Clauses of cause and purpose in the Lithuanian translation (1605) of Ledesma’s catechism

Abstract

The article deals with finite subordinate clauses of cause and purpose in the Lithuanian translation (1605) of Ledesma’s catechism. The causal clauses introduced by an archaic subordinator jog are characteristic of the translation under analysis. The clauses with a new subordinator kad are considerably less common. The connective nes is used only sporadically in the translation. Its usage is motivated stylistically and it was probably influenced by the earlier Daukša’s translation. The connective kadangi used in the clauses of cause in modern Lithuanian has not been found in the translation of 1605. The anonymous translation features the prevalence of the dialectal subordinator adunt in the clauses of purpose. The connective idant originated in the dialects other than East Lithuanian and is used three times more rarely than adunt. It became a predominant subordinator in the clauses of purpose in subsequent writings of the eastern variety of old Lithuanian (e. g., in Sirvydas’ Punktai sakymų). The polyfunctional connective kad characteristic of subordinate clauses of modern Lithuanian is used in the clauses of time, condition and cause in the 1605 translation of Ledesma’s catechism. The analysis provided no evidence to conclude that it was more common in clauses of reason than in conditional ones. Furthermore, the connective kadu characteristic of the eastern variety of old Lithuanian writings is used in the clauses of time and conditional clauses in the translation under analysis only. All this seems not to support the idea of Vytautas Ambrazas, according to which connectives, which derived from the stem *ko-, first spread from clauses of time to clauses of reason and only later established their position in conditional and other types of clauses (cf. Ambrazas 2006: 476, 502); instead, it allows us to identify the trend of development of connectives from clauses of time to conditional clauses and reason clauses afterwards (as claimed by Edward Hermann, cf. 1912: 71) or from clauses of time to conditional clauses and reason clauses independently.