Lithuanian priegaidė: a syllable or a word feature?

The place of priegaidė ‘syllable intonation’ in the phonological system of Lithuanian remains uncertain; so does its typological peculiarity. The article aims to discover the specific nature of this phonological feature taking into consideration the opposition between phonemic (inflectional) and sy...

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Main Author: Aleksey Andronov
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Vilnius University Press 2022-11-01
Series:Vilnius University Open Series
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.zurnalai.vu.lt/open-series/article/view/29771
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author Aleksey Andronov
author_facet Aleksey Andronov
author_sort Aleksey Andronov
collection DOAJ
description The place of priegaidė ‘syllable intonation’ in the phonological system of Lithuanian remains uncertain; so does its typological peculiarity. The article aims to discover the specific nature of this phonological feature taking into consideration the opposition between phonemic (inflectional) and syllabemic (isolating) language types. Phonetically similar prosodic means in these languages show noticeable functional differences determined by the structure of the meaningful units they belong to. Inflectional languages develop a system of suprasegmental phonological features, which integrate parts of their normally composite units, whereas isolating languages usually do with monosyllabic words (naturally, without stress) and monolithic morphemes with tones as distinctive features. Standard Lithuanian has priegaidė only on the stressed syllables, therefore its system can be called polyaccentual (not polytonic), i. e. possessing several types of accent. The dialects, however, show examples of relevant priegaidė besides syllables with primary stress. In this, more general, system priegaidė functions as a suprasegmental feature of a morpheme (exposed to fading in weak positions). The traditional differentiation of syllables according to priegaidė is secondary: a syllable provides conditions for the realization of priegaidė, but being part of the plane of expression, not connected with meaning, the syllable itself does not need differentiation.
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spelling doaj.art-e5f2d61a99aa4ba4b7f2e1750c85e4102022-12-22T04:15:57ZengVilnius University PressVilnius University Open Series2669-05352022-11-0110.15388/Baltistikos_platybese.2022.1Lithuanian priegaidė: a syllable or a word feature?Aleksey Andronov0Rossijskaja nacionalʹnaja biblioteka The place of priegaidė ‘syllable intonation’ in the phonological system of Lithuanian remains uncertain; so does its typological peculiarity. The article aims to discover the specific nature of this phonological feature taking into consideration the opposition between phonemic (inflectional) and syllabemic (isolating) language types. Phonetically similar prosodic means in these languages show noticeable functional differences determined by the structure of the meaningful units they belong to. Inflectional languages develop a system of suprasegmental phonological features, which integrate parts of their normally composite units, whereas isolating languages usually do with monosyllabic words (naturally, without stress) and monolithic morphemes with tones as distinctive features. Standard Lithuanian has priegaidė only on the stressed syllables, therefore its system can be called polyaccentual (not polytonic), i. e. possessing several types of accent. The dialects, however, show examples of relevant priegaidė besides syllables with primary stress. In this, more general, system priegaidė functions as a suprasegmental feature of a morpheme (exposed to fading in weak positions). The traditional differentiation of syllables according to priegaidė is secondary: a syllable provides conditions for the realization of priegaidė, but being part of the plane of expression, not connected with meaning, the syllable itself does not need differentiation. https://www.zurnalai.vu.lt/open-series/article/view/29771phonologylinguistic typologyphonemesyllabemesyllablesuprasegmentals
spellingShingle Aleksey Andronov
Lithuanian priegaidė: a syllable or a word feature?
Vilnius University Open Series
phonology
linguistic typology
phoneme
syllabeme
syllable
suprasegmentals
title Lithuanian priegaidė: a syllable or a word feature?
title_full Lithuanian priegaidė: a syllable or a word feature?
title_fullStr Lithuanian priegaidė: a syllable or a word feature?
title_full_unstemmed Lithuanian priegaidė: a syllable or a word feature?
title_short Lithuanian priegaidė: a syllable or a word feature?
title_sort lithuanian priegaide a syllable or a word feature
topic phonology
linguistic typology
phoneme
syllabeme
syllable
suprasegmentals
url https://www.zurnalai.vu.lt/open-series/article/view/29771
work_keys_str_mv AT alekseyandronov lithuanianpriegaideasyllableorawordfeature