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