Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Preceding the accent.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective That immediately precedes a stressed syllable

Etymologies

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From pre- +‎ tonic

Support

Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word pretonic.

Examples

  • This same form explains the derivative in Hittite, kinartállas, whose accent I presume lies on the syllable just after the foreign stem kinar- in order to explain the alternation of a and i in spelling ie. a reduced pretonic vowel perhaps?

    Archive 2010-08-01 2010

  • This same form explains the derivative in Hittite, kinartállas, whose accent I presume lies on the syllable just after the foreign stem kinar- in order to explain the alternation of a and i in spelling ie. a reduced pretonic vowel perhaps?

    On to the kinnor 2010

  • Miguel claims that Toshihiro Shintani discovered that it was merely the pretonic nature of Winter's Law itself that provoked Latvian's Brechton the German name for "broken tone".

    Winter's Law in Balto-Slavic, "Hybrid Theory" and phonation - Part 1 2008

  • In early Late IE, I've already felt the need to propose an extra low-front vowel *ä that arises just before Syncope due to a deletion of some pretonic laryngeals e.g. late MIE *mᵊxéd̰ᵊ- early Late IE *mäd̰- PIE *mad- "to be moist, to be drunk".

    How long was the contact between Pre-IE and Proto-Semitic? 2008

  • Then, when this shift had completely gone through and pretonic *a *e; Reduplication developed again, but this time the result of the again inserted schwa was different resulting in *i.

    Rethinking the reduplicated perfect in Indo-European 2008

  • I propose that the unstressed pretonic syllable *qaw- in the Proto-Semitic word was already misheard as a labialized creaky-voiced velar *gʷ when it was borrowed into Mid IE.

    Ejective or Pharyngealized Stops in Proto-Semitic? 2008

  • Miguel claims that Toshihiro Shintani discovered that it was merely the pretonic nature of Winter's Law itself that provoked Latvian's Brechton the German name for "broken tone".

    Archive 2008-01-01 2008

  • There's no guarantee that he's correct and there is no clear consensus on the issue so far, so let's assume instead that Kortlandt's formulation of Winter's Law is hiding a different reality, that Winter's Law is a rule that governs pretonic syllables only3.

    Winter's Law in Balto-Slavic, "Hybrid Theory" and phonation - Part 2 2008

  • There's no guarantee that he's correct and there is no clear consensus on the issue so far, so let's assume instead that Kortlandt's formulation of Winter's Law is hiding a different reality, that Winter's Law is a rule that governs pretonic syllables only3.

    Archive 2008-01-01 2008

  • In early Late IE, I've already felt the need to propose an extra low-front vowel *ä that arises just before Syncope due to a deletion of some pretonic laryngeals e.g. late MIE *mᵊxéd̰ᵊ- early Late IE *mäd̰- PIE *mad- "to be moist, to be drunk".

    Archive 2008-07-01 2008

Comments

Log in or sign up to get involved in the conversation. It's quick and easy.