The Accent

Serbian has four accents which occur on vowels. They can be long or short, with rising or falling tones. Thus a rising accent can be either long-rising (') or short- -rising (`), and a faxling accent can be eithei long-falling (~) or short-falling (``).

The long-rising accent (') is long, the tone of the voice rising very high before the beginning of the next syllable:
```
	ruka 	(hand)
	vrata 	(door)		
	pismo 	(letter)
	
```
The short-rising accent (`) is short, the tone of the voice rising slightly:
```
	zzena 	(woman)
	pero 	(pen)		
	voda 	(water)
	
```
The long-rising accent (') is long, the tone of the voice falling sharply:
```
	sin 	(son)		
	zub 	(tooth)	
	rad 	(work)
	
```
The short-falling accent (") is very shorr, the tone of the voice falling abruptly:
```
	sport 	(sport)		
	brat 	(brother)	
	hleb 	(bread)
	
```
A word can have only one of the four accents.
a. Monosyllabic words always have a falling accerit, long of short:
```
	sin 	(son)		
	rad 	(work)
	brat 	(brother)	
	hleb 	(bread)
	
```
b. Disyllabic words may have any of the four accents on the first syllable, and none on the second:
```
	pismo 	(letter)
	pivo 	(beer)		
	zzena 	(woman)
	soba 	(room)	
	
```
c. Polysyllabic words may have any of the four accents on any syllable, but none on the final, which is never accented. The inteimmediste syllabics may have only a short-rising or a long-rising accent:
```
	republika 	(republic)
	Beograd 	(Belgiade)	
	gospodin 	(gentleman)
	ccokolada 	(chocolate)
	trideset 	(thirty)
	Amerikanac 	(American)
	
```
Unaccented syllables are either short or long. A long syllable is marked by vowel length (-) which occurs only after the accentcd syllable. There may be several lengths in one word.
```
	januar 		(January)	
	dvadeset 	(twenty)		
	Jugoslavija 	(Yugoslavia)		
	
```
There are some words which are not accented. These are: prepositions, conjunctions, the negative particle ne and enclitics.

lpv@umiacs.umd.edu