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Proto-Indo-European accent refers to the accentual system of Proto-Indo-European language. ==Description== Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is usually reconstructed as having had variable lexical stress, meaning that the placement of the stress in a word (the accent) was not predictable by phonological rules. Stressed syllables received a higher pitch than unstressed ones; PIE is therefore often said to have had pitch accent – but this must not be confused with the other meaning of the term "pitch accent", which refers to a system where one or two syllables per word have one of at least two unpredictable tones (while the tones of any other syllables are predictable). PIE accent could be ''mobile'', which means that it could change place throughout the inflectional paradigm. That state of affairs can be seen in Vedic and Ancient Greek, e.g. in the declension of athematic nouns; compare: * PIE 'foot, step' Nom. sg. > Sanskrit ''(unicode:pā́t)'', Ancient Greek * PIE Gen. sg. *pedés > Sanskrit ''padás'', Ancient Greek * PIE Acc. sg. * > Sanskrit ', Ancient Greek —or in the conjugation of athematic verbs (compare Sanskrit root present first-person sg. ''émi'', first-person plural ''imás''). Otherwise, the accent was placed at the same syllable throughout the inflection, and according to that placement nouns are divided into ''barytones'' accented on the first syllable, and ''oxytones'' accented on the last syllable. Compare: * PIE barytone 'wolf' > Sanskrit Nom. sg. ''vṛ́kas'', Gen. sg. ''vṛ́kasya'', Nom. pl. ''vṛ́kās'' * PIE oxytone *suHnús 'son' > Sanskrit Nom. sg. ''sūnús'', Gen. sg. ''sūnós'', Nom. pl. ''sūnávas'' PIE accent was also ''free'' which means that it could stand on any syllable in a word, which is faithfully reflected in Vedic Sanskrit accent (later Classical Sanskrit has predictable accent). Compare: * PIE 'carried' > Vedic ''bháramāṇas'' * PIE 'holds' > Vedic ''dhāráyati'' * PIE 'worships' > Vedic ''namasyáti'' * PIE 'red' > Vedic ''rudhirás'' As one can see, the placement of the reconstructed PIE accent is reflected in Vedic Sanskrit basically intact. According to the reflex of the PIE accent, Indo-European languages are divided into those with free accent preserved (either directly or indirectly), and those with ''fixed'' (or ''bound'') accent. Free accent is preserved in Vedic Sanskrit (of modern Indo-Iranian languages, according to some, in Pashto), Ancient Greek, Balto-Slavic and Anatolian. In the Proto-Germanic, free accent was retained long enough for Verner's Law to be dependent on it, but later stress was shifted to the first syllable of the word. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Proto-Indo-European accent」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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