This thesis presents a description and analysis of non-canonical case-marking of core arguments in Lithuanian. It consists of an introduction and six articles, providing historical and/or contrastive perspective to this issue. More specifically, using data from Lithuanian dialects, Old Lithuanian and other languages such as Icelandic, Latin and Finnic for comparison, the thesis examines the development and current state of non-canonical case-marking of core arguments in Lithuanian The present work draws on empirical findings and theoretical considerations to investigate non-canonical case-marking, language variation and historical linguistics. Special attention is paid to the variation in the case-marking of body parts in pain verb constructions, where an accusative-marked body part is used in Standard Lithuanian, and alongside, a nominative-marked body part in Lithuanian dialects. A common objective of the first three articles is to clarify and to seek a better understanding for the reasons for this case variation. The research provides evidence that nominative is the original case-marking of body parts in pain specific construction, i.e. with verbs, with the original meaning of pain, like skaudėti and sopėti ‘hurt, feel pain’. On the contrary, in derived pain constructions, i.e. with verbs like gelti with the original meaning of ‘sting, bite’ and diegti with the original meaning ‘plant’, accusative is the original case-marking of body parts. This accusative is explained by means of an oblique anticausative and it is argued furthermore that it is extended into the pain specific construction. The three last articles focus on the comparative and contrastive perspective. Their main results include the following: Lithuanian and Icelandic differ considerably in the frequency of using accusative vs. dative marking on the highest ranked argument. Accusative is more frequently used in Lithuanian while dative is dominant in Icelandic. The semantic fields of the dative subject construction have remained very stable, suggesting that the dative subject construction is inherited. It has, however, become productive in the history of Germanic, Baltic and Slavic. The similarities in Finnic and Baltic partiality-based object and subject-marking systems are due to Baltic influence. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 1: In press. Paper 2: In press. Paper 3: In press.</p>

Šio darbo objektas – rankos pirštų įvardijimai lietuvių kalbos tarmėse. Darbo tikslas – parodyti rankos pirštų pavadinimų paplitimą lietuvių kalbos tarmėse. Tikslui pasiekti suformuluoti šie uždaviniai: išsirinkti visus atsakymus į leksikos anketos 111 klausimą (a, b, c, d, e dalys), kaip tarmėse vadinami rankos pirštai, gautus duomenis suklasifikuoti, suklasifikuotų atsakymų pagrindu sudaryti žemėlapius, rodančius atskirų rankos pirštų pavadinimų paplitimą lietuvių kalbos tarmėse, visa tai aprašyti komentaruose ir apibendrinti. Darbo tiriamąją medžiagą sudaro Lietuvių kalbos instituto Kalbos istorijos ir dialektologijos skyriaus Tarmių archyve saugomi atsakymai į leksikos anketos 111 klausimą iš 174 skirtingų gyvenamųjų punktų (vietovių) Lietuvoje ir 4 punktų, esančių už jos ribų. Užrašytų atsakymų pagrindu sudaryti penki atskiri kiekvieno rankos piršto pavadinimų paplitimo lietuvių kalbos tarmėse žemėlapiai. Jiems braižyti buvo naudojama Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo XI programa. Darbo metodai – lingvistinės geografijos, lyginamasis ir aprašomasis. Visoje Lietuvoje ir lietuvių kalbos „salelėse“ už jos ribų vartojamas tas pats pirmojo rankos piršto pavadinimas nykštỹs, kuris tarmėse skiriasi tik kamienu: io (nikštỹs), o (nýkštis, nnkštis) arba ()ē (nýkštė). Keliuose punktuose vartojamas morfologinis pirmojo piršto pavadinimo variantas nykštnis. Pavadinimas nykštỹs ir jo variantai siejami su veiksmažodžiu nỹkti „mažėti“. Labiausiai paplitęs antrojo rankos piršto... [toliau žr. visą tekstą] / The object of the thesis is the names of the fingers in Lithuanian dialects. The aim is to show how far and how often the names are spread in Lithuanian dialects. The aim of the thesis consists of the following tasks: to pick up all the answers to question No. 111 (a, b, c, d, e) from a lexical questionnaire and find out the names of the fingers in Lithuanian dialects; to process and classify data, to make up the maps, indicating the most common areas where they are spread and used in everyday life, to describe and summarize it. The research has been done on the basic material found and stored in the archives of the Lithuanian language institute (in the department of the History and Dialectology of the Lithuanian language). The answers to question No. 111 are from 174 different areas and 4 additional locations beyond the borders of Lithuania The 5 maps of the points where the names of the fingers are spread were made with the help of Corel Paint Shop Pro Photo XI program. The methods used: linguistic geography, comparative, and descriptive. The first finger of the hand is called nykštỹs. This name is the most common all over Lithuania, only in some dialects the stem of the word io may differ, as o (nýkštis, nnkštis) or ()ē (nýkštė). Nykštnis can also be found – it is its morphological variant. Nykštys as the word itself contains the meaning of the verb „disappear“ or „gradually becoming less“. The name smlius for the second finger of a hand is widely spread in Higher... [to full text]