Janez Orešnik (12 December 1935 – 1 April 2024) was a Slovene linguist.

Early life and education

Orešnik was born in

Ljubljana Ljubljana (also known by other historical names) is the capital and largest city of Slovenia. It is the country's cultural, educational, economic, political and administrative center. During antiquity, a Roman city called Emona stood in the are ...

, Slovenia. He finished his undergraduate studies in comparative

Indo-European linguistics Indo-European studies is a field of linguistics and an interdisciplinary field of study dealing with Indo-European languages, both current and extinct. The goal of those engaged in these studies is to amass information about the hypothetical pro ...

at the

University of Ljubljana The University of Ljubljana ( sl, Univerza v Ljubljani, , la, Universitas Labacensis), often referred to as UL, is the oldest and largest university in Slovenia. It has approximately 39,000 enrolled students. History Beginnings Although certain ...

in 1958, and completed his

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is ...

Germanic linguistics Germanic philology is the philological study of the Germanic languages, particularly from a comparative or historical perspective. The beginnings of research into the Germanic languages began in the 16th century, with the discovery of literary tex ...

at the same institution in 1965. He continued with post-doctoral studies at the

University of Copenhagen The University of Copenhagen ( da, Københavns Universitet, KU) is a prestigious public research university in Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in Scandinavia after Uppsala Unive ...

(1959–1961),

University of Zagreb The University of Zagreb ( hr, Sveučilište u Zagrebu, ; la, Universitas Studiorum Zagrabiensis) is the largest Croatian university and the oldest continuously operating university in the area covering Central Europe south of Vienna and all of ...

(1962–1963), University of Reykjavik (1965–1966), and

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

(1969–1970).

Career

Orešnik was an internationally recognized specialist in comparative linguistics. He served as chair of the Department of Comparative and General Linguistics at the University of Ljubljana from 1990 to 2004. He was a member of the

Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts The Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts ( sl, Slovenska akademija znanosti in umetnosti (SAZU)) is the national academy of Slovenia, which encompasses science and the arts and brings together the top Slovene researchers and artists as members ...

and a member of the

European Academy of Sciences and Arts The European Academy of Sciences and Arts (EASA, la, Academia Scientiarum et Artium Europaea) is a transnational and interdisciplinary network, connecting about 2,000 recommended scientists and artists worldwide, including 37 Nobel Prize laur ...

. Until 1990 Orešnik focused on Germanic comparative linguistics and on

Scandinavian languages The North Germanic languages make up one of the three branches of the Germanic languages—a sub-family of the Indo-European languages—along with the West Germanic languages and the extinct East Germanic languages. The language group is also r ...

, especially Icelandic. He formulated and partly substantiated some phonological rules of Icelandic. He described several non-standard phenomena of Icelandic

phonology Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...

, especially within the preterit subjunctive and the imperative. His main publication from this period is ''Studies in the Phonology and Morphology of Icelandic'' (1985). The volume won the Slovenian Boris Kidrič Foundation Award in 1987. After 1985 Orešnik, together with a team of younger colleagues, developed a theory of strong and weak variants in syntax within Natural Linguistics; that is, synonymous syntactic units that compete with one another in the history of the language. The team formulated hypotheses about the direction of this competition and has checked the hypotheses in language material. The group organized two international conferences on Natural Linguistics (including the theory of strong and weak variants) at the

University of Maribor The University of Maribor ( sl, Univerza v Mariboru) is Slovenia's second-largest university, established in 1975 in Maribor, Slovenia. It currently has 17 faculties. History The university's roots reach back to 1859, when a theological semin ...

, Slovenia, in 1993 and 1996. This theory is sometimes called the Slovenian model of Natural Syntax in international circles. After 1999, Orešnik abandoned the notion of strong and weak variants, calling them (morpho)syntactic variants instead. He published two volumes on this framework: ''A Predictable Aspect of (Morpho)syntactic Variants'' (2001), and ''Naturalness in (Morpho)syntax: English Examples'' (2004).

Personal life and death

Orešnik was married to the linguist (born 1947), the daughter of the composer and musicologist

Dragotin Cvetko Dragotin Cvetko (19 September 1911 – 2 September 1993) was a Slovenian composer and musicologist.Bujić, Bojan. 1980. "Cvetko, Dragotin." In Stanley Sadie (ed.), ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'', vol. 5 (pp. 110–111). Londo ...

. Orešnik died on 1 April 2024, at the age of 88, and was interred at Ljubljana's Žale Central Cemetery.

Awards and recognitions

*1987: *2004: Golden *2007: for Lifetime Achievement, the highest Slovene academic recognition

Selected publications

*1964: ''Menjava sprege v zgodovini islandskega glagola: disertacija'' (Ljubljana) *1970: ''O aksiomatski teoriji naravnih jezikov'' (Ljubljana: Institut Jožef Stefan) *1971: ''Jezikovni priročnik za napovedovalce'' (Ljubljana: Delavska univerza Boris Kidrič) *1972: ''O t. i. omejitvah v formalizirani slovnici naravnih jezikov'' (Ljubljana: Institut Jožef Stefan) *1985: ''Studies in the Phonology and Morphology of Modern Icelandic'' (Hamburg: Buske) *1992: ''Udeleženske vloge v slovenščini'' (Ljubljana: SAZU) *1994: ''Slovenski glagolski vid in univerzalna slovnica'' (Ljubljana: SAZU) *1995: ''Uradi za jezik v Skandinaviji'' (Ljubljana: SAZU) *1999: ''Krepke in šibke dvojnice v skladnji / Strong and Weak Variants in Syntax'' (Ljubljana: SAZU) *2001: ''A Predictable Aspect of (Morpho)syntactic Variants / Predvidljiv vidik (obliko)skladenjskih dvojnic'' (Ljubljana: SAZU) *2003: ''Slovenian from a Typological Perspective'' (coeditor, with Donald F. Reindl; Berlin: Akademie Verlag) *2004: ''Naturalness in (Morpho)syntax: English Examples / Jezikovna naravnost v (obliko)skladnji – angleški zgledi'' (Ljubljana: SAZU) *2011: ''Uvod v naravno skladnjo'' (Ljubljana: Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete) *2013: ''Diachronic Natural Syntax: Directionality of Change / Diahrona naravna skladnja: smeri sprememb'' (Ljubljana: SAZU) *2015: ''Naravna skladnja'' (Ljubljana: SAZU)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Oresnik, Janez 1935 births 2024 deaths University of Ljubljana alumni Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Zagreb alumni Harvard University alumni Academic staff of the University of Ljubljana Linguists from Slovenia Members of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts Members of the European Academy of Sciences and Arts Grammarians from Slovenia Burials at Žale