Derivational networks in Lithuanian

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Žodžių daryba; Darybos lizdas; Semantinės kategorijos; Refleksyvai; Veikslas; Aspect; Reflexives; Derivative field; Word formation; Semantic categories.

ENLithuanian productively uses suffixation to derive nouns, verbs and adjectives, while prefixation is much more frequent in verbal than in nominal and adjectival derivations. Reflexive (middle) verbs are derived by the addition of the reflexive marker (RM), which takes its position depending on the morphemicstructure of the base (see more on this category and its marker in Chapter 32). Lithuanian also employs composition and paradigmatic derivations, but theseare out of the scope of the present study. The use of lexemes included in the derivational networks (DNs) waschecked in 2017–2018 using the following sources: (1) the Dictionary of Modern Lithuanian (DŽ), (2) the Corpus of Contemporary Lithuanian (CCL), and (3) online texts indexed by Google. In the case of the dialectal and possibly archaic lexemes listed in DŽ, preference was given to CCL and online data. However, one should bear in mind that the search functions provided by the CCL and Google are limited and some omissions and mis judgements are still possible. In nominal and adjectival derivational networks, some cases were foundwhere the lexemes could be interpreted either as prefixal derivations or as compounds consisting of a preposition and a noun. For example, either be-dant-is ‘toothless’ is based on the prepositional phrase be dant-ų (without tooth-GEN.PL) ‘without tooth’, or be- is recognized as a PRIVATIVE prefix.In this study, the traditional prefixal interpretation was adopted (Ulvydas 1965: 590; Stundžia 2016:3097; see an alternative view in Paulauskienė 1994: 95). The Lithuanian prescriptive tradition does not recognize INSTRUMENTS derived with the suffixes used to form AGENTS, but derivatives of this type are quite productive and were included based on their attestations in the CCL and online texts. For verbs, the suffix -y-ti occurring in the infinitive stem is traditionally interpreted as a derivational suffix (Ulvydas 1971: 244; Ambrazas 2005: 396, 399; Stundžia 2016: 3100), but it is absent from other stems and arguably functionsas an inflection-class marker (Pakerys 2011). Following this interpretation, formations containing -y-ti only in the infinitive stem were not included. [From the publication]