A peculiar Lithuanian particle mator Mat ją bala, irgi mat dalelytė!

In this paper, we discuss the morphosyntactic properties and the functional contribution of the discourse-structuring element mat in Lithuanian, which was largely overlooked in previous research. We demonstrate that in each function mat is associated with peculiar morphosyntactic behaviour. We argue that it is the construction in which it occurs as a whole that bears meaning, rather than mat as a lexical unit on its own. In our analysis, we invoke insights and some apparatus of Construction Grammar approaches, which fit well with our observations in their focus on non-compositional aspects of linguistic structure.


Introduction
In this brief contribution, we examine the functions and syntactic properties exhibited by the element mat in Lithuanian. Although it is a relatively frequent discourse-structuring device, especially in the literary language, mat has not yet been properly investigated. For example, it is altogether overlooked in the most comprehensive grammar of contemporary Lithuanian (Ambrazas 2006), where it is absent from chapters on both particles and conjunctions, and it is only given very brief accounts in the Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language and the Dictionary of Contemporary Lithuanian Language, respectively. 1 At the same time, mat presents an interesting polysemy model, which, to our knowledge, is cross-linguistically rare, if not unique.
In the following chapters, we discuss the problem of morphosyntactic wordclass attribution of mat (2) and its various functions in their relation to syntactic behaviour (3). In the concluding chapter (4), the reader is presented with some deliberations about its diachronic path.
Finally, we would like to note that due to its discourse-structuring polysemous nature and pragmatic implications, it is impossible to offer a precise translation equivalent of mat. Moreover, it is only possible to provide free translations of the examples cited in hope of achieving the intended meaning of the source language expressions.
2 Morphosyntactic classification 2.1 General context In linguistic literature, elements such as mat often receive less attention than the categories conventionally viewed as the constituents of the "core" grammar, namely, the syntax and morphology of noun phrases (NPs) and verbs (Vs). This is often due to the assumption that such "peripheral" elements belong to lexicon and not grammar; it does not mean, however, that traditional dictionaries contain adequate accounts of them either, which is the case with mat.
The past three decades witnessed an increased interest in discourse phenomena, both language-particularly and cross-linguistically. As special attention was paid to the issue of classification of discourse-structuring devices (Degand, Cornillie & Pietrandrea 2013;Fedriani & Sansò 2017), such labels as discourse markers, discourse particles, modal particles, pragmatic markers, pragmatic particles came to be widely used, although there is little consensus on the exact meaning of each of these terms. However, to our mind, a majority of classification attempts fail in rigorously distinguishing between language-particular descriptive categories, established upon language-internal idiosyncratic struc-tural criteria, and cross-linguistic comparative concepts (Haspelmath 2010). In a number of works, such as Fischer & Alm (2013), also Panov (2020a;2020b), a solution to this methodological controversy was proposed, which entails a separate treatment of functional and formal properties of the studied phenomena. Fischer and Alm (2013) demonstrate that the Swedish alltså and the German also, although demonstrating a significant functional overlap, exhibit different morphosyntactic properties and occur in different language-specific idiosyncratic constructions. Thus, they cannot be uncontroversially attributed to pre-established natural-kind-like cross-linguistic categories such as modal particles and discourse particles. Another interesting development in a similar field to be mentioned here is the idea that discourse-structuring devices are better treated as part of grammar rather than lexicon and are in principle not very different in nature from the "core" grammatical categories (Diewald 2006;Haselow 2013). As the latter, they provide cues to the listener about how the communicated concepts are to be "glued" together or interpreted within a concrete linguistic and extralinguistic context.

2.2
The place of mat in the structure of Lithuanian As shown in Panov (2019), the traditional classification of discourse-structuring devices of Lithuanian, such as the one provided in Ambrazas (2006), is not based upon a consistently applied clear set of criteria, and hence should be revised.
The morphosyntactic properties exhibited by mat are partly shared with other conjunctions and particles (see below), but they are also idiosyncratic to some extent. Let us list some of its properties. Mat is clearly a bound element in the Bloomfieldian sense, viz. it is unable to occur as an independent utterance. On the other hand, mat is clearly not an affix either, as it does not attach to any particular class of words. Finally, mat is prosodically deficient and normally cannot receive an utterance accent. In other words, mat is most often a typical clitic.
Regarding its position in the host clause, mat exhibits a strong inclination toward the clause-initial position in both main and subordinate clauses as in (1) Clause-initial position in subordinate clauses is frequent in the corpora. 4 However, other positions are also possible, e.g. the second (Wackernagel) position in independent clauses as in (2) Moreover, it seems that in this position, mat normally follows a verb. Finally, mat occurs in a fixed combination irgi mat, irgi 'also, too' + mat, typically followed by an NP with a clearly pejorative, sarcastic meaning. Although irgi mat normally occurs at the beginning of an utterance, it can also be used sentence-internally, immediately before the constituent it takes scope over: ( 295 Therefore, in terms of its morphosyntactic properties, mat resembles both the prototypical Lithuanian conjunctions introducing subordinate clauses such as nes 'because', modal/discourse particles such as juk or gi with a meaning resembling that of '~after all' when occurring in the second position in main clauses, and also exhibits idiosyncratic properties in the construction irgi mat.
In what follows, we turn to the functions signalled by mat, and to the relationship which seems to exist between the function and the morphosyntax.

The functions of mat
Findings of the corpora, as well as the native speaker intuition of one of the authors, support the idea that at the present stage, mat exhibits a number of different functions and that synchronic relationship between them seems unclear. However, one can postulate some general meaning components which are arguably exhibited by all uses of mat.
Crucially, one finds clear correlations between functions exhibited and morphosyntactic properties. In other words, it makes little sense to talk about functions of mat in isolation: it is mat within a particular morphosyntactic and lexical surrounding, or construction, which expresses a particular function as a whole. Indeed, recent studies of discourse-structuring devices in spoken language have demonstrated the fruitfulness of Construction Grammar (CxG) approaches in this field. In CxG, constructions are understood as form-meaning pairings, in which the meaning of a construction (the whole) is not immediately deducible from its constituents (Hoffmann & Trousdale 2013). Constructions may vary as to their degree of idiomaticity, being fully schematic, fully idiomatic, or idiomatic with fixed parts and free slots, which can be filled by closed or open sets of elements (which, in their turn, can also be constructions with variables). In the application to discourse level, Fischer & Alm (2013) and Alm, Behr & Fischer (2018) demonstrate that the modal particles of the Germanic languages cannot be adequately accounted for without reference to a construction they occur in, e.g. a speech act type.
In our further analysis, we provide elementary construction schemas for each type of use of mat. The above row of each schema presents an account for the morphosyntactic form of a construction. Parts in ITALICS stand for fixed parts of constructions, whereas parts in [SQUARE BRACKETS] indicate free slots, which may contain free strings, lexical categories such as NPs, or specific units (in ITALICS). The lower row of a schema presents the meaning of the construction (which may contain variables from the above row).

Mat as a causal conjunction with the condition of epistemic uncertainty
There is an immediate temptation to think of mat as a discourse particle. In the Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language mat is represented as two different units, one of which is marked as a "particle", and the other as a "modal word" (no definition is provided for either of the terms). However, we claim that mat is undoubtedly most frequently used as a prototypical conjunction or connective. In this use, mat exhibits a complex meaning consisting of two semantic components: (i) it indicates a causal relation between clauses and (ii) a general uncertainty of the speaker about the reliability of this causal relation, e.g., in the case of a lack of first-hand evidence. In this function, mat is also characterised by certain restrictions on its morphosyntactic behaviour. It demonstrates only one type of the three discussed in the previous section, namely, it occurs clause-initially. In written texts, clauses with this type of mat can be presented as overt subordinate clauses separated by a comma as in (5) 6 , or can take a form of an independent (main) clause being, however, semantically related to the previous discourse fragment as in (6) 'However, some of the more radical elements among the US establishment seem to have nothing against exacerbating the situation. After all, in this way they hope to weaken both the EU and Russia.' Needless to say, the spelling of a full stop or a comma in the written language is to a large extent arbitrary, and there are no essential semantic differences between mat in (5) and in (6). In both cases, mat indicates the cause of the state of affairs described in the previous sentence, clause, or a larger discourse fragment. However, crucially, it is not the speaker who proposes the causal relationship, but the participants of the situation under discussion; moreover, the speaker actually highlights his/her doubts about the validity of the proposed causal explanation. Thus, in (6), the author of the text is sceptical about the stance of certain US officials that fostering a tension between the EU and Russia will result in weakening both. Therefore, schematically, this use of mat can be presented in the following way: 'State of affairs 1' 'The cause of the state of affairs 1 proposed by the participants of the state of affairs 1, which speaker has doubts about' The presented construction schema is relatively loose-its sole restrictions are (a) the position of mat, and (b) the fact that both slots on the left and on the right from mat have to be full clauses (or larger discourse units). Importantly, the order of slot 1 and slot 2 is irreversible.

Mat as a mirative discourse marker
Utterance-initially, mat signals a state of affairs presented by the speaker as unexpected, peculiar or surprising (sometimes, also, with a hint of scepticism). In typological studies, this function is often addressed as mirative (Delancey 1997). Among all the uses described in this paper, this is the only one in which mat is able to bear the utterance accent-in other words, it is more autonomous and less grammaticalised than it is in other functions; in traditional terms, it can be classified as a classical discourse marker. However, as in the use described in the previous section, this use of mat also imposes certain restrictions on the construction it takes scope over. Consider the example: what.acc come_up_with.pst.3 'Look, what he/she /they came up with!' The restriction on the use of mat in that it must be obligatorily followed by a wh-pronoun (in Lithuanian, it makes sense to call such elements k-pronouns, as they normally start with the letter k), and this is the only structural restriction on this construction. Any wh-element can be used as in (8) In this function, a minimal utterance only contains mat and a wh-element: (9) Mat kaip! ptc how 'So this is how things are.' The schema for the mirative mat-construction looks as follows: 'Pay attention the peculiar state of affairs or object referred to by WH-WORD'

Mat as a marker of scepticism/sarcasm towards a situation participant
In independent clauses, mat can be used as a marker of generalised scepticism of the speaker toward the state of affairs and, particularly, toward a person/ persons or object/objects involved in it. In this case, we are dealing with an idiomatic construction whose meaning is clearly non-compositional. Consider the example: In this example, mat occurs in the second (Wackernagel) position and follows the verb form atsirado ('appeared, showed up, popped up, turned up'). In this sentence, the message communicated by the speaker is that (s)he is deeply dissatisfied with the existing traffic laws. The function of the construc-tion is holistic: the meaning of the verb atsirado cannot be perceived literally, and it is rather the whole that contributes the meaning of dissatisfaction previously described. Interestingly, whenever mat is preceded by a verb (most often atsirado), the verb must be in third person regardless of the actual (non-)speech act status of the criticised person. Consider another example with atsirado mat as in (11)  In the context where the example was found, forum participants discuss some person, presenting him/herself as an urbanist, who they are critical of. However, the same sentence can be pronounced in face-to-face communication, the object of criticism being the addressee; the verb does not change its form to second person.
Although atsirado is the most frequent verb used in this construction, other verbs with close meanings of a sudden appearance such as išlindo 'popped up' may occur as well: Here, the meaning of išlindo 'popped up, resurfaced, sprung up' is arguably somewhat more literal than that of atsirado ('appeared, showed up, turned up') in the previous example (11); however, a constructional non-compositional meaning is still there.
Finally, with the same holistic meaning, mat can be preceded not by a verb but by the additive marker irgi 'also, too'. Summing up, mat in the second position in independent clauses, following a presentative marker or a verb with a meaning of a sudden appearance, is part of a construction the non-compositional meaning of which is a negative evaluation of the main participant (animate or inanimate) of the clause. The construction includes two free slots. The first slot (preceding mat) is occupied by a restricted (though, not completely closed) set of elements, whereas the second free slot must at least contain one argument whose activities are negatively evaluated by the speaker. Schematically, this partly idiomatic construction can be presented as follows:

Mat in curses
The last group of uses of mat that we would like to present here is that of syntactically atypical curse constructions. Example (15) illustrates this use: (15) Mat jį velniai ptc he.acc.sg devil.nom.pl.
[m] 'Damn him'/ 'He can go to hell' The main peculiarity of this construction is that despite the presence of a direct object expressed by a pronoun, it is verbless. One can argue that it may have originated in an elliptical omission of a verb (e.g. 'to grab'); however, at least with mat, the use of verbs is synchronically ungrammatical: Verblessness is idiosyncratic for curses. 10 For instance, semantically and structurally close "goodwill" constructions do not allow for verb omission. In the following constructed examples, the speaker wants to wish the addressee to successfully pass an exam and wants to omit the word 'exam' (masculine in Lithuanian) by substituting it with a pronoun, the verb 'pass' cannot be omitted: Turning to the structure of curses such as in (15), one can make some further observations. Firstly, there is a restriction on word class for the direct object slot, which can only contain a personal pronoun. Even the use of proper names is altogether unacceptable: Secondly, the nominal slot after the direct object is restricted semantically: it may only contain words denoting natural or supernatural forces (perkūnas, griausmas 'thunder', biesas 'devil', pekla 'hell', devynios 'nine (a "bad" number)') or their euphemistic substitutes, the most common being bala 'puddle', which is quoted in our title.
Finally, mat can be relatively freely substituted by kad -a generalised complementizer ('that'): Summing up, the verblessness of mat/kad-curse construction is an inherent part of this construction. It can be argued that the absence of a verb is meaningful: by pronouncing a curse, the speaker does not mean any concrete action, but wishes the listener or someone else a general harm from the side of natural or supernatural forces. Schematically, the mat/kad-curse construction may be presented as follows: 'I wish PRON harm on behalf of NP' 4 Discussion and concluding remarks In this paper, we have examined the types of uses exhibited by the Lithuanian element mat. These are: (1) a causal conjunction with the condition of epistemic uncertainty, (2) a mirative discourse marker, (3) a marker of scepticism towards a situation participant, and (4) a curse-introducing marker. In each of the uses, mat occurs in a particular environment, or a construction, which varies as to the degree of idiomaticity. While the use of causal mat (1) presupposes free clausal strings on the left and on the right of mat, a curse-introducer mat (4) is quite idiomatic and rigid in its structure; uses (2) and (3) lay in-between. Morphosyntactically, mat is an element exhibiting idiosyncratic properties not only cross-linguistically but also language-internally; as demonstrated, the morphosyntax of mat is construction-specific. Moreover, mat does not fall into any of the well-established word classes of Lithuanian. One might even argue that it constitutes a word class of its own, being its single member, yet partly sharing properties with other word classes. A similar one-member category, occurring with a similar set of properties cross-linguistically, was described by van der Auwera & Sahoo (2015) under the label similative; it is represented by the English such or the Dutch zulk. At the same time, the uniqueness of the categorical properties of such elements as the Lithuanian mat or the English such is a good argument in favour of an emergent nature of parts of speech in a natural language-a position advocated in the CxG approaches, especially in the "radical" version of CxG (Croft 2001).
Obviously, mat as a discourse-structuring device grammaticalised from the verb matyti 'see'. Fraenkel (1962, 220) derives it from the form of the second person singular of the present tense matai 'see.prs.2sg', and this etymology seems quite likely, although the direct path is unknown due to the lack of written evidence. This makes a detailed diachronic analysis as the one conducted for the rise of English by the way (Traugott 2020) impossible in our case.
A use of mat testifying to its roots in a verb of vision can be observed in yet another combination with an additive marker kaip 'how, as' preceding it, as in kaip mat or the merged variant kaipmat 11 , which is to be found in the dictionaries; in the Dictionary of Contemporary Lithuanian Language, it appears alongside the kaip matai 'as you see' in the same lexicon entry. It has to be noted that in the web-based corpus, the uses of both spellings are very high, sometimes with kaip mat being marginally higher. In uses such as (24), the meaning of something happening so rapidly that participants of a speech act are caught looking on, witnessing the event is evident: Nevertheless, it is clear that the grammaticalisation path of mat from a vision verb to its current discourse uses is not unique, and the tendencies for perception and cognition verbs to develop discourse functions are well established cross-linguistically (Rhee 2001;San Roque et al. 2018). After all, the full form matai is still used in contemporary Lithuanian as a discourse marker in different functions, including that reminiscent of the use of mat (2) as a mirative marker (as we argued, the least grammaticalised use): Although different mat-constructions signal different functions, one can argue that they have a common semantic component, namely the meaning of unexpectedness, counter to expectations, or unnaturalness (the meaning of dissatisfaction being the extreme on this scale). However, one cannot speak of the functions of mat on its own without considering the construction it occurs in.