Phonetic Reconstruction of Tautovocalic Diphthongs as a Problem of Linguistic Textology (In Nyegoshʼs Epic “Stephen the Little”)

Abstract

The author of this paper explains the interpretation of the diphthongs in the epic ”Stephen the Little” by Serbian poet Petar II Petrovich Njegos from the epoch of romanticism. They are: а) tautovocalic diphthongs in the same word, b) tautovocalic diphthongs at the word boundary and its enclitics, c) tautovocalic diphthongs at the word boundary and its proclitics, d) tautovocalic diphthongs at the boundary of two phonetic words, i.e. in sandhi. The analysis comprises the epic ”The Mountain Wreath” and the epic ”The Ray of the Microcosm”, and some of Njegos`s poems, аs well as examples from Serbian folk poems published in the first collection of folk poems ”Маlа prostonarodnya slavenо‑serbska pěsnarica” by Vuk Stefanovich Karadjich.