Modern Greek phonology

This article deals with the phonology and phonetics of Standard Modern Greek. For phonological characteristics of other varieties, see varieties of Modern Greek, and for Cypriot, specifically, see Template:Section link.

Consonants

Greek linguists do not agree on which consonants to count as phonemes in their own right, and which to count as conditional allophones. The table below is adapted from Template:Harvtxt, who considers the palatals and both affricates, Template:IPAblink and Template:IPAblink, to be allophonic.

Consonant phonemes

		Labial	Dental	Alveolar	Velar
Nasal		Template:IPAslink μ		Template:IPAslink ν
Plosive	voiceless	Template:IPAslink π		Template:IPAslink τ	Template:IPAslink κ
	voiced	Template:IPAslink μπ		Template:IPAslink ντ	Template:IPAslink γκ
Fricative	voiceless	Template:IPAslink φ	Template:IPAslink θ	Template:IPAslink σ, ς	Template:IPAslink χ
	voiced	Template:IPAslink β	Template:IPAslink δ	Template:IPAslink ζ	Template:IPAslink γ
Tap				Template:IPAslink ρ
Lateral				Template:IPAslink λ

The alveolar nasal is assimilated to following obstruents; it can be labiodental (e.g. 'doubt'), dental (e.g. 'flower'), retracted alveolar (e.g. 'pliers'), alveolo-palatal (e.g. 'to annoy'), or velar (e.g. 'stress').Template:Sfn

Voiceless stops are unaspirated and with a very short voice onset time.Template:Sfn They may be lightly voiced in rapid speech, especially when intervocalic.Template:Sfn 's exact place of articulation ranges from alveolar to denti-alveolar, to dental.Template:Sfn It may be fricated in rapid speech, and very rarely, in function words, it is deleted.Template:Sfn and are reduced to lesser degrees in rapid speech.Template:Sfn

Voiced stops are prenasalised (which is reflected in the orthography) to varying extents, and sometimes not at all.Template:Sfn The nasal component—when present—does not increase the duration of the stop's closure; as such, prenasalised voiced stops would be most accurately transcribed or , depending on the length of the nasal component.Template:Sfn Word-initially and after or , they are very rarely, if ever, prenasalised.Template:SfnTemplate:Sfn In rapid and casual speech, prenasalisation is generally rarer, and voiced stops may be lenited to fricatives.Template:Sfn That also accounts for Greeks having trouble disambiguating voiced stops, nasalised voiced stops, and nasalised voiceless stops in borrowings and names from foreign languages such as, d, nd, and nt, which are all written ντ in Greek.

and are somewhat retracted (); they are produced in between English alveolars and postalveolars . is variably fronted or further retracted depending on environment, and, in some cases, it may be better described as an advanced postalveolar ().Template:Sfn

The only Greek rhotic is prototypically an alveolar tap Template:IPAblink, often retracted (). It may be an alveolar approximant Template:IPAblink intervocalically, and is usually a trill Template:IPAblink in clusters, with two or three short cycles.Template:Sfn

Greek has palatals which are allophones of the velar consonants before the front vowels . The velars also merge with a following nonsyllabic to the corresponding palatal before the vowels , e.g. (= ) 'snow', thus producing a surface contrast between palatal and velar consonants before .Template:Sfn Template:IPAblink and Template:IPAblink occur as allophones of and , respectively, in Template:Mono (consonant–glide–vowel) clusters, in analyses that posit an archiphoneme-like glide Template:Mono that contrasts with the vowel .Template:Sfn All palatals may be analysed in the same way. The palatal stops and fricatives are somewhat retracted, and Template:IPAblink and Template:IPAblink are somewhat fronted. Template:IPAblink is best described as a postalveolar, and Template:IPAblink as alveolo-palatal.Template:Sfn

Finally, Greek has two phonetically affricate clusters, Template:IPAblink and Template:IPAblink.Template:Sfn Template:Harvtxt is reluctant to treat these as phonemes on the grounds of inconclusive research into their phonological behaviour.Template:Sfn

The table below, adapted from Template:Harvtxt, displays a near-full array of consonant phones in Standard Modern Greek.

Consonant phones

	Bilabial		Labio- dental		Dental		Alveolar		Retracted alveolar		Post- alveolar		Alveolo- palatal		Retracted palatal		Velar
Nasal		Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link		Template:IPA link				Template:IPA link				Template:IPA link
Stop	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link					Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link							Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Affricate							Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Fricative			Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link			Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link					Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link	Template:IPA link
Approximant										Template:IPA link
Flap or tap										Template:IPA link
Trill										Template:IPA link
Lateral								Template:IPA link				Template:IPA link

Sandhi

Some assimilatory processes mentioned above also occur across word boundaries. In particular, this goes for a number of grammatical words ending in , most notably the negation particles and and the accusative forms of the personal pronoun and definite article and . If these words are followed by a voiceless stop, either assimilates for place of articulation to the stop, or is altogether deleted, and the stop - in both circumstances - becomes voiced. This results in pronunciations such as ('the father' ACC) or ('it doesn't matter'), instead of and . The precise extent of assimilation may vary according to dialect, speed and formality of speech.Template:Sfn This may be compared with pervasive sandhi phenomena in Celtic languages, particularly nasalisation in Irish and in certain dialects of Scottish Gaelic.

Vowels

File:Standard Modern Greek vowel chart.svg

The vowels of Standard Modern Greek on a vowel chart. Adapted from Template:Harvtxt.

Greek has a system of five vowels . The first two are close to the cardinal vowels ; the mid vowels are true-mid ; and the open is near-open central Template:IPAblink.Template:Sfn

There is no phonemic length distinction, but vowels in stressed syllables are pronounced somewhat longer than in unstressed syllables. Furthermore, vowels in stressed syllables are more peripheral, but the difference is not large. In casual speech, unstressed and in the vicinity of voiceless consonants may become devoiced or even elided.Template:Sfn

Examples for vowel phonemesTemplate:Sfn

Template:Wikt-lang		'you go' subj.
Template:Wikt-lang		'say' imper.
Template:Wikt-lang		'you say' subj.
Template:Wikt-lang		'that' conj.
Template:Wikt-lang		'where'

Some falling diphthongs exist as well, e.g. 's/he listens', 'donkey', 'strawberry'.Template:Sfn

Stress

Unlike Ancient Greek, which had a pitch accent system, Modern Greek has variable (phonologically unpredictable) stress. Every multisyllabic word carries stress on one of its three final syllables. Enclitics form a single phonological word together with the host word to which they attach, and count towards the three-syllable rule. When an enclitic attaches to a word with stress on the third-to-last syllable, that stress becomes secondary, and the primary stress shifts to the second-last syllable (e.g. 'my car'). Phonetically, stressed syllables are longer, or carry higher amplitude, or both.Template:Sfn

The position of the stress can vary between different inflectional forms of the same word within its inflectional paradigm. In some paradigms, the stress is always on the third-last syllable, shifting its position in those forms that have longer affixes (e.g. 'I called' vs. 'we called'; 'problem' vs. 'problems'). In some word classes, stress position also preserves an older pattern inherited from Ancient Greek according to which a word could not be accented on the third-last syllable if the vowel in the last syllable was long, e.g. ('man', nominative singular, last vowel short), but ('of men', genitive plural, last vowel long). However, in Modern Greek this rule is no longer automatic and does not apply to all words (e.g. 'monk', 'of monks'), as the phonological vowel length distinction itself no longer exists.Template:Sfn

Sample

This sample text, the first sentence of Aesop's fable "The North Wind and the Sun" in Greek, and the accompanying transcription, are adapted from Template:Harvtxt.

External links

• About the Greek Language – Harry Foundalis
• Segmentals and suprasegmentals in Modern Greek with pronunciation