Alternation C//Č
This alteration appears in words with the letter C before a vowel A. The basic sound is C, which changes to Č before vowels I, E. Let us look at examples.
Examples:
Ptica (bird) [`ptɪtsa] ptičen (birdish) [`ptɪt̠ʃɛn]
Věnec [`venɛts] (Crown) Věnčati [`vent̠ʃatɪ] (To crown)
Alternation D//Đ
This one appears in words with the letter D before a vowel I. This consonant changes to Đ before vowels A, E and U. Let us look at the examples.
Examples:
Voditi (drive) [`vodɪtɪ] vođati [`voɖʐatɪ]
Roditi [`rodɪtɪ] (bare) rođati [`roɖʐatɪ]
Alternation Ǐ//J
This alternation is very simple. We write Ǐ before a consonant or in the end of the word and we write J before a vowel. The exception is the case, when we write Ǐ in the end of the word, but the first letter of the next word is a vowel then we pronounce J, but write Ǐ.
Examples:
Môǐ (my) [mʊj] moja [`moʝa]
However, not only consonants can change in the word when we conjugate or decline it. There are some alterations of vowels too.
Alternation Ò//-
This alternation appears in some old roots (see next paragraph).
Examples:
Tòk (stick) [tək] tkati [`tkatɪ] (to weave)
Alternation E//-
This alternation is similar to the previous ones, but exist in word suffixes.
Examples:
Krasen (Nice) [`krasɛn] krasna [`krasna]
Alternation Ę//En
This alternation is rather narrow, because it is used in the case of declension nouns of type 3 (look paragraph about noun declension), when the nasal vowel [ɛ̃] alternates to non-nasal pair of vowel «E» and consonant «N» (non-nasal!). To understand it look at the example
Examples:
Vremę (time) [`vrɛmjɛ̃] vremenï [`vrɛmɛɲi]
Plemę (tribe) [`plEmjɛ̃] plemenï [`plɛmɛɲi]
In the conclusion of this paragraph it should be mentioned that alterations are very important in Slavic languages and Novoslovnica as well. You can use reproduction in your speech as a recommended feature, while alterations are complimentary in this language. As it was noted before, we cannot ignore anything that can bring a misunderstanding in our speech.
Runaway vowels
Looking back in the Slavic language history we can find out that there were roots with two strange for an ordinary person vowels «Ò» and «J». First one was named «Yer» and denotes a hard mid central vowel (Shwa). The second one was named «Yerj» (with soft R) and denotes a soft mid central vowel. Now the second one is lost and we use only shwa sound in the letter «Yer». However, the words are still and we need to pronounce them in some way. Novoslovnica uses the soft «E» sound to represent roots with old soft shwa sound.
Main feature of these sounds was to fall out from the root, when a vowel appears afterwards. Thats why there are many words with two consonants consecutively there is an imaginary shwa sound between them that has been fallen out from the root.
Nevertheless, despite falling out of «Yer», soft «E» in this places does not fall out. So, in the previous paragraph you could see that there are two alternations O// and O//Ë, that are handled in the similar positions. So the answer on the question, why in the first case there is no sound and in the second there is a soft E is the fact, that words satisfying the first case comprise old hard shwa sound and remain comprise old soft shwa sound, that has transformed into soft E.
The fact should be mentioned that nowadays the letter Ò exists only in roots of the words. In suffixes the letter E is used for this sound and in the prefixes the letter O is used.
Look at the examples:
pod
ek
pòk
However, you should remember that speaking the words with these letters we should pronounce them just as they are written Ò as shwa, E as E, O as O. You should not reduce all the sounds to shwa.
Accent
Accent is a very difficult topic in most languages, because it is not permanent. There are some exceptions i.e. Czech and French, but in most cases we cannot say where accent will be put in the word without studying definite language. This causes problems for beginners.
Novoslovnica has a dynamic accent, but it has been formalized. There is a rule, that determines the place you should put the accent.
Rule n. 2: The accent should be put on the first syllable of the word root.
This rule covers about 80% of the words in the lexicon. You know the well-known 80/20 rule, or Pareto principle. It is something alike with the accent. Remained 20 per cent of the words we should cover by introducing extra-rule cases. Accepting these cases, you will be able to cover more than 99 per cent of Novoslovnica word amount.
These cases were created in attempt to unify the accents in different Slavic languages. Surely the Slavic languages have greatly changed since then, as they were one language. Therefore, accents in different Slavic languages often differ. Nevertheless, Novoslovnica tries to obliterate differences between them, producing accent patterns that could be comfortable to pronounce and to hear for all Slavs.
Below you can see the list of all these cases, that you should remember while speaking Novoslovnica.
Accent shifting cases:
Accented endings (Nouns)
-a (Dual, Nominative)
-y (Singular, Genitive/Partitive)
-ami (Plural, Instrumentative)
-ama (Dual, Dative)
-am (Plural, Dative)
Accented endings (Verbs)
-i Imperative (see paragraph about verb moods)
Accented suffixes
-ova- (Verb)
-ôva- (Verb)
-ava- (Verb)
-óv- (Adjective)
-ak- (Noun)
-ok- (Noun)
verb suffixes in Present Concrete Tense (see paragraph about verb tenses)
Accent shift in the root
If the word is a borrowed one, then the accent is put on the place it is in the original word.
If the root loses its vowel, the accents moves one vowel to the left (if it is possible)
Words that have more than one root (complex words) have their accent on the first syllable of the main words root. (see paragraph about complex words for what root is main)
Adverbs or other parts of speech, formed with the prepositional construction, have their accents on the first syllable of the main word (see paragraph about collocations)
These rules are enough for you to speak Novoslovnica properly with a few efforts for it.
Accent integrity
There is also one term, that you should to know when you use Novoslovnica or any other Slavic language in your speech. This term is called accent integrity. Firstly I will introduce a term of a dependency structure: