Macedonian phonology

This article is about the Slavic language. For the non-Slavic language spoken in the ancient world, see Ancient Macedonian language.

This article discusses the phonological system of standard Macedonian (unless otherwise noted) based on the Prilep-Bitola dialect. For discussion of other dialects, see Macedonian dialects. Macedonian possesses five vowels, one semivowel, three liquid consonants, three nasal stops, three pairs of fricatives, two pairs of affricates, a non-paired voiceless fricative, nine pairs of voiced and unvoiced consonants and four pairs of stops.

Vowels

Vowels

	Front	Central	Back
Close	i		u
Mid	ɛ	(ə)	ɔ
Open		a

[ə] occurs in some dialects as well as a few isolated examples.

Vowels in stressed open syllables in disyllablic words with stress on the penult are realized as long, e.g. Ресен /ˈrɛsɛn/ [ˈrɛːsɛn].

Consonants

Consonants

	Labial		Dental/ Alveolar		Post- Alveolar		Palatala		Velar
Nasal	m		n				ɲ
Stop	p	b	t	d			c	ɟ	k	ɡ
Affricate			t͡s	d͡z	t͡ʃ	d͡ʒ
Fricative	f	v	s	z	ʃ	ʒ			x
Approximant			l		ʎb		j
Trill			r

^a Depending on dialect, /c/ /ɟ/ may be alveolo-palatal affricates [t͡ɕ] and ([d͡ʑ], respectively).

^b Neither Lunt (1952) nor Friedman (2001) recognize the existence of a palatalised (/lʲ/) or palatal (/ʎ/) lateral in standard Macedonian. This is in contrast with the surrounding related languages (Bulgarian and Serbo-Croatian). Instead, a /lj/ cluster occurs, except in rapid speech where they coalesce.

Both of these scholars also assert that there is a phonemic contrast between the velarised lateral /ɫ/ and the nonvelarised /l/. While they admit that /ɫ/ and /l/ (as Л) occur mainly before front and non-front vowels, respectively. They state that, at least in the prescribed norm or in some words, /l/ (as Љ) may also occur before non-front vowels. Hence minimal pairs like бела /bɛɫa/ ('white'), fem.) versus беља /bɛla/ ('trouble') express this phonemic contrast.

The labiodental nasal [ɱ] occurs as an allophone of /m/ before /f/ and /v/ (e.g. трамвај [ˈtraɱvaj], 'tram'). The velar nasal [ŋ] similarly occur as an allophone of /n/ before /k/ and /ɡ/ (e.g. англиски [ˈaŋɡliski], 'English'). The latter realization is avoided by some speakers who enunciate.

The velar fricative /x/ does not occur natively in the language. It has been introduced or retained in Literary Macedonian under the following circumstances: (1) new foreign words: hotel ‘hotel’, (2) toponyms: Ohrid, (3) Church Slavonicisms: duh ‘spirit’, (4) new literary words: dohod ‘income’, and (5) disambiguation: hrana ‘food’, rana ‘injury’.

Schwa

The schwa is phonemic in many dialects (varying in closeness to [ʌ] or [ɨ]) but its use in the standard language is marginal. When writing a dialectal word and keeping the schwa for aesthetic effect, an apostrophe is used (for example, к’смет, сл’нце, etc.) When spelling aloud, each consonant is followed by the schwa. The individual letters of acronyms are pronounced with the schwa in the same way: МПЦ ([mə.pə.t͡sə]). The lexicalized acronyms СССР ([ɛs.ɛs.ɛs.ɛr]) and МТ ([ɛm.tɛ]) (a brand of cigarettes), are among the few exceptions.

Phonological processes

At the end of a word, the voicing opposition is neutralized.

Stress

The word stress in Macedonian is antepenultimate, meaning it falls on the third from last syllable in words with three or more syllables, and on the first or only syllable in other words. This is sometimes disregarded when the word has entered the language more recently or from a foreign source. The following rules apply:

• Disyllabic words are stressed on the second-to-last syllable.

For example, дете [ˈdɛtɛ] ('child'), мajкa [ˈmajka] ('mother') and тaтко [ˈtatkɔ] ('father').

• Trisyllabic and polysyllabic words are stressed on the third-to-last syllable.

For example, планина [ˈplanina] ('mountain'), планината [plaˈninata] ('the mountain'), and планинарите [planiˈnaritɛ] ('the mountaineers').

Exceptions include:

• Verbal adverbs: e.g. викaјќи [viˈkajci] ('shouting'), одејќи [ɔˈdɛjci] ('walking').
• Foreign loanwords: e.g. клише [kliˈʃɛ] ('cliché'), генеза [ɡɛˈnɛza] ('genesis'), литература [litɛraˈtura] ('literature').
• Some names.

See also

• Macedonian alphabet
• List of phonetics topics

Bibliography

• Friedman, Victor (2001), "Macedonian", in Garry, Jane; Rubino, Carl (eds.), Facts about the World's Languages: An Encyclopedia of the Worlds Major Languages, Past and Present, New York: Holt, pp. 435–439
• Friedman, Victor (2001), Macedonian, SEELRC
• Lunt, Horace G. (1952), Grammar of the Macedonian Literary Language, Skopje{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)