Page:A grammar of the Bohemian or Cech language.djvu/26

4 To avoid hiatus we have the use of:—

(1) The consonant v (thus rukovět, a guide, for rukojet, i.e. taking by the hand) ; navyknoúti, to get used to, where the root is uk, the same as in nauka, art. This v is frequently introduced at the beginning of words. Cf. vajce, an egg, with Russian яйцо.

(2) The consonant h, as Holomuc, used by the common people for Olomuc.

(3) The consonant j, as jíti, to go, originally iti (see Gebauer, i. 570).

The liquids l and r, between two consonants, have a vocalic sound, as vlk, a wolf, pronounce vŭlk (the u as in but); prst, a finger, pronounce pŭrst; krk, the neck, pronounce kŭrk.

Both in English and German this brief e occurs in syllables, and is not pronounced ; cf. silber, silver, with Bohemian brzo, soon ; fackel, a torch, with řekl, he spake ; fächert, with chrt, a greyhound. Cf. also such words in English as gentleman, where there is only a distinct vowel in the first syllable.

The accent in Bohemian is always on the first syllable of a word. Prepositions of one syllable take the accent with a substantive, being considered compounded with the word, but the accent has nothing to do with the length of a vowel. Even in words of four and five syllables the accent is on the first, so that in the accentuation of a word of four syllables there is another accent on the penult, as velebený, praised ; words have sometimes another accent on the penult, sometimes on the antepenult, e.g. velevěhlasný very celebrated.