Stress-Accent in Indo-Aryan

Abstract

In the phonological development of a language the shortening and loss of vowels are usually ascribed to the absence of stress-accent on the syllables containing those vowels. When in their study of Prakrit Phonology Drs. Pischel and Jacobi found numerous instances of the loss and shortening of vowels, they explained them in the light of stress-accent. The one supposed that the musical accent of Vedic also acted like stress, while the other assumed that after the pitch-accent had died out, a stress-accent developed in Sanskrit and Prakrit which was placed on the penultimate or ante-penultimate syllable as in Latin. Now about the nature, history, and even the very existence of stress-accent in PI or its subsequent stages nothing certain is known. The Prātiśākhyas and Śiksās are silent on this point. The reason of their silence may be that perhaps the stress-accent originally fell on the same syllable as the pitch-accent and was not strong enough to draw attention. The following remarks of Dr. P. Giles and Professor D. Jones lend great support to the probability of this surmise:—