Saturday, May 4, 2019

De Saussure's law

Rua:


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'''De Saussure's law''', also '''Saussure's law''', is a [[sound law]] named after linguist [[Ferdinand de Saussure]]. It explains the four accentual classes of [[Lithuanian language|Lithuanian]] has having arisen from a simpler system with only two classes.

==Overview==
Early Lithuanian inherited an inflectional system from [[Proto-Balto-Slavic]], in which particular words could have either fixed accent (accent on the same syllable of the stem in all forms) or mobile accent (accent on the first syllable of the stem or last syllable of the ending, determined by the ending in question). According to De Saussure's law, the accent moved rightward one syllable, if the syllable it was currently on did not have the [[Proto-Balto-Slavic#Accent and the acute register|acute register]], but the next syllable did. Thus, the effect was that an acuted syllable "pulled" the accent rightward onto itself, but this process was prevented if the previous syllable also was acuted.

The rightward shift caused by De Saussure's law disrupted the original accentuation patterns of words, and caused a split of the original two-class system of fixed and mobile into four classes:
# Originally fixed-accent words where the accent was originally on an acuted syllable (thus preventing De Saussure's law entirely) or where it was shifted onto a syllable that was still part of the stem. Such words retained a fixed accent on all forms, possibly one syllable to the right relative to its original position.
# Originally fixed-accent words where the accent was on the last syllable of the stem, and this was not on an acuted syllable. The accent was drawn onto endings that had the acute, while it remained in place where endings did not have the acute. This resulted in a paradigm with the accent switching between the last syllable of the stem and the first syllable of the ending.
# Originally mobile-accent words where the accent was originally on an acuted syllable in the stem-accented forms, or where it was shifted onto a syllable that was still part of the stem. These words came to have forms with accent on a first or second syllable, alternating with forms with accent on the ending. The ending-accented forms already had word-final accent and couldn't move it any further rightwards, so these were not affected.
# Originally two-syllable mobile-accented words where the accent was not on an acuted syllable in the stem-accented forms. The accent was again drawn onto the endings when they were acuted. Ending-accented forms remained unaffected.

Lithuanian later lost all effects of the acute in unaccented syllables, while it became the falling accent of modern Lithuanian in accented syllables. The original acuteness of some syllables (or lack of it) can still be determined from modern forms, based on which accent class words are in.

==Comparison with Dybo's law==
[[Dybo's law]] is a sound law very similar to De Saussure's that affected [[Proto-Slavic]]. Like De Saussure's law, it caused a rightward shift of the accent from non-acuted syllables and a split in the original accentual paradigms. There are some differences, however:
* Dybo's law shifted the accent rightward regardless of what was in the next syllable, whereas De Saussure's law shifted it only when it was acuted.
* Dybo's law was blocked in mobile-accented words. Such words never had an acute in the first syllable as a result of [[Meillet's law]], but they nonetheless retained the initial accent. Consequently, there was only a split into three paradigms, with the fixed-accented words splitting into paradigms ''a'' and ''b'', but the mobile-accented words remaining unified under paradigm ''c''.

[[Category:Lithuanian language]]
[[Category:Sound laws]]


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