A Third Number: Discussing Duals in Lithuanian Language

The ITB Journal, Jan 2020

Modern Lithuanian has two grammatical numbers: singular and plural, nevertheless literature sources note the existence of the dual number residue in Lithuanian. This phenomenon is prominent in Austronesian languages as stated by Schwartz (1989:237-238) and there are different types of duals. However, in European languages this phenomenon is not as widely spread. This paper overviews the constructions of such phenomenon and presents results of a small research which looked at the frequency of the usage of dual pronouns and demonstratives in the Lithuanian language. Data for the research was taken from the Corpus of Lithuanian Language compiled by Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania which is accessible online. The main aim is to discuss the place of duals in Lithuanian language and to establish whether it is still frequently used by the Lithuanian language speakers.

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A Third Number: Discussing Duals in Lithuanian Language

Th e ITB Journal A Thir d Number: Discussing Duals in Lithuanian Language Linguistics Commons Recommended Citation Follow this and additional works at; https; //arrow; dit; ie/itbj A Third Number: Discussing Duals in Lithuanian Language Jone Bruno, Trinity College Dublin 1. Introduction Every culture understands the world in different ways and it is safe to say that one of the ways to transfer such information is through language. The existence of syntactic, phonetic and morphological patters that exist through different languages has been widely discussed and through such discussions, the different perspectives of the existent world were revealed. This paper is set to reveal the complex understanding of the Lithuanian culture through an extraordinary feature of dual number, or as Ambrazas (2006) states the residue of it. What is the category of number and what are duals? What type of number system does Lithuanian language has? Are duals considered a part of the grammatical class? If not, what are the functions of duals? These are just some of the questions that this paper addresses. Moreover, an empirical research was completed in order to establish the frequency of the dual usage, to observe which duals are preferred by the speakers and which are less used. 2. Framework, Methodology and Data This research adapts quantitative and qualitative methodology. The data is extracted from Corpus of Lithuanian Language (CLL) which was compiled by the Vytatutas Magnus University, Kaunas, Lithuania. It is accessible online through vdu.lt1. It is a database of journal articles, administrative literature, fiction, non-fiction and a small amount of spoken language. This corpus is not annotated and consists of approximately 102 million tokens and is the biggest corpus of the Lithuanian language. Nevertheless, the tools of this corpus are not elaborate. Fihure 1 indicates the distribution of literature that this corpus is composed of. Words that carry dual number were chosen and were searched using the tools of the corpus. The examples were extracted and compared. Also the frequency of the word occurrence was noted and the numbers compared. The next section briefly overviews the class of number in order to fully understand the phenomenon. ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? 1 http://tekstynas.vdu.lt/tekstynas/ The C?orpus o?f M?odern L?ithuania?n 3. The Category of Number This chapter discusses the grammatical category of number. Miller (1993 :12-13) points out that numerating items is an abstract and arbitrary depending on the cultural understanding and the enumerating system, however, it occurs in all of the languages unexceptionally. It seems to be apparent that the category of number is simple, nevertheless, Corbett (2012:7) marks that number is a morpho-syntactic category and is not as clear as it appears. This means that languages mark it differently and there are various systems of number. To clarify, the category of number does not discuss the numerals like 1, 2, and 3; it rather takes scope over the ways that language encodes the opposition of one, two, three or more referents in the clause. As it is further outlines, this class is multi-layered and more complex. Pavey (2010:191) explains that is most languages there are distinction between singular and plural, some languages have dual in addition to traditional binary opposition and only a few have trial number which refers to the three referents. It is clear that the class of number encodes the perception of what the culture groups together as an entity: single person/ item, two people/ items, three as a group marking the importance of all, or distinguishes just the opposition between ?one? and ?more than one?, or all of the above. Bhat (2004:91) states that the agreement of number is more complex than it seems in the cases of languages which have specific differentiation of ?inclusive? and ?exclusive? numbers, nevertheless, in languages with the ?singular? and ?plural? distinction, the agreement always corresponds between the noun or the pronoun and the entity it refers to. It needs to be clarified that this paper acknowledges the existence of number systems that enumerate the events in the predication. However, this paper is set out to analyses only the nominal constructions. There are several levels that the class of number takes scope over. Pavey (2010:191) states that grammatical number on the noun phrase is a core level operator and therefore modifies the entire meaning of the phrase. This means the agreement in number has to be ITB ?Journal ?May ?2015 ? ? ? ? 26 ? carried not only by the noun or pronoun, but also by the entire phrase constituents. Labutis (2002 :30) states that all adjectival words in Lithuanian do not carry an inherent number, however, when used in a phrase it has to agree with the nominal of the phrase in gender and number and most often in case. Number, also is reflect (...truncated)


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Jone Bruno. A Third Number: Discussing Duals in Lithuanian Language, The ITB Journal, 2015, Volume 16, Issue 1,