The Karst dialect has lost pitch accent, as well as the distinction between long and short vowels. It has also undergone four accent shifts: *ženȁ → *žèna, *məglȁ → *mə̀gla, *visȍk → vìsok, and *ropotȁt → *ròpotat. The Banjšice subdialect still distinguishes between long and short vowels and has not undergone the *ropotȁt → *ròpotat shift.[7]
Non-final *ě̀ and *ě̄ turned into iːẹ or iːə. Alpine Slavic and later lengthened *ę̄ turned into iːe or iːə, around Gorizia to aː, and ə or ḁ from Vrtovin to Solkan and Grgar. The vowel *ē turned into iːẹ or iːə. The vowel *ō turned into uː under influence from the Inner Carniolan dialect southeast of Komen; elsewhere it is uːọ or uːə, whereas non-final *ò remained a diphthong everywhere. Alpine Slavic *ǭ and non-final *ǫ̀ turned into uːo, uːə, or uọ, or simplified to uː around Dutovlje and Komen. The vowel *ū evolved into uː. Syllabic *ł̥̄ mostly turned into uː, probably because of Bosnian immigrants, but some microdialects still pronounce it as oːu̯.[8] Long *ə̄ turned into aː, and around Solkan back into ə.[9]
Final *ǫ, *o, *ę, and *e turned into u, o, ə, and e, respectively.[8]
Palatal consonants are still palatal, except that *t’ turned into ć, rarely also into č, and *ĺ might have depalatalized. The consonant *g turned into ɣ. Velar *ł still exists.[10]
The Banjšice subdialect is more archaic; diphthongs are more prominent, *ǭ turned into oː, and *ę̄ mostly turned into aː, although eː and ieː also exist. The vowel *ē mostly turned into *eː, but it is still ieː in the south. Newly stressed e and o are pronounced as short e̥/ə and ọ (in the far north also a), respectively. Palatal *ń turned into i̯n in Avče.[11]
Neuter gender exists in the singular, but it has been feminized in the plural. The dual has mostly been lost, except in the east, where there are some remnants. All verbs have an -s- infix in the second- and third-person plural.[12] The long infinitive has been replaced by the short infinitive,[6] and o-stem nouns have the ending -i in the dative and locative singular.[12]
The Karst dialect has a more archaic subdialect, the Banjšice subdialect, in the northern part, which still has length oppositions in stressed syllables and has not undergone the *ropotȁt → *ròpotat accent shift.[5] Northern microdialects (particularly the Avče microdialect) show the influence of the Tolmin dialect.[11] The rest of the Karst dialect is not uniform either, and it can mainly be split into four subcategories, based on the pronunciation of *ǭ and *ę̄. The vowel *ǭ is pronounced as uːo/uːə in the west and u in the east, and *ę̄ is pronounced as ieː~aː in the north and as ieː in the south.[5]
Logar, Tine (1996). Kenda-Jež, Karmen (ed.). Dialektološke in jezikovnozgodovinske razprave [Dialectological and etymological discussions] (in Slovenian). Ljubljana: Znanstvenoraziskovalni center SAZU, Inštitut za slovenski jezik Frana Ramovša. ISBN961-6182-18-8.
Šekli, Matej (2018). Legan Ravnikar, Andreja (ed.). Topologija lingvogenez slovanskih jezikov (in Slovenian). Translated by Plotnikova, Anastasija. Ljubljana: Znanstvenoraziskovalni center SAZU. ISBN978-961-05-0137-4. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)