Macedonian Grammar
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The
grammar In linguistics, grammar is the set of rules for how a natural language is structured, as demonstrated by its speakers or writers. Grammar rules may concern the use of clauses, phrases, and words. The term may also refer to the study of such rul ...
of Macedonian is, in many respects, similar to that of some other
Balkan The Balkans ( , ), corresponding partially with the Balkan Peninsula, is a geographical area in southeastern Europe with various geographical and historical definitions. The region takes its name from the Balkan Mountains that stretch throug ...
languages (constituent languages of the '' Balkan sprachbund''), especially Bulgarian. Macedonian exhibits a number of grammatical features that distinguish it from most other
Slavic languages The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavs, Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic language, Proto- ...
, such as the elimination of case declension, the development of a suffixed definite article, the lack of an
infinitival Infinitive (abbreviated ) is a linguistics term for certain verb forms existing in many languages, most often used as non-finite verbs that do not show a tense. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a single definition applicable to all l ...
verb, and the constructions with ima/nema formed with the auxiliary "''to have''", among others.


Orthography

The Macedonian orthography (правопис, ''pravopis'') encompasses the
spelling Spelling is a set of conventions for written language regarding how graphemes should correspond to the sounds of spoken language. Spelling is one of the elements of orthography, and highly standardized spelling is a prescriptive element. Spelli ...
and
punctuation Punctuation marks are marks indicating how a piece of writing, written text should be read (silently or aloud) and, consequently, understood. The oldest known examples of punctuation marks were found in the Mesha Stele from the 9th century BC, c ...
of the Macedonian language.


Alphabet

In 1880, self-taught grammarian Georgi Pulevski made the first attempt at a Macedonian grammar. The modern Macedonian alphabet was developed by linguists in the period after the
Second World War World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, who based their alphabet on the phonetic alphabet of
Vuk Stefanović Karadžić VUK or Vuk may refer to: *Vuk (name), South Slavic given name ** Vuk, Ban of Bosnia (), a member of the Kotromanić dynasty ** Vuk Karadžić (1787–1864), Serbian language reformer and folklorist, often referred to simply as Vuk * ''Vuk'' (film) ...
, though a similar writing system was used by Krste Misirkov in the late 19th century. The Macedonian language had previously been written using the
Early Cyrillic alphabet The Early Cyrillic alphabet, also called classical Cyrillic or paleo-Cyrillic, is an alphabetic writing system that was developed in Medieval Bulgaria in the Preslav Literary School during the late 9th century. It is used to write the Chur ...
and later using
Cyrillic The Cyrillic script ( ) is a writing system used for various languages across Eurasia. It is the designated national script in various Slavic, Turkic, Mongolic, Uralic, Caucasian and Iranic-speaking countries in Southeastern Europe, Ea ...
with local adaptations from either the Serbian or Bulgarian alphabets. The first grammar of the Macedonian language was written by linguist Krume Kepeski in 1946, while linguist Horace Lunt has been credited with writing the first scholarly grammar of the language. The following table provides the upper and lower case forms of the Macedonian alphabet, along with the IPA value for each letter: The cursive version of the alphabet is slightly different:


Punctuation

Punctuation Punctuation marks are marks indicating how a piece of writing, written text should be read (silently or aloud) and, consequently, understood. The oldest known examples of punctuation marks were found in the Mesha Stele from the 9th century BC, c ...
(интерпункција, ''interpunkcija'') marks are one or two part graphical marks used in writing, denoting tonal progress, pauses, sentence type (
syntactic In linguistics, syntax ( ) is the study of how words and morphemes combine to form larger units such as phrases and sentences. Central concerns of syntax include word order, grammatical relations, hierarchical sentence structure (constituency ...
use),
abbreviation An abbreviation () is a shortened form of a word or phrase, by any method including shortening (linguistics), shortening, contraction (grammar), contraction, initialism (which includes acronym), or crasis. An abbreviation may be a shortened for ...
s, et cetera. Marks used in Macedonian include periods (.),
question mark The question mark (also known as interrogation point, query, or eroteme in journalism) is a punctuation, punctuation mark that indicates a question or interrogative clause or phrase in many languages. History The history of the question mark is ...
s (?),
exclamation mark The exclamation mark (also known as exclamation point in American English) is a punctuation mark usually used after an interjection or exclamation to indicate strong feelings or to show wikt:emphasis, emphasis. The exclamation mark often marks ...
s (!), commas (,),
semicolon The semicolon (or semi-colon) is a symbol commonly used as orthographic punctuation. In the English language, a semicolon is most commonly used to link (in a single sentence) two independent clauses that are closely related in thought, such as ...
s (;), colons (:),
dash The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen ...
es (–),
hyphen The hyphen is a punctuation mark used to join words and to separate syllables of a single word. The use of hyphens is called hyphenation. The hyphen is sometimes confused with dashes (en dash , em dash and others), which are wider, or with t ...
s (-), ellipses (...), different types of inverted commas and
quotation mark Quotation marks are punctuation marks used in pairs in various writing systems to identify direct speech, a quotation, or a phrase. The pair consists of an opening quotation mark and a closing quotation mark, which may or may not be the sam ...
s ( ‚‘, „“),
bracket A bracket is either of two tall fore- or back-facing punctuation marks commonly used to isolate a segment of text or data from its surroundings. They come in four main pairs of shapes, as given in the box to the right, which also gives their n ...
s ((), [], ) (which are for syntactical uses), as well as apostrophe (mark), apostrophes (',’), slash (punctuation), solidi (/), equal signs (=), and so forth.


Syntax

The canonical
word order In linguistics, word order (also known as linear order) is the order of the syntactic constituents of a language. Word order typology studies it from a cross-linguistic perspective, and examines how languages employ different orders. Correlatio ...
of Macedonian is SVO (subject–verb–object), but word order is variable. Word order may be changed for poetic effect ( inversion is common in
poetry Poetry (from the Greek language, Greek word ''poiesis'', "making") is a form of literature, literary art that uses aesthetics, aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language to evoke meaning (linguistics), meanings in addition to, or in ...
). Generally speaking, the syntactic constituents of the language are:: :''sentence'' or ''clause'' - the sentence can be simple and more complex. :''noun phrase'' or ''phrase'' - one or more words that function as single unit. :''complex sentence'' - a combination of two sentences and clauses. :''text'' - a set of sentences that are syntactically and semantically linked.


Morphology

Words, even though they represent separate linguistic units, are linked together according to the characteristics they possess. Therefore, the words in Macedonian can be grouped into various groups depending on the criteria that is taken into consideration. Macedonian words can be grouped according to the meaning they express, their form and their function in the sentence. As a result of that, there are three types of classification of the Macedonian words: ''semantic'', ''morphological'' and ''syntactic classification''. According to the semantic classification of the words, in the language there are eleven word classes: ''nouns, adjectives, numbers, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, particles, interjections and modal words''. Nouns, adjectives, numbers, pronouns and verbs belong to the '' open word class'', whereas the prepositions, adverbs, conjunctions, particles, interjections and modal words belong to the '' closed word class''. This is the morphological classification of the words. Finally, there are two large groups according to the syntactic classification. The larger part of the words belong to group of ''
lexical word In grammar, a part of speech or part-of-speech (Abbreviation, abbreviated as POS or PoS, also known as word class or grammatical category) is a category of words (or, more generally, of lexical items) that have similar grammar, grammatical propert ...
s'', and such words are: nouns, adjectives, numbers, pronouns, verbs, adverbs and modal words. The prepositions, conjunctions, particles and interjections belong to the group of ''
function word In linguistics, function words (also called functors) are words that have little lexical meaning or have ambiguous meaning and express grammatical relationships among other words within a sentence, or specify the attitude or mood of the speak ...
s''.


Nouns

Macedonian
noun In grammar, a noun is a word that represents a concrete or abstract thing, like living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, and ideas. A noun may serve as an Object (grammar), object or Subject (grammar), subject within a p ...
s (именки, ''imenki'') belong to one of three genders (''masculine'', ''feminine'' and ''neuter'') and are
inflected In linguistic Morphology (linguistics), morphology, inflection (less commonly, inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical category, grammatical categories such as grammatical tense, ...
for
number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The most basic examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...
(''singular'' and ''plural''), and marginally for
case Case or CASE may refer to: Instances * Instantiation (disambiguation), a realization of a concept, theme, or design * Special case, an instance that differs in a certain way from others of the type Containers * Case (goods), a package of relate ...
. The gender opposition is not distinctively marked in the plural. The Macedonian nominal system distinguishes two
numbers A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The most basic examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...
(''singular'' and ''plural''), three genders (''masculine'', ''feminine'' and ''neuter''),
case Case or CASE may refer to: Instances * Instantiation (disambiguation), a realization of a concept, theme, or design * Special case, an instance that differs in a certain way from others of the type Containers * Case (goods), a package of relate ...
and
definiteness In linguistics, definiteness is a semantic feature of noun phrases that distinguishes between referents or senses that are identifiable in a given context (definite noun phrases) and those that are not (indefinite noun phrases). The prototypical ...
. Definiteness is expressed by three
definite article In grammar, an article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech. In English, both "the" ...
s pertaining to the position of the object (''unspecified'', ''proximal'', and ''distal'') which are suffixed to the noun.


Definiteness

The article (член, ''člen'') is postfixed, as in Bulgarian, Albanian and Romanian. In Macedonian there is only the
definite article In grammar, an article is any member of a class of dedicated words that are used with noun phrases to mark the identifiability of the referents of the noun phrases. The category of articles constitutes a part of speech. In English, both "the" ...
. One feature that has no parallel in any other standard Balkan languageStandard 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 . is the existence of three definite articles pertaining to position of the object: ''medial and/or unspecified'', ''proximal'' (or ''close'') and ''distal'' (or ''distant''). Examples: * Јас го видов човекот (''Jas go vidov čovekot'', 'I saw the man', medial): the subject, 'man', is either close to the interlocutor or its position is unspecified; * Јас го видов човеков (''Jas go vidov čovekov'', 'I saw this man', proximal; "and only this man"): the subject, 'man', is close to the speaker (and possibly the interlocutor(s) as well); * Јас го видов човекон (''Jas go vidov čovekon'', 'I saw that man', distal; "and only that man"): the subject, 'man', is far from both the speaker and the interlocutor(s). In the masculine singular, −от/−ов/−он is used after a consonant, −та/−ва/−на after −а (e.g. судијата 'the judge'), and −то/−во/−но after a vowel other than −а (e.g. таткото 'the father').


Vocative case

Macedonian lost the traditional (Slavic) grammatical cases during its development and became an
analytic language An analytic language is a type of natural language in which a series of root/stem words is accompanied by prepositions, postpositions, particles and modifiers, using affixes very rarely. This is opposed to synthetic languages, which synthesi ...
. The case endings were replaced with a complex system of prepositions; however, there are still some traces left of the vocative case in contemporary Macedonian. The
vocative case In grammar, the vocative case (abbreviated ) is a grammatical case which is used for a noun that identifies a person (animal, object, etc.) being addressed or occasionally for the noun modifiers (determiners, adjectives, participles, and numeral ...
is formed by adding the endings '–o' or '–e' (for feminine nouns), '–u' (for masculine monosyllabic nouns), and '–e' (for masculine polysyllabic nouns). For example, пријател ('friend') takes the form of пријателе ('friend!').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''. The vocative is used almost exclusively for singular masculine and feminine nouns.


Pronouns

Macedonian pronouns decline for
case Case or CASE may refer to: Instances * Instantiation (disambiguation), a realization of a concept, theme, or design * Special case, an instance that differs in a certain way from others of the type Containers * Case (goods), a package of relate ...
('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 their function in a sentence, pronouns fall into one of the following categories:


Verbs

Macedonian has a complex system of verbs (глаголи, ''glagoli''). Generally speaking Macedonian verbs have the following characteristics, or categories as they are called in the
Macedonian studies Macedonian studies () is an academic discipline within Slavic studies that focuses on the comprehensive study of the Macedonian language, literature, history, and culture. As part of Slavic studies, it falls within the subgroup of South Slavic la ...
: tense, mood, person, type, transitiveness, voice, gender, and number. According to the categorization, all Macedonian verbs are divided into three major subgroups: ''a-subgroup, e-subgroup'' and ''i-subgroup''. Furthermore, the e-subgroup is divided into three more subgroups: a-, e- and i-subgroups. This division is done according to the ending (or the last vowel) of the verb in the simple present, singular, third person. The Macedonian simple verb forms are: * Present tense (сегашно време) *
Imperfect The imperfect ( abbreviated ) is a verb form that combines past tense (reference to a past time) and imperfective aspect (reference to a continuing or repeated event or state). It can have meanings similar to the English "was doing (something)" o ...
(минато определено несвршено времe, 'past definite incomplete tense') *
Aorist Aorist ( ; abbreviated ) verb forms usually express perfective aspect and refer to past events, similar to a preterite. Ancient Greek grammar had the aorist form, and the grammars of other Indo-European languages and languages influenced by the ...
(минато определено свршено време, 'past definite complete tense') * Imperative (заповеден начин) * Verbal l-form (глаголска л-форма) * Verbal adjective (глаголска придавка) *
Verbal noun Historically, grammarians have described a verbal noun or gerundial noun as a verb form that functions as a noun. An example of a verbal noun in English is 'sacking' as in the sentence "The ''sacking'' of the city was an epochal event" (wherein ...
(глаголска именка) * Verbal adverb (глаголски прилог) The Macedonian complex verb forms are: * Perfect of imperfective verbs (минато неопределено несвршено време, 'past indefinite incomplete tense') * Perfect of perfective verbs (минато неопределено свршено време, 'past indefinite complete tense') *
Past perfect The pluperfect (shortening of plusquamperfect), usually called past perfect in English, characterizes certain verb forms and grammatical tenses involving an action from an antecedent point in time. Examples in English are: "we ''had arrived''" ...
tense (предминато време) *
Future tense In grammar, a future tense ( abbreviated ) is a verb form that generally marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet, but expected to happen in the future. An example of a future tense form is the French ''achètera'', mea ...
(идно време) * Future-in-the-past (минато-идно време) * Future perfect tense (идно прекажано) * Potential mood (можен начин) * Have-construction (има-конструкција) * Be-construction (сум-конструкција) * To-construction (да-конструкција)


Simple verb forms


= Present tense

= The Present tense (сегашно време, ''segašno vreme'') is used to express present actions and actions that overlap with the moment of speaking and this meaning is expressed with the use of imperfective verbs. Besides that, the Present tense can be formed with the perfective verbs as well, but then it is not true present action, but more likely future in the past. Besides the present action, with the forms of present tense there is possibility to express: * ''past events'' - the forms are the same, but the meaning refers to certain past event. This usually occurs when telling stories or retelling events. * ''future events'' - the forms are the same, but the meaning refers to the future. Usually, these types of events are time-table or schedule of tasks that are planned. * ''general facts'' - expressing common knowledge that is always same. * ''routines and habits'' * ''expressing preparedness and events that occur at same time'' - the speaker expresses that (s)he is ready to do certain tasks and expressing two actions that occur at the same time. The forms of the Present simple in Macedonian are made by adding suffixes to the verb stems. In the following tables are shown the suffixes that are used in Macedonian and one example for each verb subgroup. ''Note: ''∅'' indicates a zero ending.'' Here are some examples where the usage of Present tense in Macedonian is applied: : Јас јадам леб. (''Jas jadam leb.'', 'I eat bread.') : Додека тој јаде, ти чисти ја собата. (''Dodeka toj jade, ti čisti ja sobata.'', 'While he eats, you clean the room.') : Автобусот за Скопје тргнува во 5 часот. (''Avtobusot za Skopje trgnuva vo 5 časot.'', 'The bus for Skopje leaves at 5 o'clock.') : Ако ја грееш водата, таа врие. (''Ako ja greeš vodata, taa vrie.'', 'If you heat the water, it boils.') : Секој ден јас гледам сериски филм. (''Sekoj den jas gledam seriski film.'', 'Every day I watch a serial film.')


= Imperfect

= The
imperfect The imperfect ( abbreviated ) is a verb form that combines past tense (reference to a past time) and imperfective aspect (reference to a continuing or repeated event or state). It can have meanings similar to the English "was doing (something)" o ...
, or referred to as 'past definite incomplete tense' (минато определено несвршено време,''minato opredeleno nesvršeno vreme''), is used to express past actions where the speaker is a witness of it or took participation in it. In order to express such an action or state, imperfective verbs are used. Also, there is a possibility to express an action with perfective verbs, but then before the verb there should be some of these prepositions or particles: ако (''ako'', 'if'), да (''da'', 'to') or ќе (''ḱe'', 'will'). It is important to mention that when perfective verbs are used, then there is expression of
conditional mood The conditional mood (abbreviated ) is a grammatical mood used in conditional sentences to express a proposition whose validity is dependent on some condition, possibly counterfactual. It may refer to a distinct verb form that expresses the condit ...
, past-in-the-future or other perfective aspects, but not witnessed past actions. Besides the basic usage of the Imperfect, with this tense in Macedonian can be expressed and: * ''conditional mood'' - as it is mentioned with perfective verbs, * ''weak command'' - usually a polite request, * ''past actions that were repeated for some period'' * ''preparedness'' - the speaker expresses that (s)he is ready to do certain tasks. The suffixes used to make the Imperfect are: * - ''The suffix -ja is used for verbs of I- and E-subgroups where the word stem ends on vowel,
for example mie - mieja (wash - were washing), pee - peeja (sing - were singing).''
As an exemplification of the mentioned usages, here are some sentences: :Јас ловев зајаци. (''Jas lovev zajaci.'', 'I was hunting rabbits.') :Ако не брзаше, ќе немаше грешки. (''Ako ne brzaše, ḱe nemaše greški.'', 'If you weren't rushing, you would not make mistakes.') :Да ми помогнеше малку? (''Da mi pomogneše malku?'', 'What about helping me a bit?') :Секој ден стануваше во 7 часот и готвеше кафе. (''Sekoj den stanuvaše vo 7 časot i gotveše kafe.'', 'He was getting up every day at 7 o'clock and making coffee.')


= Aorist

= The
aorist Aorist ( ; abbreviated ) verb forms usually express perfective aspect and refer to past events, similar to a preterite. Ancient Greek grammar had the aorist form, and the grammars of other Indo-European languages and languages influenced by the ...
, also known as 'past definite complete tense' (минато определено свршено време, ''minato opredeleno svršeno vreme''), is a verb form that is used to express past finished and completed action or event, with or without the speaker's participation in it. The duration of the action that is expressed with the aorist can be long or short. For aorist, in Macedonian are used perfective verbs, but sometimes, though very rarely, in non-standard folk speech there may be usage of imperfective verbs. Besides this basic usage, the aorist also can be used to express: * ''future event'' - the form is standard aorist, but the meaning refers to the future, usually near future as a consequence of the previous action. * ''condition'' - past condition * ''general fact'' - rarely used, usually in popular proverbs. 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. ''Note: ''∅'' indicates a zero ending.'' The suffix -ja is used for verbs of the I-division of I-subgroup and for the division of E-subgroup without vowel, i.e. ''izmi - izmija (wash - washed)'' The following tables show the paradigm of the aorist for all three major verb subgroups and their divisions: In the following section are given some examples about the mentioned usage above: :Ние прочитавме книга. (''Nie pročitavme kniga'', 'We read a book.') :Го положив ли испитот, те честам пијачка. (''Go položiv li ispitot, te čestam pijačka.'', 'Should I pass the exam, I'll treat you to a drink.') :Една вечер спав надвор. (''Edna večer spav nadvor.'', 'One night I slept outside.')


Complex verb forms


= Perfect of perfective verbs

= The Macedonian tense минато неопределено свршено време (''minato neopredeleno svršeno vreme'', 'past indefinite complete tense'), or referred to as 'perfect of perfective verbs', functions similarly as the English Present perfect simple. The forms of the Macedonian present perfect are formed with the forms of 'to be' in present tense plus the L-form of the conjuncted verb, which is always perfective. Important to note is that for third person singular there is no presence of the verb 'to be'. This form of the Macedonian perfect is sometimes called 'sum-perfect'. The conjugation of one perfective verb in Macedonian looks as the following one, which is the verb прочита (''pročita'', 'read'): As an example of this tense: Macedonian developed an alternative form of the sum-perfect, which is formed with the auxiliary verb 'to have' and a verbal adjective in neutral, instead of the verb 'to be' and verbal l-form. This is sometimes called 'ima-perfect'. There is a slight difference in meaning between 'sum-perfect' and 'ima-perfect'.


= Perfect of imperfective verbs

= The English tense 'Present perfect continuous' functions similarly as the Macedonian tense минато неопределено несвршено време (''minato neopredeleno nesvršeno vreme'', 'past indefinite incomplete tense') or known as 'perfect of imperfective verbs'. This perfect tense is formed similarly as the perfect of perfective verbs i.e. with the present tense forms of 'to be' and the L-form of the conjuncted verb, but this time the verb is imperfective. Important to note is that for third person singular there is no presence of the verb 'to be'. The conjugation of one imperfective verb in Macedonian looks as the following one, which is the verb ''чита'' (read): As an example of this tense: Like the perfect of perfective verbs, Macedonian also developed an alternative form of the sum-perfect, which is formed with the auxiliary verb 'to have' and a verbal adjective in neutral, instead of the verb 'to be' and verbal l-form. This is sometimes called 'ima-perfect'. There is also a slight difference in meaning between 'sum-perfect' and 'ima-perfect' regarding perfect of imperfective verbs. Ima-perfect usually denotes resultative meaning.


= Future tense

= With the forms of future tense in Macedonian are expressed actions that are planned to happen in future. Usually, when we speak about future, we mean expressing events that should happen soon, however, there is a special form in Macedonian to express future events from past perspective, or event that happened after some other event and this is treated as separate tense called 'Future-in-the-past'. The simple future tense is formed by adding the clitic ќе (''ḱe'', 'will') to the inflected present tense form of the verb. In this respect, both Macedonian and Bulgarian differ from other
South Slavic languages The South Slavic languages are one of three branches of the Slavic languages. There are approximately 30 million speakers, mainly in the Balkans. These are separated geographically from speakers of the other two Slavic branches (West Slavic la ...
, since in both the clitic is fixed, whereas in
Serbo-Croatian Serbo-Croatian ( / ), also known as Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian (BCMS), is a South Slavic language and the primary language of Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Montenegro. It is a pluricentric language with four mutually i ...
it inflects for person and number . The negative form of the future tense in Macedonian is made by adding the particles нема да (''nema'' + ''da'') or just не (''ne'') before the verb pattern, whereas the interrogative form is made by adding the question word дали (''dali''), also before the verb pattern. When we use the negative form ''nema da'', there is not presence of the clitic ''ḱe''. Usually, ''ḱe'' in English is translated with the
modal verb A modal verb is a type of verb that contextually indicates a modality such as a ''likelihood'', ''ability'', ''permission'', ''request'', ''capacity'', ''suggestion'', ''order'', ''obligation'', ''necessity'', ''possibility'' or ''advice''. Modal v ...
'will', and vice versa. When an event is expressed with the use of ''ḱe'', then it is considered normal future, but there is a stronger future event as well which is made with the construction: има (''ima'', 'have') + да ('da', 'to') + present simple form of the verb. Besides the main usage, the future tense is used to express: * ''past events'' - expressing events that somehow refer to the future, * ''orders'' - giving orders or commands to someone, * ''prediction'' - predicting something, * ''general facts'' - usually for proverbs or things that are considered as facts, * ''events that repeat after some period'', * ''possibility'' - possible future events. Some of these mentioned rules, can be recognized in the following examples: :Јас ќе одам во Скопје. (''Jas ḱe odam vo Skopje'') – I will go to Skopje. :Јас отидов во визбата и што ќе видам, сето вино истекло на подот. (''Jas otidov vo vizbata i što ḱe vidam, seto vino isteklo na podot.'', 'I went to the basement and, lo and behold, all of the wine was spilled on the floor.') :Ќе ме слушаш и ќе траеш. (''Ḱe me slušaš i ḱe traeš.'', 'You will listen to me and you will say no words.') :Колку е стар твојот дедо? Ќе да има 70 години. (''Kolku e star tvojot dedo? Ḱe da ima 70 godini.'', 'How old is your granddad? He'd have to be
t least T, or t, is the twentieth letter of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''tee'' (pronounced ), plural ''tees''. It is d ...
70 years old.') :Ќе направам сѐ само да се венчам со Сара. (''Ḱe napravam sè samo da se venčam so Sara.'', 'I'd do anything just to marry Sara.') :Ќе одиш на училиште и крај! (''Ḱe odiš na učilište i kraj!'', 'You will go to school, and that’s it!')


= Future-in-the-past

= Future-in-the-past is expressed by means of the same clitic ќе (ḱe, 'will') and past tense forms of the verb: An interesting fact of vernacular usage of a past tense form of the verb which can be used in a future sense as well, although this construction is mostly limited to older speakers, and is used to describe the degree of certainty that some event will take place in the future or under some condition. This characteristic is shared with Croatian, Bosnian, Montenegrin and Serbian languages. Examples: * Те отепав, штом те фатам. (''Te otepav, štom te fatam.'', 'I have killed you, when I get you') * Те фатам ли, те казнив. (''Te fatam li, te kazniv.'', 'As soon as I grab you, I have punished you') 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
ave is a Latin word, used by the Roman Empire, Romans as a salutation (greeting), salutation and greeting, meaning 'wikt:hail, hail'. It is the singular imperative mood, imperative form of the verb , which meant 'Well-being, to be well'; thus on ...
come'; щеше да дойде, 'he would
ave is a Latin word, used by the Roman Empire, Romans as a salutation (greeting), salutation and greeting, meaning 'wikt:hail, hail'. It is the singular imperative mood, imperative form of the verb , which meant 'Well-being, to be well'; thus on ...
come').


Adjectives

Adjective An adjective (abbreviations, abbreviated ) is a word that describes or defines a noun or noun phrase. Its semantic role is to change information given by the noun. Traditionally, adjectives are considered one of the main part of speech, parts of ...
s (придавки, ''pridavki'') agree with nouns in
gender Gender is the range of social, psychological, cultural, and behavioral aspects of being a man (or boy), woman (or girl), or third gender. Although gender often corresponds to sex, a transgender person may identify with a gender other tha ...
,
number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The most basic examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual numbers can ...
and
definiteness In linguistics, definiteness is a semantic feature of noun phrases that distinguishes between referents or senses that are identifiable in a given context (definite noun phrases) and those that are not (indefinite noun phrases). The prototypical ...
with their noun and usually appear before it.


Comparison

Adjectives have three
degrees of comparison The degrees of comparison of adjectives and adverbs are the various forms taken by adjectives and adverbs when used to compare two entities (comparative degree), three or more entities (superlative degree), or when not comparing entities (positi ...
(степенување на придавки, ''stepenuvanje na pridavki'') – positive,
comparative The degrees of comparison of adjectives and adverbs are the various forms taken by adjectives and adverbs when used to compare two entities (comparative degree), three or more entities (superlative degree), or when not comparing entities (positi ...
and
superlative The degrees of comparison of adjectives and adverbs are the various forms taken by adjectives and adverbs when used to compare two entities (comparative degree), three or more entities (superlative degree), or when not comparing entities (positi ...
. The positive form is identical to all the aforementioned forms. The other two are formed regularly, by prepending the
particle In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscle in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass. They vary greatly in size or quantity, from s ...
''по'' and the word ''нај'' directly before the positive to form the comparative and superlative, respectively, regardless of its comprising one or two words. Macedonian only has one adjective that has an irregular comparative – ''многу''. A subtype of the superlative – the absolute superlative – also present in some other
South Slavic languages The South Slavic languages are one of three branches of the Slavic languages. There are approximately 30 million speakers, mainly in the Balkans. These are separated geographically from speakers of the other two Slavic branches (West Slavic la ...
and
Romance languages The Romance languages, also known as the Latin or Neo-Latin languages, are the languages that are Language family, directly descended from Vulgar Latin. They are the only extant subgroup of the Italic languages, Italic branch of the Indo-E ...
(such as
Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...
and Spanish), expresses the highest quality without comparison. It is formed by
prefix A prefix is an affix which is placed before the stem of a word. Particularly in the study of languages, a prefix is also called a preformative, because it alters the form of the word to which it is affixed. Prefixes, like other affixes, can b ...
ing the particle пре (''pre'') to an adjective, roughly corresponding to the English 'very + adjective' or 'too + adjective' combinations.


Prepositions

Prepositions Adpositions are a class of words used to express spatial or temporal relations (''in, under, towards, behind, ago'', etc.) or mark various semantic roles (''of, for''). The most common adpositions are prepositions (which precede their complemen ...
(предлози, ''predlozi'') are part of the closed word class that are used to express the relationship between the words in a sentence. Since Macedonian lost the case system, the prepositions are very important for creation and expression of various grammatical categories. The most important Macedonian preposition is на (''na'', 'of', 'on' or 'to'). Regarding the form, the prepositions can be: simple (''vo, na, za, do, so, niz, pred, zad,'' etc.) and complex (''zaradi, otkaj, nasproti, pomeǵu,'' etc.). Based on the meaning the preposition express, they can be divided into: Having in mind the fact that the preposition "на" is the most frequently used in the language, it may be used to express different meaning: * time, e.g. Штрковите на зима се преселуваат на југ. (''Štrkovite na zima se preseluvaat na jug.'', 'The storks move to south in winter.') * manner, e.g. Тој на шега го удри пријателот. (''Toj na šega go udri prijatelot.'', 'He hit the friend for fun.') * purpose, e.g. Ние ќе одиме на скијање. (''Nie ḱe odime na skijanje.'', 'We will go skiing.') * possession, e.g. Таа е сестрата на Марко. (''Taa e sestrata na Marko.'', 'She is the sister of Marko.') * comparison, e.g. Детено многу личи на брат му. (''Deteno mnogu liči na brat mu.'', 'That child looks like his brother, a lot.')


Particles

The
particles In the physical sciences, a particle (or corpuscle in older texts) is a small localized object which can be described by several physical or chemical properties, such as volume, density, or mass. They vary greatly in size or quantity, from s ...
(честички, ''čestički'') are closed word class that have grammatical function. The particles are used to determine other words, form some grammatical categories and emphasize some words or phrases. Regarding the function of the particles, they can be divided into the following groups: * particles used to emphasize something :e.g. ''барем'' ('at least'), ''само'' ('just'), ''сѐ'' ('all'), etc. * particles used to separate a person or an object from a larger group : e.g. ''само'' ('only'), ''единствено'' ('solely'), ''исклучиво'' ('only'), etc. * particles for joining things : e.g. ''исто'' ('same'), ''исто така'' ('also'), ''притоа'' ('besides that'), etc. * particles for quantity : e.g. ''речиси'' ('almost'), ''скоро'' ('almost', 'nearly'), ''точно'' ('right'), ''рамно'' ('equal'), etc. * particles for exact determination of something : e.g. ''имено'' ('namely'), ''токму'' ('precisely'), etc. * particles for approximate determination of something : e.g. ''−годе'' , ''−било'' , ''− да е'' . These particles should be combined with other words, they do not stand on their own. * particles for indication of something :e.g. ''еве'' ('here'), ''ене'' ('there), ете ('there'), etc. * particles for negative sentences :e.g. ''не'' ('no', 'not'), ''ниту'' ('neither'), ''нити'' ('neither') and ''ни'' ('nor'). * particles for interrogative sentences :e.g. ''ли'' , ''дали'' , ''зар'' , ''али'' and ''нели'' (question tag) * particles for imperative sentences :e.g. ''да'' ('to') and ''нека'' ('let')


Numerals

The Macedonian numbers (броеви, ''broevi'') have gender and definiteness. The first ten cardinal and ordinal numerals in the Macedonian are:


Phraseology

The group of words that are used in the language as one unit, word construction, are called phraseological units or in Macedonian ''фразеологизми'' (''frazeologizmi''). The phraseological units have special linguistic characteristics and meaning. Within one sentence, the words may be joined in order to create units of various types. For instance, the word ''nut'' can be combined with many adjectives, such as ''big nut'', ''small nut'' etc. Moreover, the word ''nut'' can be combined with other parts of speech as well, such as with verbs as in the sentence ''I ate a nut''. These types of combinations are led by the general principles of the
phraseology In linguistics, phraseology is the study of set or fixed expressions, such as idioms, phrasal verbs, and other types of multi-word lexical units (often collectively referred to as ''phrasemes''), in which the component parts of the expression tak ...
, which states that the words in the sentences can be freely combined. Within these combinations or collocations, each word keeps its original meaning, so the meaning of the whole construction is equal to the meaning of its constituents. Besides the word construction with loose connections, in Macedonian there are word constructions that are not freely combined, which means they are permanently combined. As an illustration of these two types of connections are the following sentences, where the noun phrase "hard nut" is used: * ''It is a hard nut and it cannot be cracked easily.'' * ''We will be hard nut for our opponent.'' In the first sentence, "hard nut" is a common collocation, where the words are connected freely and can be changed with other words in different contexts. On the other hand, in the second sentence the noun phrase "hard nut" (i.e. ''a hard nut to crack'') is an expression that means "strong, unbreakable" and the words are in strong connection and they are not changed with other words. If these words are changed, the meaning of the phrase will be lost.


Onomastics

Macedonian onomastics () is a part of
Macedonian studies Macedonian studies () is an academic discipline within Slavic studies that focuses on the comprehensive study of the Macedonian language, literature, history, and culture. As part of Slavic studies, it falls within the subgroup of South Slavic la ...
, which studies the names, surnames and nicknames of the
Macedonian language Macedonian ( ; , , ) is an Eastern South Slavic language. It is part of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family, and is one of the Slavic languages, which are part of a larger Balto-Slavic languages, Balto-Slavic branch. Sp ...
and people. This is relatively new linguistic discipline. In Macedonia, and in Macedonian studies in general, it developed during the 19th century, where the first few research results have been provided. The Onomastics for a long period of time has been considered as part of various different scientific disciplines, such as
Geography Geography (from Ancient Greek ; combining 'Earth' and 'write', literally 'Earth writing') is the study of the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. Geography is an all-encompassing discipline that seeks an understanding o ...
,
History History is the systematic study of the past, focusing primarily on the Human history, human past. As an academic discipline, it analyses and interprets evidence to construct narratives about what happened and explain why it happened. Some t ...
or
Ethnography Ethnography is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. It explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject of the study. Ethnography is also a type of social research that involves examining ...
, until it became a discipline on its own in the 20th century. The Macedonian Onomastics, generally speaking, is divided into ''toponomastics'' and ''anthroponomastics''.


See also

*
Macedonian language Macedonian ( ; , , ) is an Eastern South Slavic language. It is part of the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family, and is one of the Slavic languages, which are part of a larger Balto-Slavic languages, Balto-Slavic branch. Sp ...
*
Macedonian studies Macedonian studies () is an academic discipline within Slavic studies that focuses on the comprehensive study of the Macedonian language, literature, history, and culture. As part of Slavic studies, it falls within the subgroup of South Slavic la ...
*
South Slavic languages The South Slavic languages are one of three branches of the Slavic languages. There are approximately 30 million speakers, mainly in the Balkans. These are separated geographically from speakers of the other two Slavic branches (West Slavic la ...


Notes


References

# Christina E. Kramer (1999), ''Makedonski Jazik'' (The University of Wisconsin Press). #
Friedman, V. (2001) ''Macedonian'' (SEELRC), p. 17
#
Friedman, V. (2001) ''Macedonian'' (SEELRC), p. 40.
#
Lunt, H. (1952) Grammar of the Macedonian Literary Language, Skopje.
# Tomić, O. (2003) "Genesis of the Balkan Slavic Future Tenses" in '' Formal Approaches to Slavic Linguistics: The Ottawa Meeting 2003'' (Michigan : Michigan Slavic Publications). # # # Кепески, К. (1946), Македонска граматика, Скопје, Државно книгоиздавателство на Македонија. # # Стойков, С. (2002) ''Българска диалектология'', 4-то издание. стр. 127. Als
available online


External links



the first printed Macedonian grammar by Gjorgjija Pulevski in 1880.
Macedonian grammar
by Victor Friedman.
Grammar of the Literary Macedonian language
by Horace Lunt.
Macedonian grammar
by Krume Kepeski. {{Language grammars
Grammar In linguistics, grammar is the set of rules for how a natural language is structured, as demonstrated by its speakers or writers. Grammar rules may concern the use of clauses, phrases, and words. The term may also refer to the study of such rul ...