Zeta–Raška dialect

The border continues northeast toward Bijelo Polje and crosses into Serbia near the town of Brodarevo and meets the Ibar river near Sjenica.

The Zeta–Raška dialect then veers south toward Leposavić, reaching the vicinity Kosovska Mitrovica before continuing westward across Mokra Gora and Žljeb back into Montenegro.

In other areas, such as Paštrovići in Budva and Zupci in Bar, speakers contract the masculine active past participle from -ao to -o, such as in mogo and reko (tonal mȍgō, rȅkō).

[citation needed] In certain parts of the dialectal region, namely Broćanac and Pješivci, the contraction the masculine active past participle from -ao to -o takes on a further step, where speakers add a v in the coda position, giving dov from davao and prodov from prodavao (tonal dȏv, prȍdōv).

This phoneme in syllable-final position becomes nasalized by speakers found along the border with Albania, notably rekän and zatekän (standard rekao and zatekao, respectively).

[6] The Zeta–Raška dialect follows the Ijekavian reflex of yat, where ě (ѣ) in Proto-Slavic became either ije, je or e, depending on length and position.

This iotation is present even in words that do not have a short yat reflex, namely koźetina (kozjetina), iźelica (izjelica) and kiśelo (kisjelo - hyperijekavism).

Due to the iotation of labial consonants, the short yat reflex may become transformed into either -je- or -lje- as is common in many vernaculars found in the dialectal region.

Other examples that follow this trend are gorelo, ređe, rešenje, starešina, among others, but it is common to hear their Ijekavian counterparts (gorjelo, rjeđe, rješenje, starješina) throughout the dialectal region.

Short yat also transforms into -i- before vowel o, usually seen in verbs where the masculine active past participle in Proto-Slavic ends in *-ěl (later forming Proto-Western South Slavic *-ěo).

Its Ekavian counterpart is ceo (from *cělъ) where the -l in coda position transformed into -o, and similarly in Ikavian cio, where it is a contraction of *cil.

[8] In areas where /h/ was dropped, such as Bar, Bjelopavlići, Kuči, Mrkojevići, Piperi and Zupci, speakers would replace /h/ with either /k/, /g/ (trbuge > trbuhe), /j/ (kijat(i) > kihat(i), Mijajlo > Mihailo) or /v/ (muva > muha).

This characteristic is most present in Bjelopavlići (partially), Bratonožići, Crmnica, Kuči, Mrkojevići, Novi Pazar, Paštrovići Plav-Gusinje and Rijeka Crnojevića.