Abstract:

This paper describes the phonological, morphonological, morphological and syntactic characteristics of the speech of the village Mrkoči in middle Istria. So far, it’s an unexplored Ikavian Ekavian dialect situated between the local speech of Žminj on the west, Ikavian Ekavian dialect of Cere in south, Ikavian dialect of Barban on southeast and Ikavian Ekavian dialect of Čepić on east. In comparison with the nearby speeches of Čepić on one side, and of Cere on the other, results show that they have more characteristics in common with the dialect of Cere, bearing the same linguistic marks. The speech of Mrkoči and Čepić have many differences, on phonological and morphological level. So we can conclude that the local speech of Mrkoči can territorially relate on the speech of Čepić, but they don’t belong to the same linguistic type. The linguistic characteristics show that, according to the division of Dalibor Brozović, it belongs to middlečakavian or Ikavian Ekavian dialect, and according to Iva Lukežić, it’s an edge subdialect in a system of the Ikavian Ekavian dialect.

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