Sulla polifunzionalità di vienas "uno" in lituano antico

This study aims to describe from a synchronic and typological perspective the variety of functions displayed by the word vienas “one” in Old Lithuanian. To do so, we examine the occurrences of this lexeme in eight of the oldest linguistic monuments of this language, all of which date from the mid- to late 16th century. In addition to the numeral function, vienas fulfils several other functions: nominal, pronoun, adjective and pseudo-article. The analysis of the last function requires both philological-textual and linguistic-typological considerations. The former allows us to note that the use of the lexeme ‘one’ is documented in existential / presentative constructions and it is favoured by (i) the presence of a similar lexical element in the source-text from which the Lithuanian texts were translated, and by (ii) stylistic features that bring the text closer to the folk-tale genre (where ‘one’ as presentative marker is more frequent than elsewhere). Typological considerations lead to the conclusion that ‘one’ in Old Lithuanian presents a limited degree of grammaticalisation, since it can serve as a presentative marker and, in some cases, as a specific marker (always, however, alternating with the much more frequent absence of overt marking).