Two possible fonological explanationsof the prosodic system in the speech of Cavtat

Abstract

Today’s speech in Cavtat is more representative of the Dubrovnik sub-dialect than today’s urbanized and somewhat mixed speech in the city of Dubrovnik itself. Older dialectology maintained that in the Dubrovnik sub-dialect the newštokavian short-ascending accent in the penultimate position in front of the short concluding vocal is transformed into the long-ascending accent (vòda>vóda), while in the eastern part of the sub-dialect is changed in the same position of trisyllabic and polysyllabic words into the short-descending accent (dobròta>dobrȍta). The article reveals that what we have here are two specific allophones of the shortascending prosodem (vǒda, dobrőta).