Dropping of unaccented /i/

[dihydrogen monoxide]

As far as I know only in BCS, except Serbian (that doesn't drop /i/), and Slovene, unaccented /i/ is dropped in a word. Are there any other Slavic languages that do so?

 

[vianie]

Hello dihydrogen monoxide, could you give us some examples of unaccented /i/ in BCS please?
So that we know we can react to.

 

[ciraki]

Neither do most Croatian speakers drop the /i/, only some do. The area where it is frequently dropped or reduced (to /ə/ or just weakened in intensity) is: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Lika, and inner continental Dalmatia - the same can affect /u/.

Hello dihydrogen monoxide, could you give us some examples of unaccented /i/ in BCS please?
So that we know we can react to.

e.g. pòlica (bookshelf) > pòlca
But as far as I can tell, it can't be dropped in word-final positions, where it is semantically relevant: vèlikī [def.masc.sg.] > vèlkī, but not vèlik - resembles the indefinite form - and especially not vèlk.

 

[Panceltic]

Neither do most Croatian speakers drop the /i/, only some do. The area where it is frequently dropped or reduced (to /ə/ or just weakened in intensity) is: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Lika, and inner continental Dalmatia - the same can affect /u/.


e.g. pòlica (bookshelf) > pòlca
But as far as I can tell, it can't be dropped in word-final positions, where it is semantically relevant: vèlikī [def.masc.sg.] > vèlkī, but not vèlik - resembles the indefinite form - and especially not vèlk.

I remember watching a Croatian soap opera and they were definitely saying "Jos'pe" to a Josip

 

[dihydrogen monoxide]

Neither do most Croatian speakers drop the /i/, only some do. The area where it is frequently dropped or reduced (to /ə/ or just weakened in intensity) is: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Lika, and inner continental Dalmatia - the same can affect /u/.


e.g. pòlica (bookshelf) > pòlca
But as far as I can tell, it can't be dropped in word-final positions, where it is semantically relevant: vèlikī [def.masc.sg.] > vèlkī, but not vèlik - resembles the indefinite form - and especially not vèlk.

In Slovene, in word lubenica i is not dropped. It used to be dropped in a name for an area Stožice in Ljubljana. There is, however, palica, 'stick' palca.

 

[dihydrogen monoxide]

Neither do most Croatian speakers drop the /i/, only some do. The area where it is frequently dropped or reduced (to /ə/ or just weakened in intensity) is: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Lika, and inner continental Dalmatia - the same can affect /u/.


e.g. pòlica (bookshelf) > pòlca
But as far as I can tell, it can't be dropped in word-final positions, where it is semantically relevant: vèlikī [def.masc.sg.] > vèlkī, but not vèlik - resembles the indefinite form - and especially not vèlk.

/i/ is dropped in Bosnia, Dubrovnik area, Slavonia, Lika. Usually in Bosnia, when it's dropped, it creates a hiatus, or glotal stop. In Bosnian, for instance punica is not just punca, but there is a somewhat of a like glotal stop, that indicates /i/ being dropped.

 

[DarkChild]

Not dropped in Bulgarian normally.

 

[Awwal12]

I suppose that in Russian an unstressed /i/ (or any other vowel which positionally merges with /i/) may be reduced to a silent, near-zero vowel in appropriate positions. That, of course, shouldn't be taken out of the general context of the Russian vowel system (fairly atypical for Slavic languages, with major qualitative and quantitative vowel reduction and a whole array of vowel mergers in different unstressed positions).

 

[dihydrogen monoxide]

Not dropped in Bulgarian normally.

So, it's not dropped in standard Bulgarian.

 

[dihydrogen monoxide]

I suppose that in Russian an unstressed /i/ (or any other vowel which positionally merges with /i/) may be reduced to a silent, near-zero vowel in appropriate positions. That, of course, shouldn't be taken out of the general context of the Russian vowel system (fairly atypical for Slavic languages, with major qualitative and quantitative vowel reduction and a whole array of vowel mergers in different unstressed positions).

Would и́ and ы́ (unstressed) be dropped normally?

 

[Awwal12]

Would и́ and ы́ (unstressed) be dropped normally?

Unstressed ы may be potentially reduced to [ə] under certain conditions and then dropped, I suppose, although it doesn't seem very typical. With и (i.e. /i/ proper) it's more problematic; I don't think it can disappear *entirely* without leaving any trace.

 

[Rosett]

unaccented /i/ is dropped in a word. Are there any other Slavic languages that do so?

In Russian, it happens often in poetry — for the sake of metre — and even sounds greatly.
По-русски такое часто встречается в стихотворениях — ради соблюдения размера — и даже звучит возвышенно:
Стихи.ру › 2007/03
Свидание (Магдалена Курапина) / Стихи.ру
А завтра свиданье - я меряю платья.
Свиданье — нож в спину, не закричать бы.
Свидание с тенью, без вариантов.
Дизайнер хромает на почве таланта.

Also, it can be found in some fixed expressions, as if in:
«Бытиё определяет сознание»,
«Не сознание людей определяет их бытиё, а, наоборот, их общественное бытиё определяет их сознание
— К. Маркс. «К критике политической экономии». Предисловие[5]

Also,
Битиё определяет сознание — Словарь народной фразеологии
Битиё определяет сознание. Шутливое обыгрывание фразы классика марксизма-ленинизма Бытиё определяет сознание.

but «житьё-бытьё»:
Перевод "житьё-бытьё" на английский
Спасибо, что написал о своём житье-бытье. Thank you for writing of your lives.

and
Битьё определяет сознание? - lady_catari - LiveJournal
Битьё определяет сознание? Сегодня один друг по переписке написал пост о том, что выросло поколение дегенератов.

 

[Rosett]

Would ... ы́ (unstressed) be dropped normally?

I can’t think of such examples

 

[Awwal12]

In Russian, it happens often in poetry — for the sake of metre — and even sounds greatly.

Except there never was /i/ in such positions historically. That's the natural development of /CьjV/, where Church Slavonic regularly produces /CijV/ while Russian produces /CjV/ (unless /ь/ was stressed, in which case we get /CejV/, or /V/ was a weak reduced vowel itself, producing just /Cej/ instead of Ch.Sl. /Cij/). All such words with /CijV/ in Russian are either direct lexical or morphological loans from Church Slavonic, while the forms with /CjV/ are surviving native forms, even if the latter are often stylistically colored. Compare, for instance, the doublets братья "brothers" vs. братия "community of monks" (where, as it often happens, the Church Slavonic variant has a religious meaning).

Summarizing: it has nothing to do with dropping /i/.

 

[vianie]

There's a shortening of some unaccented /i:/ in Common Czech:

prosím - prosim
tuším - tušim
učím - učim

And Standard Czech's short /i/ is always /ɪ/.

 

[jasio]

As far as I know only in BCS, except Serbian (that doesn't drop /i/), and Slovene, unaccented /i/ is dropped in a word. Are there any other Slavic languages that do so?

In Polish it does not happen as far as I am aware.

 

[Милан]

As far as I know only in BCS, except Serbian (that doesn't drop /i/)

Serbian (ijekavian) does drop /i/, my friend's mom wanted to name her daughter Мilica (Милица) but she changed her mind cuz she was "afraid" of people calling her Milca (Милца).

 

[Awwal12]

One more case where Russian potentially kind of loses /i/ proper (not after hard consonants, i.e.) is unstressed /i-e/ in the position after a stressed vowel and before a consonant, where it may get completely de-sillabified (i.e. merge with /j/) - hence the popular misspellings like "андройд" instead of "андроид". Considering that such positions may also result from the normal deletion/elision of /j/ in the intervocal position before unstressed vowels, superficially it may result in the loss of /i/ (/j/>/∅/, /i/>/j/). For instance, "по-моему" is occasionally misspelled as "по-мойму" by some speakers (unstressed /e/ merges with /i/ anyway).

unless /ь/ was stressed, in which case we get /CejV/

...Seems to be an outdated interpretation. Sometimes Early Old East Slavic had the /ь/ > /e/ shift through simple assimilation, though (e.g. Rus. серебро < P.-Sl. *sьrebro, instead of the expected Rus. сребро - which does actually exist, but only as a Church Slavonic doublet in poetic language).