Číslo 2 - Slavistický ústav Jána Stanislava SAV

On the Essence of the Rythmical Rule in the Slovak Language
Ján Kaèala
The author’s interpretation of the essence of the so-called rythmical rule is based on phonological and morphological traits.
The vehicle of the rythmical rule is phonological, its appliction is morphological. The rythmical rule is realized on the boundary of
the final root syllable and the suffixal grammatical syllable or the word-forming syllable. A morphological interpretation of the
rythmical rule and its application in Central Slovak as well as in literary Slovak is necessary if we are to understand implementation
of the rythmical rule properly since the morphological system of the Slovak language is mostly flective. Quantitative variation
of the grammatical morpheme based on the rythmical rule is resposible for the peculiar character of the Slovak flectiveness. The
former phonological interpretation of the essence and origin of the rythmical rule in Central Slovak tried to explain its origin by
way of easy pronunciation of final suffixal syllables. However, this theory is not well-founded. In the recent editions of Pravidlá
slovenského pravopisu (which is a handbook of the Slovak orthography) from 1991 and 1998, the rythmical rule was applied in
accordance with the morphological interpretation and thus the codifying tradition of the late 20 th century was infringed. These
changes in the application of the rythmical rule helped eliminate some irregularities in the Slovak language codification. As the
author’s analysis has shown, those irregularities of the rythmical rule that are not based on the quantitave correlation of grammatical
and word-forming morphemes should be eliminated from the system.
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