nominative singular masculine of o-stems -e, e.g. Иване, посаднике, хлѣбе genitive singular of а-stems in "soft" -ě, instead of the "hard" -y, e.g. бес кунѣ. The same substitution is found in accusative plural of o-stems and a-stems. replacement of "hard" и by their "soft" counterparts in other non-nominal cases, such as the dual and plural of the imperative, nominative singular masculine of the present active participle, and pronominal endings (e.g. тиxъ instead of *тѣxъ) absence of palatalization of the stem with the new -ѣ and -и desinences, as in Old East Slavic nominative-accusative plural of а-stems in -ě, e.g. кобылѣ, сиротѣ Features of the Old Novgorod dialect ascertained by the philological study in the last decades are: lack of the second palatalization in root-initial position, e.g. кѣл-, хѣр- a particular reflex of Proto-Slavic *TьRT, *TъRT clusters, yielding TьRьT, TъRъT. However, in some dialects these yielded TroT, TreT. West-Slavic-like reflex of *TоRT clusters, e.g. погродье versus погородие the change ml’ > n’, e.g. емлючи > енючи no merger of nominative and accusative singular of masculines regardless of animacy, e.g. Nom. sg. погосте : Acc. sg. на погостъ Proto-Slavic *kv, *gv clusters were retained (as in West Slavic languages) instead of being transformed to cv, zv before front vowels as in other East Slavic dialects Often the orthography is domestic (as opposed to bookish), using ъ and о on the one hand and ь and е on the other synonymously (about 50% of birch-bark documents from the mid-12th to the late 14th century). The Novgorod material is divided by Zaliznyak into seven chronological groups: Implications of Old Novgorod findings According to Zaliznyak, the Old Novgorod linguistic features, instead of being merely isolated deviations, represent a bundle of peculiar isoglosses. The deviations are more abundant in older birch bark letters than in the more recent finds. This fact indicates, contrary to what may be expected, that the development was convergent rather than divergent, with regard to other northern East Slavic dialects. According to Zaliznyak, the discovery of Old Novgorod dialect suggests that earlier conceptions which held East Slavic as a relatively homogeneous linguistic grouping, have been dispelled by a view advancing it instead as an area of much greater dialectal diversity. Zaliznyak divides the East Slavic area into two dialectal groupings: Proto-Novgorodian-Pskovian on one side, singled out chiefly on the basis of two instances lacking second palatalization of velars and the ending -e