DIALECTS OF THE CENTER OF RUSSIA: ТOWORDS THE НISTORY OF THE STUDY

The article deals with the linguistic characteristics of the central dialect zone of the Russian language and reviews various points of view on the formation of subdialects in this area. It is generally agreed that archaic language features are better retained in peripheral (marginal) dialects, while the central dialect is more subject to innovation. The issue of the oppositional nature of the central and peripheral (marginal) subdialects of Russian was initially raised by K. F. Zakharova and V. G. Orlova in their work The Dialectal Division of the Russian Language. The linguistic terrain mapped in their Russian Dialect Atlas based on phonetic and grammatical features made it possible to identify the dialectal center and periphery of the territory indigenously occupied by Russians, i.e. at the centre of the European part of Russia. However, only some linguists have recognized the importance of this opposition between centre and periphery. Among those who have is S. V. Bromley, whose research focuses on central and peripheral language varieties. At their core, the central subdialects of Russian are descended from the Rostov-Suzdal dialect, as discussed in the works of R. I. Avanasov, K. V. Gorshkov, G. A. Khaburgaev. The opposition between centre and periphery was discovered thanks to analysis of phonetic and grammatical characteristics. However, the central subdialects are also determined by a number of accentual and lexical features, some are fairly ancient. For example, the persistence of such words as радуга-дуга (‘rainbow’), елоха (‘alder’), молотилка (‘threshing head of an agricultural flail’). Some counterparts of these words are found in the Southern Slavonic dialect region. Russian subdialects belonging to the central dialect zone are considered to be peripheral (marginal) in relation to the whole of the Slavic language spectrum and have their counterparts in other marginal regions of the Slavic world.