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TERMINOLOGIJA 10

CONTENTS

In memoriam Kazimieras Gaivenis (Angelė Kaulakienė) 7  

TERMINOLOGY AND THE PRESENT

TERMINOLOGICAL HISTORY

REMARKS, CONSIDERATIONS, SUGGESTIONS AND MISCELLANEA

REVIEWS, SURVEYS, INFORMATIONS AND BIBLIOGRAPHIES

summaries

LITHUANIAN TERMINOGRAPHY: FEATURES OF THE PAST, DIFFICULTIES AND TASKS OF THE PRESENT

Lithuanian terminography can be said to have begun in 1821. The old terminography is in manuscripts, the first printed terminological dictionary appeared in 1907. For nearly one hundred years terminographical work was done by single enthusiasts, mainly botanists. The Lithuanian Scientific Society (established in 1907), stimulated by the movement of national revival, gave a stimulus to a more organised approach, but did not have enough time to offer an appreciable result. The beginning of organised terminography – discussions about creation of terms by specialists united round the Lithuanian linguist Jonas Jablonskis in the rear of the World War I, in Voronezh in Russia . The principle of purity in Jablonskis’ concept of terminology was essential. In the first Terminological Commission, which worked in the Republic of Lithuania between 1921-1926, even the teaching of Jablonskis and his authority did not stop unprofessional and unmoderate purism, which revealed itself in plentiful and inappropriate neologisms. However, the later Terminological Commission of the Lithuanian Language Society established the organised creation, discussion and approval of terminology and institutionlized it. From 1938 until 1954 there is a big gap in the work of terminography. The preparation of the first normalising dictionary of the Lithuanian language (Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos žodynas) (1954) gave a good basis for terminography. However, almost every terminological dictionary was Lithuanian-Russian and there were a lot of translation-loans from the Russian language, which in the propaganda were valued as an enrichment of the Lithuanian language. On the whole, the theoretical and methodological foundations wavered from time to time. At the end of 1971 the Terminology Council at the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences was established. It did not push terminographical works forward noticeably, but it encouraged one significant innovation – the usage of English (less frequently – of other languages) in dictionaries of terms. At the time of the second Republic of Lithuania (from 1990) the real boom of terminography happened – about 200 terminological dictionaries were published. The big inducement was the Programm of the Usage and Development of the State Language 1996-2005. Procedures for the preparation and approval of terminological dictionaries were approved. A few fundamental multilingual terminological dictionaries were published. However, the disbalance of quantity and lack of quality is noticeable. Terminographical work in Lithuania is not viewed as scientific activity. Its planing, organising and co-ordination are not institutionalized. The rise of terminographical work still remains in the future.

E. Rimkutė HOMONYMS, HOMOFORMS AND HOMOGRAPHS FROM THE VIEWPOINT OF CORPUS LINGUISTICS

The article deals with a small part of the corpus of the Lithuanian language, which was automatically tagged. The corpus with morphological tags has shown a high level degree of ambiguity of the language: about 47 percent of word forms are ambiguous. In the Lithuanian linguistics traditionally the greatest attention has been devoted to the lexical homonyms. Other levels of ambiguity have not been analysed. For this reason it was necessary to define the main terms of the morphological ambiguity and to solve the problematic issues of the relevant terminology.             It was difficult to define what are the main differences between homographs, homonyms and homoforms. Traditionally in linguistics it is affirmed that homoforms must coincide phonetically, while homographs are pronounced differently. This article shows that some homoforms can differ by the place of accent, the quality of vowels or intonation. Homoforms were analysed instead of homographs or homonyms, because the main attention was devoted to morphological but not phonetic or semantic differences.    

O. Petrėnienė EXPLANATION OF TERMS IN SCIENCE POPULAR TEXTS  

Terms used in popular science texts addressed to the mass reader could fall into two groups: those that need no additional explanation and those that might be misunderstood or not understood by the addressee without additional explanation. Common categorial concepts (e.g. hypothesis, method, law) equally important in all sciences and terms of separate sciences (e.g. names of sounds or parts of speech, etc.) that should be understood within one’s general knowledge need no additional explanation. Terms of precise semantics and clear motivation are also not explained exhaustively as the meaning of some compound or complex terms is revealed by the inner form of a term itself. In popular science texts the main focus is on specific terms of separate sciences, i.e. it is looked for the ways to make the explanation of terms as simple and understandable as possible. In popular science texts, terms can be explained by defining them (1), by revealing their etymology (2), by presenting synonyms (3), expressive means of language such as metaphors and similes (4), or non-verbal means of expression (e.g. diagrams, schemes, pictures, etc.) (5). Terms are frequently explained not by one but rather by several different ways.

Ways of explaining terms in popular science texts are often analogous to those used in science texts, however, they may differ in means of linguistic expression. Selection of language means in popular science texts may depend on such non-linguistic factors as age of the addressee or composition of the material presented. 

 A. Umbrasas

CHANGES IN THE TERMINOLOGY OF LAW IN THE TRANSLATIONS OF THE CIVIL CODE THAT FUNCTIONED IN THE REPUBLIC OF LITHUANIA IN 1918–1940

In 1918 when independence of Lithuania was restored the laws of the Russian empire were kept. The first part of Volume 10 of the Collection of Russian Laws (Сводъ законовъ Россiйской имперiи) (the last official edition of 1914) became the Civil Code of Lithuania. This article deals with differences in the terminology of law in translations of this Code into Lithuanian. Some data about the manuscript translation of one of the four books of the first part of Volume 10, which was found in the Manuscript department of the Library of the Academy of Sciences of Lithuania , is presented. Terms of translations of Civiliniai įstatymai (Civil laws), published in 1928 and 1933 are analysed more exhaustively. The translator of the first edition is not indicated and the translator of the second is K. Šalkauskis. In the translation from 1933 there are some differences in terminology in comparison with the earlier translation, but the language in principle is the same, many paragraphs correspond word for word. Therefore it is concluded that either the translator was the same or the second translation was not original.

ON ANTANAS VILEIŠIS’ (1856–1919) WORKS OF MEDICAL SCIENCE AND THEIR TERMINOLOGY

The article deals with one of the many fields of activities of a famous public figure in Vilnius and doctor A. Vileišis - the popularising of the knowledge of medical science in the press and the most significant features of medical terminology in books and articles, translated or written by Vileišis. Borrowed terms, Lithuanian terms and terms of the mixed origin used by Vileišis to name one medical concept and their synonyms and variants are discussed more widely. Naming various diseases, their symptoms and other medical concepts he gave the priority to the Lithuanian term and presented synonymic foreign term in brackets, for instance, būdas (temperamentas) (temper / temperament); džiova (tuberkulosas) (tuberculosis); vidurinis akių valktis (gliaukoma) (glaucoma). Less frequently the foreign term is given first and followed by the Lithuanian synonym in brackets, for instance, nervai (dirksniai) (nerves); pulsas (gyslos tvinksėjimas) (pulse). There are only a few foreign terms (including their synonyms and variants) for which Lithuanian equivalent was not given, for instance, histerija / hysterija (hysteria), migrena (migraine). In his works Vileišis used many variants and synonyms of the Lithuanian term. The most frequent are orthographic and phonetic variants: akįs / akys (eyes), klajojimas / klejojimas (delirium). Synonyms of terms are particularly plentiful – 1) one-word, for instance, geltligė / gelta (jaundice), mažakraujystė / mažakraujybė / mažakraujė (anaemia); sloga / slunktas (sloga) / slanktas / slunktas / slunkstas ((head) cold); 2) complex terms, mostly two-word terms (usually one component, most frequently specific component, has a synonym), for instance, balti / baltiejie kraujo skritulėliai (white blood cells); rėknės, arba gerklės, uždegimas (throat inflammation); 3) one-word terms and complex terms, for instance, kraujagyslės / kraujagysliai / kraujo gįslos (blood-vessel); vėjiniai raupai / vėjo raupai / vėjarauplės (chicken-pox). Often parts of a synonymic chain are variants. The abundance of synonyms and variants in Vileišis’ works shows his aim to give preference to Lithuanian terms. It also allows us to assume that he was looking for the most suitable, the best Lithuanian term to name a medical concept. At that time Lithuanian terminology of this field was being created and Vileišis with his numerous popular works of medical science made an important contribution.

 A. Kaulakienė

TERMS OF ELECTRICITY AND MAGNETISM IN LITHUANIAN TEXTBOOKS OF PHYSICS

This article deals with terminology of electricity and magnetism in textbooks of physics of K. Šakenis, V. Čepinskis and P. Brazdžiūnas. Terms of electricity and magnetism in these textbooks could be divided into a number of groups. The largest group comprises similar terms, used by all three authors to name the same concept and which are in use today. The usage of synonymic terms and variants of terms of electricity and magnetism showed that frequently the authors of these textbooks named the new concept in synonymic terms or variants for the first time and subsequently chose and used only one of them. Terms distinctively used by the authors of these textbooks (by K. Šakenis and V. Čepinskis in particular), which named newly appearing concepts of electricity and magnetism at that time, need a separate analysis of meaning and structure.    

R. Gedrimas THE TERMINOLOGY OF J. A. PABRĖŽA’S GEOGRAPHY TEXTBOOK  

This article deals with the terminology of the first Lithuanian Geography textbook written by J. A. Pabrėža (1771–1849), a famous Samogitian naturalist and Franciscan Father. Pabrėža created terms by three means: 1) making terms out of folk lexis, 2) derivating neologisms, 3) borrowing terms (from other languages). Pabrėža termed many special geography lexis of his native dialect (kalns ‘mountain’, ópy ‘river’, sała ‘island’); created suitable terms of geography (darbiiby ‘occupation’, ógnakalnis ‘volcano’, dydjuris ‘ocean’ etc.); borowed terms to name various phenomena (geizer ‘geyser’) and used some calques from Greek (źemiuraszts ‘geography’) and Polish (jurtarpis ‘isthmus, neck’).

The book was written in his native Northen Samogitian subdialect of Kretinga after 1831 but was not published.    

A. Auksoriūtė INDIVIDUAL NAMES OF PLANTS IN L. IVINSKIS’ LENKŲ–ŽEMAIČIŲ KALBŲ ŽODYNAS AND PRIGIMTŪMENĖ  

This article deals with the names of plants of individual word-formation presented in two manuscripts – Lenkų–žemaičių kalbų žodynas (Polish-Samogitian Dictionary) (about 1863) and a scientific work Prigimtūmenė (Nature) (1870). About 80 individual names included into both manuscripts are compared. Similarity of Lithuanian names given in both manuscripts is shown by Latin equivalents.

Comparison of different names for naming the same plant in the dictionary and in Prigimtūmenė shows that those names are entirely different. Word-formation of most of them is not clear and these, which have a clear word-formation pattern, have a different underlying word and a different formant.

It is difficult to say why Ivinskis gave different names in the two manuscripts to almost a half of plants. Prigimtūmenė was written later than the dictionary. In Prigimtūmenė he classified plants according to taxonomy categories, so it is possible that he had changed his opinion when trying to co-ordinate names of these categories or to improve and to make plant names more accurate.