Accent as Means of Morphology in Standard Lithuanian

Summary Accent as means morphfonology in Standard Lithuanian Morphonology is a branch of lingguistics that studies the phonological structure of morphemes as well as phonological changes in morphology. Thus morphonology is closely connected with several branches of linguistics – phonetics, phonoly, morphology, morphemics and syntax. The object of morphonology has always been discussed in linguistics. Initially only historical changes of phonemes were analysed, because they always to be referred to change of grammatical or lexical meaning of the world. Different positionant changes are also important in morphonology. In Lithuanian they can also be observed most often in morpheme juncture if there occurs a special phonetic position in a deficite grammatical form or derivative. In other grammatical form or derivative with a morpheme combination having been changed, the position of phonemes involved in juncture and consequently the sound adjustment change also. Changes mainualy manifest themselves as different kinds of assimilation with positional sound interchange. In Lithuanian morphological functions are inherent in syllable intonation and word or sentence strese. Morphonological functions of syllable intonation are connected with metathony – the change of intonation in cognate words. Metathony in Lithuanian functions as a means of both derivation and inflection – the change of intonation can be connected with the change of lexical and grammatical semantics. As metathony is a suprasegmental phenomenom, the changing elements are suprafixes that function as tonal allosuprafixes – most often in the root syllable of a word, more rarely – in prepositions, when deriving nouns from adjectives : artì : árti, aũkštas : áukštas, drum̃stis : drumstìs. Accent and intonation have been analysed in lexical, morphonological and lexical – morphonological opositions. These opositions in a deficite words in Lithuanian make it possible to specify the part of speech of such words. Word intonation can also have a grammatical role, because it can help to semantically differentiate one and the same word