Prosodic prominence

For both Slovenian and BCS prosodic prominence is marked in across 8 columns – 4 for the infinitive, 4 for the 1st person plural present tense form. In order to annotate prominence (in Slovenian: stress, in BCS: High tone) each verb is cut into 4 parts, starting from the end of the word form. This is shown in the schema below for verb pogledati, pogledamo ‘to look, we look’, which has the same meaning and prominence placement in both Slovenian and BCS (note that the stress placement is not the same, as the stress is on po in BCS). The last line shows the annotation as found in the database.

As evident from the schema, the order in which we go through the verb is reversed – we start with the ending, followed by the theme vowel and then the base, which is split into the base-final syllable and all the preceding syllables. (This is because base-prominence is almost always on the last syllable of the base). The stressed part of the verb is marked with 1. Since there is some variation between speakers, some verbs are marked with 1 and 2. We give more (language) specific instructions below.

We underline the prominent vowel for BCS and use caps for Slovenian.

General instructions with examples: Infinitives
Prominence marked on 1: The prominence is on the inflection (e.g. archaic Slovenian cves-∅-tI ‘to bloom’, Serbo-Croatian naći ‘to find’).
Prominence marked on 2: The prominence falls on the theme vowel, e.g., Slovenian igr-A-ti 'to play', Serbo Croatian grebati 'to claw'.
Prominence marked on 3: The prominence falls on the final syllable of the base, e.g., Slovenian glEd-a-ti 'to watch', Serbo-Croatian gledati 'to watch'.
Prominence marked on 4: The prominence falls on a non-final syllable of the stem, e.g., Slovenian mAlic-a-ti 'to eat a snack', Serbo-Croatian dìrektorovati direktorov-a-ti 'to act as a director'.

General instructions with examples: 1st person plural, present tense
Prominence marked on 1: The prominence is on the inflection, e.g. Slovenian, vemO 'we know', Serbo-Croatian znamo 'we know'.
Prominence marked on 2: The prominence falls on the theme vowel, e.g., Slovenian igr-A-mo 'we play', Serbo-Croatian računamo 'we calculate'.
Prominence marked on 3: The prominence falls on the final syllable of the stem, e.g. Slovenian glEd-a-mo 'we watch', Serbo-Croatian gledamo 'we watch'.
Prominence marked on 4: The prominence falls on a non-final syllable of the stem, e.g. Slovenian mAlic-a-mo 'we snack', Serbo-Croatian direktoru-je-mo 'we act as a director'.

Example below shows how prominence is marked (for BCS and Slovenian) for the verb gledati 'to watch'.

Language specific instructions: BCS
For BCS, we count as prominent the syllable that carries the (rightmost) high tone in the word. For the purposes of the database, we transformed the traditional accent representations to those relevant for us. We underline the prominent vowel.
If there is a falling accent (kȕća 'house', prȃvda 'justice') the stressed syllable is prominent (e.g. pȁdati is padati 'to fall', pȁdām is padam 'I fall', mȍlīm is molim 'to ask', kûmīm is kumim, kȃrtati is kartati, kȃrtām is kartam).
If there is a rising accent (rúka 'arm', nòga 'leg'), the syllable following the stressed syllable is prominent (gráditi is graditi 'to build', lòmiti is lomiti 'to break', lòmīm is lomim 'I break', nàpadati is napadati 'to attack', nàpadām is napadam 'I attack', mòliti is moliti 'to ask', zàmolim is zamolim 'I ask').

If a form can have more than one common prosodic shape, all are entered, one by using 1, the next one using 2 etc. This means that some cells will have multiple numbers. Consider the verb kòristiti and korístiti 'to use' – 1 is used to describe kòristiti (1 is entered in all the relevant columns) and 2 for korístiti (2 is in all the relevant columns). This means that column 3 for Present Tense Prominence has a 1 and a 2 (because both forms have prominence on the same syllable: kòristīmo and kòrīstīmo).

As for Length, Columns 3 for the Infinitive and for the Present Tense will have a 2, because only the version korístiti has a long syllable at the end of the base.

Language specific instructions: Slovenian
Slovenian verbs were only anotated for placement of stress and not for, e.g., tone. The annotation reflects the intuition of the annotators (native speakers of Slovenian) and the prominence marked in SSKJ2. When the two don’t match, the verb is annotated as having two stress patterns - the one marked with 1 is assumed (by the annotators) to be more common than the one marked with 2. If inflectional stress (i.e., position 1) is possible only in some persons and it is perceived as marked, this pattern was ignored.
Example below shows annotation for the verb vprAš-a-ti/vpraš-A-ti 'to ask' (stress on the root was considered more common). There is no variation in the present form in this case.