Ivšić's Law
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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 Attested language, unattested, linguistic reconstruction, reconstructed proto-language of all Slavic languages. It represents Slavic speech approximately ...
accent law named after
Stjepan Ivšić Stjepan Ivšić (; 13 August 1884 – 14 January 1962) was a Croatian linguist, Slavicist, and accentologist. Biography Ivšić was born on 13 August 1884 in Orahovica. After finishing primary school in Orahovica, he attended secondary schoo ...
(1911) and Christian Schweigaard Stang (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 yers, 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 precur ...
. 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 of
Čakavian Chakavian or Čakavian (, , , proper name: or own name: ''čokovski, čakavski, čekavski'') is a South Slavic languages, South Slavic supradialect or language spoken by Croats along the Adriatic coast, in the historical regions of Dalmati ...
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'' (
Čakavian Chakavian or Čakavian (, , , proper name: or own name: ''čokovski, čakavski, čekavski'') is a South Slavic languages, South Slavic supradialect or language spoken by Croats along the Adriatic coast, in the historical regions of Dalmati ...
''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, and had the effect of partially reversing it. Compare: * PSl. *''kȁrlju'' 'king' (originally the name of
Charlemagne Charlemagne ( ; 2 April 748 – 28 January 814) was List of Frankish kings, King of the Franks from 768, List of kings of the Lombards, King of the Lombards from 774, and Holy Roman Emperor, Emperor of what is now known as the Carolingian ...
) > (Dybo's law) *''karlju̍'' > (Ivšić's law) ''*kãrlju'' > Čakavian ''krãlj''.


Notes


References

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Ivsic's Law Balto-Slavic sound laws Slavic phonological features