Original scientific paper

Božidar Finka as Accentologist

Blaženka Martinović orcid.org/0000-0002-7010-0344 ; Juraj Dobrila University of Pula, Department of Humanities, Pula, Croatia

Abstract

It is necessary to speak about Božidar Finka as accentologist, because his works introduce novelties and extend the boundaries of comprehension in accentology, especially in the field of accent typology. Božidar Finka is one of the authors of the important articles on accent typology that were published in the journal Jezik in 1968. The author commends the efforts to make accent classification practical, accessible and usable. He also singles out approaches to accentual classification, in which accents are the most important criterion, while lengths represent a less important factor (because they follow general rules), and the least important elements are the phonemically or morphologically conditioned changes and the stress shift to the proclitic. Nouns of different genders and morphological categories can display characteristics of the same accentual pattern. Finka’s conclusions represented a major breakthrough in accentual typology, which has been exemplified in contemporary manuals, in which accentual elements (tone, quantity and place) constitute the basic criteria for typological classification. Božidar Finka also wrote about the application of accentual typology in standard dictionaries; however, this proposition has not been actualised. Even then, Finka considered every dictionary that did not contain full information on formal and typological accent to be a failure, but dictionaries of the Croatian language still provide only partial accentual information. Every contemporary dialectological or standardological research on accents inevitably rests on the findings of accentologist Božidar Finka.

Keywords

Božidar Finka; nouns; accentology; accent typology

Hrčak ID:

144210

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/144210

Publication date:

19.8.2013.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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