Modern Greek Phonology - Consonants

Consonants

The consonantal system of Greek is difficult to describe, as there is considerable debate about which sounds to describe as separate phonemes and which to analyse as conditional allophones. The following table presents a near-maximum inventory of 27 sounds.

Of the 27 consonantal sounds shown here, only the 15 shown in black are undisputed phonemes. These 15 sounds are also the only ones represented by single letters in Greek orthography and directly correspond to consonant phonemes in Ancient Greek. In this minimalist analysis, all others can be analysed as combinatorial clusters of two phonemes or allophonic variants of another phoneme:

• The palatals can be analysed as allophones of their velar counterparts before front vowels. When these sounds occur before back vowels, a silent interceding vowel /i/ (represented in orthography as ⟨ι⟩, ⟨υ⟩ and ⟨ει⟩) is typically assumed. The velar sounds only ever occur before back vowels.
• The sounds are usually analysed as clusters of /ni/ and /li/, respectively, and are also spelled accordingly in Greek orthography.
• The series of voiced stops can be analysed as sequences of nasals and voiceless stops, = /mp/, = /nt/, = /nk/. Again, this corresponds to the orthographic spelling (using digraphs <μπ, ντ, γκ>).
• /ts/ and /dz/ can be analysed as biphonemic clusters rather than as separate phonemes.

Standard Modern Greek does not have geminated consonants within words, although some southeastern dialects (notably Cypriot and Rhodian) do.