Modern greek phonology
I recently made a post about modern greeks phonology and wanted to see opinions about it, since its very underrated and interesting ( https://www.reddit.com/r/GREEK/s/o8FEgCrxhl )
What are some unique features (of its phonology) about it and what make it different from other languages? Would like to get more opinions about it, for the linguistics and others in here
I also want to know some unique grammar features to greek if you want
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u/Traditional-Light-10 3d ago
Greek has the dental fricatives /θ/ and /ð/, which aren't that common. It also has a lot of weird consonant clusters in onset like /kt/ in /'ktirio/ κτήριο "building", even tho its syllable structure is probably simpler than English's (smth like (C)(C)(C)V(C) vs (C)(C)(C)V(C)(C)(C) tho I'm not sure about the specifics).
The palatal stops are pretty rare, and it's not surprising that Cypriot turns them into affricates. This also gives Cypriot an opposition between /s/ and /ʃ/, like all of Greek's neighbors but unlike SMG, which has a single retracted s [s̠] that is rarer than laminal [s] (I think).
Another weird thing about Greek is that it easily contrasts /f/, /mf/, /v/, /mv/ (for example), but it can't contrast /mp/, /mb/, and /b/, even tho there are other reasons to think that /b/ is a standalone phoneme (for example, /b/ occurs initially, unlike /mf/). This applies to every place of articulation (and this is also in the article). I've heard that the standard language has an opposition between /dz/ and /ndz/ that's not usually maintained.
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u/Iam_no_Nilfgaardian 3d ago
An interesting phenomenon I have perceived, is that when you have an article that ends in "ν" while the next word begins with "κ", the sounds get fused into "γκ".
Example:
Written: Σε αυτόν τον κόσμο. Pronounced: Σε αυτόν το γκόσμο.
It happens quite often.
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u/GameGaberino 3d ago
The interesting thing about Greek for me is that it always seems one step away from sound change or innovation, like it's remained in some sort of limbo. Its history and classical influence no doubt has a part in that. Phonologically for example, retaining fully phonetic fricatives for centuries, /ð/, /θ/, /ɣ/ mostly, while most of the time these sounds occur in a language's history but get alveolarized, fronted or whatever, or they're allophones. The clusters appearing on these fricatives are also weird like in "εχθρός" /ex'θros/.
One of my professors had joked that a lot of modern Greek sounds are "slacking off". With that she meant that a lot of them are more retracted/lowered etc. than one would expect. It occurs in a rate that you can't just attribute it to Greek being a stress timed language. /s/ is retracted /s̠/, while in back-environments it's usually closer to a /ʃ/, all of the vowels are discerningly more centralised (lowered /i/ and /u/, true mid /e/ and /o/, /a/ is realized as /ɐ/), /c/ is more a velar /c̠/ (along with all the other palatals).
I don't have much experience in the matter yet but from the little I can say, Greek's seemingly simple sound inventory has allowed for many allophonic trends that will continue evolving from speaker to speaker, and there is surely more to talk about (considering when speakers palatilize or prenasalize for instance). If you're around people talking, you'll start to notice more and more trends. I recently noticed how a lot of people realize "και" more as a [cç͡e̞] and I can't unnotice it now.
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u/SweetBxl 3d ago
Harry Foundalis has a great page on his site about modern Greek phonology. It's a bit technical, but also very practical.
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u/heba_salem1937 3d ago
Keep in mind that some of this doesn't apply to many regions or islands. It's mainland mostly.
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u/kostas_vo 3d ago
Same with τ and π, they become ντ and μπ respectively
Την τιμή → τη ντιμή την πέτρα → τη μπέτρα
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u/SaltImage1538 3d ago
Well phonologically, Greek is a pretty typical Southern European language. Relatively simple vowel system, 20-odd consonants, dynamic stress. I guess it‘s interesting that Greek and Castilian Spanish are very similar in their phonological systems, so speakers of one can pick up a good accent in the other fairly easily.
Grammatically, Greek has grown somewhat closer to the other Balkanic languages. A perfective-imperfective aspectual opposition in verbs is expressed through different stems, there is no infinitive (with subjunctives taking over their role), nouns are declined, etc.
What makes Greek special is the constant influence Ancient Greek has exerted upon it. The importance of the classical language has shaped Modern Greek significantly phonologically, grammatically, lexically, orthographically, sociolinguistically, etc.