The aim of this study is to establish, through a comprehensive analysis, the origin of naming units for men in the dialects of the Karelian language. The scientific novelty of the research lies in determining the types of motivational features associated with the naming of males, specifically men. The lexical material was collected from published and electronic Karelian dialect dictionaries. The study resulted in the identification of 22 lexemes (34 when accounting for dialectal phonetic transformations) designating a man, which vary in origin. The collected lexical units represent various etymological layers: native Finnic terms, as well as Finnish and Slavic borrowings. From the perspective of morphological derivation – one of the most productive methods of new vocabulary formation in Karelian – the analyzed lexical stock exhibits suffixation and compound words with various motivational aspects. Additionally, semantic transformations were recorded during the formation of certain lexemes. The results obtained allow for a representation of the stages in the formation of naming units for men in the Karelian language.
One of the most striking features of South Estonian among other Finnic languages is the occurrence of the glottal stop /Ê/ as a phoneme, which in modern Võro and Lutsi orthographies is represented by the letter q. While the other grammatical and lexical functions of /Ê/ are shared amongst the South Estonian varieties, the distribution of the glottal stop in the lative forms varies across dialects, caused by the conservative nature of Lutsi and Kraasna, and the innovations in the western subdialects of Võro. This article examines the occurrence of the glottal stop /Ê/ at the end of the lative forms manoq ~ mano âtowardsâ and kuuq ~ kodoq ~ kodoâ(towards) homeâ, adverbialised illative and allative forms mahaq ~ maaha âdownwardsâ, pääleq ~ pääle âontoâ, and at the end of illative forms in Leivu South Estonian and the Hargla subdialect of Võro. This study combines qualitative historical analysis with synchronous quantitative analysis.
Phoneme paradigms of linguistic sign gradation—systematic alternations of phonemes within lexemes signaling morphological, semantic, or prosodic contrasts—appear across diverse, often unrelated language families. This article examines how such paradigms develop, compares major types of gradation (vowel ablaut, consonant gradation, templatic alternation, reduplication, and tonal/ prosodic alternation), and synthesizes mechanisms that underlie their emergence and maintenance: phonetic/phonological conditioning, morphologization and grammaticalization, analogical leveling, prosodic reanalysis, and contact-induced diffusion. Representative case studies from Indo-European, Finnic, Semitic, Austronesian, and Bantu languages illustrate convergent developmental paths and typological variation. The article concludes with methodological recommendations for future research and discusses theoretical and applied implications for typology, acquisition, and computational modeling.
D. Adamov, Alexsander Shlykov, Anna Potanina
et al.
Background/Objectives: The eastern periphery of the Slavic expansion (the Volga-Oka region) is the most promising region for reconstructing interactions between Slavic and pre-Slavic populations of the East European Plain. Unlike most pre-Slavic tribes, its autochthonous population practiced inhumation instead of cremation, leaving us with some ancient DNA for analysis. Methods: The region’s modern and ancient Y-chromosome gene pools are dominated by the haplogroup R1a: its frequency reaches 56% in Ryazan Russians (n = 302) and 44% in the Finnic peoples of Mordovia (n = 633). This encouraged us to analyze its Y-SNPs and Y-STRs. Results: Using 2 independent methods of phylogeny analysis, we identified 10 informative Y-STR clusters within R1a, dating back 1600–2900 YBP. The clusters included 48% of modern Ryazan Russians, 40% of Mordovia’s Finnic populations, and ancient DNA samples from the Ryazan-Oka culture (6–7th centuries), Suzdal (12–13th centuries) and Vladimir (13th century). Such a unique combination and pre-Slavic TMRCA indicate that the informative clusters represent pre-Slavic Y lineages. The presence of ancient samples from Vladimir and Suzdal in the clusters suggests that the autochthonous tribes contributed to shaping the urban population of the Vladimir-Suzdal Rus. Some of the informative clusters are associated with the ancient population of the Baltics (2000–4000 YBP). Conclusions: About half of Russian R1a carriers in the Volga-Oka region are descended from a pre-Slavic population, suggesting that the Slavs did not fully replace the autochthonous population but rather mostly culturally assimilated the Meshchyora documented in the Russian chronicles and other local tribes.
ABSTRACT In this article, we examine the prehistory exhibition at the National Museum of Finland. The exhibition opened to the public in 2017, closed in 2023, and will reopen in 2027. The analysis is based on an examination of the exhibition texts and the immersive, multisensory elements incorporated into the exhibition. We argue that the representation of folklore and mythology in the exhibition is somewhat vague, merely serving to reimagine and embellish the distant past. It appears that folkloric elements are employed to ‘fill the gaps’ when the archaeological record provides insufficient or noinformation to portray individuals from prehistoric times. This results in the formation of intricate temporal interpretations wherein the archaeological periodisation is obscured and intertwined with the mythological past. This intertwining of archaeological artefacts, the ‘touchable’ past, and Finnic folklore and mythology highlights the difficulty of presenting the prehistoric past in museum exhibitions.
This article presents both a diachronic and synchronic explanation for the occurrence of the suffix -i in Livonian adjectives. The suffix is prevalent among Livonian adjectives and in most cases it can be derived directly from the Finnic suffix *-in(En), such as Courland Livonian roudi ‘of iron’ < *rautain(e̮n).In some Livonian adjectives, however, the suffix is of a secondary character and, therefore, analogical, such as Courland Livonian madāl ~ madāli ‘low; shallow’. Such a secondary spread of the suffix indicates its widened use towards that of a general adjectival marker. Motivations for such a change would be the language-internal need to distinguish between grammatical cases following extensive apocope and syncope, and language-externally the prolonged and deep contacts with Latvian, an Indo-European language with separate paradigms for nouns and adjectives. Kokkuvõte. Patrick O’Rourke: Liivi i-adjektiivide analoogiline areng. Käesolevas artiklis esitletakse nii diakrooniline kui sünkrooniline seletus sufiksi -i esinemisele liivi adjektiivides. Sufiks on valdavas osas liivi adjektiividest ja enamasti saab seda tuletada otse algläänemeresoome sufiksist *-in(En), näiteks kuraliivi roudi ‘raudne’ < *rautain(e̮n).Mõnes liivi adjektiivis on käsitletav sufiks aga sekundaarse iseloomuga ja seetõttu analoogiline, näiteks kuraliivi sõnas madāl ~ madāli ‘madal’. Seda tüüpi sekundaarse sufiksi levimine viitab sufiksi laienenud kasutusele üldise omadussõnalise tunnuse suunas. Motivatsiooni sellisele muutusele on võib-olla pakkunud keelesisene vajadus eristada käändevorme pärast ulatuslikku lõpu- ja sisekadu, ning pikaaegne ja sügav kontakt läti keelega ehk indoeuroopa keelega, milles on eraldi paradigmad nimi- ja omadussõnadele.
The second part of the paper deals with 103 exotoponyms which were known to the Votians, including four continent names and four ocean names. They have been used to refer to places in Europe (except Estonia, Finland and Russia), Asia, Africa and America. Among the names of the continents, only Jevroppõ- âEuropeâ is of Russian origin. The attributes of the ocean names are also Finnic, with the exception of the probably Russian Indeimere- âIndian Oceanâ. Not counting the names of continents and oceans, 94 toponyms have been stored, 50 of them from Europe (53% of the total number of names), 38 from Asia (40%), 6 from Africa and 1 from America. In fact, the number of the place names mentioned in Europe is incomparable. Altogether the exotoponyms of Estonia, Finland and Russia (totally 83), the European toponyms make up three-quarters and Asian ones only more than a fifth of the 178 stored toponyms. The number of African and American toponyms is negligible in comparison with them. Countries or regions denoted by place names that in Russian contain the ending -Ð¸Ñ [-iya], either retain it (e.g. Angl´ija) or transform it to -ia (Germania) or i (Franttsi). Often these toponyms are formed from an ethnonym, e.g. Åemtsaa maa, Å veeda etc. More than a third of the exotoponyms (36 names, or 38%) come from a Votic person, who had sailed on warships from Kronstadt to Germany, Egypt and China. The article discusses 18 biblical names (19%). Kirjutise teises osas käsitletakse 103 vadja eksotoponüümi, mida on kasutatud Euroopa (v.a Eesti, Soome ja Venemaa), Aasia, Aafrika ning Ameerika paikade tähistamiseks. Osa kohanimedest on vadja keeles läänemeresoomepärased, teised aga saadud vene keele vahendusel. Artikli eesmärk on esitada külade kaupa võimalikult kõik väliskohanimed koos variantidega ja analüüsida neid võrdlevalt.
Abstract Morphological knowledge involves understanding how morphemes, the smallest meaningful units of words, can be used to form words. However, not much is known about L2 learners’ English morpheme recognition in multimorphemic words. To the best of the author’s knowledge, no research exists on Finnish university students’ knowledge of English multimorphemic words. Finnish is a Finnic language of the Uralic language family, and as a non-Germanic language, its structures are very different from those of, e. g., English. The highly productive and rich morphological system of Finnish provides novel opportunities for research. The present study examines morpheme recognition, the most crucial aspect of receptive morphological knowledge needed for vocabulary acquisition, and intralexical factors that affect morpheme recognition. The participants, 694 Finnish-speaking university students, were administered word segmentation and vocabulary knowledge tasks, which were developed to fit the proficiency level of the Finnish participants. Using both Pearson and corrected item-total correlational analyses, the findings indicated that recognizing the root of a word was influenced significantly by the ability to break multimorphemic words into parts. The results add to our understanding of how morphological knowledge is constructed by advanced L2 English learners, as well as provide novel evidence for its receptive use in strategic vocabulary learning. This evidence highlights the importance of drawing learners’ attention to different morphological structures and the semantic role of roots. Based on the results, the pedagogical implications for L2 vocabulary learning are also addressed.
Introduction. Despite the fact that the image of Russia in foreign discourse has repeatedly been the subject of scholarly attention, the Finno-Ugric material, including the peculiarities of travel notes and their modern counterpart (internet travel blogs), remains insufficiently explored. The aim of this study is to identify the key dominant elements that shape the perception of Russia in internet travel blogs by analyzing collocations with terms representing the country in Finnish. Materials and Methods. The study is based on a subcorpus of Finnic-language internet travelogues about Russia, manually compiled from the internet using a full-sampling method. The corpus includes 31 texts, comprising a total of 24,288 word occurrences. The research employed discourse analysis methods, with sentiment analysis conducted automatically and text tone evaluated through expert assessment. Results and Discussion. The analysis of collocations related to the concept of “Russia” revealed their axiological significance. The frequent use of the word form Venäjä (Russia) contributes to the stereotyping of the country as a cultural space for tourism, while also highlighting the de-stereotyping process through the personal experiences of travelers. The term Neuvostoliitto (Soviet Union) emphasizes the historical era. Sentiment analysis demonstrated the neutrality of the collocations, which together form a multifaceted image of Russia in online travel blogs. Conclusion. The results of this study refine and complement research in the field of the representation of the concept of “Russia” in Finnish linguistic culture. The data obtained through sentiment analysis of contexts and their expert evaluation may be used in the further development of algorithms for automatic text sentiment analysis.
The focus of this paper is on the use of the discourse particle no in Seto South Estonian, a Finnic language spoken in Southeastern Estonia and Pskov oblast in Russia. The method follows the framework of conversation analysis (Schegloff 2007), meaning that the particle is described based on its syntactic position in the clause, i.e., whether it appears clause-initally, in 2nd, intermediate, or final position, or as a stand-alone unit. In the languages that feature no, it is typically in the clause-initial or clause-internal position (Auer and Maschler 2016: 10), while other syntactic positions are less frequent. In the Uralic language family, the clause-final no it is found only in Seto, Estonian, and sporadically in Livonian, while the 2nd position use is unique to only Seto. This study is based on Seto recordings made between 2010–2016 in Pskov oblast and 2020–2023 in Southeastern Estonia. It focuses on the various forms of no in Seto with the aim of describing the distribution of no and noh, the Russian-borrowed nu and nuh, and their prosodic variants noo, nuu, nooh, nuuh in the abovementioned syntactic positions. Special attention is given to noq since the latter is homonymous with the temporal adverbial noq ‘now’ also found in Seto.
In Siberia, various Turkic, Mongolic, Finnic-Ugric, and Neo-Tibetan ethnic groups such as the Yakut, Tuvan, Khakas, Altai, Dolgan, Tatar, Teleut, Nenets, Buryat, Evenki, Even, Nanai, Khanty, Mansi, and Ket peoples reside. In their daily lives, there are various taboos, forms of veneration, and oral folk tales related to the swan. Research on folk tales in the Siberian region is undoubtedly limited by the scarcity of written records. However, even within these constraints, the task of deriving new meanings holds significant academic value. For the indigenous peoples of Siberia, the swan, along with the bear, crow, and wolf, holds a significant place as one of the major totems of the region. It plays the dual role of representing the primordial mother-ancestor that must be revered, as well as embodying the 'sun goddess-daughter' who signifies the rebirth of life and the arrival of spring on Earth. The children of the 'mother-ancestor,' that is, the swan’s offspring, were expected to honor the swan every spring and strictly observe various taboos and rituals associated with the swan.
Typological and diachronic tendencies of Mordvinic demonstratives Demonstratives, like many other pronouns, belong to the old inherited Uralic vocabulary. However, there is considerable language- and branch-spe- cific divergence. This article examines the typological and diachronic charac- teristics of Mordvinic pronouns within the Uralic context. Typologically and diachronically, the Mordvinic demonstrative system is unique because the same demonstrative has appeared in both pre- and postnominal positions. In the latter case, certain singular and plural demonstratives have secondarily developed into suffixed definiteness markers. This development has in- creased the number of categories involved in definiteness marking. The deictic system of Mordvinic distinguishes between an unambiguous distance-based triad of proximal, medial and distal demonstratives. This pattern is similar to the assumed inherited pattern of the Finnic languages although it is less symmetric in Mordvinic. The speaker-oriented proximal (Erzya ťe, Moksha ťä ‘this; it’: E ńe, M ńä ‘these; they’) and distal pronouns (E M tona ‘that’ : E M nona ‘those’) have singular-plural pairs, whereas the plural form of the endophoric E śe, M śä ‘it’ overlaps with that of the proximal one. Alternatively, analogical plural forms based on the plural marker -t are used. Variation in plural forms increases asymmetry in the deictic system and inflectional paradigms of demonstratives. Consequently, grammars of Mord- vinic present the inflection of demonstratives in divergent ways, either as slightly deficient (Erzya) or meager (Moksha). The diachronic development and increase of functionally specific forms derived from demonstratives is illustrated by the high number of demonstrative-based adverbs. Keywords: Mordvinic (Erzya, Moksha), Uralic, demonstratives, pronouns, adverbs
Abstract The distinctive ancient culture of the Seto (south-eastern Estonia) is of special interest, among other things, for its rich lament tradition which survived until the recent past. Unlike the laments of other Balto-Finnic peoples, which are an exclusively solo genre, some Seto laments – all the bridal laments and the funeral laments for a deceased maiden – are performed by a group of lamenters as a kind of polyphonic lamenting song. The unusual practice of choral lamentation raises important questions about the functions and meanings of laments in traditional culture, the specificity of the lament genre as a form of expressive behaviour, and the relationship between the genres of lament and song in Seto culture. This article explores these and some other questions by means of musical analysis of Seto lament tunes and attempts to place the Seto lament tradition in the context of the laments of linguistically and geographically related peoples.
Anastasia Agdzhoyan, Georgy Ponomarev, Vladimir Pylev
et al.
Background: Eastern Finnic populations, including Karelians, Veps, Votes, Ingrians, and Ingrian Finns, are a significant component of the history of Finnic populations, which have developed over ~3 kya. Yet, these groups remain understudied from a genetic point of view. Methods: In this work, we explore the gene pools of Karelians (Northern, Tver, Ludic, and Livvi), Veps, Ingrians, Votes, and Ingrian Finns using Y-chromosome markers (N = 357) and genome-wide autosomes (N = 67) and in comparison with selected Russians populations of the area (N = 763). The data are analyzed using statistical, bioinformatic, and cartographic methods. Results: The autosomal gene pool of Eastern Finnic populations can be divided into two large categories based on the results of the PCA and ADMIXTURE modeling: (a) “Karelia”: Veps, Northern, Ludic, Livvi, and Tver Karelians; (b) “Ingria”: Ingrians, Votes, Ingrian Finns. The Y-chromosomal gene pool of Baltic Finns is more diverse and is composed of four genetic components. The “Northern” component prevails in Northern Karelians and Ingrian Finns, the “Karelian” in Livvi, Ludic, and Tver Karelians, the “Ingrian-Veps” in Ingrians and Veps (a heterogeneous cluster occupying an intermediate position between the “Northern” and the “Karelian” ones), and the “Southern” in Votes. Moreover, our phylogeographic analysis has found that the Y-haplogroup N3a4-Z1927 carriers are frequent among most Eastern Finnic populations, as well as among some Northern Russian and Central Russian populations. Conclusions: The autosomal clustering reflects the major areal groupings of the populations in question, while the Y-chromosomal gene pool correlates with the known history of these groups. The overlap of the four Y-chromosomal patterns may reflect the eastern part of the homeland of the Proto-Finnic gene pool. The carriers of the Y-haplogroup N3a4-Z1927, frequent in the sample, had a common ancestor at ~2.4 kya, but the active spread of N3a4-Z1927 happened only at ~1.7–2 kya, during the “golden” age of the Proto-Finnic culture (the archaeological period of the “typical” Tarand graves). A heterogeneous Y-chromosomal cluster containing Ingrians, Veps, and Northern Russian populations, should be further studied.
Throughout Estonian history, the language ideologies prevailing in Europe have had great influence on Estonian language planning. Language planners, in turn, have influenced the views of Estonian society. In this paper we analyse how language ideologies have supported myths and beliefs throughout the history of cultivating Standard Estonian. The privileged status of Standard Estonian (compared to local dialects) strengthened considerably from the early 20th century. Although Estonian language planning became more tolerant and democratic since the 1980s, a totalitarian understanding of the language still remains in the background. Using foreign words and the mixing of languages and registers is considered especially objectionable due to the ideology of a small nation, which has to defend itself and its language.
In the 2020s, discussions about language change and the principles of language planning re-emerged. These have been interesting, because language planning wishes to make the “top-down” language norms of Standard Estonian closer to actual language use, while language maintenance experts still see any potential changes as a threat to the Estonian language and even the nation.
Kokkuvõte. Liina Lindström, Lydia Risberg, Helen Plado: Keeleideoloogiad ja uskumused keele kohta Eestis ja eesti keelekorralduses. Euroopas valitsevad keeleideoloogiad on aja jooksul eesti keelekorraldusele suurt mõju avaldanud. Keelekorraldajad on omakorda mõjutanud eesti ühiskonnas valitsevaid arusaamu. Artiklis analüüsime, kuidas keeleideoloogiad on alates 19. sajandist toetanud müüte ja uskumusi eesti kirjakeele kohta. 20. sajandi algul tugevnes kirjakeele staatus (võrreldes kohalike murretega) järsku, samuti süvenes hoiak, et on olemas „õige“ ja „vale“ keel. Kuigi eesti keelekorraldus muutus alates 1980. aastatest leebemaks ja demokraatlikumaks, on taustal püsinud siiski totalitaarne arusaam keelest. Võõrsõnu ja keelte ning registrite segamist peetakse eriti halvaks ideoloogia tõttu eestlastest kui väikesest rahvast, kes on pidanud ja peab ennast ja oma keelt pidevalt kaitsma.
2020. aastatel järjekordselt esile kerkinud uued arutelud on huvitavad, sest keelekorraldus soovib norminguid hoida tegeliku keelekasutusega kooskõlas, kuid keeletoimetajad ja õpetajad näevad võimalikke muudatusi ohuna nii eesti keelele kui isegi rahvusele. Niisiis on pika aja jooksul levinud keeleideoloogiad eestlastes tugevalt juurdunud.
There are numerous exceptional similarities between some of the east- and southward Finnic languages and Permic languages, in particular in case of the Veps, South-Estonian and Komi languages. The Livonian negative expresses the person and tense by the forms of the negative auxiliary, and the number by the forms of the main verb. The same principle is applied also in the Komi (and Udmurt) language. The manner of the formation of the Veps negative is principally similar to that in Livonian and Komi. The object of the Livonian imperative both in the affirmative and negative may take the genitive form. The genitive could have been the object case from the very beginning in Mordvin (and in Finnic). In certain cases in Baltic and (East-)Slavic languages objects are used in the genitive. It is possible to figure out the formation of the present-day usage of cases of the partial and full objects in Baltic and (East)-Slavic of influence of Finnic- and Mordvin-type languages.
The geographic distance between Romania and Sweden influenced the creation of mutual imaginary. However, it wasn’t until the beginning of the 20th century that inhabitants of the two nations were interested in discovering each other. Therefore, Romanian-Swedish mutual impressions were mostly based on the accounts of tourists who had visited both nations. During the interwar era, direct contact between Romanians and Swedes was infrequent. The news about Romania was disseminated by the Swedish press, which played a significant part in the formation of hostile sentiments. On the other side, the Romanian diplomats who ran the Stockholm-based Legation had nothing but admiration for Swedish society. During the Second World War, the situation improved as more Romanian and Swedish intellectuals traveled to Scandinavia and the Balkans. However, these interactions did not alter how Romanians and Swedes viewed one another.
The current article reports on action research within an exploratory case study discussing the process of designing an online training program for English as a Foreign Language National Examination examiners and raters in Estonia, the first of its kind to be used in the context explored. The process is guided by Collins’ Cognitive Apprenticeship Model and elements of the TPACK framework by Koehler et al. to determine the dimensions of the program, discuss its implementation and the trainees’ response to it. The analysis of the process revealed clear stages in its evolution as well as its cyclical nature. The implementation of the resultant online program, consisting of video-based trainer input and interactive interview management and student performance assessment tasks, displayed notable training benefits – clear trainee satisfaction with the training quality and an increase in learner autonomy.
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Riigieksami eksamineerijate veebipõhise koolitusprogrammi koostamisprotsess rakendamine ja järeldused
Artiklis kirjeldatakse kvalitatiivse uurimusena juhtumiuuringu vormis läbiviidud tegevusuuringut, milles analüüsitakse inglise keele riigieksami intervjueerijate ja hindajatate koolitamiseks loodud veebipõhise koolituse arendamist ja rakendamist Eestis. Tegemist on uuritud kontekstis esimese omataolise veebipõhise koolitusega. Koolituse raamistiku ja sisu väljatöötamisel, selle rakendamisel ja osaliste tagasiside kogumisel toetuti Collins’i Cognitive Apprenticeship mudelile ning Koehleri jt TPACK raamistiku elementidele. Protsessi analüüs tõi välja selles selgesti eristatavad etapid ning protsessi tsüklilise iseloomu. Tekkinud veebi põhine koolitus programm, mille sisu moodustasid videotel põhinev koolitussisend ning interaktiivsed eksamiintervjuu juhtimist ja õpilaste keeleoskuse hindamist puudutavad ülesanded, oli ühelt poolt märkimisväärselt edukas – ilmnes osavõtjate rahulolu koolituse kvaliteediga ja õppijate autonoomsuse hea tase – kuid osalejatelt saadud tagasiside osutas ka mitmesugustele võimalustele koolitusprogrammi edasiseks täiendamiseks.
In Latvian and Estonian existential clauses, the subject’s case form alternates between nominative vs. genitive (in Latvian) and nominative vs. partitive (in Estonian). This article is a study of the case-alternation systems of existential clauses and related clause types, locative and possessive clauses in these languages. It includes a corpusbased analysis of Latvian existential clauses that is being compared with Estonian corpus-based findings on similar clause types in Estonian.
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"Subjekti käändevaheldus läti ja eesti keele eksistentsiaallausetes"
Nii eesti kui ka läti keeles esineb subjekti käändevaheldust. Läti keeles saab subjekt olla lisaks nominatiivile ka genitiivis, eesti keeles lisaks nominatiivile ka partitiivis. Artiklis võrreldakse subjekti käändevaheldust mõlema keele kirjaliku variandi eksistentsiaallauses, lisaks vaadeldakse ka eksistentsiaallausega seostuvaid lausetüüpe: lokatiiv- ja possessiivlauset. Läti keele subjekti käändevaheldus leiab aset eitavates lausetes verbiga nebut ‘mitte olema’, mida nimetame tinglikult eksistentsiaal-, possessiiv- ja lokatiivlauseteks. Kõigis lausetüüpides domineerib genitiivsubjekt mõjukalt nominatiivsubjekti üle. Eesti keele subjektikäände varieerumine ilmneb kõige produktiivsemalt eksistentsiaal- ja possessiivlausetes, seejuures on olulisemateks käändevaliku mõjuriteks lause polaarsus ja subjekti referendi kvantitatiivne määratletus. Esitame tänapäeva läti keele korpusematerjalil põhinevaid uuringutulemusi ning kõrvutame neid seniste uuringutega läti ja eesti keele kohta. Erinevalt varasematest seisukohtadest ilmneb, et lausetüübil peaaegu puudub mõju läti keele subjektikäändele. Uurime seetõttu peamisi subjekti käänet mõjutavate muutujate klastreid, keskendudes nende erinevatele realiseerumisvõimalustele. Peamised muutujad on subjekti referendi definiitsus, subjekti sõnaliik, subjektifraasi raskus ning subjekti paiknemine predikaadi ja määruse suhtes. Andmetest ei ilmne tugevaid reegleid, vaid ainult eelistuste tendentsid. Kõigis vaadeldavates lausestruktuuritüüpides on sagedasem genitiivsubjekt, kuid ülekaalukuse määr varieerub. Korpusematerjali suurim rühm subjekte on verbijärgsed indefiniitsed genitiivsubjektid. Nominatiivi kasutus on kõige sagedasem verbijärgsete definiitsete subjektide puhul, ületades kahekordselt nominatiivsubjektide osakaalu kogu uuritud korpusematerjalis. Teatud puhkudel on ka lausetüüp subjektikäände osaliseks mõjutajaks. Näiteks on eitavas lokatiivlauses, mille sõnajärg meenutab jaatavat lokatiivlauset, definiitne subjekt just nominatiivis. Artikkel esitab läti keele uuringutulemuste kõrvale tänapäeva eesti keele korpusematerjalil põhinevaid kvalitatiivseid ja arvulisi andmeid eesti keele võrreldavate subjektikäände tegurite ja tingimuste kohta.
Abstract. The origin of place names is a research topic for linguists (or onomasticians) and geographers, but since ancient times a wide range of people have also been interested in the subject. As Latvia is the closest neighbour to both Lithuania and Estonia, they share, to a large extent, a common history, as well as – because of this fact – a number of borrowed common words and names. This article is based on the toponymical material included in the short dictionary of Latvian geographical names entitled “No Abavas līdz Zilupei” (“From Abava to Zilupe. The origin of Latvian geographical names”), which was compiled by Laimute Balode and Ojārs Bušs and published in Rīga in 2015. It offers insights into the contemporary situation of Latvian oikonyms as well as providing comparisons of the names of inhabited places with their historical names.
Kokkuvõte. Laimute Balode: Pilk Läti linnanimedele. Kohanimede päritolu on keeleteadlaste (täpsemalt nimeuurijate) ja geograafide uurimisvaldkond, mis on ammustest aegadest huvi pakkunud ka kõikidele teistele. Kuna Läti on Leedu ja Eesti lähinaaber, jagavad riigid suurel määral ühist ajalugu, mistõttu on neil ka hulk ühiseid laensõnu ja laenatud nimesid. Käesolev artikkel põhineb Läti kohanimeleksikoni “No Abavas līdz Zilupei” toponüümilisel ainestikul. See heidab pilgu tänapäeva Läti oikonüümide olukorrale ning võrdleb asustuste nimesid nende ajalooliste nimedega.
Märksõnad: onomastika; linnanimed; Läti