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The Balto-Slavic language group consists of the Baltic and Slavic languages, belonging to the Indo-European family of languages. Having experienced a period of common development, Baltic and Slavic languages share several linguistic traits not found in any other Indo-European branch, which points to their close genetic relationship.

Hypothetical Proto-Balto-Slavic language is also reconstructable, descending from Proto-Indo-European by means of well-defined sound laws, and out of which modern Slavic and Baltic languages descended. One particularly innovative dialect separated from the Balto-Slavic dialect continuum and became ancestral to Proto-Slavic language, out of which all other Slavic languages descended.

There was extensive debate in the first half of the 20th century on the exact details of the relationship among Slavic and Baltic languages. Some claimed they were genetically related, and others explained similarities by prolonged language contact. Modern research, especially with insights gained in the field of comparative Balto-Slavic accentology, corroborates the claim of genetic relationship.

Balto-Slavic
Geographic distribution:	Eastern and Northern Europe
Genetic classification:	Indo-European Balto-Slavic
Subdivisions:	Baltic Slavic

Historical dispute

The nature of the relationship of the Balto-Slavic languages was the subject of much discussion from the very beginning of the historical linguistics as a scientific discipline. Even though the similarities between Baltic and Slavic languages are often more than obvious, some were, and still are, more intent on explaining them not in terms of a genetic relationship, but by language contact, dialectal closeness in the Proto-Indo-European period, and so forth.

Baltic and Slavic share more close phonological, lexical, morphosyntactic and accentological similarities than do any other language groups within the Indo-European language family. The notable early Indo-Europeanist August Schleicher (1861) proposed a simple solution: From Proto-Indo-European descended Proto-Balto-Slavic, out of which Proto-Baltic and Proto-Slavic emerged. The Latvian linguist Jānis Endzelīns thought, however, that any similarities among Baltic and Slavic languages were a result of an intensive language contact, i.e., that they were not genetically related and that there was no common Proto-Balto-Slavic language. Antoine Meillet (1905, 1908, 1922, 1925, 1934), the distinguished French Indo-Europeanist, in reaction to a second simplified theory of Schleicher's, propounded a view according to which all similarities of Baltic and Slavic occurred accidentally, by independent parallel development, and that there was no Proto-Balto-Slavic language. From a modern perspective, the most acceptable theory is that of the Polish linguist Rozwadowski, who thought that the similarities among Baltic and Slavic languages are a result of not only genetic relationship, but also of later language contact.

Even though some linguists still don't accept today the genetic relationship, prevalent scholary opinion is that there is very little doubt that Baltic and Slavic languages experienced a period of common development. Beekes (1995: 22), for example, states expressly that "[t]he Baltic and Slavic languages were originally one language and so form one group". Gray and Atkinson's (2003) application of language-tree divergence analysis supports a genetic relationship between the Baltic and Slavic languages and dating the split of the family to about 1400 BCE. That this was found using a very different methodology than other studies lends some credence to the links between the two.¹.

Modern interpretation

Traditionally the Balto-Slavic languages are divided into Baltic and Slavic branches. However, another division was proposed in the 1960s by Vyacheslav Ivanov and Vladimir Toporov: that the Balto-Slavic proto-language split from the start into West Baltic, East Baltic and Proto-Slavic. Thus Ivanov and Toporov were the first to question not Balto-Slavic unity, but also Baltic unity. In their framework, Proto-Slavic is a peripheral and innovative Balto-Slavic dialect which suddenly expanded, due to a conjunction of historical circumstances, and effectively erased all the other Balto-Slavic dialects, except in the marginal areas where Lithuanian, Latvian and Old Prussian developed. Onomastic evidence shows that Baltic languages were once spoken in much wider territory than the one they cover today, all the way to Moscow, and were later replaced by Slavic.

The Ivanov-Toporov model is supported by the newest research into Old Prussian as the only well-documented representative of the West Baltic branch. It is also supported by archaeological evidence and other historical indications. The West and East Balts would have been separated from the Slavs by the Goths. Before the split there was some kind of dialect continuum, on whose outskirts existed an innovative dialect that was ancestral to Proto-Slavic.

The sudden expansion of Proto-Slavic in the sixth and the seventh century (around AD 600, uniform Proto-Slavic with no detectable dialectal differentiation was spoken from Thessaloniki in Greece to Novgorod in Russia²) is according to some connected to the hypothesis that Proto-Slavic was in fact a koiné of the Avar state, i.e. the language of the administration and military rule of the Avar khaganate in Eastern Europe.³ It is well-known from historical sources that Slavs and Avars jointly attacked the Byzantine Empire and held siege of Constantinople⁴. According to that interpretation, Avars were a thin layer of military aristocracy in that state/alliance, while the Slavs were a military caste - warriors (i.e. not a nation or ethnicity in the proper sense of that word). Their language - at first possibly only one local speech, koinéized became a lingua franca of the Avar state. This would explain very well how Proto-Slavic could have spread so fast across all of Eastern Europe - from the Baltic to the Peloponnese, and from Russia and Ukraine to present-day Eastern Germany (Hamburg) and Austria.⁵ It would also explain why the Avars were assimilated so fast, leaving practically no linguistic traces, and that Proto-Slavic was so unusually uniform.

That sudden expansion of Proto-Slavic erased most of the idioms of the Balto-Slavic dialect continuum, which left us today with only three branches: Eastern Baltic, Western Baltic and Slavic. This secession of the Balto-Slavic dialect ancestral to Proto-Slavic is estimated on archaeological and glottochronological criteria to have occurred sometime in the period 1500-1000 BCE.⁶

Balto-Slavic isoglosses

The close relationship of the Baltic and Slavic languages is indicated by a series of exclusive isoglosses representing innovations not shared with any other IE branch (especially in their phonology) and by the fact that one can establish the relative chronology of those innovations, which is the most important criterion for establishing genetic relationship in historical linguistics. The most important of these isoglosses are:

Common Balto-Slavic innovations include several other prominent, but non-exclusive isoglosses, such as the Satemization, Ruki, change of PIE */o/ to PBSl. */a/ (shared with Germanic, Indo-Iranian and Anatolian branch) and the loss of labialization in PIE labiovelars (shared with Indo-Iranian, Armenian and Tocharian).

Baltic and Slavic languages also show a remarkable amount of correspondence in vocabulary; there are at least 100 words exclusive to Balto-Slavic, either being a common innovation (i.e. not of PIE origin) or sharing the same semantic development from PIE root⁷. For example:

Among Balto-Slavic archaisms notable is the retention of free PIE accent (with lots of innovations).

On the other hand, there are very few exclusive isoglosses that connect Baltic languages only, and that leave Slavic languages aside. Lots of these isoglosses are trivial from a phonological point of view (e.g. transition PIE *tl > Baltic *kl), and most importantly, they do not show any kind of relative chronology.

Proto-Balto-Slavic language

Phonology

Stops

PIE voiced and unvoiced stops were preserved in Balto-Slavic and Proto-Slavic, and aspirated series was deaspirated.

Winter's law was still operable when there was phonemic distinction between the series of plain and aspirated voiced stops. As a result of Winter's law, the distinction between those two series has been indirectly preserved in Proto-Balto-Slavic, because Balto-Slavic vowel would lengthen before a plain voiced stop, but not before an aspirated stop, this occurring probably only if the stop was in syllable coda (i.e. in closed syllable).

On the basis of relative chronology of sound changes it has been ascertained that Winter's law acted rather late, after some other less prominent Balto-Slavic changes occurred, such as after the disappearance of laryngeals in prevocalic position. Compare:

Therefore, the merger of PIE aspirated and plain velar stop series was one of the last common Balto-Slavic sound changes.

Dorsals

Three series of PIE dorsals (velars, palatovelars and labiovelars) merged to two series in Balto-Slavic: velars and palatovelars. PIE labiovelars lost their labialization in Balto-Slavic, just like they did in the Indo-Iranian, Armenian and Greek branches. Unlike some other Indo-European languages, Balto-Slavic labiovelars were delabialized unconditionally and at once, leaving no noticeable direct or indirect traces.

There are a number of words in Balto-Slavic which show Centum reflex of PIE patalalized dorsals. A number of these can be explained by regular sound laws, although some of these laws have been obscured by numerous analogical developments. Others are argued to be borrowings from Centum languages, e.g. Proto-Balto-Slavic *kárwā 'cow' (Lith. kárvė, OCS krava, Russ. koróva) was likely borrowed from Proto-Celtic *karawā, which in turn is a regular reflex of PIE *ḱerh₂weh₂.

PIE palatovelars could also depalatalize in Balto-Slavic. Several depalatalization rules for Balto-Slavic have been proposed⁸. According to Matasović⁹, the depalatalization of palatovelars occurred before sonorant followed by a back vowel: K' > K/_RV^back. That would explain Centum reflexes such as:

PIE palatovelars */ḱ/, */ǵ/, */ǵʰ/ turned to Balto-Slavic fricatives: */ś/, */ź/ and */źʰ/, this latter one becoming merged with */ź/ after the loss of contrastive aspiration. They possibly had intermediate stage of affricates */ć/, */đ/, */đʰ/, but that development is somewhat less likely to have occurred. By applying usual methods of reconstructions on Baltic and Slavic languages, fricatives */ś/ and */ź/ represent the most likely phonological interpretation of the reflexes of PIE palatovelars.¹⁰

Laryngeals

Reflexes of PIE laryngeals */h₁/, */h₂/, */h₃/ which represented 3 different phonemes in PIE became merged in Balto-Slavic to a single */H/. Laryngeals disappeared in Balto-Slavic period during a very long period. No Balto-Slavic language has preserved them, but relative chronology of sound changes shows that they were not lost at once in all positions in a word.

Balto-Slavic laryngeal was especially durable in a position before a vowel; PIE *tn̥h₂u- 'thin' (Latin tenuis, Sanskrit tanú) was in Balto-Slavic reflected as *tunHu-, and only then as Proto-Slavic *tunu-ku/*tin-ku (OCS tьnъkъ, Russ. tónkij, Pol. cienki), which shows that the loss of laryngeals in Balto-Slavic occurred after the development of vocalic prothesis in Balto-Slavic syllabic sonorants.

In a syllabic position (between consonants), laryngeal disappeared if it was in the second syllable, but in the first syllable it was preserved as */a/. Compare:

Loss of laryngeals in syllabic position occurred probably in early Balto-Slavic period. Compare:

The same phenomenon happened in Germanc and Celtic, which indicates that it might have been a dialectal isogloss in Late Proto-Indo-European.

Fricatives

PIE */s/ has been preserved in Balto-Slavic and Proto-Slavic in most of the positions; it changed to Balto-Slavic */š/ according to the RUKI law, and in Proto-Slavic it was probably lost word-finally. No attested Slavic language has word-final *-s preserved.

Before voiced stops */s/ manifested as */z/ in Balto-Slavic. That */z/ came to be phonologically distinctive in Slavic after the transition of Balto-Slavic */ź/ (a reflex of PIE */ǵ/ and */ǵʰ/) > Proto-Slavic */z/.

As a result of RUKI law, Proto-Slavic has */š/ before front vowels (*/e/, */i/), */x/ before back vowels and */s/ before consonants. That distribution is most probably a result of series of changes:

RUKI rule also operated if there was a laryngeal after */u/ or */i/, i.e. */s/ changes to */š/ after *uH and *iH, but it remains open to debate whether the laryngeal was already lost in that environment, i.e. are we dealing with the change of */s/ to */š/ after Balto-Slavic */ū/ and */ī/.

In Baltic languages the evidence of RUKI rule is recognizable only in Lithuanian, because in Latvian and Old Prussian a merger occurs of Balto-Slavic */š/ (< PIE */s/ by RUKI rule), */ś/ (< PIE */ḱ/) and */s/ (< PIE */s/). In Lithuanian, Balto-Slavic */š/ and */ś/ are merged to /š/, which remains distinct from /s/ so the effect of RUKI rule is still evident in Lithuanian.

Most handbooks, on the basis of Lithuanian material, state that in Baltic RUKI law has been applied only partially. The most common claim is that Balto-Slavic */s/ turned to */š/ in Baltic unconditionally only after */r/, while after */u/, */k/ and */i/ we have both */s/ and */š/. Compare:

Similarly, Lith. maĩšas "sack" completely matches etymologically with OCS měxъ and Sanskrit meṣá, but in the word teisùs "correct" */s/ has been preserved while in Slavic there is */x/ < */š/ in accordance with RUKI rule (OCS tixъ, Russ. tíxij 'quiet, peaceful').

There is no simple solution to such double reflexes of PIE */s/ after */r/, */u/, */k/, */i/ in Baltic, and thus no simple answer to the question of whether RUKI law is a common Balto-Slavic isogloss or not. The most probable seems the assumption that PIE */s/ was changed to */š/ after */r/, */u/, */k/, */i/ completely regularly in Baltic, just like in Slavic, but the traces of the effect of RUKI law were erased by subsequent changes, such as the change of word-final *-š to *-s.

Generally it can be ascertained that Baltic shows the effect of RUKI law only in old words inherited from Balto-Slavic period, meaning that Lithuanian /š/ will come after /r/, /u/, /k/, /i/ in words that have complete formational and morphological correspondence in Slavic (ruling out the possibility of accidental, parallel formations).

Unlike Indo-Iranian, where the change */s/ > */š/ also occurred after the palatovelar */ḱ/, it is possible that palatovelars yielded fricatives in Balto-Slavic even before the effect of RUKI law. Compare:

By satemization of PIE dorsals and the merger of PIE laryngeals, Balto-Slavic has significantly modified the system of PIE fricatives. After the merger of PIE voiced and aspirated stop series, Balto-Slavic system of fricatives had the following shape:

Phonological relevance of the consonants */š/ and */z/ is disputed; it cannot be known whether they were phonologically predictable allophonic variants of */s/ and */z/ in all environments.

*/s/	*/z/
*/ś/	*/ź/
	(*/š/)
*/H/

Phonological interpretation of the laryngeal */H/ is also disputed; on the basis of typological considerations it can be ascertained that the Balto-Slavic laryngeal was probably a voiceless glottal fricative /h/ or a glottal stop /ʔ/¹¹.

Sonorants

Proto-Indo-European sonorants */w/, */y/, */l/, */r/, */m/, */n/ were preserved in Balto-Slavic and Proto-Slavic, as they were in most other Indo-European branches. From context-conditioned sound laws, notable is the disappearance of word-initial PIE */w/ before */r/ and */l/ (so-called Lidén's law).

PIE */w/ was retained in Balto-Slavic and Proto-Slavic as a bilabial semivowel (glide), but in Lithuanian and most Slavic languages it has eventually changed to labiodental fricative /v/.

PIE */m/ changes to */n/ word-finally in Balto-Slavic period; in Old Prussian there is a clear attestation of that change e.g. in nominoaccusative of neuters (cf. OPr. assaran 'lake' < PIE *eǵʰerom). In Slavic however that change of *-m > *-n is indirect because in Common Slavic period all word-final vowels were dropped. It becomes more clear in sentence sandhi conditions due to which earlier *kom emōy yielded Proto-Slavic *kan jemъ (OCS kъ n'emu), and not **ka memō.

Syllabic sonorants

PIE */i/ and */u/¹², syllabic allophones of PIE glides */y/ and */w/, have been preserved as vowels in Balto-Slavic. Before laryngeals they yielded long vowels *iH > */ī/, *uH > */ū/.

PIE */u/ has lengthened into Balto-Slavic */ū/ when followed by */n/ which was followed by a stop. In Slavic *-n- later drops regularly. Compare:

PIE */i/ did not exhibit lengthening in such conditions, as older literature often states.¹³

In a syllabic position, PIE sonorants */l/, */r/, */m/, */n/ have twofold reflexes in Balto-Slavic, differing in a prothetic vowel: *iR and *uR (where symbol R denotes any of aforementioned sonorants). Analysis of their distribution has shown that the reflexes of type *iR are much more common. It has remained an unsolved mystery to this day which exact phonological conditions trigger which reflex.

Several theories have been proposed, most notable being one by André Vaillant¹⁴. According to him, *uR reflexes arose after PIE labiovelars. If this was true, it would be the only trace of PIE labiovelars in Balto-Slavic.

Similarly, Jerzy Kuryłowicz thought that *uR reflexes arose after PIE velars, and also notable is also older opinion of Jānis Endzelīns and Reinhold Trautmann according to whom *uR reflexes are the result of zero-grade of morphemes that had PIE */o/ (> PBSl. */a/) in normal-grade. Matasović (2008) proposes following rules:

Vowels and dipthongs

Balto-Slavic preserved Late PIE vowel system, after the effect of "laryngeal colouring". The only exception is the change of PIE */o/ > PBSl. */a/, which is an isogloss shared with Germanic and Anatolian branch.

Proto-Slavic preserved Balto-Slavic system of short vowels unchanged, but merged PBSl. */ō/ and */ā/ yielding PSl. */ā/, while the difference between these long vowels was preserved in Baltic.

PIE */e/ changes to PBSl. */a/ before */w/ in heterosyllabic position, i.e. */e/ > */a/ / _wV. Compare:

It appears that in some cases in Balto-Slavic period initial *(H)e- and *(H)a- were mixed. That change, called Rozwadowski's rule by some, is based on the cases where Balto-Slavic has initial *e- in etymons which in PIE had initial *(H)a-, *(H)o-, *h₂e-, *h₃e-. Slavic has preserved some relics of initial *e-, *a- alternations. Compare:

Similar to vowels, PIE diphthongs were preserved in Balto-Slavic, with the exception of *ow (and also *h₂ew and *h₃ew), which yielded PBSl. *aw. Later in Proto-Slavic PBSl. *aw (< PIE *ow, *aw, *h₂ew, *h₃ew, *How) > PSl. */ō/, which was reflected as /u/ in all Slavic languages.

Relative chronology of sound changes

Austrian Balto-Slavist Georg Holzer has reconstructed a relative chronology of 50 Balto-Slavic sound changes (just phonology, no accentuation), from Proto-Balto-Slavic down to the modern daughter languages¹⁵. However, only the first 12 are Common Balto-Slavic, and thus relevant for this article:

Balto-Slavic accentual system

Proto-Indo-European accent was completely reworked in Balto-Slavic, with far-reaching consequences for accentual systems of the modern daughter languages. For the reconstruction of Balto-Slavic accent the most important are the Balto-Slavic languages that have retained tonal oppositions, these being Lithuanian, Latvian, (probably) Old Prussian and West South Slavic languages of Slovene, Croatian, Bosnian and Serbian. However, one should keep in mind that the prosodical systems of dialects in the aforementioned languages are sometimes very different from those of standard languages. For example, some Croatian dialects like Čakavian and Posavian dialects of Slavonian Štokavian are especially important for Balto-Slavic accentology as they retain more archaic and complex tonal accentual system than the Neoštokavian dialect on which standard Croatian is based. On the other hand, there are some dialects which have completely lost tonal oppositions (e.g. some Kajkavian speeches, the Zagreb spoken substandard idiom).

To this day, there is no consensus among Balto-Slavists on the precise details of the development of Balto-Slavic accentual system. All the modern research is based on the capital study of Stang (1957), which has basically instituted the field of comparative Balto-Slavic accentology. However, a number of laws and correspondences has been discovered that are nowadays held as true by the majority of researchers, event though the exact details sometimes remain in dispute.

Notation

What follows is a short overview of the commonly used diacritical marks for Balto-Slavic accents, all used on the example letter a.

In Croatian dialects, especially Čakavian and Posavian, the "new acute" (neoacute, the "new rising") is usually markied with tilde, as ã. Short neoacute ("short new rising") is marked as à. Neoacutes represent post-Proto-Slavic development.

Balto-Slavic acute and circumflex

The development of Proto-Indo-European accent in Proto-Balto-Slavic was conditioned by several delicate factors, such as the syllable length, presence of a laryngeal closing the syllable, and the position of PIE ictus.

In short syllables PIE tone became short accent in Balto-Slavic, and was preserved as such in both Baltic and Slavic branch, although its lengthening could be triggered by certain conditions. For example, in Lithuanian vowels /a/ and /e/ were lengthened when they initially bore short accent in open syllable, and rising tone emerged that is marked with tilde sign ã. Compare:

In long syllables, however, opposition between tones emerged, which are called acute and circumflex, i.e. acute (á) and circumflex (ã) accent. In this context, Balto-Slavic long syllables encompasses the following cases:

As one can see, rules governing the development of Balto-Slavic acute and circumflex accents seem to be very complicated, when formulated within the framework of "classical" Proto-Indo-European laryngeal theory. Dutch Indo-Europeanist Frederik Kortlandt has proposed an alternative, more elegant and economic rule for the derivation of Balto-Slavic acute: acute is a reflex of a glottal stop, which has two sources - merger of PIE laryngeals and the dissolution of PIE pre-glottalized stop ("voiced stops" in traditional reconstructoin) to glottal stop and voiced stop, according to the Winter's law. Kortlandt's formulation appears very elegant initially, and seems to be confirmed independently by a glottal stop in Latvian as a reflex of Balto-Slavic acute in words in which accent was retracted, and is in accordance with the typological universal according to which in most languages high tone is developed in syllables closed with a glottal stop¹⁹. Rising tone can then be explained as a result of the development of high tone on the second mora of a long syllable.

Though elegant, Kortlandt's theory also has some problems. Glottalic theory of Proto-Indo-European reconstruction which was proposed in the 1970s is not generally accepted among linguists, and today only a small minority of linguists would consider it a reliable and self-supportive framework onto which base modern Indo-European research. Kortlandt's interpretation of intonational effects in post-PIE period of Balto-Slavic with glottal stops moreover presupposes independent development of PIE "preglottalized stops" to voiced stops in every PIE branch, which is a very unlikely scenario. Also, there is a number of Balto-Slavic lexemes which point to acute accent but that are provably not of PIE laryngeal origin, and some of which were are result of apophonical lengthenings occurring only in Balto-Slavic period.

Matasović (2008)²⁰ lists the following scenario as the most probable origin of Balto-Slavic acute:

Reflexes in Balto-Slavic languages

In Lithuanian acute becomes falling tone (so-called "Lithuanian metatony"), and is marked with acute accent. Word-finally acute was regularly shortened: gerà 'good' (indefinite adjective) : geróji 'the good' (definite adjective). That rule is called Leskien's law, after the German neogrammarian August Leskien. Shortening according to Leskien's law operated after the Lithuanian metatony. In Žemaitian dialects the usual reflex of Balto-Slavic acute is so-called "broken tone", with glottal stop on a syllable carrying it (like in Latvian). In monosyllablics acute became circumflexed. Metatonical retraction of accent from the final syllable to the penultimate syllable also automatically created circumflex. In diphthongs, which had a sonorant as a second part, acute has been preserved, but since the diacritical mark is put on the first part of such diphthong, grave accent is used instead (e.g. Lith. pìlnas 'full' < PIE *plh₁nos).

In Old Prussian the acute was reflected probably as rising tone. To that conclusion point the marks on long vowels and diphthongs in Abel Will's translation of Martin Luther's Enchiridion, which is the only accented Old Prussian text preserved. Diphthongs that correspond to reconstructable Balto-Slavic acute generally have length in the second part in that text.

In Latvian acute is reflected in the first syllable as rising, or lengthened intonation (stieptā), marked with a tilde. When accent was retracted from world-final, or any other syllable, to a syllable that carried Balto-Slavic acute, then the first syllable of a word in Latvian has so-called "broken" (lauztā) tone.

In all Slavic languages the acute has been shortened. In Slovenian the shortened acute has again been lengthened in the first syllable of polysyllabic words.

Balto-Slavic circumflex yielded rising intonation in Lithuanian after the Lithuanian metatony, which is marked with a tilde. In Old Prussian, the Balto-Slavic circumflex corresponds to diphthongs with length on the first part (in Will's translation of Enchiridion). In Latvian, Balto-Slavic circumflex is reflected as falling intonation (krītošā).

In standard Croatian/Serbian/Bosniak, Balto-Slavic circumflex is reflected as long falling accent on the first syllable²¹. In Slovene, the accent has shifted to the end of the word in syllables with short accent (originating from acute) and circumflex.

In Czech acuted syllables have been reflected as long, while the circumflexed syllables were shortened. Russian has lost almost all the traces of Proto-Slavic accentuation, except in the pleophonical reflexes of Proto-Slavic syllables closed by liquids (*/l/, */r/): stress is on the second part of disyllabic reflex if the Proto-Slavic vowel was acuted, on the first part if it was circumflexed.

Here is a table of basic accentual correspondences of the first syllable of a word:

	Balto-Slavic and Proto-Slavic	Lithuanian	Old Prussian	Latvian	Croatian	Slovenian	Czech	Russian
acute	´	´	˘¯	~	̏	̏	¯	vRv´
circumflex	~	~	¯ ˘	`	̑	̑	˘	v´Rv

Balto-Slavic fixed and mobile paradigms

Proto-Balto-Slavic had, just like Proto-Indo-European, a class of nouns with so called "mobile" accentuation in which accent alternated between the word stem and the ending. These classes of nouns are usually reconstructed on the basis of Vedic Sanskrit and Ancient Greek, which have retained the position of the original PIE accent almost unchanged. However, by comparing the Balto-Slavic evidence, it was discovered that the PIE rules on accent alternations, devised on the basis of Vedic and Greek, do not match. Moreover, nouns that belong to mobile paradigms in Balto-Slavic belong to declension classes that had strictly fixed accent in PIE paradigms, i.e. ā-stems and o-stems. So for a long time the exact relationships between the accentuation of nouns in Balto-Slavic and PIE was one of the most mysterious questions of Indo-European studies, and some parts of the puzzle are missing to this day.

Research conducted by Christian Stang, Ferdinand de Saussure, Vladislav Illich-Svitych and Vladimir Dybo has lead to a conclusion that Balto-Slavic nouns, with regard to accentuation, could be reduced to two paradigms: fixed and mobile. Nouns of the fixed paradigm had accent on the root, and in the nouns of the mobile paradigm the accent alternated between the root and the ending.

As shown by the Illič-Svityč, Balto-Slavic nouns of the fixed paradigm correspond to the PIE nouns with accent on the root (PIE barytones), the only exception being nouns with the accent on the ending (PIE oxytones) which was shifted onto the root in Balto Slavic in accordance with Hirt's law: such nouns also have fixed accent in Balto-Slavic.

Origin of the Balto-Slavic nouns of the mobile paradigm has not been completely determined, but most probable and prevalent is the opinion of Illič-Svityč according to whom they originate from fixed-accent PIE oxytones. Although, it remains unclear why exactly would PIE nouns with fixed accent on the ending become mobile, as analogies usually lead to uniformity and regularity.

Balto-Slavic accentual system has been further reworked during the Proto-Slavic and Common Slavic period (Dybo's law, Meillet's law, Ivšić's law etc.), which makes 3 Common Slavic accentual paradigms (conveniently marked with letters as a, b, c) to correspond to 4 Lithuanian accentual paradigms (marked with numbers 1, 2, 3, 4) in a simple scheme:

	Balto-Slavic acute on the root
yes	no
fixed accent	yes	a.p. 1/a.p. a	a.p. 2/a.p. b
no	a.p. 3/a.p. c	a.p. 4/a.p. c

Common Slavic accentual paradigm a

The simplest accentuation is that of nouns which were acuted on the root in Balto-Slavic. They remain accented on the root²² throughout the paradigm in Baltic (Lithuanian first accentual paradigm) and Slavic (accent paradigm a). In the same time, Both Baltic and Slavic have expected reflexes of Balto-Slavic acute:

Common Slavic accentual paradigm b

In the nouns with non-mobile initial accent, which did not have acuted root syllable, in both Lithuanian and Slavic an independent accent shift occurred from the root to the ending. In Lithuanian these are the nouns of the seccond accent paradigm, and in the Slavic of accent paradigm b.

Lithuanian noun rankà 'hand' corresponds to Russian ruká and Croatian rúka, but both of these became mobile in later Common Slavic development. So the reflexes of Proto-Slavic noun *jōxā́ 'soup' are listed instead.

Common Slavic accentual paradigm c

Nouns with mobile accent had in some cases accented root, on the others the ending.

Lithuanian distinguishes two accent paradigms of these nouns: if they had acuted root, they belong to the third accent paradigm, and if the root was not acuted, by the operation of de Saussure's law the accent shifted onto the all acuted endings in the paradigm, so these nouns belong to the fourth accent paradigm.

In Proto-Slavic the acute has been eliminated in the nouns with mobile accentuation by the operation of Meillet's law, so therefore all the nouns with mobile accentuation belong to one accent paradigm, so called accent paradigm c.

Balto-Slavic apophony

Indo-European ablaut has been significantly reworked in Balto-Slavic. Prominence of lengthened-grade has been significantly increased, as opposed to PIE in which it was used only for rare vrddhi-formations, nominative singulars of some consonant-stem nouns and sigmatic aorist.

On the basis of already-present apophonic oppositions beween Balto-Slavic long */ā/, */ē/, */ō/ and short */a/, */e, new oppositions in Balto-Slavic arose between long */ī/, */ū/ and short */i/, */u/. This latter type of apophony was not productive in PIE. Compare:

This new type of apophonic length was especially used in Proto-Slavic in the formation of durative, iterative and imperfective verbs. Compare:

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