for those knowing Macedonian

[Judith Wermuth-Atkinson]

Katherine,
You may well know these facts, but just to remind you ...
1. Macedonian used to be divided in two major pronunciation groups or, to use
the old European term, two dialect groups: Western and Eastern. The borders
between them were the rivers Vardar and Crna. There are a few elements by
which the two groups can be distinguished. One of them is the stress.
However, in contemporary Macedonian these distinctions exist for some
speakers, but they are blurred for others.
2. When you add the article to a noun or modify a word in any other way, so
that its length would change, the stress will fall on a different syllable.
Native speakers may not pronounce the modified form clearly. If you don't
hear the article you may think they have shifted the stress for no reason.
So, your analysis should take the grammar into careful consideration as well.
Judith

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