Rasprave Instituta za Hrvatski Jezik i Jezikoslovlje (Jan 2013)
On the accentuation of l-participles of the type <i>neslъ</i> in western South Slavic
Abstract
The article analyzes the accentuation of western South Slavic l-participles of verbal stems ending in an occlusive that are formed by adding the formant *-l- directly to the stem, e.g. *nes-lъ, Croatian nȅsao, Slovene nesel. Data from Slovene, Čakavian, Kajkavian and Štokavian dialects are compared and discussed against the background of late Proto-Slavic and early dialectal accentual and phonological changes. The operation of accentological changes such as Dybo’s law, Stang’s law and the rise of the neocircumflex, as well as the reduction of weak jers caused alternations in tone, vowel-length and position of the ictus. These alterations could be analogically eliminated or extended at different times and in different areas during the linguistic history of western South Slavic, thus causing the rise of some of the earliest isoglosses in the area in which western South Slavic is spoken.
