The Žemaitian Accent Retraction as a Typological Parallel to Olander’s Mobility Law

Abstract

ABSTRACT In his 2009 monograph, Thomas Olander presented a new solution to the old problem of the origin of Balto-Slavic mobile accent paradigms. According to his “mobility law,” pre-Proto-Balto-Slavic words accented on the final mora became phonologically unaccented and automatically received ictus on the first syllable of the phonological word, as in *longós > *ˌlāˀngas > Lith. lángas, CS *lǫ̑gъ. The theory is supported by two typological parallels from contemporary Slavic dialects (Podravina and Zaonežje). However, a parallel can also be found in the Baltic material: the Žemaitian accent retraction, a phenomenon well described by Lithuanian dialectologists, shares some features with Olander’s mobility law and the above-mentioned parallels in Slavic, such as a peculiar phonetic realization of the retracted accent, retraction to the first syllable of the phonological word, partial neutralization of tonal oppositions under the retracted accent, and possible origin due to language contact. Moreover, a closer examination of the irregularities in the Žemaitian process could shed some more light on the origins of at least some of the exceptions to the mobility law, as well as of the somewhat different outcomes of this law in Baltic and Slavic.