Special cases of accentuation of words in Punskas and Seinai dialects

The article presents special cases of accentuation of two- and polysyllabic words in Punskas and Seinai dialects, which are considered to be the western part of the southern dialects of Aukštaitija. The author tries to describe the trends of accentuation of nouns, adjectives and numerals, using audio and written sources. She provides possible explanation of the different cases of emphasis, shows the similarities and differences of accentuation of the same words in the studied dialects of Aukštaitija. The variance trends of accentuation in Punskas and Seinai dialects are similar to the ones from southern and particularly south-western Aukštaitija. After the comparison of the variance trends, it is possible to claim that there are differences and similarities among the dialects. Punskas and Seinai dialects are unique primarily because their words have a greater variance tendency and oxytonesis comparing to words in other dialects of southern Aukštaitija. The collected materials show that the greatest diversity in the form of words and stressing of the same dialect and from the same speaker occurs in the territories close to south-western Aukštaitija: Pristavonys, Burokai, Sankūrai, Rakelija, Dusnyda and other villages. Comparing the collected data it was established that part of Punskas and Seinai regions belong to the small area on both sides of the Lithuanian-Polish border, where the phenomenon of variance is the most intense: Burokai, Rudamina, Šventežeris, Kučiūnai, Rakelija, and Navinykai. Punskas and Seinai dialects are unique because they may be considered as the prove that there were different accentuation models of words in Aukštaitija (Kaunas region and the southern part). There are several reasons why the diversity in accentuation of words and (or) their forms in the studied dialects exists: 1) the disappearance of accentuation and semantic models in common and collective plural; 2) the development of two types of accent (column, ending); 3) the impact of the accent of the Polish language. The accentuation of the stem or ending of the particular forms of singular and/or plural words in Punskas and Seinai dialects is considered to be unique because at least some of the cases may be the legacy of the distant past