Editing Pitch-accent language (section)

====Serbo-Croatian====
{{see also|Shtokavian accentuation}}

The Neoštokavian dialect used for the basis of standard Bosnian, Croatian and Serbian distinguishes four types of pitch accents: short falling (ȅ), short rising (è), long falling (ȇ), and long rising (é). There are also unaccented vowels: long (ē) and short (e). The accent is said to be relatively free, as it can be manifested on any syllable except the last. The long accents are realized by pitch change within the long vowel; the short ones are realized by the pitch difference from the subsequent syllable.<ref name="Smiljanic">[http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0505b&L=linguist&P=734 Lexical, Pragmatic, and Positional Effects on Prosody in Two Dialects of Croatian and Serbian, Rajka Smiljanic] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070818003705/http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0505b&L=linguist&P=734 |date=18 August 2007 }}, Routledge, {{ISBN|0-415-97117-9}}</ref>

Accent alternations are very frequent in inflectional paradigms by both types of accent and placement in the word (the so-called "mobile paradigms", which were present in the [[Proto-Indo-European language|PIE]] itself but became much more widespread in Proto-Balto-Slavic). Different inflected forms of the same lexeme can exhibit all four accents: {{lang|sh|lònac}} 'pot' (nominative sg.), {{lang|sh|lónca}} (genitive sg.), {{lang|sh|lȏnci}} (nominative pl.), {{lang|sh|lȍnācā}} (genitive pl.).{{Citation needed|date=September 2011}}

Restrictions on the distribution of the accent depend on the position of the syllable but also on its quality, as not every kind of accent is manifested in every syllable.{{Citation needed|date=September 2011}}
# A falling tone generally occurs in monosyllabic words or the first syllable of a word ({{lang|sh|pȃs}} 'belt', {{lang|sh|rȏg}} 'horn'; {{lang|sh|bȁba}} 'old woman', {{lang|sh|lȃđa}} 'river ship'; {{lang|sh|kȕćica}} 'small house', [[Karlovac|Kȃrlovac]]). The only exception to this rule are the interjections, i.e., words uttered in the state of excitement ({{lang|sh|ahȁ}}, {{lang|sh|ohȏ}}){{Citation needed|date=September 2011}}
# A rising tone generally occurs in any syllable of a word except the ultimate and never in monosyllabic words ({{lang|sh|vòda}} 'water', {{lang|sh|lúka}} 'harbour'; {{lang|sh|lìvada}} 'meadow', {{lang|sh|lúpānje}} 'slam'; {{lang|sh|siròta}} 'female orphan', {{lang|sh|počétak}} 'beginning'; {{lang|sh|crvotòčina}} 'wormhole', {{lang|sh|oslobođénje}} 'liberation').{{Citation needed|date=September 2011}}

Thus, monosyllables generally have falling tone, and polysyllabic words generally have falling or rising tone on the first syllable and rising in all the other syllables except the last. The tonal opposition rising vs. falling is generally possible only in the first accented syllable of polysyllabic words, but the opposition by length, long vs. short, is possible even in the nonaccented syllable and the post-accented syllable (but not in the preaccented position).{{Citation needed|date=September 2011}}

[[Proclitic]]s (clitics that latch on to a following word), on the other hand, can "steal" a falling tone (but not a rising tone) from the following monosyllabic or disyllabic words (as seen in the examples {{IPA|/vîdiːm/→/ně‿vidiːm/, /ʒěliːm/→/ne‿ʒěliːm/}}). The stolen accent is always short and may end up being either falling or rising on the proclitic. That phenomenon is obligatory in Neoštokavian idiom and therefore in all three standard languages, but it is often lost in spoken dialects because of the influence of other dialects (such as in [[Zagreb]] because of the influence of [[Kajkavian dialect]]).<ref name="Brown">[http://seelrc.org:8080/grammar/mainframe.jsp?nLanguageID=1 A Handbook of Bosnian, Serbian and Croatian, Wayles Brown and Theresa Alt, SEELRC 2004]</ref>

{| class=wikitable
!|
!colspan=2|'''in isolation'''||colspan=2|'''with proclitic'''
|-
|rowspan=2|'''rising'''
|{{IPA|/ʒěliːm/}}||''I want''
|{{IPA|/ne‿ʒěliːm/}}||''I don't want''
|-
|{{IPA|/nemɔɡǔːtɕnɔːst/}}||''inability''
|{{IPA|/u‿nemɔɡǔːtɕnɔsti/}}||''not being able to''
|-
|rowspan=4|'''falling'''
|[[Nominative|N]]: {{IPA|/zǐːma/}}, [[Accusative|A]]: {{IPA|/zîːmu/}}||''winter''
|{{IPA|/û‿ziːmu/}} (A)||''in the winter''
|-
|{{IPA|/vîdiːm/}}||''I see''
|{{IPA|/ně‿vidiːm/}}||''I can't see''
|-
|N, A: {{IPA|/ɡrâːd/}}||''city''
|{{IPA|/û‿ɡraːd/}} (A)
|''to the city'' (stays falling)
|-
|N: {{IPA|/ʃûma/}}||''forest''
|{{IPA|/ǔ‿ʃumi/}} ([[Locative|L]])
|''in the forest'' (becomes rising)
|}