Martien Heptaglot Senior Member Netherlands martienvanwanrooij.n Joined 7106 days ago 134 posts - 148 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, German, Spanish, Turkish, Italian, French Studies: Portuguese, Serbo-Croatian, Latin, Swedish, Arabic (Written)
| Message 1 of 5 18 February 2012 at 7:55pm | IP Logged |
I have read a lot about the falling and rising accents in Serbian, the general advice is not to worry to much about this difference as long as the difference between short and long vowels is okay. However just curiosity I would like to find some sound files where the distinction can be heared. For instance it is sayed that víno has a long rising vowel so I wonder how it is done? Does the first syllable as if it were a question word like "Wee?" and then followed by "not" without the final t?
And what about a word like "tresao" which obviously has a long falling first syllable? something like "tray! sah oh"? I know that Serbian is not a tone language like a lot of Asian languages but in Asian languages tones are often explained as "it sounds like a question, is sounds like a firm statement" but I never saw any kind of explanation like this for Serbian. Any help will be welcome and as said before it will not disencourage me from learning Serbian :)
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Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6440 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese
| Message 2 of 5 18 February 2012 at 8:14pm | IP Logged |
Are Pitch Contour and Quantity Independent Distinctive Features in Bosnian Serbian? mentions that Serbian has pitch-based minimal pairs.
While it doesn't shed light directly on your question, you might enjoy this paper on Belgrade Phonology as well.
I haven't managed to find sound clips, unfortunately.
Edited by Volte on 18 February 2012 at 8:14pm
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Martien Heptaglot Senior Member Netherlands martienvanwanrooij.n Joined 7106 days ago 134 posts - 148 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, German, Spanish, Turkish, Italian, French Studies: Portuguese, Serbo-Croatian, Latin, Swedish, Arabic (Written)
| Message 3 of 5 18 February 2012 at 8:28pm | IP Logged |
Thank you Volte, I should have added one little trick I tried for myself:
Since I guess the difference in vino and tresao could be something like vee-EE-no vs TRAY-ay-sao, I started good old windows sound recorder and I said two imaginary Serbian words viDIno and TREdesao and than said them again but dropping the D.. I listened carefully and I could hear how viDIno and TREdesao were stressed but viIno and TREesao, although I had pronounced them myself, still sounded for me just like two words with a stressed long first syllable. Let me repeat again it is just curiosity about how it works
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Merv Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5274 days ago 414 posts - 749 votes Speaks: English*, Serbo-Croatian* Studies: Spanish, French
| Message 4 of 5 18 February 2012 at 11:36pm | IP Logged |
To be honest Martien, most people will not notice the pitch distinction in rapid speech. The minimal pairs you
need to know are things like:
lȕk (onion) vs. lûk (bow, as in bow & arrow)
grȁd (hail) vs. grâd (city)
sȁm (I am) vs. sâm (alone)
sèlo (village) vs. sélo (village party)
In each of the above pairs the distinction is between a short vowel vs. long vowel in the first and second words,
respectively.
What's more worth your time is learning accent length distinctions in the various case declensions, as well as
injected vowels (in the genitive), vowel lengthening in the genitive, and cryptic consonants (you can see this with
the word for "heart").
For example:
Singular | Plural
Nominitive
Genitive
Move (noun, as in moving into a new house)
sèlidba | sèlidbe
sèlidbe | sèlidābā
Woman
žèna | žène
žène | žénā
Box
kùtija | kùtije
kùtije | kȕtījā
Bone
kôst | kȍsti
kôsti | kòstijū
Bridge
môst | mòstovi
mȍsti | mòstova
Man
čȍvek | ljȗdi
čȍveka | ljȗdi
Sun
sȗnce | sȗnca
sȗnca | sȕnācā
Victim
žȑtva | žȑtve
žȑtve | žȑtāvā
Carpet
tépih | tépisi
tépiha | tépihā
Hostage
tálac | táoci
táoca | tálācā
Heart
sȑce | sȑca
sȑca | sȑdācā
Grain/Kernel
zȑno | zȑna
zȑna | zȓnā
Edited by Merv on 18 February 2012 at 11:53pm
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Volte Tetraglot Senior Member Switzerland Joined 6440 days ago 4474 posts - 6726 votes Speaks: English*, Esperanto, German, Italian Studies: French, Finnish, Mandarin, Japanese
| Message 5 of 5 19 February 2012 at 12:14am | IP Logged |
Martien wrote:
Thank you Volte, I should have added one little trick I tried for myself:
Since I guess the difference in vino and tresao could be something like vee-EE-no vs TRAY-ay-sao, I started good old windows sound recorder and I said two imaginary Serbian words viDIno and TREdesao and than said them again but dropping the D.. I listened carefully and I could hear how viDIno and TREdesao were stressed but viIno and TREesao, although I had pronounced them myself, still sounded for me just like two words with a stressed long first syllable. Let me repeat again it is just curiosity about how it works |
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Perhaps it's worth asking on rhinospike or forvo?
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