Language use in the cyrillic Dubrovnik Dominican Lectionary

U ovom prilogu raspravlja se o Dubrovačkom dominikanskom lekcionaru, štokavskom dubrovačkom odvjetku Bernardinova lekcionara (1495.) s početka 16. stoljeća, koji je od onodobnih hrvatskih lekcionara do sada najmanje privukao interes istraživača, tako da o njemu nema novih obavijesti poslije Rešetarove studije (1933.) posvećene dubrovačkim prijepisima Bernardinova lekcionara. Tekst nije objavljen, a rukopis se čuva u knjižnici dubrovačkoga dominikanskoga samostana (br. 39). Prilog nije usmjeren na popisivanje svih grafijskih i jezičnih obilježja toga lekcionara, nego se daje osnovni opis toga rukopisa i teksta te se raspravlja o stupnjevitoj jezičnoj realizaciji, s posebnim osvrtom na jezik lekcija koje se u tom lekcionaru ponavljaju, po čemu se on razlikuje i od predloška i od ostalih dubrovačkih prijepisa.This article discusses the Dubrovnik Dominican Lectionary (DDL), a Štokavian descendent of Bernardin’s Lectionary (1495), which has attracted the least academic attention of all Croatian lectionaries to date, having last been the subject of research in Rešetar’s 1933 study of transcriptions of Bernardin’s lectionary made in Dubrovnik. The text has not been published, and the manuscript is held in the library of the Dominican monastery in Dubrovnik (no. 39). Its characteristics make the DDL an excellent subject for research on interdialectal differences once present in literary texts, as well as on linguistic variability within a single (Štokavian) textual adaptation and stylization, from the perspectives of both historical dialectology and historical sociolinguistics and stylistics. The paper is not focused on listing all of the lectionary’s graphic and linguistic idiosyncracies, but rather on providing a basic description of the manuscript and its text, as well as a discussion on its stepwise linguistic adoption and adaptation (on three levels). The analysis shows layered language usage in which linguistic characteristics do not share the same value or status. The linguistic diversity of the text cannot simply be reduced to the relationship between two dialects (Čakavian and Štokavian), especially pointed out in cases such as its use of the root (nominative) morpheme in genitive plural declination, even in places where no Čakavian source exists. A comparison and analysis of readings repeated in the DDL show that the transcriber chose words unique to his own native linguistic environment, while using (and adapting) words or constructions foreign to it along with them, showing the tolerance of Štokavian transcribers to words and expressions that would likely not have been their first choice