The following principal LSGs underlie the lexical semantic classification of Lithuanian LCs:
i. Possessive relations. This LSG includes LCs, which in fact denote trans- fer of possession and may thus be further subdivided into nine smaller 13 The discussion of the RolS of the verb in semantics, syntax, and elsewhere is so extensive that it is impossible to deal with the many different approaches here. In brief, different sets of semantic roles have been proposed, ranging from very general sets (in Role and Reference Grammar, there are only two: the actor and the undergoer, see Van Valin 2001: 206) to systems comprising as many as 20 or more individual roles identified through the analysis of the denotational situation (Fillmore 1977: 62, Huddleston 2002: 230–235; cf. also Apresjan [1974] 1995). In her dictionary of Lithuanian verb valency patterns, Sližienė (1994: 19–25) presents a list of as many as 24 semantic roles; in the Lithuanian Grammar (Ambrazas 1997: 603–604), meanwhile, there are only 14.
subgroups in accordance with the type of the transfer: giving-taking (duoti ‘to give’ – imti ‘to take’), donating/awarding-receiving (dovanoti
‘to donate’ – gauti ‘to receive’), buying-selling (parduoti ‘to sell’ – pirkti
‘to buy’), borrowing-lending (skolinti ‘to lend’ – skolintis ‘to borrow’), bequeathing-inheriting (palikti ‘to bequeath’ – paveldėti ‘to inherit’), letting-renting (nuomoti ‘to let’ – nuomotis ‘to rent’), supplying-receiving (teikti ‘to supply’ – gauti ‘to get’), sending-receiving (via an intermediary) (siųsti ‘to send’ – gauti ‘to receive’), and stable possessive relations (turėti
‘to have’ – priklausyti ‘to belong’).
ii. Spatial relations. This LSG subsumes three subgroups: LCs of support (laikyti ‘to hold, support’ – laikytis ‘to be supported’), LCs of reflection (atspindėti ‘to reflect’ – atsispindėti ‘to be reflected’), and LCs meaning permeability (susiurbti ‘to absorb’ – susisiurbti ‘to be absorbed’).
iii. Emotional relations. This LSG may be divided into three subgroups too.
They include LCs of positive emotions (žavėti ‘to fascinate’ – žavėtis
‘to admire, to be fascinated by’), LCs of negative emotions (bauginti ‘to scare’ – bijoti ‘to be afraid’), and LCs of passive perception (sapnuoti ‘to be dreaming’ – sapnuotis ‘to be seeing something in a dream’).
iv. Covering. This LSG subsumes six smaller subgroups, including those of covering a surface (tiesti1 staltiesę ant stalo ‘to lay a tablecloth on the table’
– tiesti2 stalą staltiese ‘to lay a table with a tablecloth’), covering with fine objects (barstyti1 smėlį ant tako ‘to sprinkle sand on the path’ – barstyti2 taką smėliu ‘to sprinkle the path with sand’), covering with vegetation (Krūmai apaugo1 tvenkinį ‘The shrubs have overgrown the pond’ – Tvenki- nys apaugo2 krūmais ‘The pond has been overgrown with shrubs’), covering by spreading (tepti1 sviestą ant duonos ‘to smear butter on the bread’ – tepti2 duoną sviestu ‘to smear the bread with butter’), covering by sticking (Purvas aplipo batus ‘Mud has stuck to the shoes’ – Batai aplipo purvu ‘The shoes have been caked with mud’), and that of uncontrolled covering (Sniegas dengia laukus ‘Snow is covering the fields’ – Laukai dengiasi sniegu ‘The fields are being covered (lit. are covering themselves) with snow’).14 v. Placement of object/obstruction (užristi1 akmenį ant tako ‘to roll a boulder
over the path’ – užristi2 taką akmeniu ‘to block the path with a boulder (i.e., to block the path by rolling a boulder over it’).
vi. Cause and effect relations (sąlygoti ‘to cause’ – priklausyti ‘to depend on’).
vii. Victory and loss (laimėti ‘to win’ – pralaimėti ‘to lose’).
viii. Feeding (šerti1 karvę šienu ‘to feed a cow hay’ – šerti2 šieną karvei ‘to feed hay to a cow’).
14 Wiemer (2006: 293) refers to these verb pairs as LCs of physical contact.
ix. Flow of liquid (Kraujas plūdo1 iš žaizdos ‘Blood surged from the wound’ – Žaizda plūdo2 krauju ‘The wound overflowed with blood’).
x. Expressive/Color properties (Pievoje marguoja1 gėlės ‘Flowers are shim- mering with color in the meadow’ – Pieva marguoja2 gėlėmis / nuo gėlių
‘The meadow is shimmering with motley flowers’). LCs within the LSG of flow of liquid and expressive/color properties are on the periphery of con- verseness. Unlike most other LCs, commonly found in spoken Lithuanian, these are mainly found in fiction as they are a tool of imagery building.
A few LCs happen to be outside lexical-semantic grouping, representing indi- vidual instances, e.g.:
(35) a. Iš t-os medžiag-os išein-a kostium-as.
from that-gen.sg.f fabric-gen.sg come.out-prs.3 suit-nom.sg ‘A suit can be made from that piece of fabric.’
b. T-os medžiag-os užtenk-a kostium-ui.
that-gen.sg.f fabric-gen.sg suffice-prs.3 suit-dat.sg ‘That piece of fabric is enough for a suit.’
(36) a. Nauj-i žodži-ai papild-o kalb-ą.
new-nom.pl.m word-nom.pl supplement-prs.3 language-acc.sg ‘New words supplement the language.’
b. Kalb-a pasipild-o nauj-ais
language-nom.sg supplement:refl-prs.3 new-ins.pl.m žodž-iais.
word-ins.pl
‘The language supplements itself with new words.’
Analysis of the data indicates that there is a correlation between the formal pro- perties of LCs and their semantics. For instance, most suppletives belong to the LSG of possessive relations; LCs of directional morphological derivation fall into LSGs of spatial relations, including such subgroups as support, reflection, and permeability. All LCs of the mixed type of derivation signify emotional relations, while LCs of non-directional (syntagmatic) derivation mainly represent LSGs of different types of covering, placement of object/obstruction, feeding, flow of liquid, expressive/color properties. Only in very few cases is an overlapping of several types of derivation observed within one and the same LSG (for example, reflexive derivatives skolinti ‘to lend’ – skolinti-s ‘to borrow’, nuomoti ‘to let’ – nuomoti-s ‘to rent’, and the like are in the LSG of possessive relations, which is mainly represented by suppletive oppositions).
It is noteworthy that the LSGs of converses exhibit several properties that distinguish them from other kinds of semantic groups of lexemes. First, LCs constitute two paradigms within an LSG: Two verbs form a pair by virtue of a converse relation that defines them – as such, they constitute a “horizontal”
converse paradigm; on a vertical dimension, different converse verbs within an LSG engage in synonymic and/or hyponymic relations.
Second, based on their lexical meanings, the members of a converse pair belong to different vertical paradigms. For example, the LCs išvežti, eksportuoti
‘to export’ and įsivežti, importuoti ‘to import’ are related horizontally in terms of syntactic converseness, as illustrated below:
(37) a. Rusij-a eksportuo-ja medien-ą į Japonij-ą.
Russia-nom.sg export-prs.3 wood-acc.sg to Japan-acc.sg ‘Russia exports wood to Japan.’
b. Japonij-a importuo-ja medien-ą iš Rusij-os.
Japan-nom.sg import-prs.3 wood-acc.sg from Russia-gen.sg ‘Japan imports wood from Russia.’
At the same time, the verb eksportuoti ‘to export’ belongs to the vertical paradigm of verbs of “transfer”, while importuoti ‘to import’ belongs to the paradigm of
“receiving”. Taken together, the two verbs are in a more generic LSG of “posses- sive relations”.
Third, LCs are not mutually exclusive: The two vertical paradigms are asym- metrical, as one lexeme can form converse relations with two, or even more, lexemes. For example, the verb gauti ‘to receive’ can be in a converse relation with the verbs duoti ‘to give’, dovanoti ‘to present, to give as a present’, tiekti ‘to supply’, apdovanoti ‘to reward’, išduoti ‘to produce, to give, to issue smb. with smth.’, etc. Compare the way (38a) correlates with (38b–f):
(38) a. Aš gav-au iš j-o knyg-ą.
1sg.nom receive-pst.1sg from he-gen book-acc.sg ‘I got/received a book from him.’
b. J-is dav-ė man knyg-ą.
he-nom give-pst.3 1sg.dat book-acc.sg ‘He gave me a book.’
c. J-is padovano-jo man knyg-ą.
he-nom present-pst.3 1sg.dat book-acc.sg ‘He gave me a present of a book.’
d. J-is tiek-ė man knyg-as.
he-nom supply-pst.3 1sg.dat book-acc.pl ‘He supplied books to me.’
e. J-is apdovano-jo mane knyg-a.
he-nom reward-pst.3 1sg.acc book-ins.sg ‘He rewarded me with a book.’
f. J-is išdav-ė man knyg-ą.
he-nom issue-pst.3 1sg.dat book-acc.sg ‘He issued a book to me.’
Graphically, this LSG may be represented as follows15:
Lith. duoti ‘give’ | dovanoti donate’ |
apdovanoti ‘award’ | |gauti ‘get’
tiekti ‘supply’ | teikti ‘supply’ | įteikti ‘hand in’|
The LSG of possessive relations is the largest group in the corpus, with over 50 pairs of LCs. Formally, almost all of them are suppletives (except for six pairs of reflexive derivatives, e.g., skolinti ‘to lend’ – skolinti-s ‘to borrow’). The majority of the subgroups contain LCs that are mainly trivalent. Most often their RefS contains two human referents and one inanimate referent – typically a thing (an object of the transfer, borrowing, inheriting, etc.) or, occasionally, an animal. The appearance of a fourth and fifth valency slot in the meaning of LCs signals a fourth and fifth referent in the RefS of the verb: Money, in the case of LCs of buying-selling, and money and a period of time in the case of letting-renting. LCs in the subgroup of possessive relations are bivalent. Although their referents may belong to different classes, the one that occurs in the function of the subject is usually human.
The RolS of trivalent LCs within this LSG correlates with the event structure of their meaning. For example, as all verbs in the base construction of the para- digm of ‘giving’ are causatives, the RolS of their meaning consists of an agent, a patient, and a beneficiary. At the same time, most of the verbs in the paradigm of ‘receiving’, which are inchoatives, are characterized by a RolS that involves 15 The assymmetry of the paradigm of LCs is also observable in other languages, and any of the vertical paradigms in opposition can be richer in synonyms or hyponyms. For instance, in English, contrary to Lithuanian, the LSG of property relations has a richer paradigm of verbs that refer to “receiving”: for example, confer enters into a converse relationship with take, get, receive, obtain (Zueva 1980: 103).
a beneficiary, a source, and a patient. The RolS of the LCs differs because they describe the same denotational situation differently: The person receiving an object is understood as a beneficiary rather than an agent – a typical role for an inchoative verb of receiving – while the person transferring an object to the bene- ficiary, again, is not the agent, but the source of the transfer taking place.
As has been mentioned above (see Section 3), the correlation of the seman- tic and syntactic characteristics of Lithuanian LCs may be demonstrated through their diatheses, which show the link between the RefS and the RolS of the seman- tic arguments and the SynS, or grammatical relations. It has been established that syntactic rearrangements within pairs of converse constructions bring about two types of diathetical change:
i. A change in the correlation pattern between elements on three levels – referential, role, and syntactic – with no impact on RolS.
(39) a. Jon-as ved-a On-ą.
Jonas-nom.sg take.as.a.wife-prs.3 Ona-acc.sg
AGENT COMITATIVE
‘Jonas is getting married to Ona.’
b. On-a ištek-a už Jon-o.
Ona-nom.sg take.as.a.husband-prs.3 for Jonas-gen.sg
AGENT COMITATIVE
‘Ona is getting married to Jonas.’
In these examples, the otherwise identical arguments are defined in terms of dif- ferent syntactic functions, but the RolS of the verbs remains the same.
ii. A change in the correlation pattern between elements at all levels, including RolS.
(40) a. Jon-as pardav-ė knyg-ą On-ai.
Jonas-nom.sg sell-pst.3 book-acc.sg Ona-dat.sg
AGENT=SUBJECT BENEFICIARY=OBJECT
‘Jonas sold a book to Ona.’
b. On-a pirk-o knyg-ą iš Jon-o.
Ona-nom.sg buy-pst.3 book-acc.sg from Jonas-gen.sg
AGENT=SUBJECT SOURCE=OBJECT
‘Ona bought a book from Jonas.’
Analysis of the data has highlighted 16 types of derived diatheses, 8 of which have the properties illustrated in (i) and the other 8 in (ii). The possibility of change in the RolS of verb meaning within a converse opposition depends upon the interpretation of the roles of the arguments in the two conversely related
sentences: They may either coincide or be different. Examples of the 16 diatheses of converse constructions in Lithuanian are provided in the appendix.
7 Conclusions
1. Lithuanian LCs form three types of morphological (formal) opposition:
(i) directional (derivational) oppositions, in which one member of the opposi- tion is derived from the other; (ii) non-directional oppositions, in which both members of the opposition share the same stem, without being derived from each other; (iii) suppletive oppositions, in which the members of the opposition are not cognate lexemes. Of these, non-directional morphological oppositions repre- sent the most sizeable group.
LCs cannot be defined in terms of a dedicated formal realization, as the above morphological (formal) types of opposition are not exclusive to LCs: The same types of opposition are also observable in other subsystems of the verb.
2. Based on the number of semantic arguments at their disposal (i.e., on their valency), LCs are bivalent, trivalent, and rarely four- and five-valent. The number of semantic valency slots determines the structural model of constructions headed by LCs. Bivalent converses allow only one type of converse transforma- tion, which involves a transposition of arguments 1 and 2. Logically, trivalent LCs generate five types of converse transformation, of which only three types find support in the data: (i) transposition of arguments 1 and 2; (ii) transposition of arguments 2 and 3; (iii) transposition of arguments 1 and 3. Four- and five-valent LCs follow the same model of converse transformation as trivalent LCs.
3. The following correlations are observed between the logically independent properties of “morphological type” and “syntactic type”:
i. Bivalent LCs typically involve verbs that form directional (derivational) morphological oppositions, as well as several verbs of the non-directional type and some suppletives. In this case, conversion affects arguments 1 and 2. The base constructions with such converses usually display a nominative-accusative or, less commonly, nominative-locative realiza- tion of the arguments. The converse counterparts of these constructions have a more varied argument realization, from nominative-genitive to nominative-prepositional.
ii. Trivalent LCs involve the majority of verbs that form non-directional (syntagmatic and correlative-affixal) morphological oppositions as well as most suppletives. Trivalent converses defined in terms of syntagma- tic and correlative-affixal morphological oppositions are capable of only one type of converse transposition: that involving arguments 2 and 3.
Abbreviations
Glosses
acc accusative dat dative fut future gen genitive ins instrumental loc locative m masculine n neuter
neg negation nom nominative pl plural prf (verbal) prefix prs present tense pst past tense refl reflexive sg singular
Suppletive converses, on the other hand, illustrate all types of converse transposition.
iii. Four- and five-valent LCs involve either verbs that form directional mor- phological oppositions (reflexives) or suppletive verbs. In this case, the converse transposition affects arguments 1 and 3.
4. The semantic classification of LCs is based on the analysis of their event structure, RolS and RefS, which enables the classification of LCs into semantic classes and lexical-semantic groups. Full LCs belong to the same semantic classes and are either causative or stative, while two verbs that form a pair of partial LCs usually belong to different semantic classes, i.e., they form oppositions between a causative and an inchoative verb or a causative and a stative verb. LCs in Lithu- anian fall into ten LSGs of different size.
Acknowledgments
I wish to express my most sincere gratitude to Emma Geniušienė for being my lifelong mentor and a model of dedication to linguistic study. I owe my everlasting interest in oppositions and syntactic transformations to her. I am also grateful to the editors of this volume, Peter Arkadiev, Axel Holvoet, and Bjửrn Wiemer, for inviting me to this volume and for their valuable editorial comments and expert advice. I also thank Elżbieta Muskat-Tabakowska, who read the article and let me look at it from a different perspective, leading to a number of clarifications and, naturally, improvements of the text. A special word of thanks goes to my colleague Artūras Ratkus for his enthusiasm for this article and most selfless help while preparing the manuscript for publication.
Diatheses: Syntactic functions of cases attributed to the particular referents SNom subject in the nominative case
DOAcc direct object in the accusative IOGen indirect object in the genitive
IOInst indirect object in the instrumental
OblOLoc oblique object in the locative OblO(prep)Gen/(prep)Acc oblique objects with prepositions
Type of referents in the RefS Pers person
NonP non-person
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