Geolingvistinės-sociolingvistinės Šiaurės žemaičių patarmės somatonimų klasifikacijos problemos

The article focuses on the problem of the prevalence of the somatonyms (i.e. names of body parts) in the subdialect of Northern Samogitian. Analyzing Northern Samogitian somatonyms from a geolinguistic point of view, the primary aim of this article is to discover which somatonyms can be found only in the Samogitian dialect and which are used throughout the wider territory of Lithuania. The latter are analyzed in detail not only on the basis of geolinguistics, but also under sociolinguistic criteria; therefore, two more subgroups of the names of the body parts are established, representing the main Lithuanian vocabulary and slang. This study reveals that the dialectal lexicon dominates in the subdialect. The majority of dialectisms used only in the area of Northern Samogitia are recorded: they make up 60 percent of somatonyms. Several names of body parts belong to a wider layer of the lexicon of the Samogitian dialect. Somatonyms belonging to the common vocabulary of the Samogitian and Aukštaitian dialects are less-often recorded. These names of body parts are also axiologically marked and connotative, and it is extremely difficult to distinguish them from the widely used colloquialisms of the spoken Lithuanian language. Names that belong to subgroups of the main Lithuanian vocabulary and slang are used very little by the people of Northern Samogitia.