phonology Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...

, barytonesis, or ''recessive accent'', is the shift of accent from the last or following syllable to any non-final or preceding syllable of the stem, as in

John Donne John Donne ( ; 22 January 1572 – 31 March 1631) was an English poet, scholar, soldier and secretary born into a recusant family, who later became a clergy, cleric in the Church of England. Under royal patronage, he was made Dean of St Paul's ...

's poetic line: ''but éxtreme sense hath made them desperate'', the Balto-Slavic

Pedersen's law Pedersen's law, named after the Danish linguist Holger Pedersen, is a law of accentuation in Balto-Slavic languages which states that the stress was retracted from stressed medial syllables in paradigms with mobile accent. It was originally pr ...

and

Aeolic Greek In linguistics, Aeolic Greek (), also known as Aeolian (), Lesbian or Lesbic dialect, is the set of dialects of Ancient Greek spoken mainly in Boeotia; in Thessaly; in the Aegean island of Lesbos; and in the Greek colonies of Aeolis in Anatolia ...

barytonesis. The opposite, the accent shift to the last syllable is called oxytonesis.

References

External links

* Sound laws Figures of speech Phonology Stress (linguistics) {{phonology-stub