Macedonian grammar

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Macedonian language
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Macedonian grammar refers to the morphology and syntax of the Macedonian language which is, in many respects, similar to the grammar of some other Balkan languages (constituent languages of the Balkan sprachbund) — especially Serbian and Bulgarian.

It has a number of grammatical features that distinguish it from most other Slavic languages, such as the elimination of case declension, the development of a suffixed definite article, and the lack of a verb infinitive, among others.

Contents 1 General characteristics 1.1 Syntax 2 Nominal morphology 2.1 Definiteness 2.2 Nouns 2.2.1 Vocative case 2.3 Pronouns 2.4 Numerals 2.5 Adjective 2.5.1 Comparison 3 Verbs 3.1 Perfect tense 3.2 Aorist 3.3 Future tense 4 Orthography 4.1 Alphabet 4.2 Punctuation 5 Notes 6 References

[edit] General characteristics

[edit] Syntax

The canonical word order of Macedonian is AVO (Agent-Verb-Object), but word order is variable. Word order may be changed for poetic effect (inversion is common in poetry).

[edit] Nominal morphology

The Macedonian nominal system distinguishes two numbers (singular and plural), three genders (masculine, feminine and neuter), case and definiteness. Definiteness is expressed by three definite articles pertaining to the position of the object (unspecified, proximate and distal) which are suffixed to the noun.

[edit] Definiteness

The article (определен член) is postfixed, as in Bulgarian, Albanian and Romanian. One feature that has no parallel in any other standard Balkan language^[1] is the existence of three definite articles pertaining to position of the object: unspecified, proximate (or close) and distal (or distant).

The definite articles
	Singular			Plural
	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter	Masculine	Feminine	Neuter
Unspecified	-от	-та	-то	-те	-те	-та
Proximate	-ов	-ва	-во	-ве	-ве	-ва
Distal	-он	-на	-но	-не	-не	-на

[edit] Nouns

Macedonian nouns (именки) are inflected for gender and number. There are three grammatical genders (masculine, feminine and neuter) and two numbers (singular and plural). The gender opposition does not exist in the plural ^[2]. Definiteness is expressed by three definite articles pertaining to the position of the object (unspecified, proximate and distal) which are postfixed to the noun.

[edit] Vocative case

The vocative case is formed by adding the endings –o (in feminine nouns), –u (in masculine monosyllabic nouns) and –e (in masculine polysyllabic nouns). For example, пријател (IPA: [pri'jatɛl], "friend") takes the form of пријателe (IPA: [pri'jatɛlɛ], "friend!").^[2] The vocative is used almost exclusively for singular masculine and feminine nouns.

[edit] Pronouns

Main article: Macedonian pronouns

Macedonian pronouns decline for case ('падеж'), i.e., their function in a phrase as subject (ex. јас 'I'), direct object (него 'him'), or object of a preposition (од неа 'from her').

Based on their meaning and the function in the sentence, pronouns are fall into in the following categories:

Types of pronouns	Examples
Demonstrative pronouns	ова (this), тоа (that), овде (here), таму (there)
Indefinite pronouns	некој (somebody), нешто (something)
Interrogative pronouns	кој (who), кого/кому (whom), што (what)
Personal pronouns	јас (I), ти (you), тој (he), таа (she), она (it), ние (we)
Possessive pronouns	мој (my), твој (your), нејзин (her), негов (his), наш (our)
Relative pronouns	кој (which), што (that), чиј (whose)
Reflexive pronoun and reciprocal pronouns	себе (himself, herself), се (self)
Universal pronouns	сите (all), секој (everybody, each), сешто (everything), секаде (everywhere)

[edit] Numerals

Symbol	Cardinal (masculine)	Ordinal (masculine)
0	нула	нулти
1	еден	прв
2	два	втор
3	три	трет
4	четири	четврт
5	пет	петти
6	шест	шести
7	седум	седми
8	осум	осми
9	девет	деветти
10	десет	десетти

[edit] Adjective

Adjectives (придавки) agree with nouns in gender, number and definiteness with their noun and usually appear before it.

[edit] Comparison

Adjectives have three degrees of comparison (споредбни степени) — positive, comparative and superlative. The positive form is identical to all the aforementioned forms. The other two are formed regularly, by prepending the particle по and the word нај directly before the positive to form the comparative and superlative, respectively, regardless of its comprising of one or two words.

Positive	Comparative	Superlative
тежок (heavy)	потежок (heavier)	најтежок (heaviest)
долг (long)	подолг (longer)	најдолг (longest)

Macedonian only has one adjective that has an irregular comparative — многу.

Positive	Comparative	Superlative
многу (a lot)	повеќе (more)	најмногу (the most)

[edit] Verbs

[edit] Perfect tense

In Macedonian the perfect tense is formed by a clitic which agrees in number and gender with the object of the sentence, followed by има ("to have"), and the passive participle of the verb in its uninflected form. This is common in Germanic and Romance languages, along with other languages in the Balkan linguistic area, such as Albanian and Greek.

For example, the sentence "I have read the book" reads:

Јаc	ја	имам	прочитано	книгата
Jas	ja	imam	pročitano	knigata
I	it (clitic)	have	read	book-the

In contrast to other Slavic languages that have the perfect tense, it is almost universally built with the verb "to be" and a past active participle; that is also an option in Macedonian. The older common Slavic form with сум ("to be") is predominant in the east of the country, while the form with "to have" is more widespread in the west, but has spread in the younger generations due to the influence of the standard language ^[3].

The sentence "I have seen" reads:

New perfect	Old perfect
имам видено	сум видел
imam videno	sum videl

Being replaced by the new construction, the "old perfect" tends to become an expression of the renarrative mood (nonconfirmative status) in Western Macedonia and in the standard language.

[edit] Aorist

The aorist (минато определено свршено време, "past definite complete tense"), is a form which refers to a completed action in the past tense. It most often corresponds to the simple past tense in English: I read the book, I wrote the letter, I ate my supper, etc. In contemporary standard Macedonian, the aorist is formed almost exclusively from perfective verbs.

The formation of the aorist for most verbs is not complex, but there are numerous small subcategories which must be learned. While all verbs in the aorist (except сум) take the same endings, there are complexities in the aorist stem vowel and possible consonant alternations.

All verbs (except сум) take the following endings in the aorist:

јас -в	ние -вме
ти -ше	вие -вте
тој -ше	тие -а

(The sign # indicates a zero ending, i.e., nothing is added after the stem vowel.")^[4]

[edit] Future tense

The future tense is formed by means of the clitic ќе and an inflected present tense form of the verb.

Thus, "I will come" reads:

ќе	доjдам
kje	dojdam
will (clitic)	I come (perfective aspect)

I will come.

In this respect, both Macedonian and Bulgarian differ from other Slavic languages. In Macedonian, as in other Balkan Sprachbund languages (Bulgarian, Greek and Albanian) the clitic is fixed, whereas in Serbo-Croatian it inflects for person and number ^[5]. In both cases the clitic is derived from a verb meaning "to want".

Future-in-the-past is expressed by means of the same clitic and a past tense inflected form of the verb:

ќе	доjдеше
kje	dojdeše
will (clitic)	he came (imperfective aspect)

He would come/he would have come.

In this respect, Macedonian is different from Bulgarian: Macedonian is consistent in the use of ќе as a clitic, whereas the equivalent Bulgarian construction involves the inflection of the clitic for tense, person and number as a regular verb (щях да дойда, "I would [have] come"; щеше да дойде, "he would [have] come").

An interesting fact is that a past tense form of the verb can be used in a future sense as well, although this construction is mostly limited to older speakers.

Examples:

• Те отепав, штом те фатам. ("I have killed you, when I get you")
• Те фатам ли, те казнив. ("As soon as I grab you, I have punished you")

[edit] Orthography

Macedonian orthography ("правопис", pronounced [ˈpravɔpis]) encompasses the spelling and punctuation of the Macedonian language. It is based on a combination of and historical principles. While largely phonemic in practice it shows, in some instances, principles that are etymological or analogous to other spellings.

[edit] Alphabet

Main article: Macedonian alphabet

[edit] Punctuation

Punctuation (интерпункција) marks are one or two part graphical marks used in writing, denoting tonal progress, pauses, sentence type (syntactic use), abbreviations, et cetera.

Marks used in Macedonian include full stops (.), question marks (?), exclamation marks (!), commas (,), semicolons (;), colons (:), dashes (–), hyphens (-), ellipses (...), different types of inverted commas and quotation marks ("", '', ‚‘, „“, »«), brackets ((), [], {}) (which are in syntactical use), as well as apostrophes (',’), solidi (/), equal signs (=), and so forth.

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Standard Bulgarian has only the unspecified form, although three definite article forms exist in certain Bulgarian dialects, notably the vernaculars of Tran and parts of the Rhodopes ^[1].
2. ^ Compare with other languages in the Balkan sprachbund; Bulgarian: приятел and приятелю; Serbo-Croatian: prijatelj and prijatelju; Greek: φίλος and φίλε; Romanian: prieten and prietene.

[edit] References