POSSIBLE TRACES OF FINNIC INFLUENCE IN LATVIAN SUBDIALECT PHONETICS AND MORPHOLOGY

This article discusses areas observed on geolinguistic maps showing Finnic or Finnic-like features in Latvian subdialects possibly resulting from Finnic influence.The Latvian dialect material analysed for this study shows that several such areascan be identified based on their phonetics and morphology: the Livonic dialect, theSelonic subdialects, certain Selonic subdialects on both banks of the Daugava River,certain subdialectsin the former Leivu territory in northeastern Latvia near Alūksne andGulbene,and a few subdialects in Zemgale near Bauska and Vecsaule where the KrevinVotians were settled. The shortening of word endings and generalisation of third-personverb forms is also quite regularly encountered in the subdialects spoken around Preiļi inLatgale.