Modalumas ir evidencialumas lietuvių kalboje

Publications

• Ruskan, Anna & Šolienė, Audronė [in preparation] Evidential and epistemic adverbials in Lithuanian in different types of discourse.
• Jasionytė-Mikučionienė, Erika & Jolanta Šinkūnienė [accepted] The necessitive impersonal reik(ė)ti ‘need’: the rise of modal meaning. Lietuvių kalba.
• Usonienė, Aurelija and Audronė Šolienė [forthcoming] Reportive evidentials in English and Lithuanian: what kind of correspondence? In Thomas Egan & Hildegunn Dirdal (eds). Cross-linguistic correspondences: From lexis to genre.
• Usonienė, Aurelija & Jolanta Šinkūnienė. [expected February 2017]. Potential vs use: revisiting an evidential participial construction in Lithuanian. In Juana I. Marín-Arrese, Gerda Hassler & Marta Carretero (eds). Evidentiality Revisited: Cognitive Grammar, Functional and Discourse-Pragmatic Perspectives. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.  
  Abstract

  The paper deals with the existing potential of the grammatical realizations of evidentiality (so-called “passive evidentials”) in Lithuanian, which has been described theoretically in literature; however there are no studies that would attest to the frequency and patterns of actual use of this construction in authentic contemporary Lithuanian. The analysis has been carried out in the light of the theoretical approach (Boye and Harder 2009; Boye 2012) and the template of the database of evidential markers in European languages (Wiemer and Stathi 2010). The study employs corpus based quantitative and qualitative methodology in order to investigate the distributional patterns of the -ma/-ta construction in different types of discourse. Though -ma/-ta participles are very frequent in contemporary Lithuanian, their use in the evidential construction is very rare. 

• Ruskan, Anna. [expected February 2017]. Markers of evidentiality in Lithuanian newspaper discourse. In Juana I. Marín-Arrese, Gerda Hassler & Marta Carretero (eds). Evidentiality Revisited: Cognitive Grammar, Functional and Discourse-Pragmatic Perspectives. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 
  Abstract

   The current study explores the distribution of evidential markers in Lithuanian newspaper discourse. It focuses on the non-agreeing present passive participles (e.g. manoma ‘thought’) and non-agreeing adjectives (e.g. akivaizdu ‘evident’) used as Complement-Taking-Predicates (CTPs) with a that-complement clause or parentheticals and adverbs (e.g. akivaizdžiai ‘evidently’) in two central Lithuanian newspapers, which represent different types of media (print vs online). The quantitative analysis of the evidential markers reveals that they are more frequent in the online newspaper in which they are used for interactional purposes. In both newspapers, the expressions under study function as reportives denoting communicative or cognitive evidence, inferentials or markers of shared knowledge. Depending on the source of evidence and mode of knowing available to the author, the evidential markers may express high, medium or low “evidentiary validity”, and thus they may help the reader assess the reliability of information and form an opinion on the issues reported.  

• Šolienė, Audronė. 2017. Kas yra modalumas? [What is modality] Gimtoji kalba, sausis.
• Jasionytė-Mikučionienė, Erika. 2016a. Semantinės ir struktūrinės modalumo raiškos priemonių ypatybės senuosiuose (XVI a.) lietuvių kalbos raštuose. [Semantic and structural features of modal markers in Old Lithuanian texts (the 16th century)] Lietuvių kalba 10. [PDF]
• Jasionytė-Mikučionienė, Erika. 2016b. On the modal functions of Lithuanian verbs of coming. Kalbotyra 69 (Special issue on modality and evidentiality in European languages): 104-120.
• Ruskan, Anna. 2016. Epistemic qualifications of the English marker likely and its equivalents in Lithuanian. Kalbotyra 69 (Special issue on modality and evidentiality in European languages): 178-202.
• Šinkūnienė, Jolanta. 2016. The modal verb galėti ‘can/could/may/might’ in academic Lithuanian: distribution, frequency and semantic properties. Kalbotyra 69 (Special issue on modality and evidentiality in European languages): 203-220. 
  Abstract

  The aim of the present paper is to investigate the frequency and distribution patterns as well as the spectrum of modal meanings conveyed by the Lithuanian modal verb of possibility galėti ‘can/could/may/might’ in academic Lithuanian. The study is based on Corpus Academicum Lithuanicum (www.coralit.lt), a specialized synchronic corpus of written academic Lithuanian (roughly 9 million words). In order to draw disciplinary comparisons of the use of the modal verb, the paper analyses academic texts from three sub-corpora: the humanities, the biomedical sciences and the technological sciences. Quantitative and qualitative approaches are employed alongside contrastive corpus-based analysis to reveal the ways in which this modal verb of possibility is used in academic language. The first part of the paper investigates the frequency patterns of various forms of galėti ‘can/could/may/might’ in the three sub-corpora. The second part looks at the variety of meanings this modal verb can convey in Lithuanian specialised language. The results show that there is a fairly similar distribution of the modal verb use across different science fields. In terms of its semantic functional capacities, galėti ‘can/could/may/might’is used to express all three types of modality (epistemic, deontic and dynamic), however, the most frequent use in Lithuanian academic discourse seems to be that of dynamic modality.  

• Šinkūnienė, Jolanta. 2016. Modality, semantic maps and Lithuania: An interview with Johan van der Auwera. Kalbotyra 69 (Special issue on modality and evidentiality in European languages): 292-302.
• Šolienė, Audronė. 2016. (Non)epistemic modality: English must, have to and have got to and their correspondences in Lithuanian. Kalbotyra 69 (Special issue on modality and evidentiality in European languages): 221-243.
• Ruskan, Anna. 2016. Svenja Kranich. Contrastive pragmatics and translation: Evaluation, epistemic modality and communicative styles in English and German. (2016). Book review. Kalbotyra 69 (Special issue on modality and evidentiality in European languages): 303-309.
• Šinkūnienė, Jolanta [submitted] Existential modality constructions revisited: the case of Lithuanian modal verb GALĖTI.
• Šolienė, Audronė. 2015. Multifunctionality of modal markers: Lithuanian epistemic adverbials GAL and GALBŪT ‘perhaps/maybe’ vs. their translational correspondences. Kalbotyra 67: 155-176. [PDF]
  Abstract

  The present paper deals with the multifuncionality of Lithuanian modal adverbials. The аim of the paper is to show that the Lithuanian modal adverbials gal ‘perhaps’ and galbūt ‘maybe’ and their English correspondences are multifunctional and to retrieve their meaning variants. This contrastive corpus-based study makes use of quantitative and qualitative methods of research. The results show that the adverbials under study exhibit a variety of functions: though mostly they qualify the proposition in terms of the degree of likelihood, i. e. epistemic modality, they can also acquire several other functions in addition to qualifying the proposition. Though the adverbial gal ‘perhaps’ is more functionally versatile than galbūt ‘maybe’, it is clear that both adverbials have developed post-modal uses. The markers exhibit a diversity of functional variants in different types of discourse: they can act as mitigating devices reducing the illocutionary effect of an imperative or making a suggestion or offer more polite; as interrogative particles; or as approximators estimating a figure, number or quantity; or playing a part of non-factual markers in epistemic lists. 

• Jasionytė-Mikučionienė, Erika. 2015. Akvizityviniai veiksmažodžiai gauti ir tekti senuosiuose XVI-XVII a. lietuvių kalbos raštuose. Kalbotyra 67: 24-44. [PDF] [Acquisitive modals gauti and tekti in Old Lithuanian texts (the 16th-17th centuries)]. 
  Abstract

   Straipsnyje analizuojami lietuvių kalbos veiksmažodžiai gauti ir tekti kaip akvizityvinio modalumo raiškos priemonės senuosiuose lietuvių kalbos raštuose (XVI-XVII a.). Plačiau ar siauriau gauti tipo veiksmažodžiai tirti anglų (Gronemeyer 2001), švedų (Viberg 2002), vokiečių (Lenz 2008), estų (Tragel ir Habicht 2012), netgi tajų kalbose (Takahashi 2006). Vis dėlto, kaip pastebima van der Auweros et al. straipsnyje (2009), trūksta detalesnių gauti tipo veiksmažodžių kaip akvizityvinio modalumo raiškos priemonių ankstesniuose kalbų raidos etapuose. Lietuvių kalbos gauti ir tekti daugiausia tirti dabartinėje kalboje (žr. Usoniene, Jasionyte 2010; Jasionytė-Mikučionienė 2014), o išsamesnio tyrimo, skirto gauti ir tekti vartosenai įvairiuose senuosiuose lietuvių kalbos tekstuose, nėra. Tad straipsnio tikslas – aptarti veiksmažodžių gauti ir tekti vartosenos ypatumus senuosiuose XVI-XVII a. lietuvių kalbos raštuose bei galimas semantinės raidos tendencijas. 

• Ruskan, Anna. 2015. Evidential adverbials in Lithuanian. Kalbotyra 67: 104-130. [PDF]  
  Abstract

  The present study focuses on the functional distribution of the adverbials akivaizdžiai ‘evidently’, aiškiai ‘clearly’, ryškiai ‘visibly/clearly’, tariamai ‘allegedly/supposedly’ and aišku ‘clearly/of course’ in Lithuanian fiction and academic discourse. The main parameters of the investigation are the frequency of the markers, their position, scope, functions, co-occurrence with argumentative markers, word class (adverb or non-agreeing adjective) and the type of discourse. The research is conducted by applying a corpus-based methodology and the data are obtained from the Corpus of the Contemporary Lithuanian Language, namely from the subcorpus of fiction, and the Corpus of Academic Lithuanian. In both fiction and academic discourse, the adverbials under study may denote inferences or hearsay. However, functional extension into a pragmatic marker is characteristic of the adverbial aišku ‘clearly/of course’ which derives from the non-agreeing adjective based Complement-Taking-Predicate. The pragmaticalisation of this adverbial is highlighted by its high frequency, positional mobility, scopal variation, interactional and intertextual functions. By contrast, the other evidential adverbials analysed in this paper do not reveal traces of pragmaticalisation, which is reflected by their lower frequency and frequent use as manner adverbs. 

• Šinkūnienė, Jolanta. 2015. Neepisteminis modalumas lietuvių ir anglų mokslo kalboje: kiekybiniai ir kokybiniai vartosenos ypatumai. Kalbotyra 67: 131-154. [PDF]
  Abstract

  Straipsnyje aptariamas modalinių veiksmažodžių should ir turėti kiekybinis pasiskirstymas humanitarinių ir (bio)medicinos mokslo sričių tekstuose lietuvių ir anglų kalbomis ir šių veiksmažodžių atliekamos funkcijos, kai jie vartojami neepistemine reikšme. Analizei naudojamas Šiuolaikinės amerikiečių anglų kalbos tekstynas (COCA) ir Lietuvių mokslo kalbos tekstynas CorALit. Kiekybinės analizės rezultatai rodo, kad turėti yra vienodai dažnas abiejose mokslo srityse, jose taip pat vyrauja teigiamos turėti formos. Humanitarinių mokslų tekstuose posesyvinis ir modalinis turėti pasiskirsto maždaug tolygiai, biomedicinos mokslų diskurse dažnesnė posesyvinė turėti vartosena. Abiejose mokslo srityse dažniausiai vartojama turėti forma yra trečiojo asmens. Anglakalbių mokslo kalboje should dažniau renkasi medicinos srities mokslininkai, nei humanitarai. Analizuojamų veiksmažodžių dažnio palyginimas su must ir privalėti kiekybine vartosena rodo, kad must vartojamas beveik vienodai dažnai kaip ir should humanitarų tekstuose, tačiau ženkliai rečiau medicinos srities tekstuose, kur dominuoja should. Tai gali būti siejama su dažna rekomendacine should atliekama funkcija medikų moksliniame diskurse. Lietuvių mokslo kalboje privalėti yra beveik nevartojamas. Kokybinė neepisteminių should ir turėti vartosenos atvejų analizė atskleidė keturis should ir turėti funkcinius tipus: abu veiksmažodžiai gali būti panaudojami reikšti moralinį į(si)pareigojimą, rekomendaciją, instrukcijas, ir organizuoti diskursą. 

• Jasionytė-Mikučionienė, Erika. 2015. Modalumo tyrimas senuosiuose XVI-XVII a. lietuvių kalbos raštuose. Gimtoji kalba, rugsėjis. 12-14. Straipsnio pdf.
• Ruskan, Anna.2015. Evidential passive constructions in English and their equivalents in Lithuanian. In Signe Oksefjell Ebeling and Hilde Hasselgård (eds). Cross-linguistic perspectives on verb constructions. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
  
  Abstract

  The present corpus-based study aims to disclose functional parallels and differences between grammaticalizing elements of evidentiality in English and Lithuanian. The focus is on constructions of passivized verbs of communication and cognition taking the infinitival complement (e.g. be said to, be thought to) in Englishand the parenthetical participle-based Complement-Taking-Predicates (CTPs) in Lithuanian (e.g. sakoma “said,” manoma “thought”). Though the markers under study differ structurally (auxiliaries versus adverbials), they display a number of similarities in expressing evidential functions, such as hearsay, mindsay, proof and general knowledge. Functional differences have been revealed by the parenthetical participle-based CTPs in Lithuanian, which are prone to lose evidential functions and acquire the status of discourse markers.

• Usonienė, Aurelija, Audronė Šolienė & Jolanta Šinkūnienė. 2015. Revisiting the multifunctionality of the adverbials of Act and Fact in a cross-linguistic perspective. In Karin Aijmer and Hilde Hasselgård (eds). Cross-linguistic Studies at the Interface between Lexis and Grammar. A special issue of Nordic Journal of English Studies 14(1): 201-231.
  Link to the special issue
  
  Abstract

  The last two decades have seen a great rise of interest in the corpus-based contrastive studies on the multifunctional nature of modal adverbials and discourse markers. Most of the attention has been devoted to the multifunctionality of the “actuality and reality” (Biber et al. 1999) adverbs actually, in fact, really, indeed and truly and their meanings have been proved to be very much discourse, syntactic and social context-dependent both diachronically and synchronically (Schwenter and Traugott 2000; Aijmer 2003; Paradis 2003; Aijmer and Simon-Vandenbergen 2004; Lewis 2006; Aijmer 2007; Mortier and Degand 2009; Defour et al. 2010; Simon-Vandenbergen 2013). The description of the complex and dynamic relief of their functional and semantic-pragmatic potential has been mainly based on the translation paradigm analysis. The languages dealt with are either Germanic (English, Dutch, Swedish) or Romance (French, Spanish). The present paper aims to check how the semantic pragmatic meanings of the two English adverbials (actually and in fact) are expressed in Lithuanian, a Baltic language. With the focus on the scope of multifunctionality of the adverbials under study an attempt will be made to find out how Lithuanian translation correspondences (TCs) ‘mirror’ the English actuality adverbials, i.e. how much language-specific or resembling the English adverbials the Lithuanian TCs are in terms of form and meaning. The study will also look at the pragmatic functions Lithuanian TCs perform in academic discourse thus attempting to arrive at the description of their functional potential. 

• Usonienė, Aurelija & Jolanta Šinkūnienė. 2014. A corpus-based look at zero correspondences: realizations of epistemicity in a cross-linguistic perspective. In Dylan Glynn and Mette Sjölin (eds). Subjectivity and Epistemicity: Corpus, Discourse, and Literary Approaches to Stance.  Lund: Lund University Press. 263-280.
  
  Abstract

  An extensive amount of authentic language data in contrast and ample collective intuition are only a few points of advantage to be mentioned that parallel translation corpora can offer to those interested or involved in contrastive linguistic or translation studies research. Types and degrees of equivalence between various linguistic expressions in different languages is another aspect that can be viewed as a matter of concern and interest both for linguists and translators. Corpus-driven contrastive methodology has already been proved to be an efficient and reliable tool capable of diagnosing the language-specific multifunctionality of various non-propositional linguistic items (discourse markers, modal expressions, etc.). Most of the research carried out has been mainly concerned with a bilingual contrast (Aijmer 1996, 1997; Løken 1997; Johansson 2001, 2007; Aijmer & Altenberg 2002; Aijmer & Simon-Vandenbergen 2003; Hasselgård 2004, 2007; Ebeling, Ebeling & Hasselgård 2013) and one of the key observations made was the relatively high percentage of zero correspondences. The present paper will deal with the data collected from four groups of languages: Germanic, Baltic, Slavonic and Romance. The focus will be on the English verb seem, a so-called broad spectrum epistemic-evidential marker which can also have an interpersonal function (Johansson 2001; de Haan 2007; Gisborne & Holmes 2007; Aijmer 2009), and its zero-translation correspondences in the target languages under study. No evaluation or assessment of the translation quality and translators’ strategies will be made; translations are used as empirical data for a crosslinguistic study of language in use.

Conference talks 

• Jasionytė-Mikučionienė, Erika. 2016. On the development of modal meanings in Lithuanian: the case of reikėti ‘need’ and turėti ‘have to’.
  TAM-E 2016: Tense, Aspect, Modality and Evidentiality: Comparative, Cognitive, Theoretical and Applied Perspectives.
  November 16-17, 2016.
  
  Abstract

   The diachronic development of modal verbs has been investigated in a number of works during the last few decades (Traugott 1989, Krug 2000, Fischer 2004, Hansen 2004, Traugott & Dasher 2005, Narrog 2012 and others). However, this research has been largely dominated by the study of Germanic languages: with the exception of some observations made by Holvoet (2007) and Jasionytė-Mikučionienė (2014), the realizations of modality in Lithuanian have not been thoroughly examined from the point of view of their historical development. Thus, the paper aims at filling this gap and providing a thorough account of the diachronic evolution of modal meanings of the two Lithuanian verbs reikėti ‘need’ and turėti ‘have to’ that function as one of the main means for expressing non-epistemic modality in Lithuanian. The data for this research is drawn from corpora comprising texts of Old Lithuanian (16th-17th c.c.) and Modern Lithuanian. In the analysed texts of Old Lithuanian, reikėti ‘need’ and turėti ‘have to’ predominantly convey participant-external and deontic necessity. However, in the earliest period of the language turėti ‘have to’ already shows ambiguity between the meanings of participant-external and epistemic necessity, – it is hypothesized that participant-external necessity may be the basis for the development of the epistemic meaning (cf. the discussion on the issue in van der Auwera & Plungian 1998, Narrog 2012). In Modern Lithuanian, turėti ‘have to’ has acquired potential to convey epistemic values, while reikėti‘need’ is less polyfunctional and mostly marks participant-external necessity. It is assumed that the types of the constructions the verbs appear in (personal vs impersonal) play a crucial role for the emergence of their modal meanings. The development of modal meanings of the verbs is analysed within the framework of subjectification proposed by Traugott (1989).  

• Ruskan, Anna. 2016. Epistemic qualifications of the English marker likely and its equivalents in Lithuanian, 49th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea
  August 31-September 3, 2016.
  Abstract
  
• Šolienė, Audronė. 2016. (Non)epistemic modality: English must, have to and have got to and their correspondences in Lithuanian. ICAME 37
  May 25-29, 2016.
  Abstract
• Šinkūnienė, Jolanta. 2015. Engagement in research writing: modal verbs of obligation in a cross-linguistic and cross-disciplinary perspective. 48th Annual Meeting of the Societas Linguistica Europaea
  September 2-5, 2015.
  Abstract
• Ruskan, Anna. 2015. Argumentative contexts of use of inferential markers in Lithuanian. 14th International IPrA conference
  July 26 – 31, 2015
  Abstract
• Usonienė, Aurelija & Audronė Šolienė. 2015. Reportive evidentials in English and Lithuanian: what kind of correspondence. ICAME 36 International conference. May 27-31, 2015
  Abstract
• Ruskan, Anna. 2014. On inferential and reportative evidential markers in Lithuanian newspaper discourse.
  International conference EMEL 14 (Evidentiality and Modality in European Languages)
  October 6-8, 2014
  Abstract
• Usonienė, Aurelija & Jolanta Šinkūnienė. 2014. Potential vs use: revisiting evidential participial constructions in Lithuanian.
  International conference EMEL 14 (Evidentiality and Modality in European Languages)
  October 6-8, 2014
  Abstract
• Šolienė, Audronė. 2014. Modal and post-modal uses of Lithuanian adverbials: evidence from a parallel corpus.
  International conference Using Corpora in Contrastive and Translation Studies
  July 24-26, 2014
  Abstract
• Usonienė, Aurelija & Anna Ruskan. 2014. On the semantic and functional variation of as-parentheticals in English and Lithuanian.
  International workshop Outside the clause: Form and function of Extra-clausal constituents
  July 4-5, 2014
  Abstract
• Ruskan, Anna. 2014. Evidential passive constructions in English and their equivalents in Lithuanian. International conference ICAME 35, Corpus Linguistics, Context and Culture
  April 30-May 4, 2014
  Abstract