Features of vocalism of the Erzya dialects in the Sura region

in the Mordovian dialect area, the study of the specifics of the Sura dialects is essential for analyzing the dynamics of the development of dialects that arose as a result of mixing closely related languages – Erzya and Moksha. The description of the features of vowel phonemes, their variants and variations in the dialects of the Sura region makes it possible to show the current state of the phonetic system and establish the main trends in the development of the analyzed dialects, as well as phenomena characteristic only of this dialect landscape. Objective: identification of phonetic features in the vocalism system of some Erzya dialects of the Sura region related to the differentiation of phonemes, their variants and variations in strong and weak positions. Research materials: field materials of the authors collected during linguistic expeditions in the Sura River basin on the territory of the Mordovia Republic and dialect materials of the dialect room of the National Research Ogarev Mordovia State University. Results and novelty of the research: the analysis revealed a number of features of the vocalism system in the Mordovian dialects of the Sura region: 1) the presence of two vowel systems – with a five-phonemic and six-phonemic composition; 2) the use of ῐ-shaped and ǝ-shaped reduced vowels in non-first syllables of a word; 3) the presence of ä-shaped and â-shaped reduced vowel in the end of a word; 4) the formation of labialized vowels in a non-first syllable of a word. The scientific novelty of the work consists in the fact that for the first time it provides the comparative analysis of the vocalism system of the Mordovian dialects of the Sura region in the general context of Mordovian dialectology.