LEKSIKOS TYRINĖJIMAI

LIETUVOS TSR MOKSLŲ AKADEMIJA

IRREGULAR PHONETIC WORDS OF THE WESTERN HIGHLANDERS OF PALATVĖ AND THEIR ORIGIN¹

A. JONAITYTĖ

Sometimes a dialect contains words that do not quite fit in with the others in some respect. Some are formed in ways uncharacteristic of the dialect, sometimes even incorrectly; others peculiarly violate its usual phonetic laws; still others are unclear: it is simply difficult to say whether their formation or their phonetics is “abnormal.”

Here, an attempt is made chiefly to examine one or another phonologically somewhat unusual word from the PVA dialects.

First, it should be emphasized that the phonetic irregularity of these words generally becomes apparent only when they are compared with their counterparts in neighboring dialects. In themselves, their phonetics do not violate the dialect’s sound system; that is, they contain no sounds or sound combinations wholly foreign to that dialect.

It is true that this phonetic irregularity is often only apparent: it merely seems so at first glance, but a closer examination of the origin and formation of such words can explain everything by reference to facts of the dialect itself—sometimes quite characteristic ones, sometimes ones permissible as a particular exception.

For example, at first glance some words in PVA and neighboring Samogitian dialects seem very similar phonetically; compare PVA nėvešuoklis Škn and the Kuršėnai Samogitian form nė˙vešuoklis. Since the Western Highlander dialects in the Samogitian-border area of this region contain an abundance of all sorts of Samogitian features, it might seem that here, too, we have a word borrowed from Samogitian and not phonetically adapted to the Highlander dialect, especially since the word’s geographical distribution does not contradict this interpretation². In fact, however, these are derivatives formed with two different suffixes—the Highlander -uoklis, -ė and the Samogitian -oklis, -ė (dialectal -uoklis, -i). Compare also these derivatives with the Highlander suffix -uoklis, -ė: Šakyna girtuokle ‘a plant or berry, Vaccinium uliginosum’; pākaruoklis, -e, pašpiruoklis ‘a kick, a jolt’; sapniūoklis, -ė || sapniūk-lis, -e ‘a daydreamer’; svi˙ruoklis (of a birch); užmirš(i)uoklis, -e ‘1. a forgetful person, 2. the forgotten one’; Gruzdžiai užmiršuoklis; and, at the very boundary of the central Highlander area—Skaistgirys, where Samogitian features generally no longer reach—nėvešuoklis, užmirštuoklėlis. Compare also derivatives formed with the Kuršėnai Samogitian suffix -oklis, -ė: nē˙vešuoklis ~ nėvešoklis, pā˙karuoklis ~ pākaroklis, sausūoklis ~ sausōklis³. These two different suffixes are related by

¹ The term Western Highlander dialect of Palatvė (abbreviated below as PVA) is used here to refer to the dialects of the Kruopiai, Šakyna, Gruzdžiai, Žagarė, and Skaistgirys areas.

² Incidentally, that this is not merely one person’s opinion is illustrated by the Great Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language, which gives from Šakyna the word nēvešoklis, stripped of its “Samogitian features”; see Lietuvių kalbos žodynas (hereafter LKŽ), vol. 8, Vilnius, 1970, p. 755.

³ Words formed in this way are also found in PVA, e.g.: ī˙kabo˙klis ‘a device, an instrument’; svajōklis, -ė ‘a daydreamer, a person detached from reality’. Recently, words with the suffix -oklis, -ė have entered the dialect from the standard language; here, the suffix not only changes the accent, but sometimes also acquires variants with -uoklis, -ė, e.g., stu˙mōklis || stu˙mūoklis.

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only one—the acute accent frequently found in derivatives with -uoklis, -e in the western Aukštaitian dialects south of Samogitia. PVA probably acquired it from the Samogitian suffix -oklis, -ė, which sounds the same dialectally. Words borrowed from Ik with the suffix -uoklis, -ė also most often receive the acute accent, e.g., the name of a tractor or automobile part, važiuoklė.

Not borrowing, but a difference in word formation also explains the superficial resemblance between PVA words such as gárbanuoc, gárbanuota, kertúoc, kertúota ‘square’ and the Samogitian gárbanuoc ~ gárbanotas, kertúoc ~ kertotas Krš. The Samogitian words are formed with the suffix -otas, -a (dialectally -uoc, -uota), whereas neighboring Aukštaitian dialects use -uotas, -a. Compare also these similarly formed PVA words: garbanuóti lapė'lei Sk, gišluotas rankas Darg⁴, žemúotas kūrpes Darg, smalúoc Škn. The spread of this somewhat unusual use of the suffix -uotas, -a may be partly facilitated by the very widely used PVA adjectival suffix -iniúoc, -inúota. Words formed with it typically describe the surface properties of an object, e.g.: druskiriúoc, -iúota ‘salted, covered with salt’, minkliniúoc, -úota ‘coated or smeared with dough’, pieniniúoc ‘milky’, plaukininiúoc ‘covered or matted with hair’, plunksniniúoc ‘covered with feathers’, putriniúoc ‘splashed or smeared with porridge’, žeminiúoc ‘earthy, covered with soil’.

It is true that words occasionally arise through the duplication of derivational elements. For example, the language has its own, very unproductive diminutive-pejorative suffix -okšlis; compare kru'mó'kšlei Škn, pievó'kšlis Dilb, and the word peró'kšlis ‘hatchery, nest’ (vågų peró'kšlei) Kyb, which has a different meaning but also seems pejorative. Alongside words with the Aukštaitian suffix, words formed with the Samogitian form of the same suffix have also been heard south of Samogitia, for example around Šakyna: gi'vuokšlis and the hybrid mú'žuokšlis ‘what a puny creature, little animal’, compare the Kuršėnai Samogitian gi'vuokšlis ~ gyvókšlis.

Truly phonetically “irregular” words seem to occur more often in transitional border dialects, whose characteristic representative is the western Aukštaitian dialect spoken in the Palatinate region. This is natural, since such words most often arise through interaction between dialects. That interaction, however, is highly complex and multifaceted; moreover, it may often also involve various features of the dialect itself: analogy with other words, distinctive derivational tendencies, and sometimes folk etymology, among other things.

For example, the Šakyna Aukštaitians have the words gilti'ne, ké'mpi'ne, má'lki'ne ‘a stack of firewood’, tė'tervi'nc, while their neighbors farther east have giltine Dam, tėtervinu ~ tetervinų Kyb. These words, with short i, are also used by the Kuršėnai Samogitian Dūnininkai, except for má'lki'ni ~ málkynė ‘pile, heap’; however, neighboring Samogitian Dounininkai have at least some of them with lengthened i resulting from retracted stress; compare gė'ltė'n(e) Vkš, tėtervė'nc Akm. The long i in the aforementioned Šakyna words is probably first and foremost due, by analogy, to native words in which long i occurs regularly, for example: cí'pi'ne, grú'sti'ne, pálari'ne || pä'dari'ne, palá'idi'ne, šmírkšti'ne, tá'rški'ne, tri'ški'ne. But the generalization of long i may also have been influenced by the lengthened i under retracted stress in the Samogitian Dounininkai, all the more so since traces of retracted stress occur in the dialects south of Samogitia and in Aukštaitian dialects.

⁴ The article uses the abbreviations from the Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language for place names. In addition to these, the following abbreviations have been introduced: Auks – Aukščiai village, Šiauliai district; Dam – Dameliai village, Joniškis district; Darg – Dargaičiai village, Šiauliai district; Dilb – Dilbiniai village, Joniškis district; Kyb – Kyburiai village, Joniškis district.

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The dialect word mẽːtuoge⁵ ‘metūgė’ may perhaps be regarded as a product of folk etymology (folk reinterpretation). This conjecture is possible because the dialect itself does not have the words ūgis, ūgėjimas, -ūgėti, but has only various derivatives of the root aug-: á:ugums, ã:taugas, and so on. Moreover, as far as can be judged from the material currently available, the form is not directly connected with other dialects that know it either, except for the central Aukštaitian Joniškis dialect. Compare the Vegeriai á:ugõms ‘metūgė’ and the Viekšniai mètū:g(e)s. Neighboring Samogitian Dūnininkai pronounce mẽ:tu:gi Krš, but it is unclear whether this form corresponds to metūgė or metūogę. Thus this PVA form should most likely be considered a reshaping by the dialect itself, in which the second component of the compound was changed under the influence of the word ūoga ‘berry’. It is true that PVA mẽːtuoge may also have arisen as a hypercorrection, through dialectal “transposition” of the Kuršėnai Samogitian Dūnininkai form mẽːtu:gi.

Thus, the circumstances surrounding the emergence of almost every specific, phonetically somewhat “irregular” word are not only complex, but also varied.

Which phonetic deviations in such words are most characteristic of the dialect depends on its neighbors, since the phonetics of these words usually reflect features of neighboring dialects. The PVA dialect described here separates the Samogitians from the central (and, in some respects, eastern) Aukštaitians; accordingly, its irregular words usually exhibit features of those dialects.

In particular cases, loanwords from other languages can also influence dialect words. For example, alongside the Slavic loans kõšel'na, sometimes kõšeliena Sk ‘headcheese’⁶, and pãdli·na ~ padlynà ‘carrion’, hybrids of similar semantic type have also been formed: dvẽ:šel'na, sprõ:geli-na || sprõ:geliena (rare). (Neighboring Samogitians apparently do not have such hybrids; compare kuõšali·na, but dvieseliena ~ dvėselėna Krš, kuõšalien(a), dvieselien(a) ~ dvėselėna Vks.)

Words with foreign phonetic features enter the dialect for various reasons. The two main ones are probably: 1) the borrowing of individual words; 2) the fact that the principal phonetic isoglosses are sometimes not very sharply defined: only the main area of a phonetic feature coincides with the territory of a particular dialect, while some instances of its occurrence—and eventually individual words exhibiting that feature—extend far beyond the boundaries of the main area. In the PVA dialect, the clearest example of this gradual “fading” of an isogloss is the distribution of / hardening: the boundary of full and regular hardening (before both ė and e, ei) coincides with the western boundary of the central Aukštaitian dialects; partial hardening (before ė, ei), gradually weakening, extends across a relatively broad border zone of the western Aukštaitians, while individual words with hard / reach even the Samogitian border.

In some cases, these two main causes are interconnected and difficult to distinguish.

A third reason for the emergence of irregular words is that different lexical areas—Samogitian and eastern Aukštaitian—often meet within the territory of the dialect described here.

Sometimes words from different areas are used in the dialect as equivalent, interchangeable synonyms, but more often their meanings become somewhat specialized. For example, the dialect uses both bãla and pẽ·ke equally often, but bãla usually means a wet, poor-quality meadow or pasture (which may also have scattered trees or shrubs), whereas pẽ·ke refers more to sparse shrubs growing in a wet, peaty place, or even a small wood with frequent open patches overgrown with poor grass and sedges, a thin woodland. Parallel—

⁵E. Frenkelis connects the element -uogė in this word with ūgiu. See E. Fraenkel, Litauisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, Heidelberg-Göttingen, 1955–1966, p. 446.

⁶For the etymology, see E. Fraenkel, Litauisches etymologisches Wörterbuch, p. 283.

3. Leksikos tyrinėjimai

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…are used, rūpužė and krūpis, but when speaking of a toad caught and dried for medicinal purposes, only krūpis is always said: krūpi padūrį ant šākes; krūpi sudžōvinį; dīot krūpe kāulė·m no naujō·ses ligos, and so on. Sometimes, however, a word from one of the different areas reaches PVA already detached from its full complex of meanings, and is not widely used in any one specific sense. For example, in the dialect area, the Samogitian and Aukštaitian names for nettles meet. The Aukštaitian form—dilgi·ne—is used for the perennial nettle and the white dead-nettle (baltoji dilgi·ne), and also when speaking of nettles in general, without distinguishing their species. The annual nettle is called by a compound word whose second component is the Samogitian name, usually somewhat altered, for example: gūdno·tere Žg, Dilb, Sk, Kyb, Škn, gūtno·tere Dilb, Grz, gūdmo·tere Dam, Škn, Siūpyliai, and even Jnš, Rudiškiai (Central Aukštaitian). The least altered form has been heard only in the immediate Samogitian borderland—gūdnuotneres ~ gūdnōtnerės Auks. Cf. the neighboring Samogitian nuōtnier(e) ~ nōtnėrė Akm, Vgr, Vkš, nuōtn(i)erie ~ notnėrė Pp, nuōtnierė ~ notnėrė Krš. In the immediate Aukštaitian borderland, near N. Akmenė, the form nuōtner(e) ~ nōtnėrė. was heard.

Sometimes such a word is used not in its literal sense but only figuratively; for example, Samogitian kėrė ‘stump, bush’ is rarely encountered in that sense in the Aukštaitian areas of the Šakyna region (kėre), but there it is widely used, informally, to refer to a disheveled, tousled head of hair, and many speakers of the dialect know it only in that sense. Sometimes, too, a word’s meaning can change completely: for example, outside the PVA dialect area (though at some points extending into its margins, for instance around Gruzdžiai), neighboring Aukštaitians call a spruce or pine cone skujā. The word is also familiar in the PVA dialect, but here, at least in the Šakyna areas, it refers to spruce or pine needles, or even small twigs with all their needles (alongside the more common, usual dialect word spiglei, singular spiglis). Along with the change in meaning, the word’s grammatical gender has also changed: the masculine form skūjei (singular skūjis) is most often used in the dialect. The old dialect word spiglei may perhaps have prompted this change—as the meanings grew more similar, the grammatical forms of the words may have grown similar too. In the dialect, skūjei nevertheless remains associated with spruces and pines, because, as far as I have observed, at least in the Šakyna areas, juniper is generally referred to as spiglei.

It is not yet clear, however, whether the change in this word’s meaning may sometimes be connected with Latvian, since in Latvian skuja (usually used in the plural form skujas) also means spruce or pine needles, or twigs with all their needles.

When a word moves away from its principal area, loses its broad complex of meanings, and becomes isolated, it is more prone to change in various ways, particularly since such a word may also be adapted to one of the words in its dialect. This is illustrated by the example already mentioned of gūdnōtnerių turning into gūdmoterėmis.⁷

⁷Sometimes a purely indigenous dialect word also undergoes irregular phonetic change. For example, around Šakyna and Kruopiai, one occasionally encounters people who pronounce the usual dialect word liežūvis as leizūvis. In individual families, the pronunciation of sal·klas has been noted as sai·klas, pūsėvere ~ pūžereze. It seems that in such cases the word’s phonetic form is altered to make it easier for a person to pronounce, owing to some individual characteristic of their speech. Children later take over this pronunciation from their parents, but the general dialect norm usually suppresses such deviations over time.

Irregular phonetic deviations of this kind occasionally occur in ideophones when expressing particular intensity of action, for example: tikš(t) (expressing a not very forceful fall or blow), tī·kš(t) (forceful), and teikš(t) (very forceful); (trėkš(t) (expressing a not very forceful crack), trė·kš(t) (forceful), treikš(t) (very forceful).

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Words with phonetic features of neighboring dialects are unevenly represented in PVA. Some neighboring dialects contribute only isolated words, while from others one can gather several or even a dozen or so.

Here we will review the most characteristic cases of influence from neighboring dialects. We begin with words having l depalatalized before e. There are at least several such words in the dialect, for example: abišala || abišals ‘a thick, large slice of bread (not necessarily cut across the whole loaf)’, dundūla ‘a stout, heavily wrapped woman; a hard-headed woman, a blockhead’, mėlėta || mėlata, ō·bela || ō·belė (rare), pākela || pākelė, pundūla ‘a kind of pot-bellied vessel woven from straw, used for holding flour or the like; a clumsy, stout, hard-headed woman’, snīgule || snīgula (rare), šālīkela || šāl-kelė Škn, tetūla.

These words are not all of the same origin: abišala (and its altered form abišals), dundūla, pundūla and tetūla are eastern borrowings that came via the Central Aukštaitians.⁸ The word dundūla entered the dialect only with a figurative meaning (in some eastern dialects it is a synonym of pundulės). The dialect’s own verb dūndė·t may also help the word survive in PVA: it originally meant ‘to fade, diminish, decay, disintegrate’, but is widely used as well of a mind weakened by old age or otherwise, or of a person who is generally hard-headed.

The other five are old words belonging to the dialect itself, but they have variants with depalatalized l. The presence of depalatalized l in these words is clearly due to the neighboring Central Aukštaitian dialect, though apart from this influence it may also be partly attributable to features of the dialect itself, which provide favorable conditions for Central Aukštaitian influence to take hold. The main factor is that the dialect has quite a number of native words with the old, regular final syllable -la, for example: ā·nčāla Škn || ūškala ‘a rod nailed across the runners of a sleigh, running lengthwise along the runner’, drumbila ‘a clumsy, stout person’, dru(k)tvila || dru(k)tvila ‘a stout man or woman’, lakštīnguola, pilkšāla, sāužgē·la, stī·pla, tābala ‘someone who likes to hang around’, vādala ‘a vagabond’, žō·pla, and others. Thus, a word borrowed from eastern neighbors, with a depalatalized final l and a derived from e, fits quite well among native words with the regular final syllable -la.

The relatively easy spread of words with depalatalized l may also be aided by certain PVA word-formation features. Compound words are often formed here with the linking vowel a. If the first component of a compound ends in l, words such as the following arise quite naturally: arklādāntis || arklādāntis ‘a person with large, unattractive teeth’, arklāganis || arklīganis, arklāpalāikis || arklāpalāikis, arklā·ru·kšte || arklā·ru·kšte, arklāšeris || arklīšeris, arklāvagis || arklāvagis; grē·blā·dantis || grē·blā-dantis, grē·blā·ko·tis, grē·blāko·tis || grē·blā·ko·tis, grē·blāko·tis; kapladāntis || kapla-dāntis ‘with protruding large teeth’; kailā·dirbis || kailādirbis, kaulasnūkis, kaulā-šeris || kaulīšeris, meilāmedis ‘an ornamental shrub with small pinkish flowers arranged in pairs’, meilā·špuogis, meilā·žoles, varlāmūsis, varlāro·mis || varlāro·mis ‘said of a blunt, blunt-edged, or undersized knife’, žvīrble rū·tas || žvīrblā·ru·tes. Not all—

⁸There is insufficient material to determine the precise distribution of these and many other words mentioned in the article, since they were not included in the data-collection program for the Atlas of the Lithuanian Language. However, the Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language and its card index provide at least some idea of their geographical distribution, and are therefore generally relied upon here for that purpose. Thus, for the distribution of abišalos || abišalės, see LKŽ, vol. 1, Vilnius, 1968, p. 9. For the meaning and distribution of dundūlės (dial. dundūla), see ibid., vol. 2, Vilnius, 1969, p. 855. The dictionary’s card index records pundulė (dial. pundula) from Joniškėlis, Vaškai, Pašvitinys, Lauksodis, Pušalotas, Pakruojis, Linkuva, Baisogala, and elsewhere. tetūla is known in the dialect only from various little songs and as a word of mockery; in all other cases the borrowed word čōce ~ čiōčė is used.

3*

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at least with regard to such regular compound words as: karklàvi·šnės “late cherries, not bird cherries,” mė·šlà·vežis, mė·šlàkabe, mė·šlàkrate (of a pitchfork), sti·pla·kō·jis, -e, and so on.

The analogy of similarly sounding dialect words may have helped variants of individual words with hard l become established.

In general, the fact that various neighboring forms are quite normal in PVA—determined by the transitional character of the dialect itself—creates very favorable conditions for the existence of double forms such as ò·belà || ò·belė, pàkela || pàkele, šàlikele || šàlike·la, and so on.

PVA also has several other words with neighboring forms containing hard l, e.g.: baid·kle || baid·kla, bezd·kle || bezd·kla, jo·dri·kle || jo·dri·kla “someone who likes to ride around and run wild,” paleistūvis || palaistūvis || palaistūnus, rūkšle || rūkšla, saulō·li·dis || saulē·leidis || saulē·laidzēi (pl.). However, these are probably not borrowings from East or Central Aukštaitian, but words formed differently; some may even have come from Samogitian, cf. baidykla (4)⁹, Krš and Vidsodis, bezd·kla ~ bezdykla (2) Krš, palaistōnus ~ palaistūvas Akm, Vgr and even Žr, rūkšla Krš, rōkšla Vidsodis, saulēlaide Akm.

Just as words with l depalatalized before e are obtained from Central Aukštaitian, so forms with the diphthongs ie, uo instead of ē and o are obtained from Samogitian. Here, too, however, true borrowings should be distinguished from some words of sound-symbolic origin which, although their ie coincides with Samogitian pronunciation, are nevertheless not borrowings, e.g., piepsė·i and the like.

nėvieksla or nėvieškļis, -e¹⁰ is certainly borrowed from Samogitian. Judging from the material in the dictionary archive, this word reaches Joniškis in Aukštaitian¹¹. Another Samogitian word that has become firmly established in the dialect lexicon is piēpī “to weaken, grow feeble, decline, diminish, be unwell,” together with a whole series of derivatives—niōpiepa, nupīpē·lis, -e, and so on. The forms of this word occurring in the dialect with -ei-—pēipī, nupēipē·lis, -e, etc.—are apparently contaminations, arising from associating Samogitian piēpī with the native word of very similar meaning gēipī ~ geibti.

Alongside the verb knē·pō·i ~ knēbčioti “to pluck, shove around, mistreat,” the dialect often also has kniepō·i. This word may be a Samogitian borrowing that has not been fully transposed phonetically, cf. the Kuršėnai Samogitian form kniepčuoti with the same meaning; but it could also be a native word with a different root vocalism, cf. knō·pīt ~ knō·bti || kniepl ~ knie bti (rec.)¹³.

The word triēkšī, nutriekšī “to press down, crush,” found in the western part of the PVA area, should also be considered Samogitian, cf. Samogitian triēkšti Krš.

A few words also occur with Samogitian uo instead of Aukštaitian o.

⁹ For its approximate distribution in the more distant dialects, see LKŽ, vol. 1, Vilnius, 1968, p. 556.

¹⁰ The dictionary archive also contains neviekšla, neviekšlis from the PVA area, forms that I have not heard used in the dialect, although judging from the Kuršėnai Samogitian neviekšla, forms accented this way may also occur in PVA; the form nevēkšla, listed there from Šakyna, should apparently be regarded as a literary adaptation, since the word is not used with -ē- in that locality.

¹¹ For its approximate distribution, also compare LKŽ, vol. 8, pp. 753–754.

¹² The dictionary archive material shows that this word is Samogitian: it has been reliably recorded from living speech only in the Samogitian dialect area, as well as in the marked Aukštaitian subdialects of Ž. Kalvarija, Tverai, Mosėdis, Ylakiai, Alsėdžiai, Skuodas, Veiviržėnai, Seda, Salantai, Plateliai, Gargždai, Mažeikiai, Viekšniai, Plungė, Užventis, Kuršėnai, Šaukėnai, Upyna, and others.

¹³ For the approximate distribution and meaning of kniebti, see LKŽ, vol. 6, pp. 236–237.

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Thus, in the western part of the PVA area, alongside its own word skaptuof, the verb skūopf ‘to carve’ is used, iskūopf. Cf. the Samogitian dialect of Kuršėnai skūopf ~ skóbti.

The word vābuols ‘beetle’, attested throughout the PVA area—in Škn, Žg, and Sk (and also vābuole ‘name of a black cow’ in Škn)—probably also contains the Samogitian uo; cf. words in neighboring Samogitian dialects: vā'buols ~ vābolas, šū'drabuolis ~ šūdavabolis Krš, vābiol(e) ~ vābole ‘dung beetle’ Vkš.

The words krištuols ‘crystal’, krišnuols ‘a stone for blue eyes’, and mikuols ‘Mykolas’ have also entered the dialect through the Samogitians; cf. Samogitian krištuols ~ krištolas Krš, mikuols ~ Mīkolas Krš.

The origin of the word apāštuols is not very clear, but in PVA the word clearly has an irregular uo. Neighboring Samogitian dialects apparently no longer have this form, although it is generally familiar to Samogitians. This is indicated, for example, by the Samogitian donininkai dialect of Laukuva and by an example from Valančius’s writings given in the first edition of the first volume of the dictionary¹⁴.

From the Samogitian donininkai, the western part of the PVA area has the word vāmbuole || vāmbuolė, with unshifted uo. Admittedly, the word is not very common here; its original meaning has faded, and it is generally used in comparisons and idioms to emphasize the size of some small beetle, seed, or the like. It is especially favored in hyperbolic descriptions of the size of a louse (ūtėles kai vāmbuoles; ūtėles ēin kai vāmbuoles and so on). In Samogitia, the word means a cockchafer or a dung beetle. At first glance, it may seem that PVA has the word in a partly Aukštaitianized form: am has undergone the shift, whereas uo has not become o. In fact, however, it was borrowed without any change, since a large area of the eastern donininkai—extending as far as Mažeikiai, Luokė, and sometimes even farther—has this word with the diphthong am, which is not entirely typical of those dialects: vā'mbiol(e) ~ vāmbole; only the western donininkai area has the expected om¹⁵. Latvian dialects also have this word with -am-¹⁶.

It is not entirely clear how the PVA adjective āpuols, -i ‘round’ relates to the corresponding word in neighboring Samogitian dialects; cf. forms in neighboring Samogitian dialects: āpuōlūs ~ āpolus, āpuōlė ~ apolì || ā'puols ~ āpolas, āpuōlā ~ apolà Krš, āpūol(ō)s ~ apolūs, āpūol(e) ~ apolì Akm, but āpal(ō)s ~ apalus Vgr. This adjective with the diphthong uo reaches even the Eastern Aukštaitians, for example, āpolė ~ āpuolio (gen.) in Bučiūnai village, near Pašvitinys, but apvāls in Žeimelis.

In PVA, it may have arisen under Samogitian influence, but it may also be an independent reshaping by the dialect itself: to make the word easier to pronounce, apvālus could over time have developed into apuolūs. That this kind of reshaping is possible is suggested by dialects that have no contact with the Samogitians at all, such as Zanavykai: the dictionary records this form from Griškabūdis¹⁷.

Compared with other Lithuanian dialects, PVA also has the words lakštinguola¹⁸ and medūgalis ‘charred wood’, which contain the unusual uo; they have nothing to do with the Samogitians, however, and are products of the dialect itself.

¹⁴ LKŽ, vol. 1, Vilnius, 1941, p. 147.

¹⁵ In the Lithuanian Language Atlas card index, the word is recorded with am at the localities of Knabikai, Dapšiai, Žastaučiai, Purvėnai, Kivẏliai, Gėpaitis, Padvarėliai, Sablauskiai, Avižiai, Luokė, and Medingėnai, and with om at the localities of Skliaustė, Židikai, Salantai, Gintališkė, Mišėnai, Babrungėnai, Lieplaukė, Plungė, and Šakiniai.

¹⁶ See K. Mülenbach, Latviešu valodas vārdnīca, vol. 4, Rīgā, 1929—1932, pp. 466—467.

¹⁷ See LKŽ, vol. 1, Vilnius, 1968, p. 267.

¹⁸ This word with -uo- is also found in some other Lithuanian dialects; cf. LKŽ, vol. 7, p. 97.

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So far, we have surveyed groups of words that arose in PVA either under the influence of eastern or of western neighbors. However, there is one case in which these two influences often work in the same direction. These are words with the mixed diphthongs am, an, em, en. Both some neighboring Samogitian dialects and, in certain cases, the East Highlander influence reaching PVA via the Central Highlander dialects encourage changes in individual words containing these diphthongs or pass on their own words with the diphthongs untransposed to the dialect.

Of course, this category of words does not include sound-<imitative> interjections and their derivatives, which in PVA can regularly have both am and um, e.g.: būm(t) || bām(t), plūm(t) || plām(t), pūm(t) || pām(t), and so on, as well as būmsėˑt || būmsēˑt, bumbīnā || baˑmbīnā ‘to hit, beat’, pūmpinī || pāmpinī, tūmpinī || tāˑmpinī ‘to hit, bang’, bumbēˑt || bambēˑt ‘to mumble, grumble’, etc. But the neighboring Samogitian dialects may already have contributed to the very widespread establishment of neighboring forms of these words with um.

In turn, neighboring forms of such words with um create favorable conditions for words from other dialects with um to enter and become established as neighboring forms. For example, alongside the verb forms skalāmptˑi || skalām(b)īˑt ‘to bark, to flap one’s tongue pointlessly’, the form skalūmpīˑt || skalūmbīˑt is also widely used. Forms with um may already have originated in Samogitian; cf. skalūnīpˑti ~ skalanyti Krš.

The form pumpēˑt, pumpēklis, -e, more widespread in the dialect than pampēˑt ‘to mumble’ and pampēklis, -e, is also of Samogitian origin; cf. pūmpieti ~ pampėti, pūmpėklis ~ pampėklis Krš.

The neighboring form pūmti of the verb pām(t) ~ pāmpti ‘to swell, puff up, become bloated’ is also associated with the Samogitians.

It is difficult to determine the relationship between some PVA words and their Samogitian counterparts, but sometimes the borrowing of a word with an untransposed Samogitian diphthong is quite obvious. For example, in the PVA area, the fruit of a spruce or pine is called kukūtis. The western edge of PVA, however, also has a Samogitian name, in one place fully transposed in accordance with the dialect’s sound laws, e.g., kankōˑrēˑžis Šiupyliai; elsewhere, in a mixed form: kankōˑrēˑžis || kunkōˑrēˑžis Škn, kankūorēžis ~ kankorėžis || kunkūorēžis ~ kunkorėžis Auks; and in a third form, with a wholly untransposed diphthong an: kunkūorēžis ~ kunkorėžis Krp. Cf. Samogitian: kɔn-kūorēž(ė)s ~ kankorėžis Pp, kunkūorēžėˑ ~ kankorėžiai Akm, kunkūorēž(ī)s ~ kankorėžis Vkš, kunkūorēžis ~ kankorėžis Krš¹⁹.

A word or two is also found with untransposed in < en. This is kimsas (and kimsiˑns, kimsiˑne)²⁰, which came from the East Highlander dialects, or perhaps sometimes through written sources. Incidentally, kemsiˑns, kemsiˑne also occurs occasionally and means ‘wet ground’.

vingras ‘a quack doctor who travels around and also works as a peddler’ could have come from either the East Highlanders or the Samogitians.

Alongside kēmī ~ kēmpti || kēmbti ‘to dry out, waste away, stiffen, become rigid’ and kēˑmpēˑt ‘to dry out, waste away’, neighboring forms with im: kīmī, kimpēˑt sometimes occur as well, but it is unclear where they came from: are they borrowings from other dialects, or does im simply express a greater intensity of the action?

An interesting case is the pair of words péˑndēˑt and, less frequently, pindēˑt (sometimes pindēˑf) ‘to waste away, diminish, dry out, become worthless’. As the dictionary index shows, the variant péndėti is found in the Samogitian dialects neighboring PVA, while pendėti (dial. pindēˑt) is found among the East Highlanders. In the PVA area, these two variants have met and become intertwined. However, as far as can be judged from

¹⁹ Material from the card index of the Atlas of the Lithuanian Language.

²⁰ For the approximate distribution and usage of the word, see LKŽ, vol. 5, pp. 563–564 and 803–804.

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In terms of distribution and frequency of use, the older form is pėndė·t. It is generally also found with the regularly transposed en. By contrast, the eastern variant came with i and the transformed en. The form pindė·t probably arose through the blending of the two.

One of the more characteristic instances of the borrowing of individual words is pō·stuvis ‘afternoon nap’. The dialect had long used the word pō·kaiti·s || pō·kaitis || pō·kaite, shared with Samogitian, to express the concept of midday rest. However, the word pō·stuvis also came from the eastern dialects by way of the central Aukštaitian dialects. Since the second o in this word is unstressed, the eastern Aukštaitian dialects of the Mūša basin pronounce it as an indistinct ə (cf. Vos konių pō·stove laike²¹), that is, just as they very often pronounce their assimilation-broadened u. The central Aukštaitians rendered the unstressed o, which had merged with the easterners’ u, as u (cf. Bridų pō·stuve, gen. sg.²²), and from them the PVA dialect also received the word with u.

More words of this kind, reworked in other dialects and then passed on ready-made to the PVA dialect, could be found.

Admittedly, phonetic changes in words that are difficult to explain also occur within the PVA dialect itself. One example is the word gi·vali·s ‘livestock’, widely used across almost the whole area (Škn, Žg, Sk, Kyb). It arose through the reshaping of a form of probably Samogitian origin with an untransposed uo < o gyvuolys²³, which is still found in the dialect area, for example: gi·vuole (gen. sg.) in Žg, Auks; gi·vuolus (acc. pl.) in Sk; gi·vuolų (gen. pl.) in Škn²⁴.

However, in some parts of the PVA dialect a third form of the word, with -u-, is also known, for example: gi·vule (gen. sg.) in Darg; gi·vului (dat. sg.) in Kyb; gi·vulu ~ gyvulių in Dam. This form coincides with the form of this word in the neighboring central Aukštaitian dialects; notably, within the PVA area it too was recorded on the eastern edge, closer to the central Aukštaitians²⁵.

For interest, it may also be noted that the dialect form gi·vali·s has entered some neighboring Samogitian dūnininkai subdialects, for example gi·valis in Pakšteliai.

Apparently, the word nė·bė·lis arose within the dialect itself in place of nebylys, nebylis; cf. the Kuršėnai form nė·bi·lis and the Viekšniai form nėbi·l(i)s, although such reshaping does occur in more distant Samogitian dialects; cf. the Pavandenė form nė·belis²⁶.

The word mūsmė·re || mūsmė·ris ‘fly agaric’ also has é where i would be expected. This is found not only throughout the PVA area, but also in neighboring and even more distant Samogitian and Aukštaitian dialects, though there é often alternates with e²⁷. Indeed, in some places this e may also have arisen because recorders failed to distinguish the broadened i (pronounced e) from the reduced unstressed ė (also pronounced e).

In this brief survey, it goes without saying that far from all the “irregular” words of the dialect have been discussed, but only the more characteristic and conspicuous ones. In examining them, an effort was made to mention—

²¹ Lietuvių kalbos tarmės (chrestomatija), Vilnius, 1970, p. 247.

²² Lithuanian Dialects, p. 217.

²³ The fact that this is a Samogitian form, rather than a PVA derivative with the suffix -uolis, is suggested by its stress pattern. Native derivatives in -uolis, -ė are stressed according to accent paradigm II. The only exception is the word ži·duolis || ži·duoli·s (knit). The forms of this word in neighboring Samogitian dialects are: gi·vuolis || gi·vuoli·s in Krš; gi·vuo-l(i)s || gi·vuoli·s in Pp; gi·vuol(i)s || gi·vuo·l(i)s in Akm.

²⁴ The form of this word with -uo- from Šakyna is also found in A. Baranauskas’s dialect texts; see Litauische Mundarten gesammelt von A. Baranowski, vol. 1, Leipzig, 1920, p. 252.

²⁵ Data on the geographical distribution of this word were taken from the card index of the Atlas of the Lithuanian Language.

²⁶ See also LKŽ, vol. 8, p. 603.

²⁷ Based on responses to dialectological questionnaires from the former Šiauliai and Mažeikiai counties.

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and the more important cases of interaction between their own words and words borrowed from other dialects, their interplay; to discuss which words are borrowed, how they are borrowed, and how they adapt to the norms of the dialect.

A few words remain to be said about their transcription into standard Lithuanian. It seems that those of them that have already become firmly established in the dialect and become part of its own lexicon should be treated in the same way as borrowings from foreign languages or dialect forms in the language of individual writers. For example, Slavicisms in Samogitian dialects, griekas, svietas, vėryti, are transcribed into standard Lithuanian not with ė but with ie (i.e., they are not converted into grėkas, svėtas, vėryti); the Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language gives the dialect form kviėkš-ti in Žemaitė’s writings with ie²⁸; likewise, without transcribing the dialectal im into standard Lithuanian em, it also records the word kimsas, used in the writings of various authors, and its derivatives²⁹, etc. Thus, the PVA borrowings gi'vuolis, nėvieklis, nupėpė, nūopėpa, vā-buols, etc., should likewise not be restored to gyvalys (but only to gyvuolys), nėvėkšlis (= nėviekšlis), nuōpėpa (= nuōpiepa), nupėpti (= nupiepti), vābolas (= vābuolas), because they have already become part of the dialect system, and under the dialect’s phonetic laws such restoration is impossible in this case: ie, uo cannot be restored to o, ė in it.

WORDS WITH IRREGULAR PHONETICS IN THE DIALECTS OF THE WESTERN AUKŠTAITIANS OF THE LATVIAN SSR BORDERLAND AND THEIR ORIGIN

А. ИОНАЙТИТЕ

Abstract

The article notes that words exhibiting distinctive deviations from the phonetic “norms” of the dialect are sometimes encountered in the area under study, and analyzes the reasons for their emergence. It is emphasized that the phonetic irregularity of such words becomes apparent only when they are compared with corresponding words in neighboring dialects, since they contain no sounds or sound combinations that are generally foreign to the dialect’s vocalism or consonantism.

It is indicated that phonetically “irregular” words are most characteristic of transitional borderland dialects, since their emergence is most often due to interaction between neighboring dialects; however, various factors within the dialect under study also sometimes contribute, including the analogy of other words, distinctive word-formation tendencies, folk etymology, and so on. Sometimes such words also arise under the influence of a foreign language.

It is stated that words with foreign phonetic features appear in the dialect under study mainly for two reasons: 1) because the dialect borrows individual words; 2) because the principal phonetic isoglosses are sometimes rather diffuse, and individual words displaying a given phonetic feature often penetrate far beyond the boundary of its core area. Sometimes these two reasons are closely interconnected.

²⁸ See LKŽ, vol. 6, p. 1084.

²⁹ See LKŽ, vol. 5, pp. 803–804.

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Another reason for the emergence of words with irregular phonetics is the encounter, within the territory of the dialect under study, of words from two different lexical areas—the Samogitian and the Eastern Aukštaitian. Sometimes words from these opposing areas are used in the dialect as equivalent, synonymous forms, but at other times they enter the dialect already isolated, detached from the entire shared complex of their meanings. They are then very readily subject to various kinds of change.

The article presents specific examples of words exhibiting various phonetic irregularities.