Change in the accentuation system of Eastern Aukštaitian subdialect of Kupiškis in the 7th-9th decades of the 19th - the 6th-7th decades of the 20th century.

The article analyses accentuation of the subdialect of Kupiškis when comparing the data of two written sources - texts in the publication of German linguist Frank Specht "Litauische Mundarten gesammelt von A. Baranowski", Leipzig published in the 7th-9th decades of the 19th century and a description of the subdialects of the 6th-7th decades of the 20th century of Eastern Aukštaitian of Kupiškis held in the Dialect Archive of the Geolinguistic Centre of the Lithuanian Language Institute. Attempts were made to describe the peculiarities of accentuation of the subdialect of Kupiškis of the 6th-7th decades of the 19th century as comprehensively as possible, to determine what laws of accent retraction could function in the area of that subdialect at that time, to reveal changes in the accentuation system. The comparative analysis of Antanas Baranauskas texts of the second part of the 19th century and manuscript sources of the 6th-7th decades of the 20th century shows the development of formation of the accent as a phenomenon in the subdialect of Eastern Aukštaitians of Kupiškis. The data available reveal two important things. Firstly, a more intensive conditional law of accent retraction in the subdialect of Eastern Aukštaitians of Kupiškis formed rather late, i.e. it became established definitively all over the entire area not earlier than in the second half of the 20th century. Secondly, the phenomena formed unevenly in the area of the subdialect - in the second half of the 19th century the innovative wave of accent retraction moved from the northern part where it was quite regular towards the eastern border. The analysis carried out substantiates the current theory of the origin of Lithuanian dialects according to which changes, including accent retraction, moved from north southwards. The Selonian substrate could have a considerable impact on the formation of accent retraction in the subdialect of Eastern Aukštaitian of Kupiškis. The material of sources shows that during the period under investigation there were two accentuation models of inflexional words - barytonic and oxytonic, which testifies to the existence of their change. In the middle of the 20th century, the forms of oxytonic accentuation began to oust the barytonie paradigm prevailing in the subdialect in the second half of the 19th century from usage. In the second half of the 20th century differences in accentuation of the types of masculine and feminine declension become apparent - only the ā-stem nouns are apt to retain the old model of barytonie accentuation, the ē-stem nouns are accentuated according to the inflectional paradigm, words with the stems of the masculine declension have a tendency towards oxytonesis and accent variation. The comparative analysis confirms the assumptions that the establishment of the model of oxytonic accentuation of the masculine noun declension in the subdialect of Eastern Aukštaitians of Kupiškis was determined by a complex of interrelated factors: 1) the disappearance of the accent and semantic model of two plurals - simple and collective numeral; 2) analogies of accentuation of the words with the same stem and derivatives of the same world-formation type; 3) interaction between the stems and their development