Cechy dialektalne w języku mówionym mieszkańców Sieradza

Abstract

The article discusses dialect features appearing in spoken language of inhabitants of Sieradz, a town with a long and rich history. Although Sieradz is again (after many years) the capital of the province, it is quite a small town - the number of its population does not exceed 30,000. The town is situated in the area of the so-called central Poland's dialects - dialects very temporary and changeable and in consequence very close to literary language. The article has been mainly based on linguistic data obtained from seven informants - representatives of the oldest generation. Because Polish language of inhabitants of Sieradz has not been scientifically described yet, its systematic description was made taking into consideration mainly phonetics and inflexion and partly - word-formatlon and syntax. Linguistic forms true to literary language were noted first of all if there was a different performance of the forms in dialects. It was important to notice whether the describe^ linguistic phenomena were common and whether they tended to deteriorate; the relation between those phenomena and the dialects surrounding the town was also defined. Spoken language of inhabitants pf Sieradz is Characterized by the presence of dialect variants though clear dialect features like mazurzenie (a characteristic feature of the pronunciation of Mazovian consisting in substituting dental stops and affricates for alveolar stops and affricates) or transition of -j£ into -k appear rather seldom. Dialect elements often appear together with literary ones, they do not remain constantly and some of them are only very occasionally met. The town inhabitants avoid first of all clear dialect pronunciation what often leads to the production of hypercorrect forms.