Serbo-Croatian accent retraction : its course and character in the dialect of Dubrovnik

Abstract

Serbo-Croatian Accent Retraction: Its Course and Character in the Dialect of Dubrovnik investigates the evolution of the place of stress in the history of Serbo-Croatian accentuation. The dialect of Dubrovnik, which belongs to the Neo_tokavian dialect group, is characterised, like the Serbo-Croatian standard, by the retraction of stress, which is more commonly known as the accent retraction, and offers written records which allow for its continuous study in between the 16th and the 19th c. The research is focused on the older stages of Serbo-Croatian accent retraction, and in particular on the state of its development in the 18th c. Dubrovnik, as reflected in the Dizionario of Ardelio Della Bella (1728), which is compared with different records written between the 15th and the 19th c. and, likewise, is compared with the system of codification by Vuk Stef. Karad_ic and _uro Dani_ic, which became the basis for the Serbo-Croatian standard. A case is made for a number of separate retractions which took place at different points in time: one from open final syllables, one from closed final syllables and one from word-internal syllables. The results corroborate the relative chronology developed by Pavle Ivic on the basis of comparative dialectal data.