Modification of alumina matrices through chemical etching and electroless deposition of nano-Au array for amperometric sensing

Simple nanoporous alumina matrix modification procedure, in which the electrically highly insulating alumina barrier layer at the bottom of the pores is replaced with the conductive layer of the gold beds, was described. This modification makes possible the direct electron exchange between the underlying aluminum support and the redox species encapsulated in the alumina pores, thus, providing the generic platform for the nanoporous alumina sensors (biosensors) with the direct amperometric signal readout fabrication

Aspekto raiška jungties konstrukcijose

In this article an attempt is made to pinpoint all possibilities of expressing aspectual meanings in Lithuanian copular constructions. The author departs from the tradition of distinguishing only perfective vs. imperfective aspect in Lithuanian. Instead, in testing various possibilities of expressing aspect in the constructions under discussion, the relevant meanings are chosen from a wider range of aspectual grams established in recent typological work on aspect. Until now the aspect of copular constructions had remained an understudied and underdescribed topic not only in Lithuanian. This is because the main concern of linguists has been with general problems of predication (or identification) in equative structures. Researchers (mainly of the formal persuasion) have based their accounts on copular sentences where the copula “be”, more specifically its present tense form, is taken to be the default case. Of course such ‘default’ copular constructions deliver an unproblematic aspectual meaning, that of imperfective state. Empirically, however, present tense (or zero) copulas are the default instance only in the case of identificational equatives, for identity statements typically assert general truths that are ‘timeless’ or ‘omnitemporal’. As this research has shown, the remaining types of copular constructions have a much wider potential for choosing the desired aspectual meaning. First of all, the functional−structural properties of these constructions and the contexts in which they are used provide much more space for aspect−tense variation in their copular verbs than in the default cases of identificational equatives. Secondly, the aspectual properties of the copular construction can be changed externally by introducing, at clausal level, specialized adverbials or periphrastic aspectual constructions, such as jau ‘already’, du kartus ‘twice’, buvo be-tampąs, bet… ‘he was about to become, but…’ etc.; in this case the aspectual interpretation of the copula is coerced in line with the overall aspectual profile of the construction. Thirdly, the range of aspectual meanings in the copular constructions becomes even wider if we take into account other copulas than “be”, viz. those of dynamic or locative origin. The typological research of recent decades in this field (Stassen 1997; Pustet 2003) has shown that cross-linguistically it is not unusual for copulas to be grammaticalized from different lexical sources. One may reasonably suppose that one of the motives for including new lexemes in the class of copulas was the need of expressing relevant aspectual meanings in the predication of identity, i.e. in various types of copular constructions. So languages tend to have, in addition to their main copula, a small number of verbs that can qualify as copulas and that mainly serve the needs of aspectual expression in their constructions. In Lithuanian these copular verbs are tapti, pasidaryti / darytis ‘become’, virsti ‘turn into’, likti ‘remain’. Depending on their tense and syntactic environment, ‘dynamic’ copulas can express ingressive, progressive or habitual aspect. The copula likti denotes continuation of the profiled situation, as does the prefixed form tebe-būti (tebe-(nebe-) being the usual marker of (phasal / aspectual) continuative meaning in Lithuanian). In the article due attention is also paid to the aspectual properties of the different types of copular constructions. In his earlier works the author has provided a new classification based on the idea of type instantiation, developed by Ronald Langacker (1991). In the second section of this paper these types are briefly passed in review, but the classification is updated and enriched with new discussion. The main idea behind the new classification is that all types of copular constructions are treated as instantiations of one archetype, that of the identity relation. What distinguishes these constructional types is the syntactic class of their predicative complements (adjective vs. noun) and additionally, in the case of predicative nominals, their referential properties. Before turning, in the fourth section, to a discussion of concrete aspectual meanings as expressed in different types of copular constructions, the author first makes a brief excursion, in the third section, to the typology of strategies for encoding predicatives as defined in Leon Stassen’s comprehensive typological study on intransitive predication (1997). This seemed necessary as one may suspect that variation in this domain of morphosyntactic encoding is to a great extent motivated by the need of expressing additional aspectual meanings in the constructions under discussion

Paths of grammaticalization of the Lithuanian copula virsti ‘turn into’: the case of the inclusive copular constructions.

Anksčiau (in Mikulskas 2018), atlikus kvantitatyvinę Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos tekstyno duomenų analizę, buvo nustatyti sinchroniniu lygmeniu pasireiškiantys dinaminių jungčių virsti ir tapti semantinės distribucijos bei aspektinių verčių skirtumai. Šie skirtumai yra didžia dalimi nulemti iš kilmės konstrukcijų paveldėtų jų reikšmių. Norint geriau suprasti tokių jungčių semantines specifikacijas lėmusias priežastis, būtina atidžiau pasižiūrėti ir į jų kilmės šaltinius. Šiame straipsnyje, pasirėmus Lietuvių kalbos žodyno duomenimis, sprendžiamas inkliuzyvinių jungties sakinių su veiksmažodžiu virsti kilmės konstrukcijų klausimas. Askriptyvinės jungties konstrukcijos su šiuo veiksmažodžiu veikiausiai atsirado vėliau, greta jau susiformavusių inkliuzyvinių konstrukcijų su šiuo veiksmažodžiu (galimos pirmųjų konstrukcijų kilmės ištakos trumpai aptartos minėtoje publikacijoje). Yra pagrindo manyti, kad inkliuzyvinės jungties konstrukcijos su veiksmažodžiu virsti, dabar priklausančios tapatumo predikacijos sričiai ir žyminčios (laipsnišką) subjektinio referento ingresiją į naują būtį, per konceptualiąją metaforą PEREITI Į TAM TIKRĄ BŪSENĄ YRA PEREITI Į TAM TIKRĄ PADĖTĮ ERDVĖJE išsirutuliojo iš slinkties konstrukcijų, žyminčių vertikalaus objekto griūtį žemėn praradus pusiausvyrą. Po reanalizės naujojoje konstrukcijoje buvęs slinkties konstrukcijos paskirties participantas virto predikatyviniu (jungties) komplementu. Savaip prie inkliuzyvinių jungties konstrukcijų su veiksmažodžiu virsti susiformavimo prisidėjo ir egzistencinės interpretacijos slinkties konstrukcijos su šiuo veiksmažodžiu, originaliai žyminčios materijos masės ar gyvų padarų gausos veržimąsi, plūdimą iš kur nors, arba, bendriau žiūrint, pasirodymą pašnekovų akivaizdoje. Per semantinį išplėtimą ar metaforą šios konstrukcijos ima reikšti, kad kas nors (kam nors) nutinka arba kas nors naujai atsiranda tikrovėje. Egzistencinių konstrukcijų įnašą ir kartu svarbų etapą kalbamų jungties konstrukcijų raidoje liudija šioje predikacijos srityje nusistovėjusios vadinamosios subjekto raiškos alternacijos, kaip antai Iš gegutės virto vanagas vs. Gegutė virto į vanagą / vanagu. Būdamos semantiški iš esmės ekvivalenčios, šios konstrukcijos į tą pačią situaciją siūlo žvelgti iš skirtingų perspektyvų: naujo esinio iš senojo atsiradimo, t. y. jo egzistencijos pradžios teigimo, ir atsiradusio tapatumo tarp senojo ir naujojo esinių teigimo. Nesunku matyti, kad egzistencinis teiginys ontologiškai yra pirmesnis nei tapatumo teiginys, nors struktūriškai pirmasis santykiauja su antruoju kaip dalis su visuma.In this article I aim to establish source constructions for the inclusive copular construction with the verb virsti ‘turn into’ and to discuss how this once locomotional verb eventually became a copula with an aspectual function in the sentences profiling change events. The research is conducted on the base of data provided by the Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language. As I argued in Mikulskas (2018), the copular construction with this verb along with other copular constructions featuring verbs with similar meaning, such as tapti ‘become’, darytis/pasidaryti ‘become’ (lit. ‘make oneself’) and, formerly, stotis/pastoti ‘become’ (lit. ‘stand up’) express the ingressive aspect of the change event (mainly in the Simple Past and Future tenses). Copular constructions with these verbs may thus be seen as different instantiations of a more abstract ingressive-aspect-expressing construction. While in some contexts these copulas can compete with each other and be used interchangeably, in others their semantic distribution differs. One can reasonably suggest that the copulas under discussion have more or less divided among them the semantic space of aspectual expression according to the semantic and aspectual properties they have inherited from their source constructions. That is why it is so important to trace the source constructions of the copular constructions mentioned above. As is often the case in languages, words retaining their original meanings are still in active usage along with their grammaticalized forms. If this is the case, source constructions are not difficult to detect. The verb virsti (and its prefixed forms) is still widely used in Lithuanian, originally designating the locomotional event of the tumbling down of some vertical object. Thus, locomotional constructions with the verb virsti can be reasonably thought of as the main source of corresponding copular constructions designating a change event. More specifically, the inclusive copular constructions evolved from the locomotional ones through the conceptual metaphor enter a state is moving to a place. Importantly, after a locomotional construction has been reanalysed into a copular one, the latter often preserves formal properties of the former. For example, the starting point of a change event, if expressed in the copular construction with the verb virsti, is coded by the PP [iš NPgen], the same as for the Source participant in the locomotional schema, and the predicative complement of the copular construction after reanalysis often retains the coding of the Goal participant in that schema (i. e. it is coded by PP [į NPacc]). Emerging grammatical construction can benefit not from one but from several sources. In other words, there can be multiple source constructions (Petré 2012). This insight is based on the wellknown linguistic fact that the same lexical item, especially a verb, often participates in several different grammatical constructions, and the same construction may attract different verbal lexemes. Copular constructions usually appear in the grammatical context of the locative, existential, possessive or the periphrastic perfect constructions (Mikulskas 2009, 113-141). Technically, this grammatical context surrounding copular constructions may be defined as a network of constructions defined by Ludwig Wittgenstein’s (1958) principle of family resemblance. In the case under discussion, even synchronically, relations of motivation, or asymmetric inheritance links (Goldberg 1995, 72), can easily be posited not only between locomotional constructions with the verb virsti ‘tumble down’ and the corresponding copular constructions, but also between existential constructions with this verb designating events of manifestation, occurrence, befalling and the copular constructions. More specifically, the inheritance links between source constructions and corresponding copular constructions may be defined as various kinds of metaphorical extension. The fact that existential constructions with the verb virsti partake in the formation of inclusive copular constructions with this verb is not accidental, as an existential assertion is always part of any identity statement (Mikulskas 2017, 70-71; Mikulskas 2018, 7). It must also be noticed that existential constructions with the verb virsti are genetically connected to the locomotional constructions with this verb. In fact, certain locomotional events easily acquire an existential interpretation. The crucial point in the evolution of the copular construction under discussion from the two source constructions is the establishment of a so-called subject alternation (Lenartaitė 2011, 129-162) in the domain. This phenomenon can be viewed from two perspectives. First, one may suggest that the schema inherited by the copular construction from its locomotional counterpart becomes a conceptual frame within which there is a space for an existential interpretation of essentially the same scene. In other words, the existential construction and its copular counterpart profile different episodes of the same locomotional schema: in the first construction the Source participant, expressed by the PP [iš + NPGEN]), is focused, but in the second the nominal of this participant is selected as the subject and the subject of the first, existential, construction becomes a part of the copular complement, expressed by the PP [į + NPACC] which formally corresponds to the Goal participant in the schema. [...

Kablio” figūros nominacinės sistemos raiška lietuvių kalbos tarmėse

"Kablio" figūros nominacinės sistemos inventorių sudaro daugiausia su žemės ūkiu bei kitais senaisiais verslais susijusių įrankių pavadinimai (žvejyba, sielių plukdymu, kailių dirbimu ir t.t.), taip pat kai kurie namų apyvokos reikmenų pavadinimai. Glaudžiausiai su "kablio" figūra siejamas pavadinimas tampa jos reprezentatu kalbos lygmeniu, kuris pasižymi bendriausia reikšme ir plačiausia referencija. Pastaroji ne tik apima likusiųjų sistemos narių referenciją, bet dar gali būti išplėsta, figūratyvinio panašumo pagrindu nominuojant naujus tikrovės objektus, kurių ne vienas kalboje jau turi labiau įprastus, kito nominacinio požymio pagrindu sudarytus, pavadinimus. Pati nominacinė sistema formuojasi į bendrojo pavadinimo nominacijos sferą įtraukiant kitus "kablio" pavidalo įrankių pavadinimus. Tarp sistemoje dominuojančio pavadinimo ir likusiųjų pavadinimų nusistovi įtraukimo, arba hiperoniminiai-hiponiminiai santykiai. Pastaroji aplinkybė reiškia, kad tam tikrose komunikacinėse situacijose sudarant pasakymus bendrosios reikšmės pavadinimai gali būti pasirenkami vietoje specifinės reikšmės pavadinimų. Šiam nuo pasirinkimui nusakyti straipsnyje įsivedamas pavadavimo terminas. Taip pat, pabrėžiant bendrojo pavadinimo, kaip antrinių nominacijų priemonės funkciją, čia jam taikomas bendrojo nominatoriaus terminas. Remiantis prielaida, kad sinchronijos plotme žodžio reguliariųjų reikšmių skaičius tampa jo nominacinės potencijos rodikliu, iš LKŽ kartotekos teikiamų duomenų buvo nustatyti atskirų tarminių arealų bendrieji "kablio" figūros nominatoriai, patikslintos jų paplitimo ribos.The concept of the 'hook' is an instance of a linguistically relevant prototypical figure. Each Lithuanian dialect has its own system of names for implements of curved shape, correlated with this figure or with the most general term capable of expressing it. Such onomasiological systems are hierarchically ordered: there is a relationship of hyponymy between the individual members and the general term dominating the system. The geographical borders of the onomasiological systems of the dialects are defined by the areas of expansion of the general terms denoting the figure of the 'hook'. A principled approach is needed to establish these general terms for the particular dialects on the basis of the vast body of data contained in the card files of the Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language. The aim of the present article is to formulate these principles. It is hoped that, mutatis mutandis, they will also be helpful in establishing the general terms for other linguistically relevant figures

Mode of predication of elongated objects and the subjective notion of motion

It is frequently observed across the languages of the world that the configuration of a road, path or other elongated object is characterised in speech by means of verbs denoting directional movement. In this article, the mode of predication of elongated objects is analysed on the basis of Lithuanian language data. The regular nature of phenomenon under discussion gives cause for critical analysis of attempts to link such use of verbs of motion to the figurative purposes of language, e.g. a desire to express oneself vividly. No doubt the predication of elongated objects with verbs of motion has deeper cognitive reasons. The cognitive origin of predication of elongated objects with verbs of motion is introduced through Ronald Langacker’s notion of subjective motion, which implies the cognitive operation of subjectification. This specific use of the motion verbs has both semantic and grammatical consequences. Since the verbs of motion denote the elongated objects’ static configuration in space, from the semantic aspect they can be compared to verbs of state/condition, i.e. imperfectives. Therefore it is understandable that the predicates of elongated objects usually consist of verbs of motion, action, movement. On the other hand, these verbs, when compared with their counterparts denoting objective motion, have different aspectual properties. The incident action form of these verbs can be chosen for predication of a road image only in particular circumstances relating to the so-called traveller’s perspective

Pastabos dėl sintaksinio dviprasmiškumo sąvokos ir kiti susiję dalykai

The article contains a polemic with Axel Holvoet's analysis of Lithuanian sentences of the type Onutės žalios akys. The author disagrees with Holvoet's claim that sentences of this type are syntactically ambiguous between predicative possessive ('belonging') constructions and copular constructions whose subjects are discontinuous as a result of fronting. In the author's opinion syntactic ambiguity would entail semantic ambiguity, whereas the constructions under discussion have a well-defined meaning (they give a description of a person based on a characteristic attribute), entitling us to describe them as an autonomous construction. The sentence type under discussion originated, in the author's view, by reinterpretation of a copular construction with a subject constituent made discontinuous by syntactic movement motivated by topicalisation. The author also polemicises with Holvoet's theory of thematic-rhematic structure, a variety of that advanced by Bogusławski, pointing out that the notion of marked pattern of thematic-rhematic structure is not clearly defined

Syntactic and semantic distribution of the ingressive copulas "pasidarė" and "tapo" in modern Lithuanian: a corpus-based analysis

Dinaminės prigimties jungtys pasidaryti ir tapti, kaip ir (pa)virsti ar tarmėse dar tebevartojama stotis / pastoti, lietuvių kalboje yra prisitaikiusios reikšti ingresyvinį pokyčio įvykio aspektą. Straipsnyje aptariamos jungčių pasidaryti ir tapti sintaksinės bei semantinės distribucijos vartosenoje tendencijos remiasi šių jungčių preterito formų kvantitatyvine analize "Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos tekstyno" trijų registrų imtyse. Sintaksinės distribucijos analizė aprėpia ingresyvinio aspekto raiškos formų pasidarė ir tapo vartojimo tendencijas ir proporcijas askriptyvinėse, inkliuzyvinėse ir specifikacinėse jungties konstrukcijose. Semantinės kalbamų jungčių formų distribucijos analizė aprėpia jų sudaromų konstrukcijų designacijos zonų nustatymą: kiek šios zonos yra savitos ir kiek jos persikloja. Jungčių formų pasidarė ir tapo sudaromų konstrukcijų designacijos (kitaip — semantinės specifikacijos) didžia dalimi yra nulemtos jų akcionalinės prigimties (pirmuoju atveju turime vyksmo, antruoju — atsitikimo predikatą) bei paveldėtosios reikšmės pėdsako jų semantikoje. Veiksmažodžio tapti semantikoje šis pėdsakas dabar vargiai besusekamas, o veiksmažodžio pasidaryti semantikoje jis yra veiksnus dėl dar gyvai jaučiamo jo sudaromos jungties konstrukcijos darybinio ryšio su kilmės konstrukcija. Paveldėtosios reikšmės pėdsakas jungties pasidaryti semantikoje pasireiškia kaip agentyvaus ir / ar intencionalaus subjektinio referento presupozicija, arba reikalavimas, ir tai yra esminis semantinis požymis, skiriantis ją nuo jungties tapti. Pragmatiniu lygmeniu šis skirtumas pasireiškia kaip vidinės arba išorinės komunikatyvinės perspektyvos į profiliuojamą ingresyvinio pokyčio įvykį pasirinkimas. Galiausiai straipsnyje, griežtai laikantis semantinio ekvivalentiškumo kriterijaus, paskaičiuojamas galimo jungčių formų pasidarė ir tapo tarpusavio sukeičiamumo mastas tirtose tekstyno imtyse. Jis pasirodo esąs pakankamas, kad galima būtų teigti, jog šių jungčių formų sudaromos konstrukcijos esančios kalboje egzistuojančios bendresnės ingresyvinio aspekto raiškos konstrukcijos dvi atskiros instanciacijos. Raktažodžiai: atsitikimo predikatas, ingresyvinis aspektas, išorinė komunikatyvinė perspektyva, vidinė komunikatyvinė perspektyva, vyksmo predikatas.In an earlier publication (Mikulskas 2018), a contrastive study of the syntactic and semantic properties of the copular verbs virto ‘turned into’ (lit. ‘fell over’) vs. tapo ‘became’, based on an analysis of the data of the Corpus of Modern Lithuanian, was presented. In the present article the author continues his investigation into the domain of aspectual copulas of dynamic origin with a study of pasidarė ‘became’ (lit. ‘made oneself’) vs. tapo. The final goal of this research is to show that all three copular constructions (henceforth — CCs), featuring the copular verbs virto, pasidarė and tapo, are different instantiations of the more abstract ingressive-aspect-expressing construction. The contrast between the CC featuring virto and the CC featuring pasidarė is discussed only sporadically in the present study, as the first has much less in common with the latter than the latter has with the CC featuring tapo: the main difference consists in that the copula virto selects for involuntary subject referents while pasidarė selects for agentive and / or intentional subject referents, as does, in most cases, the copula tapo. The sample for quantitative analysis was compiled from three different registers of the Corpus of Modern Lithuanian — fiction, non-fiction and mass media — each consisting of 100 running lines featuring one (or more) CC with the preterital verb forms pasidarė and tapo. In sum, the sample consists of 300 running lines featuring CCs for each copular verb under discussion. In section 2, a quantitative analysis of the syntactic distribution of two copulas — pasidarė and tapo — each within its own sample of 300 running lines, is presented. It shows that pasidarė occurs in CCs of the ascriptive type 4 times more often than in those of the inclusive type. For comparison, tapo occurs in a similar sample 2,8 times less often in CCs of the ascriptive type than pasidarė, but it is used there 3 times more often in CCs of the inclusive type. Within its own sample, tapo occurs in CCs of the inclusive type 2,2 times more often than in those of the ascriptive type. The relatively higher frequency of ascriptive CCs with pasidarė in comparison with inclusive ones in the sample (and in usage generally) can be accounted for by the previously established fact (Mikulskas 2018) that the other ingressive copula — virto, which also designates an incrementally developing change event, can be complemented by predicative adjectives only to a limited extent, so that in these cases it is apparently substituted for by the copula pasidarė, especially in the contexts where the agentivity and / or intentionality of the subject referent is not emphasized. In section 3 of the article a thorough study is offered of the semantic distribution of the copulas pasidarė and tapo in their respective samples. The possible designations of CCs with these two verbs are determined by the aspectual properties of the latter, which have established themselves in accordance with their inherited semantics. The preterite pasidarė designates an incremental durative change event and has a profile of the accomplishment type. Thus, with pasidarė, not just the completive-transitional stage of the ingressive-change event is included in the focus of the CC, but also (at least) the progression stage leading up to it. The preterite tapo usually designates an instantaneous change event (which has practically no duration) and has the profile of an achievement predicate. A CC with tapo focuses on the completive-transitional stage of the ingresive-change event. Despite the different aspectual profiles of their verbs, the designational zones of CCs with pasidarė and tapo intersect to a much larger extent than those of CCs with pasidarė and those with virto, both of which are based on predicates of the accomplishment type. The reason for this is that both copulas — pasidarė and tapo — predominantly select for agentive and / or intentional subject referents. But here also lies the main difference in the semantics of these two copulas. While in the case of the copula tapo the agentivity and / or intentionality of the subject referent is mainly implied by the wider context or the relevant cognitive model of the profiled event (as this verb has almost lost its original meaning), in the case of the copula pasidarė an agentive and / or intentional subject referent is always presupposed from the semantics of the verb. This presupposition is a vestige of the original semantics (backward pull; Traugott 2008: 34) inherited by the copular verb from its source construction. In previous research (Mikulskas 2020) it has been suggested that CCs with darytis / pasidaryti are anticausative counterparts of the so-called resultative constructions of culminative causation (abbr. RCCC) with (pa)daryti: the former were derived from the latter by means of the reflexive morpheme -si-. [...] Keywords: accomplishment (predicate type), achievement (predicate type), ingressive aspect, inner communicative perspective, outer communicative perspective