"Lietuvių liaudies dainyno" refrenų struktūra
ENResearchers have always been and are still concerned with peripheral phenomena of the lexical system ñ the language signs that have their position in the lexical system defined by the following question: Is it a word, or not? and Does it have a meaning, or not? Refrains are not some random elements of language ñ they follow both the laws of phonotactics at the language level, and the rules of harmony at the artistic level. An analysis of refrain syllables and components has led to the following research conclusions: 1. There is a direct link between the number of syllables in a refrain and the number of syllables in the words of one stanza of a folksong. The texts of the Lithuanian Folk Songbook are dominated by disyllabic refrains (43.5%), followed by monosyllabic refrains (31.2%), whilst trisyllabic refrains are not so wide-spread (19.6%), and multisyllabic refrains of four, five and more syllables only occur on extremely rare occasions (5.7%).2. Four-component refrains prevail throughout the subject material, accounting for 24.6 per cent of all refrains. Three-component refrains are quite abundant in different types of songs as well (21.5%). The usage of two-component refrains is somewhat less frequent (19.8%). Refrains that have six or more components are used scarcely (14.6%), and five-component refrains account for 11.0 per cent of all refrains. Single-component refrains represent the smallest group of refrains within the texts of the Lithuanian Folk Songbook, accounting for just 8.5 per cent of all refrains. 3. The formulae of refrain components in Lithuanian folksongs and their structures are tied with the melody, type of performance and rhythm of the song.
