Vakarų aukštaičiai kauniškiai: arealai ir diferenciniai požymiai

LTMonografijos tyrimo objektą sudaro kertiniai nagrinėjamųjų šnektų vokalizmo bruožai – keleto svarbiausių pozicijų pagrindinių ir šalutinių alofonų kokybės ypatybės, ypač reikšmingos diferencijuojant naujuosius arba smulkesnius, negu įprasta oficialiose tarmių klasifikacijose, tarminius darinius. Pastarųjų metų lietuvių kalbos variantiškumo tyrinėjimai parodė, kad tokių požymių vertė gali kisti – svarbesnę reikšmę neretai įgauna vadinamosios blankiosios ypatybės, o erdvės ir laiko atžvilgiu stabilūs tarminiai požymiai dažnai virsta tik slankiaisiais tarmiškaisiais žymenimis, charakterizuojančiais griežtų nei horizontalių, nei vertikalių ribų neturinčius regiolektus. Kaip rodo lietuvių tarmėtyros istorija, iš fonetikos ypatybių būtent vokalizmo elementai buvo svarbiausi visų klasifikacijų kūrėjams. Greičiausiai todėl, kad, viena vertus, vokalizmo požymiai bene atspariausi laiko tėkmei, ne taip greitai kinta kaip leksikos ar gramatikos bruožai, kita vertus, jie ir patys diferenciškiausi, subtiliai skiriantys net smulkiausias šnektas. Juk dažnai net ir eiliniai kalbėtojai puikiai pastebi, kad gretimo kaimo ar parapijos gyventojai jau kalba kitaip, tik nusakyti tą skirtumą ne visada būna paprasta, kartais tam prireikia ir išsamių instrumentinės fonetikos specialistų tyrimų.Naują požiūrį į tiriamąjį objektą, kartu ir patikimą rezultatų verifikavimą neabejotinai lėmė ir pakitusi XXI a. tarmėtyros modelio perspektyva: jau kuris laikas lietuvių tarmių mokslas išgyvena metodologijos kaitą iš statiškųjų objektyviųjų metodų į dinamiškųjų multimodaliosios dialektologijos (geolingvistikos) tyrimų įvairovę. Monografijoje taip pat taikomas daugiaplanis tyrimo metodologijos modelis: vidinė kauniškių patarmės diferenciacija apibrėžiama ir arealų požymių diferenciškumas nustatomas tarpusavyje derinant kokybinius aprašomuosius, objektyviuosius instrumentinės fonetikos ir kiekybinius dialektometrijos metodus. [Iš Pratarmės]

ENIntroduction. The rapidly changing reality of the 21st century witnesses the multidimensional processes of globalization and search of identity which also affect the development trends of linguistic communities (in particular the sma and local ones). The regional varieties of the Lithuanian language also inevitably face the outcomes of these phenomena: traditional dialects are changing, but they provide the ground for the active development of new dialectal formations; the features of dialects tend to change their place in the hierarchy of dialectal features. The changing linguistic situation also leads to the changing model of Lithuanian dialectology: at the start of the 21st century, the met ec ology of dialectology already transforms itself from the static objective met o s into the paradigm of dynamic research of multimodal dialectology. The Western Aukstaitian of Kaunas has always played an exceptional role in the system of Lithuanian dialects; dialectological works universally consider this subdialect to be the closest to Standard Lithuanian. This subdialect is also characterized by a high degree of appeal: it is considered a beautiful, exemplary and model subdialect, which best fits to serve as the standard language and which has retained the primeval Lithuanian language model, etc. The studies of m- guistic self-awareness revealed that the most characteristic features of the dialectal identity model of the subdialect of Kaunas are considered a small distance from the standard language, a rather high prestige of the local way of speaking and a stable language code in all linguistic situations. These aspects also determine a high degree of dialectal viability, a moderate change of dialectal features and a comparatively stable linguistic situation of the southwestern area of the Lithuanian language in the ever-changing context of Lithuanian dialects of the 21st century.The Western Aukstaitian subdialect of Kaunas has already received considerable attention of dialectologists: transcribed dialectal texts of different areas and their descriptions have been published; drawing on the principles of perceptual dialectology, the subjective dialectal attitudes of speakers have been analyzed; dictionaries of the Kaunas subdialect are available as well. The phonetics of different local dialects comprising the subdialect of Kaunas have been investigated by means of modern instrumental sound analysis tools. However, the earlier analyses of sounds of Lithuanian dialects by instrumental methods mainly focused on the main allophones of phonemes, whereas the secondary ones were often left in the margins. In most of the works of instrumental phonetics, the combinatory and positional variants of vowels are rejected in order to determine the most characteristic features of the main allophones. In the monumental works of Lithuanian dialectology, the variants of phonemes are nearly universally identified by ear. For instance, the proposition stating that most of the northern Lithuanian local dialects feature the reduction of unstressed word-final vowels includes no detailed specification as to which qualitative features are better retained and which tend to fade away or disappear altogether. The descriptions of phonetic reduction, which is a characteristic feature of local dialects, also usually limit with the statement that in unstressed endings, long vowels are reduced to short or half-long ones, but it is not discussed what happens to their quality. No solid large-scale study covering the whole area of the subdialect of Kaunas has so far been published; most studies limit with analyzing different levels of specific local dialects.The aim of the research is to evaluate the differentiation of the area of the Western Aukstaitian subdialect of Kaunas in the 21st century by taking a complex approach and to identify the features of vocalism determining it by drawing on the objective findings of the instrumental sound analysis and the quantitative findings of dialectometric studies. Referring to the phonetic features described in theoretical dialectological and geolinguistic works, those vowel positions and variants were selected for the instrumental and dialectometric study which should be most significant for the differentiation of the area of the subdialect of Kaunas. As mentioned before, the vocalism of specific local dialects has already been studied by instrumental methods, but only the main allophones have so far been analyzed in a systematic manner; the quality of the vowels that occur in a stressed syllable of the middle of the word was usually thoroughly described. [...]. [From the publication]