Seinų krašto oikonimų priegaidės
The syllable accents of oikonyms in the Seinai district

Summary/Abstract: The article deals with the names of inhabited spots in the Seinai district, recorded from living speech. On the basis of the data stored in the card index of the Department of Onomastics of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language and other sources, an attempt is made to identify the authentic forms of oikonyms and their syllable accents. The syllable accents of the vowels and the diphthongs ie, uo in this dialect may be treated as a phenomenon of phonetics that potentially can have a supplementary phonological value. The district of Seinai–Punskas is undoubtedly the direct continuum of ethnic Lithuania and the ancient area of the Lithuanian language, which is confirmed not only by the historical but also linguistic data. The Lithuanian dialect of Seinai–Punskas district splits into two varieties: South Aukštaičiai (Highlanders, otherwise known as West Dzūkai, approximately 40 villages), and the West Aukštaičiai (speakers from Kaunas, 9 villages, the boundary is south of Ramonai and Giluišiai). Moreover, the first dialect splits into two kinds – that is, the speakers from Seinai (8 villages) who do not palatalise the consonants c and dz, and the speakers from Punskas (over 30 villages).

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