Macedonian speakers?

[Billings, Loren A.]

Katherine (and the SEELangs list),

The answer is already reported in the literature. See the following
article, page 555:

Rudin, Catherine, Christina Kramer, Loren Billings, and Matthew
     Baerman (1999) "Macedonian and Bulgarian _li_ questions:
     beyond syntax." _Natural language & linguistic theory_
     vol. 17 no. 3, pp. 541-586.

The relevant data and formalism are listed in (29a-b):

(29)a. NE  sme  mu  go  DAle
       not are  are it  given
           1.PL DAT ACC PL
       We didn't give it to him.

    b. [NE] [sme mu go DAle]

The notation in (29b) formalizes the prosodic affiliation of _sme
mu go_ (i.e., not in the same prosodic word as _ne_). In this
paper we assumed (non-crucially) that these clitics must have some
prosodic host; one might also posit _[NE] sme mu go [DAle]_ if that
assumption turns out to be unnecessary. In any event, _ne_ clearly
does not host these clitics prosodically.

Unfortunately, there is some disagreement as well in the literature
on this topic. I repeat our footnote 14 (same page) verbatim:

 "[14] Elson (1993, pp. 152-53) reports the following example
(stress notation and gloss modified), stating that the three clitics
are hosted prosodically by _ne_:

  (i)  ne  SME  mu  go  ZEle.
       not are  him it  taken
           1.PL DAT ACC PL
       We didn't take it from him.

Our informants reject example (i), preferring the stress pattern in
(29). Elson attributes his data as follows: "Items cited for
illustrative purposes OR THEIR MODELS, are from Lunt 1952: 21-25,
Koneski 1967: 139-210, or Garde 1968" (p. 157, n. 1; emphasis added).
However, (i) with stress as shown is not actually given in any of
those sources. Elson's assumption, based perhaps on the notation in
Garde (1968: p. 36), that the clitics are hosted by _ne_, is also
contradicted by our data on _li_-insertion in Section 5.1 below.
Still, we leave open the possibility that (i) is attested for some
speaker or dialect of Macedonian."

Here are the references cited in that footnote:

Elson, Mark J. (1993) "Collocational stress in Contemporary Standard
     Macedonian." _Slavic and East European journal_ vol. 37 no. 2:
     pp. 149–61.

Garde, Paul. (1968) "Note sur l’enclise et la proclise en
     macédonien." _Zbornik za filologiju i lingvistiku [Novi Sad:
     Matica srpska] vol. 11, pp. 31–37.

Koneski, Bla^ze. (1957/1967) "Za akcentot." _Gramatika na
     makedonskiot literaturen jazik_ del 1. Skopje: Dr^zavno
     knigoizdatelstvo na NR Makedonija, pp. 123-84. (Reprinted in
     his _Izbrani dela vo sedum knigi_ del. 6. Skopje: Kultura, pp.
     139-210.)

Lunt, Horace G. (1979) _A grammar of the Macedonian literary
     language._ Skopje: Dr^zavno knigoizdatelstvo na NR Makedonija.

Best,  --Loren Billings

------------------------
Loren A. Billings, Ph.D.
<billings at onebox.com>
------------------------
Department of English
    Language, Literature
    and Linguistics
Providence University
200 Chung Chi Rd., Shalu
Taichung County, Taiwan
43301 Republic of China
------------------------


Katherine Crosswhite wrote:
>
> Dear SEELANGers,
>
> This question is for native or near-native speakers of Macedonian.
>
> I know that ne + clitics + verb and interrogative + clitics + verb are
> treated as single stress units.  Indicating stress with capitals:  toj
> ne MU reche, koj MU reche, etc.  I've also read that you can,
> optionally, break these into two separate stress units:  toj NE mu REche
> for example.
>
> My question is this:  suppose you have a longer string of clitics, as in
> ne sum mu go dal.  A neutral pronunciation would be ne sum mu GO dal.
> But what if you wanted to break it into two stress units?  In
> particular, is either of the following possible?
>
> NE sum mu go DAL
> ne SUM mu do DAL
>
> Are there other stress possibilities?
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Katherine.







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