This page presents a sketch of the phonology of Standard Modern Greek

Modern Greek

Modern Greek refers to the varieties of the Greek language spoken in the modern era. The beginning of the "modern" period of the language is often symbolically assigned to the fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453, even though that date marks no clear linguistic boundary and many characteristic...

.

Consonants

The consonantal system of Greek is difficult to describe, as there is considerable debate about which sounds to describe as separate phoneme

Phoneme

In a language or dialect, a phoneme is the smallest segmental unit of sound employed to form meaningful contrasts between utterances....

s and which to analyse as conditional allophone

Allophone

In phonology, an allophone is one of a set of multiple possible spoken sounds used to pronounce a single phoneme. For example, and are allophones for the phoneme in the English language...

s. The following table presents a near-maximum inventory of 27 sounds.

		Labial Labial consonant Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. This precludes linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue reaches for the posterior side of the upper lip and which are considered coronals...	Dental	Alveolar Alveolar consonant Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli of the superior teeth...	Palatal Palatal consonant Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate...	Velar Velar consonant Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum)....
Nasal Nasal consonant A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...		m		n	ɲ	ŋ
Plosive	voiceless	p	t		c	k
	voiced	b	d		ɟ	ɡ
Fricative Fricative consonant Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate, in the case of German , the final consonant of Bach; or...	voiceless	f	θ	s	ç	x
	voiced	v	ð	z	ʝ	ɣ
Affricate Affricate consonant Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel.- Samples :...	voiceless			ts
	voiced			dz
Trill Trill consonant In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. Standard Spanish <rr> as in perro is an alveolar trill, while in Parisian French it is almost always uvular....				r
Lateral Lateral consonant A lateral is an el-like consonant, in which airstream proceeds along the sides of the tongue, but is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth....				l	ʎ

Of the 26 consonantal sounds shown here, only the 15 shown in black are undisputed phonemes. These 15 sounds are also the only ones represented by single letters in Greek orthography and directly correspond to consonant phonemes in Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek phonology

Ancient Greek phonology is the study of the phonology, or pronunciation, of Ancient Greek. Because of the passage of time, the original pronunciation of Ancient Greek, like that of all ancient languages, can never be known with absolute certainty...

. In this minimalist analysis, all others can be analysed as combinatorial clusters of two phonemes or allophonic variants of another phoneme:

• The palatals [c, ɟ, ç, ʝ] can be analysed as allophones of their velar counterparts before front vowels. When these sounds occur before back vowels, a silent interceding vowel /i/ (represented in orthography as <ι>, <υ> and <ει>) is typically assumed. The velar sounds only ever occur before back vowels.
• The sounds [ɲ, ʎ] are usually analysed as clusters of /ni/ and /li/, respectively, and are also spelled accordingly in Greek orthography.
• The series of voiced plosives can be analysed as sequences of nasals and voiceless plosives, [b] = /mp/, [d] = /nt/, [ɡ] = /nk/. Again, this corresponds to the orthographic spelling (using digraphs <μπ, ντ, γκ>). and /dz/ can be analysed as biphonemic clusters rather than as separate phonemes.

Standard Modern Greek does not have geminated consonants within words, although some southeastern dialects (notably Cypriot

Cyprus

Cyprus , officially the Republic of Cyprus , is a Eurasian island country, member of the European Union, in the Eastern Mediterranean, east of Greece, south of Turkey, west of Syria and north of Egypt. It is the third largest island in the Mediterranean Sea.The earliest known human activity on the...

 and Rhodian

Rhodes

Rhodes is an island in Greece, located in the eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007, and also the island group's historical capital. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within...

) do.

Phonetic realisation

The phonetic realisation of voiced plosives /b, d, ɡ/ (or prenasalised stops /mp, nt, nk/, depending on the analysis of underlying representation

Underlying representation

In some models of phonology as well as morphophonology, the underlying representation or underlying form of a word or morpheme is the abstract form the word or morpheme is postulated to have before any phonological rules have applied to it. If more rules apply to the same form, they can apply...

) is variable. In word-initial position, they are pronounced as simple voiced plosives. In medial position, they can be realised as either a full sequence of nasal plus stop [mb, nd, ŋɡ], or as a stop with only slight pre-nasalisation [ᵐb, ⁿd, ᵑɡ], or again as a single stop. This used to be a matter of considerable sociolinguistic and dialectal variation, and some social stigma was attached to certain variants; since the second half of the twentieth century, speakers have increasingly eliminated pre-nasalisation from their speech, pronouncing these sounds like simple voiced plosives in every position. Some speakers, following a prescriptive norm, have a marginal phonological contrast between pure voiced stops and nasal clusters word-medially, e.g. in [veˈdeta] ('celebrity', < Ital. vedetta), vs. [venˈdeta] ('blood feud', < Ital. vendetta). The same prenasalised stop sounds can also occur as the result of assimilation of /np, nt, nk/ clusters across word boundaries (sandhi

Sandhi

Sandhi is a cover term for a wide variety of phonological processes that occur at morpheme or word boundaries . Examples include the fusion of sounds across word boundaries and the alteration of sounds due to neighboring sounds or due to the grammatical function of adjacent words...

).

The nasals tend to assimilate to following consonants in place of articulation; thus there is a velar nasal

Velar nasal

The velar nasal is the sound of ng in English sing. It is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is N....

 [ŋ] (spelled ⟨γ⟩) before /k, ɣ, x/) and a labiodental nasal [ɱ] ⟨μ⟩ before /f, v/.

/r/ can be realised either as a trilled

Trill consonant

In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. Standard Spanish <rr> as in perro is an alveolar trill, while in Parisian French it is almost always uvular....

 [r] or, in intervocalic position, as a tapped

Flap consonant

In phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator is thrown against another.-Contrast with stops and trills:...

 [ɾ].

[c] and [ɟ] are further palatalised and turn into affricates [t͡ɕ] and [d͡ʑ] in some dialects, notably those of Crete

Crete

Crete is the largest and most populous of the Greek islands, the fifth largest island in the Mediterranean Sea, and one of the thirteen administrative regions of Greece. It forms a significant part of the economy and cultural heritage of Greece while retaining its own local cultural traits...

 and the Mani

Mani Peninsula

The Mani Peninsula , also long known as Maina or Maïna, is a geographical and cultural region in Greece. Mani is the central peninsula of the three which extend southwards from the Peloponnese in southern Greece. To the east is the Laconian Gulf, to the west the Messenian Gulf...

.

[z] and [s] can be apical ([s̻], [z̻]).

[s] and [z] are lamino-alveolar in many dialects, and are articulated closer to the positions of [ɕ] and [ʑ].

Sandhi rules

Some of the assimilation rules mentioned above also obtain across word boundaries. In particular, this goes for a number of grammatical words ending in /n/, most notably the negation particles δε(ν) and μη(ν) and the accusative forms of the personal pronoun and definite article το(ν) and τη(ν). If these words are followed by a voiceless stop, the /n/ tends either to assimilate according to the place of articulation of the following sound or to be omitted; conversely, the stop tends to get voiced. This results in pronunciations such as τον πατέρα [to(m)baˈtera] ('the father') or δεν πειράζει [ðe(m)biˈrazi] ('it doesn't matter') instead of [ton paˈtera] and [ðen piˈrazi]. The precise extent of these assimilation effects may vary according to dialect, speed and formality of speech.

Consonant clusters

Modern Greek allows 46 different consonant cluster

Consonant cluster

In linguistics, a consonant cluster is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word splits....

s word-initially:

	p-	t-	k-	b-	d-	g-	f-	θ-	s-	x-	v-	ð-	z-	ɣ-
-p									sp
-t							ft		st	xt
-k									sk
-f									sf
-θ									sθ
-s	ps	ts	ks
-x									sx
-v													zv
-ð											vð			ɣð
-ɣ											vɣ		zɣ
-r	pr	tr	kr	br	dr	gr	fr	θr		xr	vr	ðr		ɣr
-l	pl		kl	bl		gl	fl	θl		xl	vl			ɣl
-n	pn		kn					θn		xn				ɣn
-m		tm											zm

In addition, seven three-consonant cluster exist, all of them with first member /s/: /spr str skr sfr spl skl skn/.

Simple vowels

Greek has a simple system of five vowels, /a e i o u/. The vowel /a/ is realised as open

Open vowel

An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue...

 central

Central vowel

A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel...

. The mid vowels /e/ and /o/ have a phonetic quality in between the close-mid

Close-mid vowel

A close-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from a close vowel to a mid vowel...

 and open-mid

Open-mid vowel

An open-mid vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of an open-mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned two-thirds of the way from an open vowel to a mid vowel...

 range [e̞, o̞]. The close vowels /i/ and /u/ have qualities approaching the respective cardinal vowel

Cardinal vowel

Cardinal vowels are a set of reference vowels used by phoneticians in describing the sounds of languages. For instance, the vowel of the English word "feet" can be described with reference to cardinal vowel 1, , which is the cardinal vowel closest to it....

s. Phonotactically

Phonotactics

Phonotactics is a branch of phonology that deals with restrictions in a language on the permissible combinations of phonemes...

, /e i/ count as front vowels, /a o u/ as back vowels. There is no phonemic length distinction, but vowels in stressed syllables are commonly pronounced somewhat longer than in unstressed syllables.

	Front Front vowel A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Front vowels are sometimes also...	Back Back vowel A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. Back vowels are sometimes also called dark...
Close Close vowel A close vowel is a type of vowel sound used in many spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a close vowel is that the tongue is positioned as close as possible to the roof of the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant.This term is prescribed by the...	i	u
Mid Mid vowel A mid vowel is a vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a mid vowel is that the tongue is positioned mid-way between an open vowel and a close vowel...	e	o
Open Open vowel An open vowel is defined as a vowel sound in which the tongue is positioned as far as possible from the roof of the mouth. Open vowels are sometimes also called low vowels in reference to the low position of the tongue...	a

Diphthongs

Modern Greek does not have distinctive diphthong phonemes; however, certain groups of vowels can be optionally treated as either two syllables or a single diphthongal syllable. Diphthong pronunciation is most common for /a.i/ and /o.i/ in words like πλάι (pláï, aside, beside) or μοιρολόι (mirolóï, dirge). Diphthongs are more commonly found in loanwords; for example a word for cake κέικ (kéïk) has an /ei/ diphthong. This same diphthong also occurs in a native Greek word, λέει (léï, s/he says), where the two vowels were formerly separated by the consonant γ (g).

Although written with a sequence of vowels, <ευ> represents /ev/, a vowel and a consonant (the /v/ is devoiced to [f] when another voiceless

Voiceless

In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, this is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word "phonation" implies voicing, and that voicelessness is the lack of...

 consonant follows.) Similarly, <αυ> represents /av/ (or /af/ in front of a voiceless consonant).

Stress

Unlike Ancient Greek, which had a pitch accent

Pitch accent

Pitch accent is a linguistic term of convenience for a variety of restricted tone systems that use variations in pitch to give prominence to a syllable or mora within a word. The placement of this tone or the way it is realized can give different meanings to otherwise similar words...

 system, Modern Greek has dynamic syllable stress

Stress (linguistics)

In linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word, or to certain words in a phrase or sentence. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables. The word accent is sometimes also used with this sense.The stress placed...

, like English. Still as in Ancient Greek, every multisyllabic word carries stress on one of its three final syllables.

The position of the stress can vary between different inflectional forms of the same word within its inflectional paradigm in cases where a syllable is added (e.g. πρόβλημα 'problem', προβλήματα 'problems'). In some word classes, stress position is also sensitive to Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek

Ancient Greek is the stage of the Greek language in the periods spanning the times c. 9th–6th centuries BC, , c. 5th–4th centuries BC , and the c. 3rd century BC – 6th century AD of ancient Greece and the ancient world; being predated in the 2nd millennium BC by Mycenaean Greek...

 vowel length, so that a word cannot be stressed on the third-from-last syllable if the last syllable

Ultima (linguistics)

In linguistics, the ultima is the last syllable of a word, the penult is the next-to-last syllable, and the antepenult is second-from-last syllable. In a word of three syllables, the names of the syllables are antepenult-penult-ultima.-Etymology:...

 was long: e.g. άνθρωπος ('man', nom. sg.

Grammatical number

In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....

, last syllable short), but ανθρώπων ('of men', gen.

Genitive case

In grammar, genitive is the grammatical case that marks a noun as modifying another noun...

 pl.

Plural

In linguistics, plurality or [a] plural is a concept of quantity representing a value of more-than-one. Typically applied to nouns, a plural word or marker is used to distinguish a value other than the default quantity of a noun, which is typically one...

, last syllable long). Both of these are Ancient Greek accent

Ancient Greek accent

In Ancient Greek, accent varies from word to word, but there are rules of accent determining where it can fall and what type it can be. The rules depend on the length of the vowel in the last syllable and in the syllable being accented.-Mora:...

ual rules.

However, in Modern Greek this rule is no longer automatic and does not apply to all words, as the length distinction itself no longer exists (e.g. καλόγερος 'monk', καλόγερων 'of monks').

Enclitic words such as possessive pronoun

Possessive pronoun

A possessive pronoun is a part of speech that substitutes for a noun phrase that begins with a possessive determiner . For example, in the sentence These glasses are mine, not yours, the words mine and yours are possessive pronouns and stand for my glasses and your glasses, respectively...

s form a single phonological word together with the host word to which they attach, and hence count towards the three-syllable rule too. This has the effect that the addition of a clitic can force the stress to move to a syllable further toward the end in the host word.

External links

• Harry Foundalis, Greek Alphabet and pronunciation