Some nouns and adjectives have fixed stress, that is, an accent remains on the same stem syllable in all the inflections.
In each declension of the noun or adjective, there are four accent classes, one fixed and three mobile, all with different patterns of movement.
[4]: 52, 142, 149, 154, 167 Other features such as duration, spectrum and pitch, are of lesser importance in normal speech.
For example, In international words, which consist of three poorly inter-flowing parts, two secondary stresses may occur.
[clarification needed][4] In dialects, there are cases when words may be differentiated only by the use of accents on unstressed syllables.
One example is where an accent determines the declensional case, In standard language, such a difference would not be emphasized.
[clarification needed] Mixed and simple diphthongs are present only when they are followed by consonants or when they occur at the end of a word.
For instance, Diphthongs are distinguished from monophthongs (simple vowels) by the fact that they do not have short equivalents.
Complex diphthongs differ from the others in that the second component is a vowel rather than a consonant, that is, a semivowel or sonorant, and they do not split into two syllables.
[8] When foreign words are adopted, and there are simple (eu, oi, ou) or mixed diphthongs (o or e with l, m, n, or r); the sounds of the o and the e are not lengthened.
One exception is the mixed diphthong or which is found in old, nativized foreign words like morkà "carrot" and, gõrčius "measure of about three litres".
In this case, the o is long and marked by a circumflex when stressed or written ò when short.
In the Samogitian and western Aukštaitian dialects, variation of pitch and tone is an important way to differentiate accents.
[4] In particular, the acute accent, when depicted as a graph, has a curve with pitch similar to the circumflex, but more sudden.
[3] Kazimieras Jaunius describes strength of voice (more than tone) as an element differentiating between the two accents.
[6] The words were the singular vocatives rýte ("morning"), rỹti (a male name), sū́ri ("cheese") and, sū̃ri ("saltiness").
The dialect speakers were from western Aukštaitians (Marijampolė, Vilkaviškis, Kazlų Rūda, Garliava), Veliuona, and Dzūkian.
In foreign words: tèmai (dative) – theme, subject (nominative is temà 2).
Lengthened vowels a, e (and ą, ę, which were nasal in earlier times) are of the quality [aː], [aeː].
Historically, there were long vowels ā, ē ([aː], [aeː]), which today are the narrower o, ė.
The first element of circumflex cases is similar to a short unstressed vowel – not tensed, more closed.
The first element of acute mixed diphthongs e, o + l, m, n, r of a foreign origin, does not lengthen as well: hèrbas – coat of arms, spòrtas – sport.
[11] The acute long vowels, similarly, are much more closed and more tensed than the circumflex, but the contrast is lesser than in the complex diphthongs.
The base dialects of a standard language (western Aukštaitian) cover a smaller area.
It is easy to intentionally intensify the second part in the circumflex accent, but it is common too, that it is impossible to extract, hear out them from the standard language, the sounds are pronounced without an attention on emphasizing some accentual oppositions.
Among the reasons of unification of accents in, for example, mixed diphthongs, there possibly is the absence of necessity to distinguish between them.
Short vowels a, e in a root of a word lengthen when stressed and have a circumflex accent: ã, ẽ: (sg.
But these vowels do not lengthen in foreign words, some forms of disyllabic verbs: temà - tèmos 'theme' (sg.
But in the latter case the words having such suffixes have either the different endings, for example: kaimýnas – neighbour, lentýna – shelf and tėvỹnė – fatherland, lenktỹnės pl.
Long endings (long vowels and diphthongs), if stressed, are accented in a circumflex accent except a few cases where acute accent occurs – dative singular (unstressed in nouns): gerám (geras - good), pronominal gerájam (< *gerám-jam); gẽrai f, pronominal gẽrajai; dative plural: geríems, pron.