1973/12/01 by Paul Kiparsky · 79 citations
Arts and Humanities · #Linguistics and language evolution #Syntax, Semantics, Linguistic Variation #Lexicography and Language Studies #Stress (linguistics) #Linguistics #Indo-European languages #History #Philosophy
paper · doi:10.2307/412064
published in Language 49(4), 794-849 (Linguistic Society of America)
openalex publication_date 1973/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/16
In Indo-European languages with mobile paradigmatic accent, fixed oxytones and movable athematic stems are accented by the same rule. When applied to syllables as accentual units, this rule generates the Sanskrit accent patterns. When applied to moras, it generates the Greek accent patterns—including, as a special case of mobility, the paradigmatic alternation of acute and circumflex. A modification of the the same rule accounts for the extension of mobility to originally oxytone - o - and - ā -stems in Bal to-Slavic, and for the rise of the Balto-Slavic acute and circumflex accents.