Compound Calques in an Eighteenth-Century German-Lithuanian Dictionary

Abstract

This chapter presents research on the Lithuanian determinative, possessive, and verbal governing compound calques that were patterned on the German compounds encountered in the manuscript of the 18th c. German-Lithuanian dictionary by Jacob Brodowski from East Prussia (Lithuania Minor). The author distinguishes between absolute compound calques (i.e. item-by-item copies of donor language compounds, including both the pattern of a compound and the semantics of its members) and non-absolute (or creative) compound calques that have differences in the semantics of one member, in the pattern of the compound, or in both. The analysis also encompasses the overall characteristics of the Lithuanian compounds and their German equivalents as well as the integration of compound calques into the word formation system of Lithuanian.