Second palatalisation

Lesson opening

This is the first part of the lesson. The rest, the exercises and the reviews are in the app.

Sibilarisation: k, g, h → c, z, s

In the lesson “First palatalisation” you saw k, g, h turn into the hushing sounds č, ž, š before the -e of address or of a verb and before some suffixes: junak → junače, Bog → Bože. Now meet its twin. The very same k, g, h, this time before the ending -i, give not hushing but hissing sounds, c, z, s: junak → junaci, noga → nozi, orah → orasi. This is sibilarisation (in Serbian sibilarizacija, from the Latin for “to hiss”), also called the second palatalisation. You have already met it in “The consonant inventory”, “Plural formation”, “Dative forms” and “Locative forms”; here it is in full.

Keep the most important fact in front of you from the first minute: the dative and locative of ruka (hand) is ruci. Not “ruče”, not “ruke”, not “ruki”, but ruci. Two instincts pull the other way. Having just learned “k → č”, a learner reaches for the hushing sound here too. And English, which makes book → books without touching the stem, suggests simply sticking the ending on: “ruki”. Before -i, Serbian does not hush; it hisses.

Serbian switches this rule on in three places: two case endings in -i, and the imperative. Let us take them in order.

1. The dative and locative of feminine nouns

Feminine nouns in -a whose stem ends in k, g or h take the ending -i in the dative and locative singular, and the hiss appears at once. A quick reminder of the two cases: the dative marks the person something is given or said to; the locative is the case used after prepositions of place such as u (in) and na (on). For these nouns the two forms are identical (the cases themselves were covered in “Dative forms” and “Locative forms”):

Hence some everyday Serbian sentences; listen to how naturally the hiss settles into the case:

Cheat sheet

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Sibilarisation: k, g, h → c, z, s

Rule: the velars k, g, h turn into the hissing c (ts in cats), z (z in zoo), s (s in sun) before an -i that is a case or command ending. This is the second palatalisation, in Serbian sibilarizacija. The pair to the first: the -e of address or a verb calls up a hush (č ž š), -i a hiss.

1. Dative and locative of feminine nouns

2. Plural of masculine nouns

3. Imperative

When there is no hiss