Secondary Types of Pitch Accents of the Northern Aukštaitian Dialect of Panevėžys of the Lithuanian Language

Abstract

Abstract The Baltic languages remain of special interest for linguists because they contain many archaic features essential for the comparative research of Indo-European languages and reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European (Mikić 2014: 39). The Lithuanian prosodic system is characterized by free accent and two types of syllable accents (or tones) in the long stressed syllables. The stress is inherited from Indo-European and can fall on any syllable of a word, i. e. last, penultimate, antepenultimate etc. (Stundžia 2014: 12). In the Northern Aukštaitian dialect of Panevėžys of the Lithuanian Language, four types of syllable accents are possible in the long stressed syllables (more clearly heard in the diphthongs, less in the monophthongs): acute, circumflex, neoacute, neocircumflex (Garšva 1982: 65 ff.). These accents are positional allotones of two types of syllable accents: acute and circumflex. Two more types of accents are possible in strong syllables consisting of two central sounds: typical and atypical. Typical acute and circumflex accents are characteristic of verbs of non-iterative action and of “barytone” denominative words, atypical accents, with an emphasis on the second part of the stressed component, are characteristic of verbs of iterative action and of “oxytonic” denominative words (Kačiuškienė 2009: 34). The article focuses on results of the auditory and instrumental experiment and demonstrates different auditory and acoustic properties of the secondary types of pitch accents of the Northern Aukštaitian Dialect of Panevėžys of the Lithuanian Language.