Anna Daugavet 3 The lengthening of the first component of Lithuanian diphthongs in an areal perspective 1 Introduction The main impetus for the chapter lies in the controversy surrounding the so-called tonal contrast in Lithuanian. A closer acquaintance with its facts shows that at some level of simplification, this contrast turns out to be no more than a peculiar pronun- ciation of some diphthongs that has little to do with pitch. Compare the realization of the contrasting tones in the examples below.1 (I will further refer to the tonal cont- rast as that between the accents traditionally called “acute” and “circumflex”. In the orthography, the acute accent is marked as <ˊ> on the first component of diphthongs and the circumflex accent as <˜> on the second component of diphthongs.) (1) a. acute áukštas [ˈɑˑʊk.ʃtas] ‘high’ táiką [ˈtɑˑɪ.kɑː] ‘aim; apply’ (prs.prtc.nom.pl) b. circumflex aũkštas [ˈɒuˑk.ʃtas] ‘storey of a building’ taĩką [ˈtəiˑ.kɑː] ‘peace’ (acc.sg) Under the acute accent, the first component of diphthongs is lengthened (it is marked as half-long [ˑ] in the transcription) and the second component is short (1a). The circumflex accent is distinguished from the acute by the reduc- tion of the first component and the lengthening of the second component (also marked as half-long) (1b). The realization of the circumflex is especially striking in so-called diphthongal sequences, i.e., diphthongs having sonorants n, m, l, r as their second components (2b).2 The less sonorous second element sounds as 1 All examples are rendered in the IPA transcription, which facilitates the comparison but may lead to some inaccuracies, as the symbols that I use to substitute the national transcription are not always based on phonetic studies. Grammatical information in the examples is only supplied if it is different from the nominative singular (masculine) for nouns and adjectives, but it may be present if relevant for the context. 2 In Lithuanian and Latvian, diphthongs may be viewed as diphthongal sequences with [j], [v] acting as their second components (Girdenis 2003: 100–101; cf. Pakerys 1995: 166–167). In fact, the same may be also true for Livonian (see the discussion in Viitso 2008: 168 and Livonian examples in Section 3.4). Authenticated | anna.daugavet@gmail.com author's copy Download Date | 8/19/15 11:20 PM