On the phonological system of modern standard serbo-croatian

Abstract

The investigations conducted so far of the phonological structure of Standard Serbo-Croatian facilitate now a rounded synthesis. The tasks can be grouped as follows: the determination of the language type under consideration (A), the establishment of the inventory of phonemes (B), the statement of reasons for or against the inclusion of individual doubtful cases (C), the discussion of problems relevant to one of the possible language types only (D), the establishment of the prosodic structure (E), the discussion of the DF’s that are engaged (F), the analysis of the distributional properties (G). As in any idiom, so in Serbo-Croatian it is necessary to distinguish the particular spheres of usage (communicative, stylistic, civilizational — bearing in mind that the first is also the most 'representative), but the existence of national variants and their interference impose some specific problems as well. Out of the possible types, three are taken into consideration: the Croatian variant, the Ekavian area of the Serbian variant, and the so-called Classical Serbo-Cror.tian; any other possible (sub-)type is only a combination of these elements. The inventory consists of two parts: on the one hand are the stable, doubtless, functionally very well leaded phonemes; on the other are these phonemes whose phonematic status can be endangered by the subjective treatm ent of individual authors or by the objective facts (weak load of the oppositions in general, or in a particular type or sphere, unidirectional character of the oppositions). Besides, the Serbo-Croatian phonemes differ in the scope of phonetic realizations. A detailed analysis shows that Serbo-Croatian affricates and the so-called mouillees cannot be treated as- phoneme sequences, with the exception of the affricate [3), There is no doubt about the phonematic status of /f/ and /r/ (although the opposition is unidirectional only) and /i/ and /i/ - earlier investigations have failed to account' for all facts. Modern Ijekavian Standard (in any case in the Croatian variant) has, as distinct from the classical language, a separate phoneme (a diphthong) as the result of the Old Serbo-Croatian long »jat«. This phoneme enters a unidirectional opposition with the triphonemic sequence /iie/. Like the inherent features, so the prosodic features of length and rising tone are distinctive, thus increasing the number of phonemes from 31 (32) to 49 (51). The identification of phonemes according to DF’s is correct provided the syntagmatic and paradigmatic axes aire rigidly kept separate and if the priority of acoustic definitions is respected (because of both reasons, co n so n an tly is replaced wiith obstruentness). The so-called syllafoicity cannot figure on the phonematic level. As a difference from earlier interpretations, the Serbo-Croatian phonemes engage the DF of tenseness. The distribution of phonemes is notably free, while the limitations imposed upon some phonemes are linked with the DF’s that determine them.