In 1961 with his treatment of vowels and accent in his native dialect, Mostec pri Brežicah, Toporišič contributed to the gradual assertion of the structuralist approach within postwar Slovenian dialectology. Although he primarily researched the Slovenian literary language, because of his work on his local dialect, he was included in many dialectological projects. His representation of the history of Slovenian dialectology and encouragement for further dialect study were just as important. Both of these, 1) his research of his own dialect according to the structuralist approach, and 2) his thorough overview of the history of Slovenian dialect studies, can be considered Toporišič’s principal contribution to dialectology. Of course, we can divide his work into several areas. Besides the two previously mentioned, they are: 3) the encyclopedic treatment of individual dialects and their history, 4) the presentation of Slovenian dialects within the frame of social variation in textbooks and grammars for their illustration, 5) selection of dialect texts, 6) his editorial work, most important for dialectology being his editing of the second book of the collected work of Fran Ramovš and several collections from the Škrabec and Pleteršnik Symposia. In the end we simply regret that, besides his “successful attempt” with his first study, Toporišič’s dialectological ambitions were not fulfilled on a large scale.Z obravnavo samoglasnikov in naglasa v rodnem govoru Mosteca pri Brežicah leta 1961 je Jože Toporišič začel s postopnim uveljavljanjem strukturalnega pristopa tudi v povojno slovensko narečjeslovje. Čeprav je prvenstveno raziskoval slovenski knjižni jezik, se je z raziskavami svojega narečnega govora vključeval v vse (večje) narečjeslovne projekte; prav tako dragocen pa je njegov prikaz zgodovine slovenskega narečjeslovja in pobude za nadaljnje raziskave narečij. Oboje – 1) raziskave lastnega govora z novim strukturalnim pristopom in 2) temeljit pregled zgodovine raziskav slovenskih narečij lahko štejemo za njegov poglavitni prispevek k narečjeslovju. Sicer pa njegovo delo lahko razdelimo na več področij, to so poleg obeh navedenih še: 3) enciklopedične obravnave (posamičnih) narečij in njihove zgodovine, 4) predstavitve slovenskih narečij v okviru socialne zvrstnosti v učbenikih in slovnicah ter za ponazoritev leteh 5) izbori narečnih besedil in 6) uredniško delo, pri katerem so za narečjeslovje najbolj pomembne ureditve druge knjige zbranega dela Frana Ramovša in več zbornikov s Škrabčevih in Pleteršnikovih simpozijev. Na koncu lahko samo še obžalujemo, da kljub »uspelemu poskusu« s prvo razpravo svojih narečjeslovnih ambicij ni uresničil v večjem obsegu
