Subdialects of Lower Kurzeme in the 21st century: the most typical phonetic and morphological features of the Bārta and Rucava subdialects

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: 21 amžius; Bartuva; Fonetika; Morfologija; Rucava; Tarmė; 21 amžius; Žemutinis Kuršas; 21st century; Barta; Barta, Rucava; Lower Kurzeme; Morphology; Phonetics; Rucava; Subdialect; XXI st century.

ENThis article analyzes two subdialects of Lower Kurzeme (Lejaskurzeme) region, Latvia, namely, the subdialects of Bārta and Rucava. My focus is on the most prominent phonetic, morphological and lexical features of these subdialects and their usage in the 21st century, e.g. the pronunciation of broad e̦, ē̦ in infinitive forms, assimilation of the consonant cluster ln >ll in words pronounced with level tone, sound omission in various positions in different parts of speech, and vowel lenghtening in front of a tautosyllabic r. In Rucava, one can still observe the pronunciation of a long vowel in prefixes az-, uz- and prepositions az, uz, while in Bārta the forms with āz, ūz are registered very rarely. Some phonetic features, such as the traces of anaptyxis/epenthesis and the palatalized ŗ, have only survived in the speech of the older generation, so we can regard these features as gradually disappearing. Among the most typical morphological features in Bārta and Rucava is the contracted form (ne)bi[...], (ne)bi used for the 3rd person sg. past tense of the verb (ne)būt "(not) to be", as well as the noun stems that differ from those of Standard Latvian. They are mostly used by the middle and older generation, but some lexemes are parallely used with variable stems by the younger generation as well. In the speech of the older informants, specific use of some ā[...]o-stem verbs was observed, as well some archaic case endings (e.g. the archaic fem. sg. dative ending i, the archaic masc. pl. instrumental ending is). The older speakers still use undeclinable forms of possessive pronouns mana, tava, sava. A specific use of reflexive verb forms seems to have survived only in Rucava. As the gathered materials show, in the Bārta and Rucava subdialects one can still find the typical phonetic features that were registered already in the 19th century.Of course, they are most prominent in the speech of the older generation but some can be heard in other generations, too. Nevertheless, taking into account the dominance of the standard language, the subdialect features are used rather inconsistently in the 21st century. [From the publication]