# Place of accent in Slavic languages



## phosphore

Hello everyone,

I've been learning Russian for some time now and one of the things I have most problem with is the place of accent. Even when you learnt its place in the basic form, it is virtually impossible to know where it would be in the paradigm. Take the noun _рукá_ /ru'ka/ for example. In the genitive case the accent remains in the same place: _руки́_ /ru'ki/, in the dative case too: _рукé_ /ru'ke/, but the place is different in the accusative case: _рýку_ /'ruku/.

From the learners' perspective things may be even worse in Serbian. In addition to the place of accent being impredictable, the accent is tonal and may be long or short, falling or rising. Take the same noun _rúka_ /'rǔ:ka/ (rising tone) for example. In the genitive case the accent is the same: _rúke_ /'rǔ:ke:/, in the dative case too: _rúci_ /'rǔ:tsi/, but the tone is different in the accusative case: _rûku_ /'rû:ku/ (falling tone).

What I noticed is that there are some correspondences between Russian and Serbian accent. Knowing that rising tones in the course of language history originated from the retraction of falling tones one syllable back in the word, you may reconstruct that a few centuries before the nominative was: _rukȁ_ /ru:'kâ/ (now retracted), the genitive: _rukê_ /ru:'kê:/ (now retracted), the dative: _rucȉ_ /ru:'tsî/ (now retracted), and the accusative _rûku_ /'ru:kû/ (no change). If you ignore the different endings in the genitive and the dative and the tone and vowel length distinction, for what concerns the place of accent you can see that the paradigm was the same as it is in Russian.

We may assume that in Proto-Slavic the accent was tonal as it is still today in Serbian, and we may reconstruct its place and its tonal character thanks to the reflexes in Slovenian (still tonal? and movable), Serbian (still tonal and movable), Russian (no more tonal, but still movable), and probably Bulgarian (still movable?), Belarusian (still movable?) and Ukrainian (still movable?), I wouldn't know. The accent place is fixed it Czech, Slovak, Polish and Macedonian.

Now finally getting to my question, or rather questions. The first question would be, supposing that we know the place and the tonal character of the accent of every word in Proto-Slavic, what changes the system went through to obtain the accentual paradigms of contemporary Russian? I gave an example of an almost perfect correspondance between Serbian and Russian, and the truth is there are many such examples, but there are also quite a few cases where you may expect the same correspondance to apply while it doesn't.

The second question would be, knowing that Slovak and Czech still retain vowel lengh as distinctive, can it be traced back to Proto-Slavic and how? The third question would be what factors contributed to the place of accent being fixed in Czech, Slovak and Polish? I doubt there is anyone here who could answer the same question for Macedonian.

And finally the fourth question, what changes did the Slovene accentual system go through? I know these are not easy questions but I hope someone would know at least some answers.

Thanks.


----------



## Orlin

Zdravo, phosphore! Ja bih ti odgovorio o bugarskom - kod nas je akcenat slobodan (može da bude na svim slogovima), pokretan (tj. može da menja mesto u različitim oblicima neke reči, iako je pokretnost limitirana zbog značajno manjeg broja oblika - mi nemamo deklinaciju) i dinamički. Akcenat u bugarskom je najčešće na istom mestu kao u ruskom.
Znam takvo praktičko pravilo - ako je neka BCS reč naglašena na 1. slog i njen kognat u bugarskom i/ili ruskom je isto akcentiran na 1. slog, naglasak u BCS je obično silazni, a u suprotnom slučaju uzlazni.


----------



## phosphore

Hvala, Orline. Tako sam i pretpostavio. Da li bi mogao da ilustruješ primerima kada se poklapa, a kada ne, sa ruskim?


----------



## Istriano

In colloquial Croatian, the place of accent is most of the times free (maybe because of Kajkavian and Cakavian influence), so all these are used:

TElefon, teLEfon, teleFON
MEdicinski, meDIcinski, mediCInski
MEsar, meSAR
MArina, maRIna
TUrizam, tuRIzam
Amerika, aMErika
ALgoritam, alGOritam, algoRItam

 Pitch accent is not really used in Croatian outside Slavonia, Dalmatia and Lika. 
So, in Western and Northern Croatia, the difference between poisoned and poisonous
is that of the syllable stress and not the one of pitch:

Otrovan = poisonous
otrOvan = poisoned

This is also the only example where syllable stress can change a meaning...
In old-fashioned nonStokavian Croatian the similar thing was observed with the word otvoren:

Otvoreni radio = Open radio (A radio is open)
otVOreni radio = Opened radio (A radio has been opened).

But today both are used interchangeably.

Formal Croatian is based on Bosnian/Serbian usage: *Bra*zil, por*tu*galski,* I*talija, *tu*nel, te*le*fon...
Northern and Western Croatian: Bra*zil*, *por*tugalski, I*ta*lija, tu*nel*, telef*on*...

As in the case of Italian, standard accentuation is not required even in formal situation unless you're a professor of Croatian, actor or a newscaster.
The accent of a person is strongly indicative of his/her origins, and most people are proud to show where they're from.
Speakers are not really ashamed of using Zagreb, Rijeka or Pula accents... 

On the other hand, many stokavian speakers end up using Zagreb (kajkavian-like) accent after many years of living in Zagreb. They pick it up unconsciously.

PS
In Dalmatia (except for islands off Zadar and parts of Brac and Hvar) there is a tendency of stressing the 1st syllable:

*ma*rina, *tu*rizam, *A*merika,* ma*trica, *Li*bertas even tho' for these words normative dictionaries recommend the stress on the 2nd syllable.


----------



## Orlin

phosphore said:


> Hvala, Orline. Tako sam i pretpostavio. Da li bi mogao da ilustruješ primerima kada se poklapa, a kada ne, sa ruskim?


 
Mogu da napišem relativno mnogo primera i drugi forumaši mogu da me dopune, ali sumnjam da će sve to imati nekakvu vrednost pošto će biti prosto spisak za radoznale kojim ne možemo ništa dokazati, a i ti, ako se ne varam, nisi upoznat s bugarskim.


----------



## DenisBiH

> Formal Croatian is based on Bosnian/Serbian usage: *Bra*zil, por*tu*galski,* I*talija, *tu*nel, te*le*fon...
> Northern and Western Croatian: Bra*zil*, *por*tugalski, I*ta*lija, tu*nel*, telef*on*...


Standard Bosnian (Rječnik bosanskog jezika, Institut za jezik Sarajevo) accepts both *pȍr*tugālskī and por*tù*gālskī. HJP entry lists only the first variant for Croatian. I usually use the first as well, though the second does not sound too strange.

Your remaining examples quoted above are ok as far as I can see.


----------



## sokol

phosphore, in this case for once a comparison with Slovene would be even more interesting. 

I've never done extensive studies in accent of Slavic languages but I know that in Slovene accent is closer to the original (Common Slavic) place of accent, even though not quite as close as is often the case in Russian.
BCS accent system (especially Neoshtokavian) on the other hand is relatively far removed from the original position, and in many cases vowels which once were accented now carry length while the accent moved one (or more) syllables towards the beginning of the word.

The development of Slavic accent position however is quite complicated, and as said I never learned more about it than the most basic things, so that's pretty much everything I can contribute to this topic.


----------



## DenisBiH

phosphore said:


> The second question would be, knowing that Slovak and Czech still retain vowel lengh as distinctive, can it be traced back to Proto-Slavic and how?




Perhaps dr. Matasović can help with this. 
_
Poredbeno-povijesna gramatika hrvatskoga jezika, Ranko Matasović_


> § 210 Nakon dalekosežnih promjena kojima je praslavenski samoglasnički sustav postao općeslavenskim (v. § 151 i dalje), kvantiteta (opreka dugih i kratkih samoglasnika) je u općeslavenskome postala zalihosnom, a distinktivnima su postale opreke po kvaliteti, npr. opreka između *e i *ē zamijenjena je oprekom između *e i *ĕ, opreka *a i *ā postala je oprekom *o i *a itd.
> 
> Međutim, izvorno dugi samoglasnici ostali su fonetski (nedistinktivno) dugi, a dugi su bili i slogovi s dvoglasima, kao i oni postali od dvoglasa (npr. općeslav. *i od prasl. *ej, općeslav. *u od prasl. *ō, od još starijega *aw itd.).


So if I understand this correctly, in Proto-Slavic vowel length was distinctive, while in Common Slavic (disintegrating Slavic, I believe) vowel quality rather than quantity became distinctive, but original vowel length was kept.

Matasović dates Common Slavic (općeslavenski) from the beginning of the 7th to approximately the 11th century, noting that there are clearly dialectal texts earlier (9th century for OCS, 10th century for Old Slovenian)

However this says nothing about Czech and Slovak situation. There is a little bit more on some later developments in Slavic languages here (the section titled "Razvoj kvantitete u slavenskom")


----------



## ilocas2

Old Polish language had also long and short vowels. Their lost was gradual and completly finished in 18th century. Also the accent was placed on the first syllable in the Old Polish. Later it moved on the penultimate syllable. However there are some exceptions.

In Czech and Slovak the accent falls always on the first syllable and there's no exception from this rule. Of course both short and long vowels underwent many sound shifts. Original long O is extinct in both of them and appears only in loanwords, like in the Czech words balkón, citrón, pórek, gól, nervózní etc.

In Czech short i/y differs in both quality and quantity from long í/ý and short u differs in both quality and quantity from long ú/ů. Others differ only in quantity.

Note: i is pronounced the same as y, and í is pronounced the same as ý. Distinction between them was lost in the Middle Age.

Note 2: ú and ů are pronounced the same, it's only matter of ortography, cause ů developed from long o and original ú changed into ou (not everywhere)

And the vowel length is definitely inherited from Proto-Slavic. It just happened, that in some other languages it was lost. Nasal vowels remained also only in Polish. Dual number in Slovenian and Sorbian and so on. Slavic languages went each its own way.


----------



## Orlin

phosphore said:


> Hvala, Orline. Tako sam i pretpostavio. Da li bi mogao da ilustruješ primerima kada se poklapa, a kada ne, sa ruskim?


 


Orlin said:


> Mogu da napišem relativno mnogo primera i drugi forumaši mogu da me dopune, ali sumnjam da će sve to imati nekakvu vrednost pošto će biti prosto spisak za radoznale kojim ne možemo ništa dokazati, a i ti, ako se ne varam, nisi upoznat s bugarskim.


 
Doduše, postoje neke *dosledne* (sistematičke) razlike u mestu akcenta u bugarskom i ruskom izazvane konkretnim fonetskim fenomenima: npr., koliko ja znam, u ruskom 19. veka su internacionalizmi na _-лог_, _-ном_, _-метр_ itd. imali akcenat na poslednjem slogu i isto je u bugarskom (tadašnjem i savremenom) pošto je ruski bio posrednik za dolazak ovih reči u naš jezik (tada se počeo formirati savreneni standardni bugarski jezik i iz političkih razloga je uticaj ruskog bio relativno jak, ali ne toliko kao u 1945-90). U sadašnjem ruskom akcenat ovih internacionalnih reči pada _većinom_ (vidi post br. 11) _na_ _pretposlednji_ slog, ali se mesto akcenta u respektivnim bugarskim rečima *ne izmenilo*. 
Ali u velikoj većini slučaja su razlike bez nikakve vidljive logike i trebalo je da ih učimo napamet (i naravno mnogi Bugari greše u takvim situacijama).


----------



## Angelo di fuoco

The -ном nouns still have the accent on the last syllable.
The -лог nouns, to the best of my knowledge, have one exception: катал*о*г has the accent on the last syllable.
The -метр nouns have the accent on the last syllable when talking about measures like килом*е*тр, децим*е*тр, миллим*е*тр, otherwise on the last but one: бар*о*метр, ман*о*метр, хрон*о*метр.
I think the reason is that the measures were taken from French, while the other were taken from German or Dutch.


----------



## Orlin

Angelo di fuoco said:


> The -ном nouns still have the accent on the last syllable.
> The -лог nouns, to the best of my knowledge, have one exception: катал*о*г has the accent on the last syllable.
> The -метр nouns have the accent on the last syllable when talking about measures like килом*е*тр, децим*е*тр, миллим*е*тр, otherwise on the last but one: бар*о*метр, ман*о*метр, хрон*о*метр.


 
Спасибо за уточнения, но, кажется, суть моего аргумента не изменяется.


----------



## phosphore

ilocas2 said:


> And the vowel length is definitely inherited from Proto-Slavic. It just happened, that in some other languages it was lost.


 
Yeah, but do you happen to know what changes occurred in the meantime? Because see, I looked into a Czech dictionary and it says, for example:

"hand" Cz. ruka (Sr. ru:ka, Ru. ru'ka)
"grass" Cz. tráva (Sr. tra:va, Ru. tra'va)

Why is the vowel length preserved in _tráva_, but not in _ruka_?


----------



## ilocas2

phosphore said:


> Yeah, but do you happen to know what changes occurred in the meantime? Because see, I looked into a Czech dictionary and it says, for example:
> 
> "hand" Cz. ruka (Sr. ru:ka, Ru. ru'ka)
> "grass" Cz. tráva (Sr. tra:va, Ru. tra'va)
> 
> Why is the vowel length preserved in _tráva_, but not in _ruka_?



I really don't know. This is only my guess:

In Proto-slavic *trava, a was long, so it remained so.

In Proto-slavic *rǫka, there was nasal o, and this word changed differently in different Slavic languages.
Czech, Slovak - ruka (short u), BCS - ruka (long u), Slovenian - roka, Bulgarian - ръка, Macedonian - рака, Russian,Ukrainian,Belarussian - рука (accent on the first syllable), Polish - ręka (nasal sound remained, only nasal o changed into nasal e), Lower and Upper Sorbian - ruka (but I don't know how it's pronounced)

If there were long u, "rúka" would remain only in Slovak, in Czech it would be "rouka" today


----------



## phosphore

ilocas2 said:


> I really don't know. This is only my guess:
> 
> In Proto-slavic *trava, a was long, so it remained so.
> 
> In Proto-slavic *rǫka, there was nasal o, and this word changed differently in different Slavic languages.
> Czech, Slovak - ruka (short u), BCS - ruka (long u), Slovenian - roka, Bulgarian - ръка, Macedonian - рака, Russian,Ukrainian,Belarussian - рука (accent on the first syllable), Polish - ręka (nasal sound remained, only nasal o changed into nasal e), Lower and Upper Sorbian - ruka (but I don't know how it's pronounced)
> 
> If there were long u, "rúka" would remain only in Slovak, in Czech it would be "rouka" today


 
Right, I forgot about the nasal vowels. I think you guess right. 

But look at this one:

"to give" perf. Cz. dát (Sr. dati)
"to give" imperf. Cz. dávat (Sr. da:vati)

Is _dát_ a result of some compensatory lengthening? I love the way I suppose that Serbian kept the vowel lengths intact and that the change must have occurred in Czech.


----------



## DenisBiH

The nasal *ǫ in Common Slavic *rǫka would have been originally long if I'm not mistaken, so apart from the different shifts there was loss of length there.


----------



## ilocas2

phosphore said:


> Right, I forgot about the nasal vowels. I think you guess right.
> 
> But look at this one:
> 
> "to give" perf. Cz. dát (Sr. dati)
> "to give" imperf. Cz. dávat (Sr. da:vati)
> 
> Is _dát_ a result of some compensatory lengthening? I love the way I suppose that Serbian kept the vowel lengths intact and that the change must have occurred in Czech.



But in Slovak there is also short vowel "dať" 

Virtually all one-syllable infinitives in Czech have the long vowel. I've just thought about it 20 minutes and found only 2 verbs with short vowel - moct (moci) (can), smět (may)

žít, jíst, jít, brát, lhát, mít, mýt, bít, být, pít, krást, řvát, žrát, prát, hrát, říct, téct, stát, pást, blít, mlít, plít, plést, zábst, snít, spát, smát se, hřát, znát, zvát, dřít, zrát, rýt, vzít, hnít, péct, přát, cpát, tlít, krýt, růst, sít, šít, vát, třít, třást se, rvát, chtít, vřít...........

It's probably a secondary lengthening.

EDIT: I realised 3 one-syllable infinitives with short vowel: jet, spět, lpět


----------



## francisgranada

ilocas2 said:


> žít, jíst, jít, brát, lhát, mít, mýt, bít, být, pít, krást, řvát, žrát, prát, hrát, říct, téct, stát, pást, blít, mlít, plít, plést, zábst, snít, spát, smát se, hřát, znát, zvát, dřít, zrát, rýt, vzít, hnít, péct, přát, cpát, tlít, krýt, sít, šít, vát, třít, třást se, rvát...
> 
> It's probably a secondary lengthening.



All short or diphtong (like in priať = přát) in Slovak.


----------



## Orlin

ilocas2 said:


> Czech, Slovak - ruka (short u), BCS - ruka (long u), Slovenian - roka, Bulgarian - ръка, Macedonian - рака, Russian,Ukrainian,Belarussian - рука (accent on the first syllable), Polish - ręka (nasal sound remained, only nasal o changed into nasal e), Lower and Upper Sorbian - ruka (but I don't know how it's pronounced)
> 
> If there were long u, "rúka" would remain only in Slovak, in Czech it would be "rouka" today


 
In Russian on the 2nd syllable, I don't know about the other East Slavic languages.


----------



## ilocas2

Orlin said:


> In Russian on the 2nd syllable, I don't know about the other East Slavic languages.



I was little bit mislead, thanks for correction.


----------



## Angelo di fuoco

Orlin said:


> In Russian on the 2nd syllable, I don't know about the other East Slavic languages.



Рука has the accent on the 2nd syllable in all three East Slavic languages.


----------



## vianie

francisgranada said:


> All short or diphtong (like in priať = přát) in Slovak.



Almost but not quite.



ilocas2 said:


> žít žiť, jíst jesť, jít ísť, brát brať, lhát luhať, mít mať, mýt myť, bít biť, být byť, pít piť, krást kradnúť, řvát revať, žrát žrať, prát prať, hrát hrať, říct riecť, téct tiecť, stát stáť, pást pásť, blít šabliť, mlít mlieť, plít plieť, plést pliesť, zábst oziabať, snít sniť, spát spať, smát se smiať sa, hřát hrať, znát znať, zvát zvať, dřít drieť, zrát zrieť, rýt ryť, vzít vziať, hnít hniť, péct piecť, cpát pchať, tlít tlieť, krýt kryť, růst rásť, sít siať, šít šiť, vát viať, třít trieť, třást se triasť sa, rvát ruvať/ruť, chtít chcieť, vřít vrieť


----------



## vianie

Despite those several attempts denying an existention of a distinction between _i_ and _y_ in Czech and Slovak (a prescriptive language handbooks, a ridiculous _movements_ demanding the removal of the ypsilon), there still exists an accustic difference in a _viable_ speech. Do not ask me, _what_ it is, I can only write _how_ it is.


----------



## francisgranada

vianie said:


> Almost but not quite.



Of course. Sorry...


----------



## ilocas2

I think this distinguishing of I and Y is restricted only to the Ostrava region in Czech Republic. I don't know how it is in Slovakia.


----------



## Wikislav

Istriano said:


> In colloquial Croatian, the place of accent is most of the times free (maybe because of Kajkavian and Cakavian influence), so all these are used...
> In Dalmatia (except for islands off Zadar and parts of Brac and Hvar) there is a tendency of stressing the 1st syllable:
> *ma*rina, *tu*rizam, *A*merika,* ma*trica, *Li*bertas even tho' for these words normative dictionaries recommend the stress on the 2nd syllable.


This starting accent is not typical of subentire Dalmatia, but it is restricted chiefly in its eastern mainland corner at Dubrovnik with newer *Yekavish*-Shtokavian coming from Herzegovina backland. In other central *Ikavian* areas of mainland Dalmatia, accents are mostly similar as in standard Croatian, and this accentuation occurs also in eastern parts of major islands with mainland immigrants. In other offshore islands (Dugi, Žirje, Vis, western parts of Hvar, Brač, etc.), except summer tourists, the indigene accents are typical *Chakavian*, i.e. mostly _oxytonic on terminal_ syllable in 1/2 to 2/3 words, partly reminding of French.


----------



## sokol

vianie said:


> Despite those several attempts denying an existention of a distinction between _i_ and _y_ in Czech and Slovak (a prescriptive language handbooks, a ridiculous _movements_ demanding the removal of the ypsilon), there still exists an accustic difference in a _viable_ speech. Do not ask me, _what_ it is, I can only write _how_ it is.



There is, in some regional accents. 
See this thread in Czech forum, and over there post #13 by Jana337, with an audio file. I think all's said over there already, but if not I guess it would be better to continue discussion over there in the Czech forum thread.


----------



## koniecswiata

Supposedly in the now dead Polabian language, the accent was on the last syllable--at least in some words.  Because of this, the pronunciation of "Berlin" in German (and other cities in NE Germany that end in -in, such as "Schwerin") is with the accent on the final syllable--this is strange since German tends to have the first syllable accented, so it is possibly an influence of the original Slavic pronunciation of those places.


----------

