Res Humanitariae

Vienijanti žurnalo „Res humanitariae“ XVIII numerio ašis – baltų kalbų ir kultūrų tyrinėjimai. Didžiausią rinktinės dalį sudaro baltų kalbų istorijai skirti darbai. DALIOS JAKULYTĖS straipsnyje tęsiami „Knygos nobažnystės“ kalbos tyrimai, remiantis reliacine morfologijos duomenų baze: šįkart pristatoma būdvardžių kaityba. RAIMONDA MIKAŠAUSKIENĖ nagrinėja CVR tipo intarpinių ir sta kamieno veiksmažodžių morfologinę struktūrą XVI–XVII a. lietuvių raštijoje – chronologinę ir arealinę įvairuojančių formų distribuciją, struktūros pokyčių tendencijas ir jų motyvus. AUDRONĖ KAUKIENĖ ir DALIA JAKULYTĖ teikia dar vieną neseniai aptikto XV a. baltiško teksto, vadinamojo Kretos pėdsako, interpretaciją. ILONA NORVILAITĖ-KLIMIENĖ gretina lietuviško Kryžiaus ženklo pradžios struktūrą XVI–XVII a. Prūsijos ir LDK tekstuose ir šaltiniuose.

Using the relational database of KN morphology inflection of adjectives is investigated: masculine (and non-gender forms) stems, feminine stems and their correlation. The unique and well-established paradigms of inflection types are reviewed. The variation of stems and its causes, the language differences in the individual parts of the KN are dicussed.

The article focuses on short-rooted infixal and sta stem verbs ending with sonants l, r, m, n, v, j which were attested in old Lithuanian scripts dating back to the 16–17st century and representing different written variants. The aforementioned verbs typically have a wide spectrum of constructional alternations. The morphological structure of verbs attested in the old scripts alternates similarly to those forms found in Lithuanian dialects, however, there are some notable differences as well, that is why the verbs found in old scripts are compared to those found in Lithuanian dialects and contemporary Lithuanian in order to determine the localization of alternating forms, their chronological and areal distribution as well as the tendencies and motives for their structural change.

The article deals withan old handwritten text found in the book Logica parva, finalised in 1440 in Canea, a city of Crete (presently, Chania). After the overview of the versions of reading and translation proposed by Stephan Kessler and Stephen Mossman, and Ilja Lemeškin, all the words in the text, their spelling, and their interrelations are analysed and compared with the respective materials of all Baltic languages; the possibilities of different interpretation of the words and word combinations in the enigmatic text are looked for.

The article proceeds with the issues of the origin and evolution of the Lithuanian prayers and analyzes the beginning of the Sign of the cross and the Crossing formula. The linguistic analysis of the prayers was conducted by Zigmas Zinkevičius in the scientific study of language Lithuanian prayers in 2000; however, the features of the Sign of the cross or the Crossing formula and their relation to the Gospel were not highlighted, the wider context and the question whether the authors, translators and publishers have written the prayers in translations or original or semi-original writings, such as the cathechisms, theological treatises, postillas (educational writings) or the collection of prayers and prayer-books, also hymnals, were not taken into account. It is essential whether the text of the prayers is written in the translation of the Bible text, found in the citation from the Bible or freely recreated paraphrasing or remaking extracts or prayers from the Bible. The text of the Gospel in which Jesus Christ tells his disciples the christening formula (Mt 28, 19–20) is not the Crossing formula yet. It is necessary to perform the textual analysis and compare the respective passage with the originals.The object of research consists of the translations published in Prussia and GDL in the 16–17th centuries with the sources and original and semi-original texts.The aim of the article is to determine the origin of the variation of the beginning phrase of the Sign of the cross (Crossing formula). The tasks: 1) compare the beginning of the Crossing formula or the Sign of the cross with the originals, 2) examine the effect of various languages (Latin, German and Polish to begin with), 3) determine the origin of the insert God in the Lithuanian Crossing formula, 4) systemize and describe the results of comparative analysis.

This article gives an insight into the vocabulary of one of the sub-dialects of the Central dialect of the Latvian language – namely, the sub-dialect spoken in Bārta, a place in South-Western Kurzeme. The focus of the article is on those lexical units of the Bārta sub-dialect that are included in one of the most important works of Latvian linguistics – the Latvian Language Dictionary (1923–1932) and it’s Appendix (1934–1946), compiled and published by Kārlis Mīlenbahs, Jānis Endzelīns and Edīte Hauzenberga. The material analyzed here is taken from the electronic version of the Latvian Language Dictionary (www.tezaurs.lv/mev). The vocabulary of the Bārta sub-dialect is represented there by approximately 660 words, among which there are 330 nouns, 253 verbs, 38 adjectives, 30 adverbs, 7 particles, 2 interjections, 2 conjunctions, and 1 preposition.

The article is intended to introduce the topicality of one subdialect (namely, Northern Samogitians of Kretinga) referring to and defining its sociocultural identity, i.e. the usage of subdialect, and various factors, which have the most important role – sufficiently developed infrastructure, predominating ideology and the positive attitudes based on value system of users of the dialect.

This article presents burial rites of State of Lithuania in the 13th and 14th centuries, reveals its features and searches for the interaction between the burial rites and the development of the society. Burial rites are analyzed in a broad context of processes: the spreading of the cremation, the reformation of the religion, the unification of the material culture, the disappearance of regional differences and the establishment of the Lithuanian nation. Furthermore, the data of anthropology and genetics is examined. In the article, the burial rites of the 13th and 14th centuries are seen as an integral part of the evolution of State of Lithuania.

The movement of Vikings not for all regions of our continent was concussion of bases of public life. In Grobiņa and on Kaup Scandinavians didn’t manage to take decisive places in these settlements and their activity proceeded under strict control of local power structures. Westbaltic sacral phenomenon became the absence reason in Grobiņa and Kaup of settlements with the lines typical for the trade and craft settlement of an era of Vikings.

In terms of date of recording the earlier and most interesting Lithuanian musical folklore material, the 64 songs of Prussian Lithuanians collected in the 19th century and preserved in the L. Rėza archival legacy, have more or less never been considered in terms of influences from a multicultural environment. The aim of this article is to discover and reveal the Lithuanian and/or German/European relationship in the songs. Analysis of the songs showed the archaity of the melodies in the L. Rėza legacy, traditionally associated with the spiritual culture of the ancient Prussian or Lithuanian tribes, is highly suspect and a matter open to debate. Many of the rare individual songs turned out to have “foreign melodies”, i.e., local variations arose based upon direct or indirect influence by German or common European melodies.