Južnoslovenski Filolog (Jan 2016)
The linguo-geographical position and dialectal individuality of the Sirinić speech
Abstract
This paper analyzes the importance of the linguo-geographical position for the formation of the Sirinić dialectal type of Šara Mountain, which belongs to a wider area of Prizren-South Morava speeches. This linguistic area also comprises similar speeches in use in the basins of Metohija and Kosovo, in the north of Macedonia and in Donji Polog. The most important thing in the formation of the Sirinić speech is its geographical position in Šara Mountain, an area covered in pastures, where many shepherds of different dialectal and linguistic backgrounds have converged. Although situated in the Prizren-South Morava speech complex, regions around Sirinić are dialectally differentiated into two parts according to linguistic features: the northern Metohija-Kosovo part and the southern part, situated around Polog, northern Macedonia, which is heavily influenced by the Macedonian language (/t’ and d’/ became /k’ and g’/, respectively, the declension is almost purely analytic, articles have been developed). The effect of this differentiation is the formation of the Sirinić vernacular as an idiom whose prosody and phonology reflect the former close contact with the speeches in use in the north of Macedonia, especially with the speech used in Skopska Crna Gora, while the overall system of morphological features is closely related to the speeches of Metohija and Kosovo, which have a very similar morphological system - the best preserved inflection in the Prizren-Timok dialectal area, total development of verb forms, and a number of morphosyntactic features - thus being a unique sub-dialect of the Prizren-South Morava speech. [Project of the Serbian Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development, Grant no. 178020: Dijalektološka istraživanja srpskog jezičkog prostora]
Keywords
