The Dynamics of Depalatalization in Marcinkonys Environs
Abstract
The article analyzes depalatalization as a distinguishing phonetic feature of Southern Aukštaitian. The aim of the research is to discuss the tendencies of depalatalization, which can be observed in the subdialect of Southern Aukštaitian in the environs of Marcinkonys by taking an apparent-time approach. The study addressing the situation of depalatalization is based on the geolinguistic perspective, which is linked with the concept of dynamic space.
The article presents the analysis of depalatalization on the basis of two layers of dialectal data: the sound recordings and manuscript texts from the 1960s kept at the Dialect Archive of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language and the sound recordings of three generations made by the author of the article in the environs of Marcinkonys. The study describes what correlation of palatalized and non-palatalized consonants (or its absence) prevails in the language of three generations; the reasons determining the dynamics of this phenomenon are explained.
It was established that at the start of the 21st century, the dialectal area of the environs of Marcinkonys demonstrates certain changes. The findings reveal a rather consistent and gradual weakening of depalatalization.
Copyright (c) 2023 Danutė Valentukevičienė
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