Lithuanian discontinuatives nebe- / jau nebe- ‘no more, no longer’and German-Lithuanian language contacts

This paper aims to describe the origin of the Lithuanian discontinuatives nebe- / jau nebe- ‘no more, no longer’. In van der Auwera’s terms they represent the so-called ‘still’ discontinuatives, i.e. they consist of a continuative morpheme -be- and negation ne-. In Old Lithuanian texts (16th century) their productivity is strictly connected to the area of Lithuania Minor (former East Prussia). Both variants (i.e. nebe- / jau nebe- ‘no more, no longer’) have structural counterparts in German, which seems to suggest that nebe- and jau nebe- have come into being under influence of German.