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Expression of time is an important field in linguistic research. In Lithuanian linguistics, the study of time has focused first and foremost on tense and aspect systems. Therefore, Lithuanian language has developed a big diversity of means to encode time, e.g. noun cases ( vasarą ‘in summer’) and noun phrases ( liepos vakarą ‘in July evening’), prepositional phrases ( po darbo ‘after work’), adverbs ( netrukus ‘soon’), subordinate clauses ( kai nustos lyti ‘when it stops raining’). All of them despite their different grammatical status are suggested to be called temporal adverbials. ‘Adverbial’ is a quite new notion in Lithuanian linguistics, it was first presented in the studies of stance adverbials but is also convenient in the field of linguistic expression of time. The purpose of the paper is to demonstrate the necessity of distinguishing a semantic-functional class of temporal adverbials in Lithuanian linguistics and to show their position in the system of means that encode time. The second part of the paper presents a few semantic models of the temporal adverbials made by foreign linguists and the semantic research of Lithuanian temporal means that should be regarded as temporal adverbials. Keywords: linguistic expression of time; temporal adverbial; adverb; tense; aspect; lexical aspect; deixis of time DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15388/Lietkalb.2016.10.9923

This paper focuses on Lithuanian L2 verb forms that do not exist in the target language. The data is drawn from the Lithuanian L2 corpus and includes spontaneous speech data by 17 speakers of different L1s and all three acquisition varieties (pre-basic, basic and post-basic). The non-existent verb forms make only a small part of the overall verb forms used, however, when distinguished from occasional mistakes, the forms that indicate grammatical development that are analysed show notable systematicity among different speakers. Five distinct and most frequent formants are analyzed in detail, namely -u, -a, -o, -(i)au, ė, that are used by several speakers with seemingly similar function. The analysis reveals specific functions and discusses different factors that have an effect on the acquisition of these formants. In many cases frequency is an important factor, however, with formants -u and -ė transparency and regularity seem to have a stronger effect and thus facilitate the acquisition. Formant -a, being nearly the most common and extremely multifunctional (i.e. rather unmarked), is incorporated into the system firstly as part of the base form and holds this position till a very advanced stage of Lithuanian L2 acquisition. Verb stem type also has an effect with the regularly suffixed verbs being acquired the easiest, while the mixed type and the primary ones cause many difficulties for the speakers. Overall, the systematicity discovered shows the creative structuring of the interlanguage that only occurs more actively in the post-basic variety of acquisition.

Traditional dictionaries provide lexicographic data of the same type in different ways; such unrestricted freedom might result in imprecise information. Some such cases are explained by an attempt to compile traditional dictionaries so that they are handy for their users. The paper discusses several non-systemic cases of providing forms of lexicographic items, their meanings and shades of meaning, derivatives, proper and common lexis. The data has been drawn from more than ten dictionaries of several languages. The structure of the electronic database requires utmost precision; therefore, any non-systemic items are not justified. Due to the above reasons, a lexeme, or a lexicographic unit in one of its meanings, has been chosen as the key structural unit of the Database of Contemporary Lithuanian Lexicon (DCLL, Dabartinės lietuvių leksikos duomenų bazė). To produce a most precise card of a lexeme is much more rational and simpler than that of the whole lexicographic unit. In the process, a number of analogous cases and other cases of non-systemic description of data should be taken into account. Moreover, it is hardly possible to consider them all. Thus an attempt will be made to finally produce the DCLL as a card index of lexemes rather than lexicographic units (their entries). Dictionary entries are to be produced by joining the lexemes automatically.

The paper introduces the results of an investigation into spoken Lithuanian based on the Corpus of Spoken Lithuanian and carried out in Vytautas Magnus University. In the course of investigation the interrogative utterances used in spontaneous language were classified according to function and structure. The quantitative analysis of the data accessed from the Corpus of Spoken Lithuanian was based on a special computer program CHILDES. The results have shown that spoken Lithuanian gives preference to closed interrogative utterances rather than open interrogative utterances. Closed interrogative utterances in most cases use no interrogative particles; utterances with interrogative particles are much less frequent. In the latter subgroup interrogative particles mostly occur in the utterance-initial (e.g. ar, gal etc.) rather than utterance-final position (e.g. taip, ne, ane etc.). In the class of open interrogative utterances adverbial modifier utterances prevail; in the latter subclass interrogative utterances of the adverbial modifier of place dominate.