• • • Review: Word Stress (Accent), Penultimate Stress
Animate Pattern
This pattern is quite simple: nouns have the falling stress in all cases, however the last syllable in nom. sg. is always long and the same syllable can be short in other cases or can be long – it depends on the word.
Actually, that syllable had the same length in all cases some thousand years ago, but then it always lengthened in nom. sg. Two sub-patterns are marked as "short" and "long", but remember that the last syllable is always long in nom. sg.
[under construction]
cr̄v "worm" člān "member"
dīv "giant"
kūm "godfather"
mūž "husband"
Movable-inanimate Pattern
This is the most complex pattern, you'll see why. This is why dative is not strictly equal to locative in the Standard Croatian, that's why my "dative=locative" was a bit of a lie.
This pattern applies to some mi-nouns, and most i-nouns.
It's very similar to the animate pattern: nouns have the falling stress in all cases in sg. — except in the locative. In the loc. sg. there's a rising stress on the syllable before the last one. For short nouns like nos "nose" and noć "night" it's again the first syllable, since there are only two syllables in loc., but for longer nouns like bolest it's visible; hence the name "movable". The same motion happens in dat./loc./ins. and gen. pl.
As with the animate pattern, the last syllable in nom. is always long (nōs, bolēst, korāk); it's also long in acc. sg. since nom. sg. = acc. sg. for inanimate nouns. The same syllable can be short in other cases (nos-, bolest-) or can be long (korāk-) – it depends on the word. It's the same syllable that's stressed in loc. sg.
case mi-nouns i-nouns "short" "long" "short" "long" nom./acc. sg. nōs korāk nōć bolēst vlāst dat. sg. nosu korāku noći bolesti vlāsti other cases in sg. (same stress as dat. sg.) loc. sg. nòsu koráku nòći bolèsti vlásti nom. pl. nosovi korāci noći bolesti vlāsti other cases in pl. (same stress as nom. pl.) dat./loc./ins. pl. nosovima korácima nòćima bolèstima vlástima gen. pl. nosōvā korákā nòćī bolèstī vlástī
The pattern becomes obvious if you recall that á = ā + rising accent.
Common m-nouns in the "short" sub-group (a long vowel only in nom./acc. sg.) are:
brōd "ship"
brōj "number"
dōm "home"
govōr "speech"
krāj "end"; "part of country"
lēd "ice" lōv "hunt"
mēd "honey" mōst "bridge"
nōs "nose"
plōd "fruit"
rāj "heaven"
rōd "kin"
rōg "horn"
rōj "swarm"
slōj "layer"
sōk "juice"
spōj "connection"
strōj "machine"
znōj "sweat"
There are much more common m-nouns in the "long" sub-group (a long vowel in all cases) are:
bijēg "escape" bijēs "rage" brāk "marriage"
brīd "edge"
cīlj "target, finish line"
crijēp "roof tile" cvijēt "flower" dān "day"
dār "gift"
dūg "debt"
fēn "hair dryer" glās "voice"
gnjēv "wrath" grād "city"
gr̄b "emblem, coat of arms" hlād "shade"
hrām "temple"
kīp "statue"
klōr "chlorine"
klūb "club, association"
kljūn "beak"
krūg "circle"
līst "leaf"
lūk "bow, arch"
mīt "myth"
mlāz "jet, gush"
mrāk "dark"
njūh "sense of smell"
pār "pair, couple"
plēs "dance" plijēn "booty, spoil" prāh "powder"
rād "labor, work"
rēd "order" rēp "tail" rēz "cut" rāst "growth"
sjāj "glow, shine"
slūh "sense of hearing"
smijēh "laughter" splāv "raft"
spōl "sex, gender"
srām "shame"
stān "apartment"
strāh "fear"
strūk "waist"
šāl "scarf"
štīt "shield"
tīm "team"
tlāk "(air, water) pressure"
tōn "tone"
trāg "trail"
tr̄g "(city) square" tr̄n "thorn" vāl "wave"
vīd "eyesight"
vijēk "lifespan, century" vlāk "train"
vrāt "neck"
zīd "wall"
znāk "sign"
zrāk "air"
zūb "tooth"
zvūk "sound"
žār "cinder"
Most i-nouns belong to the "short" sub-group (e.g. nōć-noći, pēć-peći, lāž-laži, kōst-kosti...) but a few do belong to the "long" subgroup; the most common ones are:
bōl "pain"
glād "hunger"
hrīd "cliff"
kāp "drop (of water, oil...)"
korīst "benefit, utility"
māst "grease, fat"
nīt "thread"
pamēt "intelligence"
rijëč "word"
stvār "thing"
vijëst "news"
vlāst "authority, government"
Recall that the sequence ijë, such as in rijëč, is just a spelling tradition for jē, and the pronunciation is actually /rjēč/.
So, if you aim for the Standard pronunciation (or just "Štokavian" with all lengths), you should observe the difference nōć-noći vs. vlāst-vlāsti!
Some "core" i-nouns (that is, ones not derived with -ost) belong to the fixed stress pattern:
ljúbav "love"
obítelj "family"
smrt "death"
pústoš "wasteland, empty land"
ráskoš "splendor, luxury"
závist "envy"
You may note that all of them (except for smrt) have a rising stress in the nom., and that immediately indicates they are not in the movable-inanimate pattern, which predicts a falling stress in nom.
With Prepositions
When prepositions are found before such words in cases that do not have a rising stress (i.e. not in loc. sg.) the preposition is pronounced together with the word after as "one word", therefore, the falling stress "jumps" to the preposition and appears on its first syllable! For instance:
preko noći (gen.) pronounce as prekonoći (falling stress on pre-!)
na nos (acc.) pronounce as nanos (falling stress on na-!)
Note that this is not the same as na + pūt = /nàpūt/, where a new rising stress appears! Distinguishing such stress movements is without a doubt, the hardest thing to learn in Standard Croatian. I don't know it either, but I don't claim I speak Standard...
When prepositions come before nouns with rising stresses, the Standard pronunciation as usual, the stress does not move:
u noći (loc.) pronounce as /unòći/
u nosu (loc.) pronounce as /unòsu/
Updated 2013-03-12
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