Functioning of affricates in the Upper-Kama dialect of the Komi-Permian language

Abstract

Introduction: the paper is a fragment of the description of the phonetic features of the language of the Kirov Permians, one of the idioms of the Komi-Permian language, which native speakers live in the Afanasyevsky District of Kirov Oblast. Affricates are the subject of study. The paper examines the peculiarities of their functioning: the distribution of affricates in the phonetic structure of the word is described, and the process of transition of the consonants ǯ', ǯ, č to fricative ones is considered. Objective: to describe the positional-combinatorial conditions of the use of affricates, to trace the phonetic changes that affricates are subject to in the language of the Kirov Permians. Research materials: field materials of dialectological expeditions to the area of residence of the Kirov Permians in the period from 2002 to 2012. Results and novelty of the research: the paper analyzes affricates from the point of view of their functioning in the language of the Kirov Permians. New dialect data are introduced into scientific circulation, which can become an additional source for the comparative-historical study of the affricate system in the Permian languages. As a result of the study, it was revealed that in the studied idiom, the affricates ǯ', ǯ, č tended to gradually restrict distribution, reduce the frequency of use: in some positions, they were replaced by the corresponding fricative consonants z', ž, š. In the dialect, there is an inconsistency in the use of affricates, which reflects the peculiarities of the informants’ idiolect, as well as the incompleteness of the process of changing the considered consonants in the studied idiom