What Are “the Weaknesses” of Non-dissimilative Jakan’je, or on the Pre-stressed Vocalism of the Pskov Dialects of the Ostrov District

The article presents the results of an instrumental study of the vowels of the first pre-stressed syllable in the dialect of the village of Dar'ino, Ostrov district, Pskov region. The research material was audio recordings of the dialect made in 2014. According to the Dialectological Atlas of the Russian language, the territory of the Ostrov district is part of the Pskov group of dialects and is characterized by a strong jakan’je, that is, the coincidence of the vowels e, o and a in the first pre-stressed syllable in the sound [a] always. However, in the works devoted to the jakan’je in these dialects, the researchers noted deviations from the strong jakan’je. Our study confirmed the presence of such deviations and showed that the jakan’je in the Dar'ino dialect shows a tendency to moderation, that is, before the next hard consonant, the pre-stressed [a] is pronounced in place of the etymological vowels a and e, and before the next soft consonant, the pre-stressed [e]. At the same time, thistype of jakan’jecannot be calledmoderate, because, firstly, there are counterexamples with [a]before soft consonants,and secondly, the sounds [a] and[e] are opposed here,and not[a] and[i],as in the classical moderate type.