Balto-Slavic accentology for dummies

2014. — 43 p.For many years, while I was investigating practically all other aspects of Indo-European comparative linguistics, I was careful to avoid the field of Balto-Slavic accentology like the plague. Perhaps it was reading Collinge's book on Indo-European sound laws that scared me off, with the intimidating amount of Balto-Slavic 'accentological laws' contained therein. Perhaps it was the couple of unsuccessful attempts to read and comprehend the few general introductions to the subject I could find.
Nevertheless, when I finally stumbled upon some material that I actually understood (Illič-Svityč 1963, Rasmussen 1992), and after getting involved in online accentological discussions with Kapovic, Olander, Rasmussen, and others, I finally decided that the field of Balto-Slavic accentology was just too fascinating to leave aside. And it turned out that at least the descriptive facts are not all that complicated.