Introduction to Baltic languages

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Refleksyvai; Daryba; Darybos lizdas; Semantinės kategorijos; Indo-europiečių kalbos; Lietuvių kalba; Latvių kalba; Indo-European languages; Latvian language; Lithuanian language; Derivation; Derivative field; Semantic categories; Reflexives.

ENThe Baltic branch of Indo-European survives in two languages, Latvian and Lithuanian. Both of them productively derive nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs through prefixation and suffixation, but prefixation is notably more developed in the verbal domain. Interfixes are sometimes recognized in the Latvian linguistic tradition and refer to segments occurring before the suffixes that arguably play no independent derivational role (Kalnača 2014:106–107; cf. Roché 2015 for the same interpretation of interfixes in Romance). The reflexive (middle) verbs are productively derived by the addition of affixal reflexive markers (RMs) and are discussed in more detail below. Both languages also allow the simultaneous addition of two affixes, such as prefix-suffix, prefix-RM, or suffix-RM. The main questions to be answered while building the derivational networksof the Baltic languages in this project relate to the following: (1) the treatment of reflexive (middle) constructions, (2) the interpretation of some aspectual forms, (3) ambiguous orders of derivation, and (4) negative forms with respect to theirinclusion in derivational networks and their order of derivation. The interpretation of reflexive (middle) constructions as inflectional or derivational is a well-known problem, and both the Latvian and Lithuanian linguistic traditions show certain variations (for an overview and for the arguments in favour of treating these constructions as inflectional rather than derivational, see Holvoet 2001: 183–189, 2015: 455–459).REFLEXIVE was included in the list of derivational categories of the present project, and without trying to claim anything new in the inflection versus derivation debate, these formations are also included in the Baltic derivational networks to enable cross-linguistic comparison, especially with genetically and areally related Slavic languages, which constitute a large part of the sample. Baltic reflexive formations typically function as anticausatives in Latvian, and as anticausatives and indirect reflexives (benefactives) in Lithuanian. To get an idea of how the inclusion of reflexive verbs influences the size of Baltic derivational networks, consider the following numbers: Latvian verbal derivational networks have 35 (7%) REFLEXIVES out of a total of 497 formations, while Lithuanian derivational networks have 80 (12.6%) out of a total of 635. [From the publication]