Ivšić's law, also Stang's law or Stang-Ivšić's law, is a

Common Slavic Proto-Slavic (abbreviated PSl., PS.; also called Common Slavic or Common Slavonic) is the unattested, reconstructed proto-language of all Slavic languages. It represents Slavic speech approximately from the 2nd millennium B.C. through the 6th ...

accent law named after

Stjepan Ivšić Stjepan Ivšić (; 13 August 1884 – 14 January 1962) was a Croatian linguist, Slavic specialist, and accentologist. Biography After finishing primary school in Orahovica, he attended secondary school in Osijek and Požega. At the Faculty of Phi ...

(1911) and

Christian Schweigaard Stang Christian Schweigaard Stang (15 March 1900 – 2 July 1977) was a Norwegian linguist, Slavicist and Balticist, professor in Balto-Slavic languages at the University of Oslo from 1938 until shortly before his death. He specialized in the study of ...

(1957); the two linguists independently discovered the law in those years. The law explains the origin of the Proto-Slavic neoacute accent occurring in the accent paradigm ''b'' as retractive from the following syllable.

Retraction from stressed weak yer

During the Late Common Slavic period, the short vowels *ь and *ъ (known as

yer A yer is either of two letters in Cyrillic alphabets, ъ (ѥръ, ''jerŭ'') and ь (ѥрь, ''jerĭ''). The Glagolitic alphabet used, as respective counterparts, the letters (Ⱏ) and (Ⱐ). They originally represented phonemically the "ult ...

s, also written *ĭ *ŭ) developed into "strong" and "weak" variants according to

Havlík's law Havlík's law is a Slavic rhythmic law dealing with the reduced vowels (known as yers or jers) in Proto-Slavic. It is named for the Czech scholar Antonín Havlík (1855–1925), who determined the pattern in 1889. While Havlík's law was a precurso ...

. The accented weak variants could no longer carry an accent which was thus retracted onto the preceding syllable. That syllable gained a rising ''neoacute'' accent. It is denoted with a tilde diacritic ⟨◌̃⟩ on historically "long" syllables (*a, *i, *u, *y, *ě, *ę, *ǫ, *VR), and with a grave accent ⟨◌̀⟩ on historically "short" syllables (*e, *o, *ь, *ъ). In conservative

Serbo-Croatian dialects The dialects of Serbo-Croatian include the vernacular forms of Serbo-Croatian as a whole or as part of its standard varieties: Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin and Serbian. They are part of the dialect continuum of South Slavic languages that j ...

Čakavian Chakavian or Čakavian (, , , sh-Latn, čakavski proper name: or own name: ''čokovski, čakavski, čekavski'') is a South Slavic regiolect or language spoken primarily by Croats along the Adriatic coast, in the historical regions of Dalmat ...

and Old Štokavian (e.g. Slavonian) this neoacute is preserved as a separate tone, distinct from the old acute and circumflex. Ivšić designated the long neoacute in Čakavian with the same circumflex symbol as the Lithuanian circumflex, due to their phonetic similarity. Compare: PSl. *pirstu̍ > Common Slavic *pьrstъ̍ > *pь̃rstъ (

''pr̃st'', Russian ''perst'', N pl ''perstý'')

Retraction from medial circumflexed syllables

Retraction also occurred on medial long circumflexed (i.e., non-acuted) syllables; for example, on verbs in *''-iti''. On the basis of the attested forms ''nȍsīte'', ''vrãtite'' Ivšić assumed the earlier forms ''*nosȋte'', ''*vortȋte'', which would also yield the neoacute by retracting the long circumflex accent onto the preceding syllable. This retraction is uncontroversial if the preceding syllable is long; in the case of short preceding syllables, it is generally accepted, but someE.g. argue that it is analogical to the long neoacute in individual (mostly West Slavic) languages. Additionally, Ivšić's law explains the acute accent on certain ''jā''-stem nouns such as ''sũša'' (Slavonian Štokavian dialects), ''vȍlja'' (with shortened neoacute). Borrowings from other languages show that Ivšić's law operated after

Dybo's law Dybo's law, or Dybo–Illich-Svitych's law, is a Common Slavic accent law named after Soviet accentologists Vladimir Dybo and Vladislav Illich-Svitych. It was posited to explain the occurrence of nouns and verbs in Slavic languages which are inva ...

, and had the effect of partially reversing it. Compare: * PSl. *''kȁrlju'' 'king' (originally the name of

Charlemagne Charlemagne ( , ) or Charles the Great ( la, Carolus Magnus; german: Karl der Große; 2 April 747 – 28 January 814), a member of the Carolingian dynasty, was King of the Franks from 768, King of the Lombards from 774, and the first Holy ...

) > (Dybo's law) *''karlju̍'' > (Ivšić's law) ''*kãrlju'' > Čakavian ''krãlj''.

Notes

References

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ivsic's Law Proto-Slavic language Sound laws