactic model or there exist (at least) two separate syntactic patterns.The analysis of semantics, paradigmatic relations and stylistic properties of given sentences suggests that at least two different types of infinitive sentences with dative subject should be postulated.

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Vārdu pāra ja – tad funkcionālā analīze

Author(s): Evelīna Zilgalve / Language(s): Latvian Issue: 4/2014

There are the semantic functions of the word tad in the word pair ja – tad ‘if – then’ analyzed in this paper. This word pair is often used in conditionals, for example, Ja strādā ar prieku, tad nekas nav grūti ‘If you are working with joy, then nothing is difficult’. The grammars do not specify cases in which the word tad must be used after conditional subordinate clause. The author considers that tad after the conditional subordinate clause makes the text more precise, as it is done in the exact sciences. In spoken language tad clarifies the parts of utterances; however, in written text, journalism, fiction etc., tad after the conditional subordinate clause is not necessary.Like the word pair kad – tad ‘when – then’, ja – tad also possess implication of continuity. We can say that all the conditionals with ja – tad possess the implication of time but the utterances with kad – tad can possess implication of condition, e. g. Kad debess bieži nozvaigžņojusies, tad sagaidāms slikts laiks ‘When there are often stars in the sky, then the weather will be bad’, and there can also be utterances without this implication, e. g. Kad vajadzēja stāvēt barikādēs, tad zināja, kur laukos atrodas cilvēki ‘When we had to stand in barricades, then they knew where there are people in the country’.Ja – tad is often used to express the comparison. It can be used to express comparison in time, e. g. Ja vakar twitteris bija pilns ar gruzīgiem twītiem par skolu, tad šodien viss ir pretēji ‘If yesterday the twitter was full of depressive tweets about the school, then today everything is completely different’, or, the comparison based on common features like in the metaphor, e. g. Ja krieviem ir Puškins, tad latviešiem ir Rainis ‘If the Russians have Pushkin, then the Latvians have Rainis’. The transformation of implication of continuity of ja – tad into conditional and comparison can be showed as follows:Ja – tad can be used as a discourse marker, making constructions that are considered as verbosity, e. g. Ja runājam par logiem, tad.. ‘If we are talking about the windows, then..’ These constructions facilitate the perception of text because there is the subject, main issue introduced in this formula.

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Paradigma morfoloģijā un sintaksē

Author(s): Ilze Lokmane,Andra Kalnača / Language(s): Latvian Issue: 3/2013

The current paper is devoted to the analysis of morphological and syntactical paradigms in Latvian. Syntactical paradigms are understood as morphosyntactic realizations of the simple sentence in different personal, mood and voice forms as well as representations of structural variations of the subject or the predicate. If the morphological system of Latvian demonstrates full / defective and mixed / syncretic paradigms (in different combinations in the system of nouns, adjectives and verbs), for the syntactic paradigms only the first type is possible. Therefore, the article discusses theoretical problems of notion and interprets the readings of paradigm. Traditionally, the paradigm is understood as the object of morphology. However, following the ideas of the Prague linguistic circle the Latvian grammarians have accepted that it is possible to postulate paradigms in the syntactical level of language system as well.

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Dažas gramatiskas pārmaiņas lībiešu valodā latviešu valodas ietekmē

Author(s): Valts Ernštreits,Gunta Kļava / Language(s): Latvian Issue: 3/2013

The article provides an insight into the process of various grammatical changes in Livonian developed by the prolonged contact situation with Latvian. Livonian is strongly influenced by the Latvian at different levels due to the close and endured contact between the speakers of two languages, it is necessary to note that speakers of Livonian were bilinguals for a long time. It is clear that Livonian has affected Latvian in similar way. The process of mutual borrowings can be observed in the vocabulary most clearly; however, there are changes that have occurred in the phonetics and grammar as well. The influence of Latvian resulted in the changes of Livonian case system – disappearance of exterior locative cases and formation of dative, merging of translative and comitative and formation of instrumental; development of prefixes from inherited words; composition of negation; formation of passive voice; and the rising of articles. One should be noted that linguistically correct knowledge of the ancient history of the Livonian language is not sufficient in terms of volume.

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Partikula SAK un modalitāte

Author(s): Liene Kalviša / Language(s): Latvian Issue: 3/2013

The main function of particles in Latvian is the expression of the epistemic modality. However, some particles can be associated with evidential meaning depending mostly on the context and speech situation. The analysis of particles as evidential markers is topical and problematic issue in Latvian because of the intersection of notions of evidentiality and epistemic modality. One of the most complicated questions that scholars of evidentiality are faced with is the relation between the evidentiality (marking of the source of information of the statement) and epistemic modality (the degree of confidence the speaker has for his statement). The connection between particles and marking of evidentiality rather depends on context and is of secondary importance in Latvian. Consequently, the focus is on the content of the utterance, emphasizing the indirect nature of the information or the speaker’s attitude to the proposition.This article pays attention to the analysis of the Latvian particle sak ‘that is to say’ and its modal functions in different statements. Sak can introduce the speaker’s own words (previously uttered), as well as verbalized thoughts or gestures. The main semantic component shared by this particle is a way the speaker interprets some pre-existent situation of what was perceived by the speaker. Particle sak semantically is very close to verb form sacīt ‘to say’ and every statement includes both the semantics of verb and the modality of particle. Statements with the particle sak usually express epistemic modality or some way of coexistence of epistemic modality and evidentiality.

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Kustības verba CELT daudznozīmība domu telpas teorijas aspektā

Author(s): Ieva Kuplā / Language(s): Latvian Issue: 3/2013

The paper analyses the system of meanings of polysemous verb of movement celt ‘to build’. To reflect relations between the basic meaning, secondary meaning and transferred meanings the space theory (developed in the cognitive linguistics framework) is used. It is essential to determine which mental space or frame is used in order to create new meanings.Mental spaces are created by frames. In their turn they are characterized by slots which are specified by space builders. Slots correspond to semantic roles, therefore distributional analysis is used. As a result, six meanings of the verb celt ‘to build’ are described.

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Paralēli teikuma locekļi sintaktisko sakaru aspektā

Author(s): Ilze Lokmane / Language(s): Latvian Issue: 3/2013

The article deals with typology of syntactic relations between parallel parts of sentence. The term parallel parts of sentence is used as a general notion including different syntactic units within a simple sentence: non-restrictive appositional constructions, coordinative word groups in relation to a generalizing superordinate word, as well as other units that have mostly been treated in punctuation overviews, however, they have not been investigated systematically from the point of view of syntactic relations. Nominal parallel parts of sentence are wholly or partly co-referential, therefore it seems reasonable to analyze realtions between denotata of the nouns.According to reference and realtions of denotata, nominal parallel parts of sentence can be divided into three groups: 1 co-relation between the noun and a deictic word; 2 hyponymic relations; 3 characterization, which is always subjective and most clearly reveals the secondary predication. From the point of view of syntactic relations, it must be admitted that in most cases parallel parts of sentence are in semi-predicative relation to one another.

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Latviešu valodas verbu valences marķēšana

Author(s): Gunta Nešpore,Baiba Saulite / Language(s): Latvian Issue: 3/2013

Development of valency resource for Latvian is started recently. The chosen approach takes into account the experience of other projects dealing with verbal valency (such as FrameNet for English, the valency dictionary of Lithuanian by N. Sližienė and Vallex for Czech) and is supplemented with our own ideas.The article describes our approach to the verbal valency annotation – the valency types (syntactic, semantic valency, selectional restrictions), the set of the semantic roles, and presents the tool developed for the valency annotation.Initially two annotation layers are chosen – semantic valency (semantic roles) and syntactic valency – the morphological description of the dependents of the verbs.The valency models (combinations of semantic roles) are generated from the annotated core semantic roles only. Non-core semantic roles are not used in this process because they are not specific enough to particular verbs.In future the annotation of one more valency layer is planned – very general ontological categories (animate, inanimate, abstract object, physical object, human) will be added.An online tool is developed for manual annotation of valences within a pre-selected corpus. The valency models, as well as morphological forms corresponding to each semantic role are suggested automatically.Summarized information of the valency of each verb, as well as corpus of annotated sentences will be available as a result of the project. Currently valency of approx. 180 verbs (more than 25 000 utterances) is annotated using data from the Balanced Corpus of Modern Latvian.

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Prievārdu pētīšanas metodes

Author(s): Eglė Žilinskaitė-Šinkūnienė / Language(s): Latvian Issue: 3/2013

The article presents various approaches to semantic analysis of prepositions. It starts with the descriptive and structural methods (e.g., Grabis 1959; Lindkvist 1972, 1976; Nītiņa 1978, 2007; Valiulytė 1976, 1997a, 1997b, 1998), taking into account componential analysis (Bennett 1975; Kilius 1977, 1980) and logical approach to prepositional semantics (Cooper 1968). The abovementioned works are mostly concerned with defining the semantic invariant or presenting the lists of the uses of the preposition without any additional information about the relations among the senses.Prepositional semantics received a fair amount of attention from the beginning of cognitive sciences in the early eighties of the 20th century. Rosch’s principles of categorization (Rosch 1978) and prototype theory led to understanding of the preposition as a natural category with the prototypical (or ideal) member, fuzzy boundaries and well interrelated senses (or use types, e.g., Herskovits 1986), which were represented as image-schemas or lexical networks (Lakoff 1987; Lindner 1983; Bellavia 1996; Dewell 1994, 1996; Meex 2001; Tyler, Evans 2003). Another approach to prepositional semantics was proposed by Steven C. Levinson and the Language and Cognition group at Max Planck institute for Psycholinguistics (Levinson 1992, 2003; Levinson et al. 2003, 2006). It is an onomasiologically based method to investigate spatial description and conception, in which the locational situations are described according to either topological or angular (i.e., intrinsic, relative or absolute frames of reference) information, while the dynamic contexts – according to Talmyan typology of the verb-framed and satellite-framed languages (Talmy 2000).

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