Res Humanitariae

Šiame numeryje aptariamos įvairios humanitarinės temos – baltų kalbų bei tarmių istorija ir nūdiena, kultūros istorijos dalykai ir šiuolaikinio miesto būtis. Daugiausia publikuojama kalbinių darbų. Net keturi straipsniai skirti atskiroms semantinėms leksikos grupėms.

According to the semasiological aspect the names of Head Domain used by North Samogitians comprise a numerous subgroup of the thematic group of somatonyms, as on the basis of written resources and live spoken samples approximately 300 invariant lexemes of the mentioned semantics have been identified. The onomasiological research of the North Samogitian Head Domain thematic subgroup somatonyms, considering them as the results of the nomination process, i. e. the so called nominathemes, allowed us to establish a diversity of the characteristic nomination types, kinds, modes, and means, alongside with the distinguished dominant elements. Within the nomination system of the researched somatonyms the most productive two motivated nomination kinds have been identified, such as: affixational and semantic. The systematic analysis of the nomination types, modes, and means makes it possible to differentiate particular conceptualized (both cognitive and axiological) features of human body parts, as well as to draw their hierarchical categorization within the traditional (‘naïve’) world conception.

The article analyses synchronically motivated Lithuanian common names of animals whose lexical motivators explicitly represents the fur colour characteristics. The main source of empirical material is the LKŽe. The purpose of research is to study the formal and semantic structure of animal names, to establish the features of the colours which are selected during the process of nomination, to determine the inventory of colorative lexical motivators. The methodological practice is based by the complex linguistic research when semasiological and onomasiological aspects are combined.

The article analyses primary nicknames that were recorded at Veliuona vicinity during the project of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language “Modern Research of Geolinguistics in Lithuania: Optimisation of Network of Points and Interactive Spread of Dialectal Information”. The aim of the article is to analyse characteristic features of semantics of the appellative nicknames. Usually, the appellative nicknames are tropical – metaphorical or metonymic – therefore, it is crucial to determine what is the connection between metaphors and metonyms. The scientific research reveals what kind of characteristics are imagined to be shared with a person and a plant, a person and a mammal or a bird.

The article presents the analysis of onomasiological system of one group of infixed and sta-stem verbs attested in the old Lithuanian scripts, denominative verbs in particular, derived from adjectives and nouns. The analysed verbs belong to the type of fientive word formation: their derivational meaning is ‘to become or to acquire/experience something which is denoted by the primary word’. The primary words are specific and abstract adjectives and nouns which by the means of affixal nomination – paradigmation – are used to form fientives or, more rarely, stative verbs. What is more, in the process of verbalization, additional means of derivation, namely, the infix and affix sta, play a significant role in attributing the verb to the derivational model of fientives. The centre of fientive derivational type is comprised of deadjectives, while desubstantives stand in the periphery of this type. The semantics of the denominatives analyzed is determined explicitly (in rarer cases, implicitly) by semantics of primary adjectives and nouns. According to properties/objects denoted by the lexical motivator, seven motivational models of denominative verbs have been established: colourative, morphological, physiomorphological, psychomorphological, the model of possession and social relationship, gustatory, and thermal one.

In the period of the 18th and 19th century, the interest in the ethno-cultural identity of various ethnic groups had begun to grow in Germany. For more than forty years a famous researcher of Baltic languages, ethnographer and archaeologist prof. Adalbert Bezzenberger focused his activities on the Curonian Spit by devoting his attention to the history and culture of the settlements and the endangered Kursenieku language. His work “Über die Sprache der preußischen Letten” (1888) became the first professional study of the Kursenieku language. Not only does the work contain a description of the Kursenieku language prepared in accordance with the tradition of comparative linguistics of that time, and is based on a large amount of factual materials accumulated by the investigator himself, but it also includes a number of texts and a glossary. Since the Kursenieku language did not have a written form, every documenter, including Bezzenberger, used one’s own system of spelling. This work is important for the reconstruction of the Kursenieku language of that time, as well as for the overall research of the history of the language in general.

Martynas Liudvikas Rėza (Martin Ludwig Rhesa, 1776–1841) is not only one of the most famous Lithuanian in the history of Lithuanians writings, but also a famous member of the Königsberg Masonic lodge Zu den drei Krönen, who has been astonished by the amplitude of his interests and the abundance of his works that still surprising. The range of activities of Rėza, his literary ambition range are wide – from the religious writings to the publishing of secular literature and folklore. Carefully going into the professors’ Lithuanian activities, the aspect of Rėza’s Masonry is important. Masonic echoes are found in Rėza’s publishing activities, correspondence and in relationships with well-known scholars and writers. The article aims to look more closely at the Masonic relations of Rėza in his Lithuanian activities.

In context of the cultural identity and regional studies, the article evaluates the contribution of researchers from Kurzeme Institute of Humanities, Liepāja University, into research and preservation of the historical and cultural heritage of Kurzeme region. The aim, the main tasks, the development of conception and the course of implementation of The Encyclopedic Dictionary of Kurzeme Culture (since 2012) are described as well as its thematic sections (biographies of the prominent personalities in literature and theatre, and the cultural values they have created after Latvia regained its independence). The examples give an insight into the dictionary’s content and provide the evidence for analysis of the main problems in material selection, development of the body, structure and content of the dictionary entries. The article also indicates the possible solutions in the future (development of other thematic sections, addition of audio and video recordings) and discusses the possibility of digitization of the dictionary in order to ensure its accessibility to large audiences.

This article analyzes the question of the usage of the descriptive phrase žmogus su negalia and its syntactic competitors. The origin and spread of the phrase žmogus su negalia and variations of its evaluation by the language norm is discussed. Data that was collected from the Corpus of Modern Lithuanian Language, other sources of various functional styles, and a survey shows the real usage of the language components that describe people with disabilities. The research analyzes the correctness of the various language examples and problematic cases of usage are explicitly discussed. This article questions the causes and validity of the change of the level of correctness of the phrase žmogus su negalia.

Business discourse is unidentifiable apart from its own specific metatext that is to be treated as a text which incorporates a paradigm of previously produced texts for similar (or identical) pragmatic purposes under similar (or identical) social conditions in order to perform intended mutually intelligible communicative functions. The purpose is to establish a relation between the communicative types of business texts and dominant linguistic strategies that are applied in order to realise the communicative functions of informing, persuasion, and reporting in institutional business communication.