Linguistic Studies and Essays

Vol. 61 No. 1 (2023)
Articles

Sulla Polifunzionalità di 'uno' in lituano antico

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  • Adriano Cerri
Adriano Cerri
Università di Pisa
DOI: https://doi.org/10.4454/ssl.v61i1.356

Published 2023-06-28

Keywords

  • 'one',
  • Old Lithuanian,
  • polifunctionality,
  • grammaticalisation,
  • indefinitness
Copyright Notice

Abstract

This study aims to describe from a synchronic and typological perspective the variety of functions displayed by the word vienas ‘one’ in Old Lithuanian. To do so, we examine the occurrences of this lexeme in eight of the oldest linguistic monuments of this language, all of which date from the mid- to late 16th century. In addition to the numeral function, vienas fulfils several other functions: nominal, pronoun, adjective and pseudo-article. The analysis of the last function requires both philological-textual and linguistic-typological considerations. The former allow us to note that the use of ‘one’ is favoured by i) the presence of a similar lexical element in the source-text from which the Lithuanian texts were translated, and by ii) stylistic features that bring the text closer to the folk-tale genre (where ‘one’ as presentative marker is more frequent than elsewhere). Typological considerations lead to the conclusion that ‘one’ in Old Lithuanian presents a limited degree of grammaticalisation, since it can serve as a presentative marker and, in some cases, as a specific marker (always, however, alternating with the much more frequent absence of overt marking).

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