The Pokuttia dialect on the background of the literary standard

Abstract

Pokuttia dialect comprises a small area transit to the adjacent Bukovyna, Hutsul, and Dniester dialects, its nature is less discussed if compared to other Southwest Ukrainian dialects, and, therefore, its status is not properly defined so far. The most important studies on the topic were made by Kost’ Kysilevs’kyi, who provided a detailed description of Pokuttia dialect data gathered in the early 20th century. His evidence along with our audiorecords of Pokuttia dialect in 2009—2018 allowed us for a contrast-comparative analysis of the dynamics of the dialect. It shows that not only striking phonetic features of Pokuttia dialects are actively present in speech of the older and middle generation, but also unique phonetic phenomena previously noted by Kysilevs’kyi have been preserved, e.g., in the Sniatyn region area. An interaction of the Pokuttia dialect, one of Southwest Ukrainian dialects, and Standard Ukrainian is one of the main issues of this article. It manifests itself as in the analysis of those features of the dialect that contrast it with the literary language and distinguish it from other dialects of the Ukrainian language (primarily phonetic and grammatical features), and in the description of phenomena that support the modern literary norm (however, fewer of them were observed). The paper states the following grammatical features of the Pokuttia dialect: archaic pronouns, a number of phonetic variations in numerals and the most used adverbs, special forms of a verb paradigm and remnants of double plural, examples of “honorable” plural (in oral speech and written text), and forms of plusquamperfect previously used in Common Slavic. This set of features opposes the Pokuttya dialect to the other Ukrainian dialects and distinguishes it from Standard Ukrainian. The main feature of the Pokuttya dialect is resistance to leveling, despite the significant authority of the literary Ukrainian language for speakers. Keywords: dialect, literary standard, Pokuttia dialects, language dynamics.