Proto-Slavic accent


Proto-Slavic accent is closely related to the accentual system of some Baltic languages with whom it shares many common innovations that occurred in the Proto-Balto-Slavic period. Deeper, it inherits from the Proto-Indo-European accent. In modern languages the prototypical accent is reflected in various ways, some preserving the Proto-Slavic situation to a greater degree than others.

Evolution from Proto-Balto-Slavic

Proto-Balto-Slavic is reconstructed with a free lexical accent, and a distinction between "short" and "long" syllables. A long syllable was any syllable containing either a long vowel, a diphthong, or a so-called "sonorant diphthong" consisting of a short vowel plus *l, *m, *n or *r in the syllable coda. Short syllables consisted of a short vowel with either no coda or an obstruent in the coda. The distinction between long and short syllables remained important throughout the early history of Slavic.
Long vowels were present in Proto-Balto-Slavic, and remained in Proto-Slavic as well. However, alongside the distinctions in quantity, Slavic also developed distinctions in quality between short and long vowels:
This became important towards the end of the Proto-Slavic period, where certain dialects acquired new long and short vowels distinct from the older ones, based on these differences in quality.
Proto-Balto-Slavic long syllables could bear a suprasegmental feature known as acute. The acute feature could occur independently of the accent, and Slavic retained this situation until at least the operation of Dybo's law. This sound change shifted the accent one syllable rightwards if it previously fell on a non-acuted syllable, and the syllable that the accent shifted onto still had the acute-nonacute distinction at this time. However, by the time of Ivšić's law, the acute feature was no longer apparent; the accent retraction that occurred as part of this law produced the same result on all long syllables, regardless of whether it was originally acuted or not. The Slavic accent had changed from being purely positional to also being intonational: the acute was converted to a distinct rising intonation on accented long syllables, and lost elsewhere. Unaccented syllables now distinguished only between long and short.
Slavic also inherited from Proto-Balto-Slavic the distinction between fixed and mobile accentual paradigms in verbs and nominals. In fixed paradigms, the accent was on the same stem syllable in all forms, while in mobile paradigms, it would alternate between the first syllable of the stem and the ending. Fixed paradigms were split in two by the operation of Dybo's law, which created a new accent paradigm b by shifting the accent onto the ending. The accent was then shifted back again in some forms by Ivšić's law, creating a new type of mobile pattern. Paradigms which remained fixed were assigned to accent paradigm a. The inherited Balto-Slavic mobile paradigms were not split in this way thanks to Meillet's law, and remained unified in accent paradigm c.

System

There is no consensus among linguists on the exact prosodical nature of late Proto-Slavic, or Common Slavic. Two different schools of thought exist, the more-or-less "traditional" school and the more radical "Leiden" school. The most important difference between the two, in the context of the Slavic accent and prosody in general, is that the traditional viewpoint holds that Proto-Slavic retained all length distinctions as they were inherited from Proto-Balto-Slavic, whereas the Leiden school argues that some long vowels were shortened and short vowels were lengthened already in Proto-Slavic. Thus:
The various accent types of Proto-Slavic are indicated with different diacritical symbols. The following table helps map between the notational systems found in various sources. The vowel symbols stand for different vowel classes that the accent can appear on: o stands for any original short mid vowel, ъ stands for any original short high vowel, a for any original long vowel or liquid diphthong.
There may be some variation in notation even within the same school. Both and are used for the neoacute accent for example, reflecting the accents used in standard Shtokavian and Chakavian respectively. Jasanoff uses a vertical mark to mark the accent on syllables where the tonality is implied because no contrastive tone exists, using the more specific symbols above only to indicate tonal contrasts.
The old acute accent could occur on any syllable of a word, but only on a long syllable. Phonetically it is usually reconstructed as a rising tone, traditionally long, but short in the Leiden school. Within Balto-Slavic framework this matches with rising intonation of the cognate Latvian ⟨õ⟩ and length marks on the second part of diphthongs in Old Prussian. However, critics of this interpretation claim that one can hardly derive the Serbo-Croatian short falling tone ⟨ȍ⟩, shortness in Slovak, length in Czech and the rising intonation in Russian pleophony from the former long rising tone. Some speculate that Proto-Slavic acute was phonetically in fact something entirely different, e.g. a glottalized syllable comparable to stød in Danish, or something similar.
The old short and circumflex accents represent the historical lack of the acute register on the syllable, on short and long syllables respectively. They are sometimes referred to as short and long circumflex. In Slavic, they behaved similarly with respect to accent shifts such as Dybo's law, but were differentiated by word position:
The neoacute accent was a new type of accent that resulted from accent retraction through Ivšić's law. It is traditionally reconstructed as a rising intonation on the basis of Slovene and Russian, and the description of dialectal Chakavian Serbo-Croatian ⟨õ⟩ as a rising tone. The neoacute occurred in both short and long varieties:
Unaccented syllables did not bear contrastive tone, but according to the Leiden school, did have contrastive length. The traditional school does not reconstruct distinctly long unaccented vowels, instead regarding all original long vowels as long within Proto-Slavic.

Valence theory

There is also a third school, namely the Moscow accentological school. Perhaps, the most important difference from the "traditional" and "Leiden" schools is the use of morphophonological valences and the refusal from of the Stang's theory of the origin of the “new acute” in all forms as a result of accent retraction.
Moscow
Dominant acutea̋
Recessive acuteâ
Dominant circumflexã
Recessive circumflexȃ
Longō

Sometimes dominant short and recessive short are used, as well as ictus to remove prosodic connotations.
The dominant acute is reconstructed on the historically long and short syllables. Morphophonologically it has a higher valence. Phonetically reconstructed as an rising-falling syllable tone with a short, but sharp rising part and with a longer falling slope. Within Balto-Slavic framework, dominant acute corresponds to the Latvian drawling intonation and length marks on the second part of diphthongs in Old Prussian, and with the Lithuanian acute.
The recessive acute is reconstructed on the historically long and short syllables. Morphophonologically it has a lower valence. Phonetic reconstruction of the syllable tone is unknown. Within Balto-Slavic framework, recessive acute corresponds to the Latvian broken intonation and the Lithuanian acute.
The dominant circumflex is reconstructed on the historically long and short syllables. After rejecting the Stang's theory is recognized as a direct reflex of the Proto-Balto-Slavic dominant circumflex. Morphophonologically it has a higher valence. Phonetically reconstructed as a rising syllable tone. Within Balto-Slavic framework, dominant circumflex corresponds to the Latvian falling intonation and the Lithuanian circumflex.
The recessive circumflex is reconstructed on the historically long and short syllables. Morphophonologically it has a lower valence. Phonetically reconstructed as a falling syllable tone. Within Balto-Slavic framework, recessive circumflex corresponds to the Latvian falling intonation and the Lithuanian circumflex.
The long is mainly used on final vowels in the word form. A striking example of this is the “long yer” in the genitive plural.

Dybo's contour rule

Valence is a morphophonological quality that determines the choice of an accent paradigm, attributed to the root morpheme and morphemic endings of the root, i.e. to affixes and endings.
  1. *sta̍r-ьс-ь̄
  2. *brju̍x-at-ě-ti
  3. *vy̍-děl-a-ti
  1. *lě̍n-ъ
  2. *lě̍n-ost-ь
  3. *o̍-krъv-av-i-l-ъ
  1. *lěn-ost-ь-jǫ̍
  2. *měx-ov-ь̍j-e
  3. *mold-ь̍с-e-mь
  4. *gla̍d-ъk-o-mь
  1. *sta̍r-ost-ь-jǫ
  2. *bog-a̍t-o-jǫ
  3. *mě̍d-ęn-ic-e-jǫ
  4. *mě̍d-ęn-ic-a
  1. *ko̍z-ьj-e-jǫ
  2. *sto̍l-ič-ьn-o-jǫ
  3. *čь̍rn-ič-ьn-īk-o-ma
  4. *žě̍n-ьstv-ьn-ost-ь-jǫ
The first and second rules show, that sequences of morphemes of the same valence get ictus on the first morpheme. The third and fourth rules show that sequences of morphemes of different valence get ictus on the first dominant morpheme. Given the fifth rule, the general “contour rule” that regulates the setting of ictus in all types of morpheme sequences in Balto-Slavic is formulated as follows: Ictus is placed at the beginning of the first sequence of morphemes of the highest valence. A single morpheme is also considered a sequence.

Proto-Slavic accent paradigms

Since three accent paradigms are reconstructed for Proto-Slavic, traditionally marked with letters a, b and c. Their reflexes in individual Slavic languages are usually marked as A, B, C. Stang's original reconstruction was for nominals, and subsequently expanded these to Proto-Slavic verbs as well.
Accent paradigm a words have a fixed accent on one of the syllables of the stem. If the stem is monosyllabic, that syllable will be acute-accented. If the stem is polysyllabic, the accent may be acute, but can also be short on e and o or neoacute.
Examples: , acc. *bàbǫ; , gen. *gàda; , gen. *kopỳta; m, neuter *slàbo; , acc. *osnòvǫ; ; , second-person plural present *pàtīte.
Accent paradigm b words have either a neoacute on the final syllable of the stem or any accent on the first syllable of the ending. Examples: , acc. *ženǫ̍; , gen. *popa̍; , gen. *sela̍; , gen. *ogni̍; m, neuter: *dobro̍; , second-person plural present *nòsīte.
Accent paradigm c words have a mobile, free accent - either a short/circumflex accent on the first syllable, an acute on a medial syllable i.e. the penultimate syllable of the ending or any accent on the final syllable. Initial short/circumflex always "jumps" to the preceding syllable in a phonetic word; e.g. *nȃ rǭkǫ. Similarly, if the short/circumflexed word is followed by a word lacking an accent, the accent is transferred onto it: *rǭkǫ že̍. Examples: , acc. *nȍgǫ; , gen. *gȏlsa; , gen. *zvȍna; , gen. *gȏldi; m'', neuter: *dȏrgo; .

Valence theory

The Moscow accentological school, which reconstructs Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Balto-Slavic with underlying dominant and recessive syllables, posits four accent paradigms for Proto-Slavic rather than the standard three: a, b, c and d for nominals, and a, b₁, c and b₂ for verbs.
Accent paradigm d is a mixed accent paradigm, as in the nominative and accusative singular present secondary forms-enclinomena, i.e. with the recessive valence of the root. It is also part of the accent paradigm b. The accent paradigm d is reconstructed in o-stems, u-stems, i-stems of Balto-Slavic masculine and feminine genders, consonant stems and es-stems neuter gender. The table shows the forms with accent before the Dybo's law, but after the Fortunatov–de Saussure's law, cf. locative singular. At the same time, the final vowels retain their length under the dominant valence.
SingularDualPlural
Nominative*bõry*bõrove
Accusative*bȏrъ*bõry*bõry
Genitive*bõrъ*bõrovū*bõrovъ̄
Locative*borū̋*bõrovū*bõrъxъ
Dative*bõrovi*bõrъmā*bõrъmь
Instrumental*bõrъmь*bõrъmā*bõrъmī
Vocative*bõru*bõry*bõrove

Developments in Slavic languages

The suprasegmental vowel features of modern Slavic languages largely reflect the Proto-Slavic system, and are summarized in the table below.
Proto-Slavic accent remained free and mobile in East Slavic and South Slavic. The only exception in South Slavic is Macedonian which has a fixed stress on the antepenultimate syllable in the standard language, with southern and south-western Macedonian dialects exhibiting fixed penultimate stress, and eastern dialects exhibiting free stress. In many dialects the original Proto-Slavic accent position has changed its place; e.g. in literary Serbo-Croatian retracting by one syllable which yielded the new rising pitch, with old accent preserved in nonstandard dialects. Beside phonological causes, position of Proto-Slavic accent was often lost due to the leveling out within the mobile paradigm. In Slovene stress shifts occurred in both directions depending on the old pitch and vowel quantity, yielding tonal and stress-based variants of modern literary Slovene. In West Slavic, free accent is attested at the periphery in the northern Kashubian dialects and Polabian.
Vowel length became distinctive in West and partially South Slavic. In the West Slavic languages it was accompanied by extensive contraction due to the loss of /j/, typically resulting in a long vowel. This process was centered in the Czech area, and covered Russian and Bulgarian areas at its extremes. This new length is preserved only in Czech and Slovak, but is lost in most other West Slavic varieties. Several West Slavic languages reflect older length contrasts in the form of new quality contrasts, indirectly preserving the distinction. For example, Polish ó and ą are reflexes of older long vowels, even though they are no longer long. Length was phonemicized in Serbo-Croatian and Slovene, depending on the pitch. In Neoshtokavian Serbo-Croatian no pre-tonic lengths are allowed; i.e. with Neoshtokavian retraction occurring the length of old long accented syllables was retained as a post-tonic length. In Slovene, length is restricted to the stressed position, with the exception of /ə/ which is always short.
The Proto-Slavic three-way opposition of old acute, short/circumflex and neoacute was in its original form lost in all Slavic languages. It was reworked into a two-way opposition, in one of two typical ways:
  1. Merging old acute and neoacute, contrasting with short/circumflex. In Czech, Slovene and Upper Sorbian the new opposition become that of quantity. In East Slavic, Bulgarian and Macedonian this new quantitative opposition was subsequently lost, and sometimes reinterpreted as stress position
  2. Merging old acute and short/circumflex, contrasting with neoacute. In Slovak, Polish and Lower Sorbian the new opposition become that of quantity. In Serbo-Croatian and Slovene the new opposition become that of pitch. Subsequently, Neoshtokavian retraction in standard Serbo-Croatian created new tonal oppositions.
LanguageNumber of syllablesOld acuteLong neoacuteShort neoacuteCircumflexShort
Neoshtokavian Serbo-Croatianone|ȍ||ȏ||ȍ||ȏ||ȏ|
Neoshtokavian Serbo-Croatiantwo|ȍ|o||ȏ|o||ȍ|o||ȏ|o||ȍ|o|
Neoshtokavian Serbo-Croatianthree|ȍ|o|o||ȏ|o|o||ȍ|o|o||ȍ|o|o||ȍ|o|o|
Chakavian Serbo-Croatianone|ȍ||ó||ȍ||ȏ||ȏ|
Chakavian Serbo-Croatiantwo|ȍ|o||ó|o||ȍ|o||ȏ|o||ȍ|o|
Chakavian Serbo-Croatianthree|ȍ|o|o||ó|o|o||ȍ|o|o||ȍ|o|o||ȍ|o|o|
Old Shtokavian Serbo-Croatianone|ȍ||ó||ȍ||ȏ||ȏ|
Old Shtokavian Serbo-Croatiantwo|ȍ|o||ó|o||ȍ|o||ȏ|o||ȍ|o|
Old Shtokavian Serbo-Croatianthree|ȍ|o|o||ó|o|o||ȍ|o|o||ȍ|o|o||ȍ|o|o|
Kajkavian Serbo-Croatianone|ȍ||ó||ȍ||ȏ||ȏ|
Kajkavian Serbo-Croatiantwo|ȍ|o||ó|o||ȍ|o||ȏ|o||ȏ|o|
Kajkavian Serbo-Croatianthree|ȍ|o|o||ó|o|o||ȍ|o|o||ȏ|o|o||o|ȏ|o|
Sloveneone|ȍ||ó||ȍ||ȏ||ȏ|
Slovenetwo|ó|o||ó|o||ó|o||o|ȏ||o|ȏ|
Slovenethree|ó|o|o||ó|o|o||ó|o|o||o|ȏ|o||o|ȏ|o|
Czechone|ō||ō||ō||o||o|
Czechtwo|ō| ||ō| ||ō| ||o| ||o| |
Czechthree|o| | ||ō|ō| ||ō| | ||o| | ||o| | |
Slovakone|o||ō|| ||o||o|
Slovaktwo|o| ||ō| || | ||o| ||o| |
Slovakthree|o| | ||ō| | || | | ||o| | ||o| | |

Serbo-Croatian: ȍ = short falling, ȏ = long falling, ò = short rising, ó = long rising, o = short vowel without distinctive tone

Slovene: ȍ = short falling, ȏ = long falling, ó = long rising, o = short vowel without distinctive tone

Czech and Slovak: ō = long vowel, o = short vowel, | | = either long or short vowel

Neoshtokavian

The Neoshtokavian variant of Serbo-Croatian, on which all standard languages are based, initially lost all pitch distinctions. All accents became falling in pitch. Only length distinctions remained, with the old acute, short neoacute and short accent being reflected as short, and the circumflex and long neoacute being reflected as long. In monosyllables, the short accent was lengthened. Length remained in some cases in unaccented syllables.
The Neoshtokavian retraction reintroduced pitch distinctions. All non-initial accents were retracted, producing a rising accent on the newly accented syllable. Both the newly-accented and the originally-accented syllables kept their length. In initial syllables, the new rising accent contrasted with the old falling accent, which remained. In non-initial syllables, only the rising accent could now occur, and the final syllable could not be accented at all.

Chakavian

Chakavian accentuation is particularly archaic, and therefore invaluable for reconstructing the Common Slavic situation. The old acute and short neoacute merge with the short accent, all becoming a short falling intonation. The long neoacute and circumflex remain distinct, reflected as long rising and long falling respectively. Thus, there are no pitch distinctions in short syllables, but they remain in long syllables, unlike the earlier stages of Neoshtokavian.
In a closed syllable before a sonorant, the short falling accent is lengthened, producing different intonation in different dialects. In northern Chakavian, the result is a long rising accent, while in the south there is a long falling accent instead.

Kajkavian

Kajkavian accentuation is similar to Slovene. It resembles Slovene in lengthening the old short accent, producing a long falling accent that merges with the old circumflex. However, there is no lengthening in non-final syllables and no progressive accent shift. Thus, the old acute and short neoacute remain short in all syllables. In long syllables, long rising and long falling are distinguished, as in Chakavian.
The neo-circumflex is a change shared with Slovene as well. Original short rising syllables were converted to a long falling accent before a long vowel.

Slovene

The synchronic descriptions of pitch in modern Slovene differ, with some sources using the standard Slavic/Serbo-Croatian terms "rising" and "falling", while others describe these as "low" and "high" respectively. The traditional terms will be used here.
In the dialectal history of Proto-Slavic, the acute accent was shortened in Slovene, as it was in all neighbouring Serbo-Croatian dialects. It fell together with the short neoacute and was treated identically from there on. Unlike the other languages, however, Slovene kept the old acute and short neoacute distinct from the old short accent in non-final syllables, initially producing a short rising accent that was later lengthened.
The first change specific to Slovene, the progressive accent shift, shifted the word-initial falling tone one syllable to the right. The previously accented syllable became short, while the newly accented syllable was lengthened and received a falling intonation. The shift was not completed to its fullest in the more peripheral dialects, notably the dialect of Rezija which was almost entirely unaffected. It was fully completed in the Ljubljana dialect, on which standard Slovene is based. In monosyllables, the rightward shift was blocked and the falling accent was lengthened without movement. As a result of these shifts, the distinction between short and circumflex accent was eliminated entirely in Slovene, with all falling accents being automatically long.
Following this, the neo-circumflex arose, a change shared with Kajkavian. Original short rising syllables were converted to a long falling accent under certain conditions, which re-established the falling accent in initial syllables of multisyllabic words. The neo-circumflex arose when the next syllable contained a non-final weak yer or a long vowel. The following long vowel was shortened, and the previous syllable received compensatory lengthening. It also occurred in the volja-type nouns, where the exact explanation varies.
Around the 14th century, another change occurred to eliminate length contrasts, this time in rising syllables: all non-final rising accents became long, thus merging with the existing long neoacute. After this change, accented length distinctions existed only in the final syllable. Final short rising accents were nondistinctively converted to a falling tone; now all rising accents were automatically long.
Following this, the accent retracted from word-final short syllables. This change, again, did not reach all dialects. In Standard Slovene, retraction only occurred if the previous syllable was long or if both syllables were open. It also occurred sometimes in Standard Slovene if the preceding syllable contained a schwa, with both the original and the retracted forms standing side by side. The dialect of Babno Polje went furthest, retracting all final accents, even long ones that were produced by the forwards circumflex shift above. The retraction produced a long rising vowel, or in the case of schwa, a short rising schwa. Short e and o lengthened to distinctive open-mid vowels and, contrasting with the close-mid and that were produced by earlier lengthenings.
Modern Slovene completely lacks length contrasts in unaccented syllables. In accented syllables, length is only distinguished in final syllables, while medial accented syllables are always long.

Russian

Russian lost distinctive pitch and length, having instead a free stress accent. A vestige of the former pitch accent remains in the outcome of the liquid diphthongs *el, *er, *ol and *or, which undergo so-called pleophony. When these originally bore an acute or neoacute accent, they surface with the accent on the second vowel, while if they had a circumflex accent, they appear with the accent on the first vowel. This reflects the original rising and falling intonations of these accents.
Russian has largely preserved the three accentuation classes across different word classes – accentual irregularities are often the longest-lasting remnants of Proto-Slavic forms such as the dual or masculine u- and i-stems. The table below gives a basic overview of how the inherited accent patterns commonly correspond to Andrey Zaliznyak's :
One key innovation is the generalization of Ivšić's law to what Melvold terms lexical marking for retraction on certain words from inherited accent classes b and c, shown after a comma in the table. This moves the stress to the last syllable of the stem in particular areas: plural cases in nouns, the long form in adjectives, the present tense other than the first person singular in derived verbs, and the infinitive and past forms in non-derived verbs.
This had the greatest effect on a-stem feminine and o-stem neuter nouns: most inherited AP b words in these groups have Zaliznyak d. Many mobile feminine nouns have also migrated from Zaliznyak f' to this simpler pattern, with some frozen mid-transition at Zaliznyak d' and Zaliznyak f. The genitive plural ending -ей -ey resists retraction in some feminine nouns of this type, though like the refusal of mobile vowels in some words to bear stress, this is not reflected in a separate Zaliznyak stress pattern.
Another shift is whether certain endings are accented by AP b or c roots. This is most evident in short form adjectives, which as well as the basic patterns a, b and c, have words in which the plural form may have stem or end stress. As with the largely unwritten phenomenon of Russian stress in general, which form is standard is often unclear and changing; with the neuter, one form may be preferred as an adverb.

Proto-Slavic length

Beside the contrastive tone, the Late Proto-Slavic also had a vowel quantity which was phonemically non-distinctive. Vowels were predictably short and thus neutral with respect to length in pretonic positions further away from the accent than the first pretonic syllable. In other words, long vowels could occur in:
  1. the stressed syllable
  2. posttonic syllables
  3. the first pretonic syllable
Old East Slavic and Old Polish loanwords in Finnish, Karelian, Estonian, Lithuanian and Latvian show that the length of the originally long vowels in Slavic is retained regardless of the intonation, the position in the word or the number of syllables. These loanwords show no trace of the old nasality of *ę and *ǫ which indicates that the original Proto-Slavic length was preserved in all positions and conditions even after the denasalisation of *ǫ and *ę.
After surveying the data with respect to stress type, the number of the syllables in a word, the position and the accentual paradigm, offers the following reflexes for West Slavic, and Serbo-Croatian, which have retained distinctive lengths: