Re: [phoNet] Re: Lithuanian/Russian: FIXED

Juozas wrote:

> I don't think something

particularly Lithuanian should be searched for in

> here. Speaking any

language that has words with certain phonetic elements

> leading to

ambiguity, a person may want to be perfectly clear, so he may

> stress the

needed syllable as strong as he wants if it helps. So one can

> stress the

"oo" in "vyroo" much more than the first syllable which is in

> fact the

only one that can bear stress. Isn't it only a kind of "logical

>

stress"?

Well, may be the kind of stress you described is just yet another type of stress. I still hope that phonological stress my companion mentioned exists somewhere in time and place.

>  > - what type

could this new stress be in the terms of LH:HL contours

> > opposition:

rasing intonation (circumflex), falling intonation (acute),

> >

something third?

> If marked (and it shouldn't be), it would be rasing

intonation

> just because
> the last stressed syllable in Lithuanian

is always said to have rasing

> intonation. There are some unexplainable

exceptions, eg the last

> syllable of
> sg and pl dative case is

always stressed and marked with an acute sign.

> Maybe there is an

explanation but, frankly, I think few things are more

> inconsistent than

Lithuanian phonetics.

Yes, OPEN phonologically long (not historically long yet contracted like a in taikà) final syllables, if stressed, bear circumflexed accent in standard Lithuanian. Acute intonation on the last CLOSED syllable with historically long nucleus is not an exception - it's inescapable (and I don't know putative explanation despite de Saussure's, Kuryłowicz's and Stang's contribution). Like any other really great thing, Lithuanian has it's own (first) hidden harmony.

Acute intonation on a final long syllable is indeed impossible in standard Lithuanian, but I asked the question having in mind rather nonstandard phonologic situation (an innovation?).

> The whole language should be
> rationally

reformed and the process started in some fields.

By practical reasons, some languages from time to time suffer from re-catechization, the linguists being the only sufferer.

Sergei