A Quantitative Analysis of the Eastern Aukštaitian Subdialects of the Lithuanian Language

ABSTRACT This article presents a quantitative analysis of the dialectal material of Eastern Aukštaitian, the largest group of Lithuanian subdialects, transcribed in International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). The analysis is carried out in two stages: a) after transcribing the Eastern Aukštaitian dialectal material using IPA symbols, the problematic cases of Eastern Aukštaitian dialectal features for their transcription into IPA are discussed in detail; b) the dialectal material of Eastern Aukštaitian transcribed in IPA is analysed using Gabmap software, which was created on the basis of dialectometric methods. Quantitative research clarified the qualitative differences in the dialectal variants of the Eastern Lithuanian area that are determined in the classification of the Lithuanian dialects, and also revealed new correlations among dialectal units and the heterogeneity of the Eastern Aukštaitian area. Dialectal differences and distinctions both for different subdialects and for smaller dialectal elements that are not clearly revealed in the qualitative Eastern Aukštaitian classification are quantitatively clarified. Quantitative analysis substantiated that the qualitatively identified Eastern Aukštaitian subdialect is a single but heterogeneous unit: the quantified dialectal variation across the Eastern Aukštaitian subdialect is quite large, but there are also a number of dialectal features linking different subdialects of Eastern Aukštaitian.