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I have been unable to locate the stress accent in the word бахмутчан. Could someone please let me know which syllable has it? And to make this of more general interest, do words in -чан have a regular pattern of stress accent? Thank you very much.

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Heh, it's kinda the ironic situation, because for this suffix a stress pattern is easy, but not adding to the base of the word..

For the start, -чан is actually -ч-ан-ин where:

  • The part -ан-ин is -ян-ин.

    If you left just -ян then it's plural during decletion where -ин is removed: singular кий-ан-ин but plural кий-ан-и, and if you remove -и here then you get Genetive or Accusative cases: кий-ан.

  • The part -ч- isn't suffix but a changed part of a word base which end with k or т, and from their deriatives and some adjective suffixes.

    In case with к, because the sound cann't be palatalized, therefore ~к + янин → ч-ан-ин. It happens in other situation too, for examples: рук-а but руч-ати or руч-ка.

    In the second case, it's easier to say ч-анин istead т-янин in some cases, it happens in verbs too: плат-ити but from плат-ю we get плач-у. But in this case we saved т too: датчанин, бахмутчанин etc where тч is actually чч in pronounce. There're no logic in the standard spelling, because from д — a voiced pair to т — you get just ж as in горожанин from город or слобожанин from слобода; while we have situation where there aren't changed: громад-янин, єгипет-янин, освіт-янин etc.

    Therefore -ян-ин can become as -ан-ин but with changed specific previous consonants or й which doesn't doubled. And dialects can have their own variatives.

    And labial sounds also cann't be palatalized but they doesn't change itself, therefore we have словʼянин, острівʼянин etc.

  • An additional problem is figure out what is a word base, because usually we doesn't save -ів like in mentioned Київ → киянин, but from Львів you get львівʼянин not львʼянин which has some usage in non-standard spelling but with харківʼянин from Харків situation is more problematic.

So a dictionary form would be бахмутчанин or бахмутянин which you also can meet in usage.

What about the stress accent then the suffix always make here: -я́нин.

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  • Thank you, that is very helpful!
    – James Ward
    Commented Jun 19, 2023 at 7:43
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    @JamesWard, just to make it clear: the wordform бахмутча́н also exists, but that's just genitive plural of the word бахмутча́нин (you can see the whole declension table with stress accents for a similar word полтавча́нин here).
    – Sasha ♦
    Commented Jun 19, 2023 at 14:17

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