Adaptation of international substantives: the end of words

The article analyses the adaptation of international words in the following aspect: lithuanization of substantives in respect of the end of a word. The object of the study comprises 6,666 international words selected from the dictionary Dažninis Dabartinės Rašomosios Lietuvių Kalbos Žodynas [Frequency Dictionary of Modem Written Lithuanian] compiled by L.Grumadienė and V. Žilinskienė, which includes a total of 25,068 words. It was determined that the most frequent international words are substantives - 4,413 (or 62.15%) of substantives were found. There was less than one percent of non-adapted international substantives found, i.e. 0.68% (24 words); for example, taksi, šou, meniu, etc. In addition, 3,027 minimally adapted substantives (45.41% of all the words found in the aforementioned Frequency Dictionary) were detected. Substantives ending in -ija (-(i)acija, -iz+-acija, -cija, -ija), for example, racionalizacija, kanalizacija, kanonizacija, etc. accounted for 17.18%. Another major group comprises substantives ending in -as, i.e. 19.82% (600), for instance, Filmas, kinas, sportas, etc. International words that have been sufficiently adapted to the system of the Lithuanian language have the following Lithuanian suffixes: -avimas, -akis, -elis, -ė, •ėlis, -ė, -(i)ukas, -inė, -ienė, -ietis, -minkas, -ybė, -ystė, -tojas, -(i)umas, and -uotė. These suffixes were used to construct 485 international substantives, i.e. 13.71% of all the substantives found in the Frequency Dictionary. Furthermore, one of the aims was to check which of the international words included in the Frequency Dictionary can be found in the following three Lithuanian dictionaries of international words: 1) Tarptautinių žodžių žodynas [Dictionary of International Words] published in 1985 (editor V.Kvietkauskas); 2) Tarptautinių žodžių žodynas [Dictionary of International Words] published in 2001 (editor A.Kinderys); 3) Mokyklinis tarptautinių žodžių žodynas [School Dictionary of International Words] published in 2000 (III volume) (editor J.Paulauskas). There are merely 21 examples of the words found only in the Frequency Dictionary (the number next to the word indicates the frequency, words are given in descending order of frequency): anestrinis (17), chutai (17), ketalaras (12), betaksololis (4), atenolis (4), etc. To sum it up, the Frequency Dictionary perfectly reflects the usage of international words