This article focuses on some of the findings from a cross-dialect study of stress and quantity in Erzya that provide support for the idea of rhythmic variability in the language. Four idiolect groups compared with respect to a set of prosodic and segmental features have been found to display diverging characteristics, which allows differentiating them along the continuum of language rhythm classes defined as syllable- versus stress-timed. Considering the phonetics-phonology interface of these characteristics the author argues that a phonological shift — tendency to distinguish the root of the agglutinative word — can have evolved in the language. The divergence of features related to rhythm in the idiolect groups implies that the shift can have developed at different pace, contributing to the development of stress-timed rhythm in a part of the dialects.
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