An Italian cellist’s journey into Serbian Language — Lesson 19

Phonetic transformations (Part 9)

Welcome back to a new Serbian language lesson. Today we finally complete our journey into phonetic transformations! The next step after this will be to go back, revise what done until now, and face the exercise chapter at the end of this unit.

In the seminal book Gramatika srpskog jezika by Ivan Klajn, these and the “moveable A” are classified under the same group as “Vocal Alternations”.

1. Phonetic transformations (Part 9)
2. Assimilation of vowels
3. Dissimilation of vowels “E” and “O”
4. Moveable vowels
5. Bottom line

Assimilation of vowels

The assimilation of vowels happens when two different vowels end up next to each other. This prompts them to become equal, after which one of the two falls. It mostly occurs in possessive pronouns such as мој, твој, свој, који (mine, yours, his, which) that, in the past, would have an expanded form in the genitive singular case: мојега, твојега, својега, којега.

Subsequently, the ј between the two vowels fell out of use, bringing in contact the vowels е and о. The е got assimilated to the о generating forms such as моога, from which the modern forms derive: мога, твога, свога, etc …

This transformation also involves words that, as we saw in a previous lesson, went through the transformation of the л in о, such as сто (IT: tavolo; EN: table) whose evolution path was стол > стоо > сто. Other examples include со (IT: sale; EN: salt) and соко (IT: falco; EN: hawk), among others.

Dissimilation of vowels “E” and “O”

There where, before, we had two different vowels becoming the same, causing the fall of one of the two, here we have two equal vowels that differentiate themselves. This is mainly found in certain case endings and depends on the kind of consonant preceding them, whether it is a palatal or non-palatal one.

Let’s recap what consonants are palatals (предњонепчани). We have ј, њ, љ, ђ, ћ which are classified as soft ones, and ч, џ, ж, ш which are hard ones.

The nominative plural of male nouns usually ends in -и; certain of them, mostly mono- and bisyllabic ones, add the infix -ев instead of -ов if the final consonant is palatal or dental (в, ф, д, т, ц, з, с). For example, the words нож (IT: coltello; EN: knife) and број (IT: numero; EN: number) become ножеви and бројеви.

So, what is happening here is that the basic rule would create ножови and бројови; the two equal vowels would be harder to pronounce like that; the second one changes from o to e. The same happens in the instrumental singular case: ножем (IT: con il coltello; EN: with the knife)

Male and neuter adjectives ending in a palatal consonant add the -ег ending in the genitive singular case, and -ем in the dative and locative singular cases. For the same reason, the nominative singular of neuter adjectives stemming in a palatal consonant ends in -е instead of in -о, for example: вруће (IT: caldo; EN: hot (temperature)) or горње (IT: superiore; EN: upper).

The same behaviour is reserved to neuter nouns which end in -o if the last consonant isn’t palatal, and in -e if it is: уље (IT: olio; EN: oil (dressing)), сирће (IT: aceto; EN: vinegar). There are a few nouns that make an exception to this rule, such as море (IT: mare; EN: sea) and дете (IT: bambino; EN: child).

Another general exception occurs when the final syllable of the root has the same vowel -е. To avoid them clashing, we have the opposite transformation: музеј-ом (IT: con il museo; EN: with the museum).

Moveable vowels

To avoid the clash of two equal consonants between the ending of a pronoun or an adjective and the beginning of the following word, a vowel is added at the end of the pronoun or adjective. In Serbian, pronouns have a short and long form (e.g., mine in the genitive case is мог or мојег). The long form is used in particular when the pronoun appears alone without a noun following it.

Delving deeper into the specific cases, the vowel а is added in the genitive and accusative singular of adjective and pronouns, and in the dative, instrumental, and locative plural cases. It can also be added at the end of adverbs of time such as кад(а) (IT: quando; EN: when), тад(а) (IT: in quel momento; EN: then), and сад(а) (IT: adesso, ora; EN: now).

The vowel е, instead, appears in the dative and locative singular cases of the short form of male and neutre adjectives ending in a non-palatal consonant (мом, твом, свом, …). Finally, the vowel у appears in the dative and locative singular cases of the long form of male and neutre adjectives and pronouns ending in a palatal consonant (мој, твој, свој, which become мојем(у), твојем(у), and својем(у)).

Bottom line

That’s it for today, and I hope you enjoyed it. In the next lesson, we will look at the exercises proposed for these first units! Stay tuned!

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See you soon for another lesson!