Ramaškonių šnektos priebalsinio kamieno daiktavardžių kaityba

ACTA LINGUISTICA LITHUANICA XLVII (2002), 89–102 Inflection of Consonant-Stem Nouns in the Ramaškoniai Dialect Nijolė Tuomienė Lietuvių kalbos institutas, Vilnius The article deals with the principal factors contributing to the process of change and decline of the peripheral Lithuanian dialect of Ramašk onys (Voronovo District, Belorussia). It is a South Lithuanian dialect strongly affected by the influence of the neighbouring Slavonic languages. The socially predominant language is now a Belorussian dialect which developed on a Lithuanian substratum. The basic phonetic, morphological and lexical features of the Lithuanian dialect have remained unaffected in the speech of the older generations, but that of the younger generations shows a considerable degree of instability. In the article, the development of consonantal stems is presented as an illustration of ongoing processes. The inflectional paradigms of two generations are compared. Shifts in the articulatory base and simplification tendencies are among the factors contributing to change. There are many variant forms, and some case forms have been replaced by prepositional phrases. The influence of the standard language is noticeable in the language of the older generations. 1. AN OVERVIEW OF THE SOCIOLINGUISTIC SITUATION IN THE REGION Contemporary linguistic research demonstrates an active interest in peripheral Lithuanian dialects. Attention is drawn to the complex processes of interaction among dialects that are constantly taking place there, and to the results of contact between dialects and languages. Methods are being sought to demonstrate the distinctive features and causes of dialect change, fluctuations of various kinds, nuances of pronunciation, and the mechanisms of gradual change. However, the current situation of the dialects located in Belarus, isolated and cut off from the wider Lithuanian-speaking area, their stages of change and decline, the influence of external factors, and issues associated with the retreat of one language have not been investigated and described in depth. The conditions for investigating problems in Baltic–Slavic linguistic relations become more difficult almost every year: obstacles posed by state borders, and special methods for working with informants, finding them, and selecting them. The last and best representatives of the living Lithuanian dialect are over 60 years old. Opportunities to record facts of value to linguistic history diminish every year. The present linguistic situation along the Lithuanian–Belarusian border has changed beyond recognition. Whereas half a century ago, among the settlements of the Dieveniškės salient1 situated right by the Lithuanian border 1 in the vicinity of Dieveniškės, the Lithuanian language is regaining its prestige: the domains in which it is used are expanding quite rapidly, in contrast with the situation of Lithuanian on the other side of the state border, where a few neglected enclaves remain barely alive, although 60 years ago the linguistic situation in those areas was very similar. 90 | NIJOLĖ TUOMIENĖ The scholarly works of renowned Lithuanian and foreign linguists, folklorists, and historians show researchers of the present generation that living Lithuanian-speaking enclaves once existed in the vicinity of Benekainys and Varanavas (Grodno Region, Varanavas District), and Geranainys2 (Vijõs District). Today, traces of the former Lithuanian dialects in some parishes of Armoniškės, Varanavas, and Ródūnia must already be sought in the local Slavic languages: Belarusian dialects contain many words of Lithuanian origin (see Grinaveckienė, Mackevič 1988: 123–131; Grinaveckienė, Mackevič 1990: 165–173; 1993: 113–133; 1997: 185–195, etc.), and non-Slavic use of personal-name inflections and genders has been preserved (see Sudnik 1972: 19–22; Jonaitytė, Sudnik 1973: 75–77, etc.). A large proportion of the villages in the region under study, having completely lost their living ties with other Lithuanian dialects and with Lithuania’s cultural life in the postwar years, assimilated quite rapidly. The Lithuanian language and Lithuanian identity lost their value. The oldest generation of residents also experienced the painful process of forced Slavicization. The instinct of self-preservation strongly impelled the conscious shift to Slavic languages3 and Polish nationality (moreover, people of Polish nationality received certain privileges: they did not have to serve in the army and could leave for Poland—that is, escape the terror of Stalinism and the collective farms). The younger generation, as national consciousness faded and social control weakened or even disappeared entirely (the opinions of neighbors, etc.; see Gaučas 1993: 42–101 for a fuller discussion), assimilated gradually and naturally, first shifting to Lithuanian–Slavic bilingualism and later to Slavic languages alone. For the youngest generation of residents in the eastern part of Varanavas District, the need for Lithuanian identity and the Lithuanian language has now disappeared completely. It should be noted that the Lithuanian language itself, although Lithuanians rapidly became denationalized (the uninterrupted process of denationalization comes to an end within three or four generations), changed relatively slowly, 2 In the publication “Lithuanian Traditional Place Names” (Vilnius: Institute of Science and Encyclopaedia Publishing, 2002), the name of this historic town is given with a falling accent, but in the accounts of local Lithuanians from the Rȧmaškoniai area, the place name Geranainys is also recorded with a circumflex accent. 3 The relationship of local people to the literary variety of Belarusian and several matters related to ethnicity require a somewhat fuller explanation. According to A. Vidugiris, because Belarusian national consciousness developed late, local residents did not—and still do not—associate the Belarusian language with the language of Belarusians as a distinct ethnic group. It continues to be referred to neutrally as the ordinary, local language (this term is also used for the Belarusian dialect of Vilnius, Šalčininkai, and Eišiškės districts, which, compared with the region under study, more closely resembles the local Polish dialect). This Belarusian dialect is still used most actively by rural residents. During the period of Polonization and Russification of the population, it played an intermediary role: the literary variety of Belarusian, which people of the older generation do not know, is still not highly regarded in the villages. Russian and Polish are considered more prestigious languages. The absolute majority of local residents now identify as Polish by nationality. From the mid-nineteenth century, the church administered by the Poles aimed to spread not so much the faith as Polish identity. In opposition to Eastern Slavic Orthodoxy, the Catholic faith came to be called the Polish faith (“polska wiara”), and Catholics were considered Poles (see Vidugiris 1988: 21–36 for a fuller discussion) (to this day, the few elderly Lithuanians who remain in the villages—one or two per village—do not dare reclaim their native ethnicity). However, even today the Polish language has not become firmly established in the ethnic Lithuanian lands (although it is promoted and supported particularly strongly through the church). Thus local residents consciously distinguish official names Belarusians, the Belarusian language from unofficial ones, gudas, the Gudian language. In their understanding, the Belarusian language refers to the more official, standard Belarusian language, which is not characteristic of the surrounding area (the local administration uses it with numerous Russian-language elements). When they say Belarusians, they often mean someone of a different faith (Orthodox), not a local person. Thus, the older Lithuanian name is gudas—“local resident, Catholic”—and the Gudian language—“the local Belarusian dialect.” The official name adopted in Lithuanian linguistics, the traditional designation for the language, is used here: Belarusian. As an ethnonym, the old name preserved by local residents, gudas, gudai, is used. RAMAŠKONIŲ ŠNEKTOS DAIKTAVARDŽIŲ KAIT YBA | 91 consistently. Difficult conditions unfavorable to Lithuanian persisted in the Balatnós4 region for several centuries. In this small area, one could say, the differently altered stages of a once unified linguistic situation converge: from the complete extinction of the language, when only the names of a few household objects are remembered in Lithuanian, to bilingualism, preserved only by the older residents. Nevertheless, in the villages of the eastern part of Varanavas District there are Lithuanians5 who still speak their native Dzūkian dialect fluently (for more on local Lithuanians, see Vaišnytė 2002: 545–556). Almost all of them are the oldest local residents, who, alongside Lithuanian, know well and use freely and actively the other languages characteristic of the region: the local Belarusian dialect (which they call the Gudian language, and which outsiders call prósty jazýk, prósta móva), Polish, and, to a somewhat lesser extent, Russian. It should be noted that the district’s surrounding area was studied in 1953 by Belarusian linguists collecting material for the Belarusian Dialectological Atlas (DABM 59–147). At the time, they did not notice that there were people in the region who also spoke Lithuanian fluently. This points to the very long-standing simultaneous knowledge and use of these two languages by local residents (for more on the functioning of languages in the area under study, see Čekmonas 1988: 37–54). Today, in many villages of this Lithuanian-speaking enclave—Biliuose, Biliūnuose, Stanišiuose, Tūsamonysė, Dainavoje, Ramaškonyse, Navaseiduose, Daržininkuose, Armoniškėse, and Pārubiškėse—only one or two people remain who know Lithuanian and communicate in it ever less often. The most active tradition of the Lithuanian dialect has survived in Ramaškonysė, which is why most of the linguistic material was collected from Lithuanians in this village: dozens of hours of connected dialect texts were recorded, and declension and accentual paradigms of nominals were elicited through targeted interviews6. As already mentioned, local residents in the Varanavas area have spoken several languages since ancient times (often within a single account or discourse7), since Lithuanians and Slavs have lived in this territory in a mixed population since approximately the ninth century (see Zinkevičius 1989: 4–11; Garšva 1989: 28–32). Consequently, conditions for the emergence of new linguistic phenomena arose here quite early, and these phenomena continue to proliferate. More than 80 years ago, Lithuanian itself lost its prestige and its position as an equal means of communication in the Balatna region. In this small area, there was a gradual shift from unstable bilingualism (in some places, multilingualism) to monolingualism (see Grumadienė 1994: 84 for a fuller discussion): in almost all spheres of life, people in the region communicate predominantly in the local Belarusian dialect (see footnote 2); the domains in which Polish and Russian are used are comparatively much narrower. The gradual development of isolated Lithuanian dialects brought changes not only in quantity but also in kind, and these are unevenly distributed across the various levels of language— 4 Instead of the more recent name of the district center, Varanavas, local people use the old name, Balatna. 5 In their passports, almost all are registered as Poles; the nationality of their parents and grandparents is not recorded in the documents—there is usually a dash there, although the oldest generation considers itself Lithuanian. 6 The survey was conducted using the morphology questionnaire from the “Program for the Study of Lithuanian Dialects and Their Interaction” (compiled by D. Mikulėnienė and K. Morkūnas). 7 Linguists call language change in a bilingual or multilingual environment code-switching—the term often refers not only to switching between codes of different languages but also to switching between varieties of the same language. In 1996, the author gave a paper on this topic at the Lithuanian Language Institute’s scholarly conference “The Lithuanian Language: Researchers and Research” (for more on code-switching, see Grumadienė 1996, Urnėžiūtė 1998). 92 Nijolė Tuomienė …minds. The most extensive and readily discernible influence is in the areas of phonetics and lexicon. Changes are also noticeable in the more resilient morphology of the dialect. Thus, the peripheral Ramaškoniai dialect, belonging to the Southern Aukštaitian dialect group, having retreated from public life, could no longer withstand the overwhelming influence of the dominant language. At present, with its self-affirming function disrupted, only one style of use remains: everyday speech. A stronger tradition persists within the family and among close acquaintances. The Lithuanian dialect of the Ramaškoniai micro-area was driven to change in various ways by contact between languages and cultures and the multifaceted interaction that inevitably ensues (Grumadienė 2001: 41). Owing to its geographical location, historical circumstances unfavorable to Lithuanians, and an instinct for self-preservation, a considerable proportion of the inhabitants of villages in the Varanavo region began speaking the common language—that is, Belarusian—among themselves and with their children at home. Lithuanian, however, continued to be spoken for a long time and is still used in some places by neighbors and relatives. National self-awareness, especially today, among people from the same villages who speak both Lithuanian and Belarusian, is relative and of little significance. Yet the community’s transformation has brought greater or lesser changes to all the languages spoken in the region. 2. THE CURRENT STATE OF THE DIALECT. FEATURES OF THE STUDY Linguists may find the speech of this substantially diminished community interesting for several reasons: a) because of the dialect’s archaic and unique character—it is a peripheral dialect (see Morkūnas 1993: 4–7 for further discussion); b) because of its distinctive mechanism of change, the nature of its variation, and its interaction with other languages; c) it may provide another example of dialect attrition, degeneration, and death (as occurred with the Lithuanian island dialects of Lazūnai and Zietela; see Vidugiris 1959: 195–213; 1985; 1998). In recent years, interest in the dialect spoken in this Lithuanian-populated 9 enclave has waned for various reasons. To date, I have encountered studies of peripheral varieties that note linguistic variation and heterogeneity, but a more detailed analysis of internal motivations is lacking: what changes first, and why? Usually, forms that are unsystematic and already outside the Lithuanian language system are discarded; forms no longer recorded in dialects are often reconstructed or restored on the basis of features characteristic of the dialect. However, studies of dialect material recorded in recent years have shown that if certain features are no longer recorded in living speech, they are most often no longer used at all. On the other hand, they may vary or have changed; for example, nouns belonging to the same declension type may be declined or stressed differently. 8 Šį terminą pirmasis pavartojo V. Čekmonas (1988: 37–54). Beje, jo straipsnyje aprašytasis Ramaškonių arealas yra daug platesnis. Šnektos duomenys rinkti 1983–1986 metais kompleksinės ekspedicijos metu. Buvo detaliai ištirti Pereigonių (br. Пераганцы), Benekainių (br. Бенякони) bei Varanavo (br. Воранава) apylinkių kaimai. Šiame darbe panaudota medžiaga rinkta praėjus beveik dešimčiai metų – 1991–1999 metais. Per tą laikotarpį žmonių, kalbančių lietuviškai, kaimuose sumažėjo dvigubai, tad ir aprašomasis arealas smarkiai susiaurėjo. 9 It has been established that very few local inhabitants of the areas under study are of non-Lithuanian origin. RAMAŠKONIŲ ŠNEKTOS DAIKTAVARDŽIŲ KAITYBA | 93 Therefore, when collecting material and studying peripheral dialects, attention should be paid not only to abstract models of change in the language system, but also to the speakers themselves and to the relationships between language and its sociocultural environment. In the case described here, language change is also an indicator of the way of life and behavior of people in Lithuania’s ethnic borderlands, since the speech of representatives of the same dialect may differ between neighboring villages. The state of the Ramaškoniai dialect can be said to be multifaceted and layered, and directly dependent on its speakers’ memory and their need to communicate in it. Only colloquial speech is used here—that is, language full of words, expressions, and intonations characteristic of everyday life. It contains many nonstandard forms and other individual phenomena, used seemingly sporadically and chaotically at first glance. The first and most comprehensive description of the Ramaškoniai dialect was written by J. Šukys in 1960. In discussing the dialect’s main characteristic features, the author also notes that differences between the speech of older and younger generations already existed at that time. Apparently, the speech differed only slightly, so the matter is not discussed further in the study. One may assume that nearly five decades ago, in the areas around the village of Ramaškoniai that were studied, the principle of selecting the best informants was applied, as is customary in research on major, robust dialects. It is impossible to apply that principle now—all informants are interviewed, insofar as they can be found and persuaded to speak. The need to use Lithuanian differs between the older generation (over 80 years of age) and the younger generation (around 60), and consequently the various levels of the language have changed to varying degrees. Comparing representatives of the two generations reveals specific changes and makes it possible to determine how much, and in what direction, the state of the dialect has shifted. The speech of the oldest informants is natural, relatively stable, and alive, because members of this generation try to think in Lithuanian as they speak it. Moreover, to accommodate their interlocutor, they often switch to standard Lithuanian word forms and stress patterns. If a non-Lithuanian speaker takes part in the conversation, they readily switch from Lithuanian to Belarusian. However, Belarusian sentences often have Lithuanian constructions, some words have non-Slavic forms, and so on. The younger generation behaves almost entirely in the opposite way: although they speak Lithuanian fairly well, they think in Belarusian and often translate their thoughts literally into Lithuanian as they speak. Belarusian is already the first language of people in this generation. To accommodate their interlocutor, they use words they have partly forgotten, and their forms, by analogy with more frequently used Lithuanian or Belarusian words. For the young people and children of the Varanavo region, who, as already mentioned, attend local Belarusian-Russian schools, Lithuanian is already worthless. 3. THE PARADIGM OF CONSONANT-STEM NOUNS IN THE DIALECT AT THE END OF THE 20TH CENTURY Language changes are generally noticed earlier and more readily in the fields of phonetics and lexicon. However, if they are recorded in morphology and syntax, this indicates an unstable state of the language as a whole. This paper discusses several morphological features of a declining dialect, specifically the consonant-stem declension type of nouns. It compares the multilayered paradigms of this stem, which is sparsely represented and has changed considerably, based on recordings of two generations of speakers: the older generation (over 80 years old) 94 Nijolė Tuomienė and the younger generation (about 60 years old)10. To show as accurately as possible the effects of language contact and document the current situation, a suitable method was sought. Since the word forms presented here, though unsystematic, are authentic and in actual use, the historical-comparative-reconstructive method was not appropriate in this case. The laws of language variation and change formulated by W. Labov make it possible to assess the outcome of language change over a longer period, formulate its causes and, in our case, predict the possible effects of these changes on the dialect’s declension system. As W. Labov puts it, language is studied in real time, that is, the Lithuanian spoken by bilingual people of several generations currently living in the Varana-vo area. Noun stems inherited from antiquity changed very early, for various phonetic and morphological reasons, both in Lithuanian dialects and in Standard Lithuanian. The greatest mutual interaction is observed between stems that are adjacent or close to one another in the language system (Girdenis, Rosinas 2000: 51; Rinkauskienė 1997: 71). The resilience of a paradigm depends on the number of nouns belonging to individual dialectal stems and on how frequently they are used. The consonant stem began to disintegrate even earlier in various Indo-European languages (Kazlauskas 2000: 242), so few nouns have retained their consonant-stem declension paradigm. In the Ramaškonys dialect, as in the dialects of most of the Lithuanian-speaking area, this declension type is very sparsely represented and has deteriorated considerably—it has lost many of its genuine forms, which have been replaced by forms of productive stems. Only remnants of them can be found in the dialect. The causes are not solely internal, since the words of this already sparse stem class in the Ramaškonys dialect are also being displaced by Belarusian loanwords. In terms of frequency of use, words belonging to the declension type under study are not particularly rare; for example, juosmuo, liemuo, raumuo, rėmuo, stomuo are no longer heard in the living speech of the Ramaškonys speakers; they have been replaced by other words, often Slavic ones. Every noun of this declension type, whether masculine or feminine, has already followed its own path of change in the dialect, a process that has not yet been examined in detail. Presented here is the fragmented consonant-stem paradigm, comprising masculine and feminine forms used by both generations of speakers: akmuo, piemuo, šuo, sesuo (attested variant forms are discussed in greater detail in the comments): 10 This is a provisional classification, intended to contrast with the older generation of speakers. There are no longer any people under 60 who speak the Dzūkian dialect in the vicinity of Ramaškonys. RAMAŠKONIŲ ŠNEKTOS DAIKTAVARDŽIŲ KAITYBA | 95 TABLE 1. SINGULAR PARADIGM OF CONSONANT-STEM NOUNS older generation | younger generation; Nom. akmũ., pi.mũ., šuvė, sesuvė | ãkmenis, pi.menis, šuvė, sesuvė. / sesærьs¹²; Gen. ã:kmeńo, pi.meńo, šù:n'o, sæsærės | ã:kmeńo, pi.meńo, šù:n'o, sæsærė.s / sė:seras; Dat. ã:kmeńų, pi.meńų, šun'ų, sæ:serai | dėl_pi.meńo, dėl_šu.n'o, dėl_sæsærė.s; Acc. ã:kmeni, pi.meni, šù.ni, sæ:serьˑ | ã:kmeni, pi.meni, šù.ni, sæ:serьˑ; Instr. ã:kmeń'u, pi.meń'u, šun'ù, sæ:sera | ã:kmeń'u, pi.meń'u, šun'ù, sæ:sera; Loc. akmenì(i), van'denì(i) / van'deni:jė | akmenì(i), van'denì(i); Ill. van'denìñ., mė:nasin | van'denìñ. / in_vá.n'deni, mė:nasin / in_mė:nasi; Voc. pi.mũ., šuvė, sesuvė | pi.menis, šuvė, sesuvė. / sesærь.s TABLE 2. PLURAL PARADIGM OF CONSONANT-STEM NOUNS older generation | younger generation; Nom. akmenãi, pi.menãi, šù.nes, sæ:seru.s / sæ:seras | akmenãi, pi.menãi, šù.nes, sæ:seras; Gen. akmenũ, pi.menũ, šunũ, sæserũ | akmenũ, pi.menũ, šunũ, sæserũ; Dat. akmená.m, pi.mená.m, šunim, sæserèm | dėl_pi.menũ, dėl_šunũ; Acc. ã:k menis, pi.menis, šunis / šùnes, sæ:serus / sæ:seras | ã:k menis, pi.menis, šunis / šùnes, sæ:serus / sæ:seras; Instr. akmenãi.s, pi.menãi.s, šunimũ, sæsermũ | akmenãi.s, pi.menãi.s, šunimũ, sæsermũ 11As we know, in the Southern Aukštaitian dialects the singular nominative ending of n-stem words is -uo; at the southern edge of the dialect area this ending is pronounced with an initial j. The Ramaškonys subdialect is characterized by very frequent monophthongization of the diphthongs uo and ie (in almost all positions), e.g., in stressed position, most often -ie > ʼi, ʼi, ʼi: uo > ū, ù, ù, ù.; in unstressed position, ie > i, uo > u. Cases with nonsyllabic j are no longer attested in the subdialect. Across the Southern Aukštaitian dialect area, only isolated, unsystematic cases of ie and uo monophthongization are recorded. 12The first form is more frequent in the speech of the younger generation. 96 | NIJOLĖ TUOMIENĖ older generation younger generation In. akmenì:sà / akmenì:sa, van'denì:sà / van'denì:sa akmenì:sa, van'denì:sa II. akmenì:sna, van'denì:sna akmenì:sna, van'denì:sna Š. pi.menai., šūnes, sē-seras / sē-serəs pi.menai., šūnes, sē-seras / sē-serəs 4. FEATURES OF CASE ENDINGS 4.1. A considerable body of linguistic research has also been devoted to examining the early replacement of consonant-stem nouns by other stems, and the causes of their decay, in peripheral dialects. Archaic remnants of the stem have been described in Indo-European languages and Lithuanian dialects (Senkus 1959: 167–175; Kardelytė 1959: 175–176; Grinaveckienė 1960: 173–175; Vidugiris 1969: 178–182; Zinkevičius 1966: 256–267; Morkūnas 1969: 114–115, 1989: 96–97; Girdenis, Rosinas 2000: 50–62; Kazlauskas 2000: 242–286, etc.). In Baltic languages, as in Slavic, the singular and plural accusative forms of consonant and i-stems have long been identical; for example, in our case: singular accusative ā·ki, pi.meni-, plural accusative akìs, pi.menis, and in the Belarusian dialect: singular accusative z'vér, kámen', plural accusative z'verá, kámen'a. Since there were significantly fewer consonant-stem nouns than i-stem nouns, they began, by analogy, to shift to the i-declension type in all Lithuanian dialects (see Zinkevičius 1980: 224, 244; Kazlauskas 2000: 245, 246). As the i-stem paradigm itself decayed, consonant-stem forms were replaced, according to the gender of the noun, by forms of the productive (i)ō, (i)ā, and ē stems (Zinkevičius 1966: 260–267). The substantially eroded consonant-stem paradigm of the endangered dialect presented here13 shows that singular nominative forms of nouns of both masculine and feminine gender (in living speech and in texts transcribed by the author) vary: 1) the speech of older-generation speakers contains many consonant-stem forms: akmū., pi.mū., vandū., taešmū.; 2) almost all younger speakers have shifted to (i)ō-stem endings: ā-kmenis / akmenì-s, vá.n'denis, mē.nasis, r̄ū.denis, pi.menis / pi.meni-s, tē-šmenis. The first case, with -ū. (-uō), is a general feature of Southern Aukštaitian (widespread in the central part of Lithuania), preserved in the Ramaškonys dialect by its oldest speakers. Standard Lithuanian may also have influenced this. This assumption is supported by examples recorded from their 13 The paradigm aims to show which forms are used most often in the speech of each generation. The examples alternate in the dialect texts: notably, accounts by the younger generation contain co-occurring variants of the same word. RAMAŠKONIŲ ŠNEKTOS DAIKTAVARDŽIŲ KAITYBA | 97 speech with a clearly pronounced, word-final stressed -uo: akmuõ, ruduõ, piemuõ, sesuõ, tašmuõ, vanduõ14. Other io-stem endings, -is, -ys, also recorded in individual locations within the Southern Aukštaitian area (LKA 1991: 34), in the nearby Dieveniškės dialect (Lipskienė, Vidugiris 1967: 195; Mikulėnienė, Morkūnas 1997: 18), and in Western Aukštaitian dialects (Senkus 1959: 169; Zinkevičius 1966: 260–262; LKA 1991: 34–36), are used fairly consistently by the younger generation of Ramaškonys speakers, almost without other co-occurring forms. In the dialect, masculine nouns (of all declension types) tend to generalize the endings -(i)as, -is, -ys, and less often -(i)us15. Moreover, Belarusian has no analogues of the Lithuanian consonant-stem endings. Thus the Lithuanian dialect also selects the productive, more easily pronounced form, which is more like everyday Belarusian speech in that it varies little in inflection (or varies as in Belarusian, since in the speaker’s mind morphological analogy links certain Lithuanian and Belarusian case endings); compare Belarusian kámen' ~ Lithuanian ãkmenis, Belarusian mėsęc ~ Lithuanian mė̃nesis, Belarusian vadá ~ Lithuanian vá.ndenis. The tendency to simplify language is apparently also at work. A phonetically altered consonant-declension ending -uvà occurs as a variant in the speech of the oldest speakers. Two nouns are currently used with it: šuvė / šuvà, sesuvė / sesuvà. Younger speakers more often use the i-stem form: seserìs / seserìs. The disyllabic form šuvà ‘dog’ is especially widespread in Aukštaitian and Samogitian dialects (Zinkevičius 1966: 256–257; Morkūnas 1969: 114; 1989: 96; LKA 1991: 34–35, maps 27, 28, 30, 31; Grumadienė 1994: 101, etc.), owing to the tendency to avoid a monosyllabic singular nominative form (Kazlauskas 2000: 270). Forms vanduvà, akmuvà, recorded by linguists in the Southern Aukštaitian dialect (cf. Markevičienė 1999: 32), are no longer used in the Ramaškonys micro-area dialect16. The word mėnuo has two meanings in the dialect: a period of time and a celestial body. When used in the first sense, speakers of the dialect under study decline it like io-stem nouns: mė̃nasis, mė̃nas'ɔ, mė̃nas'u(i), mė̃nasi, mė̃nas'u, mė̃nasi·i, mė̃nasin, mė̃nasis. Older speakers use the singular nominative form mė̃nas for the second meaning; this is a remnant of the -s- stem, used in Southern Aukštaitian dialects and recorded in Zietela (see Kazlauskas 2000: 284–286). Only two words have preserved the archaic plural nominative forms with the vowel e before -s: šùnes, sẽ:seras. In the endangered dialect, the other nouns are now used only with vowel-stem endings: pi.menãi, tēšmenãi, van'denãi. 4.2. Genitive singular of feminine nouns duktė, sesuo in the dialect under investigation has retained the old consonant-stem endings – dùkteras, sẽ:seras / seserìs, with only pronunciation and stress varying. Although in neighboring dialects, too, masculine- 14 Only one or two examples of this pronunciation can be found in the dialect texts. The speakers most likely tried to “speak correctly.” Although the pronunciation of the diphthongs ie, uo in the dialect is still optional, depending on the age of the dialect speakers (for example, in the neighboring Rūdūnia and Pelesõs dialects they are usually pronounced more fully), a tendency toward monophthongization is emerging in the Ramaškoniai area. J. Šukys had already noticed and described this phenomenon in 1960. One reason for it is the absence of equivalents for ie, uo in the Belarusian dialect. 15 Dėl u, ių kamienų daiktavardžių linksniavimo žr. Tuomienė (2001: 156–170). 16 The oldest inhabitants remember these forms being used in the surrounding area (see the names of villages on p. 89). 98 | N I J O L Ė T U O M I E N Ė Feminine nouns have retained the consonant-stem endings in akmenės, piemenės, šunės (see Senkus 1959: 169; Zinkevičius 1966: 258 et al.); only one example, šūnes, was recorded in the Ramaškoniai dialect. The younger generation has here switched entirely to the forms of the stronger ǫ stem, e.g.: ká.r'ves vá.ikšč'au̯na ‘walks, grazes’; a_pi.me-n'o neragė·c ‘cannot be seen’; negė.rk vá.n'den'o bǫ_ō:žu pavi'si. It may be assumed that the local Belarusian dialect (with its similar pronunciation) also helped the vowel-stem endings become established; compare Belarusian kámenia ~ Lithuanian á.kmen'o, Belarusian óšeni ~ Lithuanian ruden'o. The shortened consonant-stem form without final e is more common in the speech of older people: akmen.s, pi.men.s, ruden.s, van'den.s (this may also be due to the influence of the standard language). The genitive plural in the dialect under description, as throughout the entire Southern Aukštaitian area, has retained the consonant-stem form: dukterų, seserų, šunų, teš'menų, van'denų. 4.3. The singular and plural dative is the case that has changed most in the Ramaškoniai dialect (across all declension types of nominal words). The analytic, i.e. prepositional, forms that have emerged show that this case in the dialect has been influenced mainly by external factors—the analogous construction also occurs in the Belarusian dialect, e.g.: Lithuanian pasak'au. dęl_pi.men'o / dęl_pi.menų, Belarusian skazála d'l'a_pastuchá / d'l'a_pastuchóu; Lithuanian at'nešę dęl_šun'o, Belarusian prineslá d'l'a_sabáki. In terms of frequency, prepositional constructions overshadow all other dative forms. Other endings are recorded increasingly rarely in the speech of both generations, e.g. the masculine singular dative with an i-stem ending (cf. Senkus 1959: 173; Zinkevičius 1966: 258): á.kmeni, rù.deni, pi.meni, vá.n'deni; feminine: dùkteri, sæ·seri. The examples were recorded mainly in texts from the speech of the oldest people. The younger speakers still occasionally use pi.men'u, šun'ù. For the masculine nouns in the dative plural, speakers of both generations also use, alongside other forms, the stressed dual-number ǫ-stem ending -am (without -s), known in other Lithuanian dialects: akmená.m, pi.mená.m, teš'mená.m. The old i-stem ending -im is very rare in the dialect: akmenìm, pi.menìm, šunìm. The ending -mu is still current in the speech of the older generation: akmenimù, šunimù, seserimù, dukterimù. Feminine words are used by both generations with an i-stem ending: dukterėm, sæserėm / seserìm. 4.4. The singular accusative does not differ from the standard language; it results from the phonetic merger of the accusative endings of the i-stem and consonant stem. No changes have been recorded in the dialect. The plural accusative is used identically by both generations: á.kmenis, pi.menis, šunis, tæ·š'menis (as in the standard language). Only one masculine noun, šūnes, has retained the old consonant-stem ending; the feminine form is sæ·seras. 4.5. The instrumental singular and plural endings in the Ramaškoniai dialect are most often those of the ǫ stem. Masculine: á.kmen'u, akmená.i.s; pi.men'u, pi.mená.i.s; šun'ù; vá.n'den'u, van'dená.i.s. Feminine, with an (i)ā-stem ending: dùkteræ, sæ·sera. These endings are currently used in standard Lithuanian as well. Only older speakers, alongside the more recent plural instrumental forms akmená.i.s, teš'mená.i.s, van'dená.i.s, use the systemically shortened ending -im, thought to derive from the i stem (LKA 1991: 47, map no. 43): akmenìm., pi.menìm., šunìm., van'denìm., seserìm. It differs from the plural dative only in accent. A few nouns in the dialect have retained the old stressed ending -imu (as in the plural dative): pi.menimù, šunimù, duk'teræmù. This ending is rare, occurring in the speech of older- Ramaškonių šnektos daiktavardžių kaityba | 99 in the speech of the older generation. The e-stem ending -i is even rarer in the dialect: dūkterì, sȧ·serì. 4.6. SINGULAR INESSIVE. Only a few masculine nouns with the universally established dialectal ending -y(i), the same as in the i-stem, have been recorded from representatives of both generations: van'denì, mé·nasì. It is most often pronounced without the glide j, which tends to disappear (see Zinkevičius 1966: 185–186, 231, 259; LKA 1991: 51; Kazlauskas 2000: 246). In addition, the singular locative of (i)ió-stem nouns also has the same ending: glė·bi ‘in an embrace’, gro·vi ‘in a ditch’, mė·ži·(i) ‘in a tree’. The PLURAL INESSIVE ending -i·sa: akmeni·sà, van'deni·sà, teš'meni·sà is also characteristic of the plural inessive of nouns with other stems. The dialect described generally does not harden the consonant in the cluster se. Locative forms with a are already found in old writings. In Z. Zinkevičius’s view (1966: 239), their emergence is associated with the influence of the illative. Due to the interaction of the two cases, the reflex of the postposition *-en was replaced by the vowel a of the illative ending. The form may also have acquired its stress from the illative. In the Ramaškoniai dialect, there are variant forms: akmeni·sà, van'deni·sà, recorded more often in the speech of younger representatives. 4.7. SINGULAR ILLATIVE (interior directional locative): akmeniñ., van'deniñ., formed from the accusative, has the shortened postposition -n. Oxytones retain stress on the ending, while barytones stress the stem, e.g., mé·nasin. The PLURAL ILLATIVE is used in the dialect with the most widespread dialectal postposition -na (cf. LKA 1991: 76), which is also found with nouns of other stems, e.g.: van'deni·sną, akmeni·sną, cf. the o-stem forms làukù·sną, mė·ž'u·sną ‘into the forests’ and the ã-stem form pí·vosną ‘into the meadows’, the ė-stem form vùpesną ‘into the rivers’, and so on. Representatives of the younger generation use PLURAL ILLATIVE forms very rarely in general. They replace it with the prepositional construction in (i) and the PLURAL ACCUSATIVE, e.g.: in_vá·n'denis, in_ā·kmenis. The prepositional use of the illative is more clearly demonstrated by the more numerous, productive noun stems. 4.8. The SINGULAR and PLURAL VOCATIVE is very rarely expressed with the ió-stem ending: pi.meni·. In living speech, forms identical to the nominative are most often used: pi.mù., šùvč, sæsuvė – the older generation; pi.menis – the younger generation. 5. CONCLUSIONS 5.1. The dialect of the Ramaškoniai micro-area, belonging to the Southern Aukštaitian dialect group, is undergoing a shift toward increasingly passive use and is continually overshadowed by Slavic languages. Nevertheless, the available data confirm the Lithuanian substratal basis of the contemporary Lithuanian dialects in the territories described, whose survival was determined by features internal to the Lithuanian language. The Ramaškoniai dialect has retained its main phonetic, morphological, lexical, and other features. Its still-living foundation is reflected in recordings of the Lithuanian speech of the oldest generation. The speech of the relatively younger generation contains an increasing number of innovations. There is a constant sense of uncertainty about which form to choose. 5.2. Words belonging to particular stems influence one another only when they are adjacent, or at least close to one another, in the language system. Linguists have established that the most reliable criterion for determining the hierarchy among stems is the frequency of shared endings (see Girdenis, Rosinas 2000: 51). With the phonetic merger of i and consonant- 100 | NIJOLĖ TUOMIENĖ The consonant stem, less numerous than the stems ending in *-n-* with their plural accusative endings, began to disappear. An overview of the consonant stem (both feminine and masculine) in the peripheral Ramaškonys dialect clearly shows the gradual transition of the consonant stem, as an unproductive type, into productive stem classes, usually via an intermediate *-i-* stem, e.g.: consonant stem → *-i-* stem → *-iō-* stem. Like the closely related strong dialects (Southern Aukštaitian, Western Aukštaitian Kaunas subdialect, Eastern Aukštaitian Vilnius subdialect), the Ramaškonys dialect has preserved consonant-stem endings only in a few cases, e.g.: SINGULAR NOMINATIVE: akmū., pi.mū.; duktė, sesuo / sesuva; SINGULAR and PLURAL GENITIVE: akmen.s, pi.men.s; dūkteras, sē·sēras and akmenū, pi.menū, van'denū; duktēru, seserū. These forms are most often used by the older generation of speakers. Active bilingualism in the region brought the articulatory bases of the two main languages in use closer together (monophthongization of *ie, uo*: akmū., pi.mū, vandū.). Simplification tendencies are evident here (the Belarusian language actively used in the Varanavo region under study has no parallels for these). 5.3. On the basis of the consonant-stem declension paradigm compiled for the contemporary Ramaškonys dialect and its analysis, the following main points can be identified: a) the ancient consonant-stem declension type has changed and eroded, as it has in all Lithuanian dialects: the few nouns of this declension type used in the dialect vary considerably, and many competing forms are found; b) only the PLURAL GENITIVEakmenū, pi.menū, van'denū. is consistently used with a consonant-stem ending. The other cases have been more or less influenced by the strong vocalic stems: *i*, *(i)iō*; c) the influence of the standard language is evident in the speech of the oldest people in the region—the speakers of the traditional Dzūkian dialect; d) the changing and decline of the dialect are also indicated by the increasingly frequent use of prepositional forms (not only with nouns of the stem under study). This is especially evident in the speech of younger speakers: SINGULAR and PLURAL DATIVE is expressed with a preposition: dav'au. dėl' pi.men'o; pasak'k. dėl' pi.menū; PLURAL ILLATIVE is increasingly often used with the preposition *in* + a noun in the accusative. ABBREVIATIONS bk – standard language br. – Belarusian DABM – Дыялекталагічны атлас беларускай мовы. Мінск: Выдавецтва акадэміі навук БССР, 1963. G. – accusative Il. – illative In. – inessive Įn. – instrumental K. – genitive lie. – Lithuanian LKA 1991 – Atlas of the Lithuanian Language. Morphology. Ed. K. 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VIDUGIRIS, A. 1998: Zietelos šnektos žodynas, Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidybos institutas. ZINKEVIČIUS, Z. 1966: Lietuvių dialektologija, Vilnius: Mintis. ZINKEVIČIUS, Z. 1980: Lietuvių kalbos istorinė gramatika 1, Vilnius: Mokslas. ZINKEVIČIUS, Z. 1989: Seniausi lietuvių kalbiniai kontaktai su slavais. Lietuvių kalbotyros klausimai 28, 4–11. Nijolė Tuomienė Lietuvių kalbos institutas P. Vileišio g. 5, 2055 Vilnius, Lietuva [email protected] Gauta 2002 07 29