Everything about Modern Greek Phonology totally explained
This page presents a sketch of the
phonology of
Standard Modern Greek.
Vowels
Greek has a simple system of five vowels, /a, e, i, o, u/. The vowel /a/ is realised as
open central. The mid vowels /e/ and /o/ have a phonetic quality in between the
close-mid and
open-mid level. The close vowels /i/ and /u/ have qualities approaching the respective
cardinal vowels. In terms of
phonotactics, /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.
Modern Greek doesn't 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 ('aside, beside') or
μοιρολόι ('elegy, epicedium').
Consonants
The consonantal system of Greek is less easy to describe, as there's considerable debate about which sounds to describe as separate
phonemes and which to analyse as
allophones conditioned through consonant clusters. The following table presents a near-maximum inventory of 26 sounds.
Of the 26 consonantal sounds shown here, only the 15 shown in bold are undisputed phonemes according to a minimalist analysis. These 15 are also the ones that are represented by single letters in Greek orthography and directly correspond to consonant phonemes in
Ancient Greek. 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. Palatalized pronunciation presupposes the presence of yet another vowel after the palatalized consonant and its following /i/. If there's no subsequent second vowel, palatalization doesn't occur.
- The series of voiced plosives can be analysed as sequences of nasals and voiceless plosives, [b] = /mp/, [d] = /nt/, [g] = /nk/. Again, this corresponds to the orthographic spelling (using digraphs <μπ, ντ, γκ>).
- /ts/ and /dz/ can be analysed as biphonemic clusters rather than as separate phonemes.
Standard Modern Greek doesn't have long consonants within words, although some southeastern dialects (notably
Cypriot and
Rhodian) do.
Phonetic realisation
The voiceless stops /p/, /t/, and /k/ are unaspirated, and may be slightly voiced in some dialects, especially in
Crete and
Cyprus.
The phonetic realisation of /b, d, g/ (or /mp, nt, nk/, depending on the analysis) is variable. In word-initial position they're 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-nasalization [
mb,
nd,
ŋɡ], or again as a single stop. This is a matter of considerable sociolinguistic and dialectal variation, and some social stigma is attached to certain variants. Some speakers, following a prescriptive norm, have a marginal phonological contrast between pure voiced stops and nasal clusters word-medially, for example 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).
The nasals tend to assimilate to following consonants in place of articulation; thus there's a
velar nasal [ŋ] (spelled γ) before following /k, ɣ, x/) and a
labiodental nasal [ɱ] <μ> before following /f/ or /v/.
/r/ can be realised either as a
trilled [r] or, in intervocalic position, as a
tapped [ɾ].
[kʲ] and [gʲ] are further palatalised and turn into affricates [ʨ] and [ʥ] in some dialects, notably those of
Crete and the
Mani.
[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 to assimilate according to the place of articulation of the following sound; conversely, the stop tends to get voiced. This results in pronunciations such as
τον πατέρα [tombaˈtera] ('the father') or
δεν πειράζει [ðembiˈrazi] ('it doesn't matter'). Some of these rules are optional, and may vary according to dialect and formality of speech. Since sandhi is highly variable depending on circumstance, to the degree of being completely absent in formal speech, foreign speakers who are not comfortable with proper usage may just avoid it altogether and prefer pronunciation "by the book" instead.
Syllable structure
Stress
Unlike Ancient Greek, which had a
pitch accent system, Modern Greek has dynamic
syllable stress, like English. Still like in Ancient Greek, every multisyllabic word carries stress on one of its three final syllables.
Enclitic words such as
possessive pronouns 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 back in the host word. The position of the stress can also vary between different inflectional forms of the same word within its inflectional paradigm (for example πρόβλημα 'problem', προβλήματα 'problems'). In some word classes, Modern Greek preserves an historical pattern whereby stress position was also sensitive to vowel length, as a word couldn't be stressed on the third last syllable if the last syllable was long: for example άνθρωπος ('man', Nom.Sg., last syllable short), but ανθρώπων ('of men', Gen.Pl., last syllable long). However, in Modern Greek this rule is no longer automatic and doesn't apply to all words, as the length distinction itself no longer exists (for example καλόγερος 'monk', καλόγερων 'of monks').
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