Macedonian Dialects - Variation in Word Stress and Its Effects On Vowels

Variation in Word Stress and Its Effects On Vowels

The Western dialects generally have fixed stress, antepenultimate in the Republic of Macedonia, and penultimate in Greece and Albania. The Eastern region, along with the neighbouring Bulgarian dialects, has various non-fixed stress systems. In Lower Vardar and Serres-Nevrokop unstressed /a, ɛ, ɔ/ are reduced (raised) to . The reduction of unstressed vowels (as well as the aforementioned allophonic palatalisation of consonants) is characteristic of East Bulgarian as opposed to West Bulgarian dialects, so these dialects are regarded by Bulgarian linguists as transitional between East and West Bulgarian.

Read more about this topic:  Macedonian Dialects

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