Phonetic and morphological analysis of Middle Izh dialects of the Udmurt language: buranovskiy dialect

Abstract

This article describes the most common phonetic and partly morphological phenomena of the Buranovo subdialect of the Middle Izh subdialects of the Udmurt language. Based on a detailed study of transcribed field recordings collected in the territory of distribution of the Buranovosubdialect during dialectological expeditions in 2022-2025, characteristic features of the studied area were identified.It has been established that the Buranovo subdialect, due to its location near the southern dialects of the Udmurt language, exhibits southern Udmurt dialectal features, including the use of the elative marker -is′ and the egresive marker -isʹen, as well as the use of the vowel i in participles in -sʹ.At the same time, northern Udmurt linguistic features have been discovered in the phonetic system of the Buranovo subdialect, such as the use of the vowel y in root morphemes in words like pyzʹ ‘flour’, tysʹ ‘grain’, etc.The study also revealed that the Buranovo subdialect possesses a number of specific features.Syncope, a phenomenon characterized by the loss of sounds within a word, occupies a significant place in the phonetic system of this subdialect.It was noted that the most frequently lost sound group is the -is′ sound group in verbs of the present and long past tenses of the first and second persons, both singular and plural, leading to morphological transformations of the present tense marker: -k- (< -is′k-). Furthermore, the vowel y in the infinitive form of the verb and in adverbial participlesundergoes syncope.The study's results also indicate that the Buranovo subdialect is characterized by excessive functioning of affricates in all positions of the word.Along with affrication, the subdialect under study also exhibits a reverse process - de-affrication, that manifests itself in the transition of the affricate dz′ to the fricative z.The combination of all the above-mentioned characteristics forms a unique linguistic area and allows us to distinguish the Buranovo subdialect as a distinct dialectal unit.