Horace G. Lunt - А Grammar of the Macedonian Literary Language

Contents:

Preface
Introduction
PART ONE — A Grammar of the Macedonian Literary Language
Chapter 1. Phonology and Orthography
Chapter II. Morphology
Chapter III. The Verb

PART TWO — Reading Selections
A. Folk Texts
- Жената од ѓаволска опашка
- Мачорот аџија и калуѓер
- Свекор, свекрва и снаа
B. Gospel Text, Luke X:30-35
C. Contemporary Expository Prose
- Blaže Koneski: excerpts from Македонската литература во 19 век
D. Contemporary Dramatic Prose
- Vasil Iljoski: excerpts from Бегалка
E. Contemporary Narrative Prose
- Vlado Maleski — ,,Tale": Младоста на Фросина
- Slavko Janevski: excerpts from Улица
- Jovan Boskovski: Непријатели, Во поход, Земјата на Панка Бисерин
- Dimche Markovski: Чичко Алексо

PART THREE — Vocabulary
Map of the Republic of Macedonia



It is the aim of this book to introduce the reader to the Macedonian literary language. The first part consists of a description of the structure of the sound pattern and the morphological system of the language, the second part is made up of typical examples of Macedonian prose, and the last gives a representative list of Macedonian words with their English equivalents.

This is the first attempt to present Macedonian entirely in its own terms. The current school grammar, Македонска граматика (1950), by Krume Kepeski, amounts to an adaptation from similar Bulgarian works, with many quite unnecessary comparative and historical references.

There are, however, several' books and monographs about Macedonian dialects which furnish valuable material for comparative and historical studies. Principle among them are the works of the French Slavists. Prof. Andre Mazon has written extensively on two of the southwest Macedonian dialects. Contes slaves du Macedoine sud-occidentale (Paris, 1923) treats the dialects in the region of Florina or Lerin, in Greece, and Documents, co-rites et ch...ve de l-Albanie du sud (Paris, 1936) is an exhaustive treatise on the dialect of an isolated group of Macedonians in the village of Boboshtica in Albania. With Prof. Andre Vaillant, Mazon edited and published a nineteenth-centurv text from an area in Greece which has long been completely hellenized, L'Evangeliaire de Kulakia, un parler slave du Bas-Vardar (Paris, 1938). The bibliographical and comparative data about all Macedonian dialects given in this book are particularly important. The Russian scholar A. Selishchev, writing more from a historical point of view, published several important studies: Очерки по македонскои дијалектологии (Kazan, 1918), a general description and history of Macedonian dialects; Македонские кодики XVII и XVIII веков (Sofia, 1933), an analysis of older written materials; and Полог и его болгарское население (Sofia, 1929), which contains a description of a northwestern dialect. The Polish scholar M. Małecki studied and published materials from the southeasternmost Macedonian dialects, from the villages of Suho and Visoka, northeast of Salonika. None of these works is directly concerned with the dialects on which the Macedonian literary language is based, although Selishchev does touch on them from time to time. The monograph by the Serbian linguist Aleksandar Belic, Galicki dijalekat (= Srpski dijalektoloshki zbornik, VII, Srem. Karlovci Beograd, 1935), analyzes a western Macedonian dialect which, although not one of those from which the literary language is drawn, nevertheless has many characteristics in common with them, as for example the accent and the triple definite article.

There is a mass of literature dealing with the origins of Macedonian dialects and the question of their relationship to
Serbian or Bulgarian. The majority of this literature is polemic and hopelessly biased. An excellent summary of the opinions expressed during the, '30's can be found in Małecki's article 'Z zagadnien dialektologii makedonskiej', Rocznik Slawistyczny, (1938), 119-144.

None of this literature has been used directly in writing the present grammar. Some of the contemporary work by Macedonian linguists has been very important, however. The short monograph by Blaže Koneski on his native dialect of Prilep, 'Прилепскиот Говор', published in the Годишен зборник of the Skopje University for 1951 is of great value. It is an analysis of one of the principle sources of the literary language, written by the leading Macedonian linguistic scholar, and has influenced my point of view in a number of respects. The articles in the little journal published by the Seminar of South Slavic Languages in Skopje, Македонски Јазик ( 1950), have also proved useful. Nearly all of the material for the treatment of the accent and the prepositions has come from Koneski's articles in this journal; and other articles have been used freely, although in basically modified form.

In speaking, most Macedonians continue to pronounce according to their local dialects, and many individuals retain their native morphological and syntactical systems. More and more effort is being made, however, to adopt a pronunciation more in accord with the written standard, and deviant morphological forms are less and less in use among intellectuals. As a basis for the description of the phonemic system, I took the pronunciation of Blaže Koneski, poet, writer, translator, and Professor of the Macedonian Language at the University, a native of Prilep. Certain of my observations are based on the speech of his colleagues in the Seminar of South Slavic Languages, Prof. Krum Toshev (also a native of Prilep), Assistant Bozho Vidoeski (from Porece, an area north of the Prilep-Bitola-Kicevo-Veles quadrangle), and Assistant Rada Ugrinova (from Skopje). Data from recordings which other speakers made for me have in every case been checked with these four people.

The grammar is intended to be strictly synchronic. Historical and comparative remarks are confined to the outline in the Introduction and to occasional footnotes. The description is not complete, for it does not treat in detail the adverbs, conjunctions, and particles. The salient points of syntax are included in the morphology. All the points treated have been illustrated by examples taken from Macedonian prose or from one of the four informants named above.

The grammar has been written from a strictly linguistic point of view, and will therefore be of most interest to the student of Slavic and general linguistics. I believe, however, that the non-linguist who is interested in learning Macedonian will find it possible to understand the terminology and point of view if he will read slowly and carefully, and will study the examples in conjunction with the grammatical statements.

The texts in the second part of the book have been chosen to illustrate different kinds of prose treating different subjects, and at the same time to present a few representative pieces of Macedonian literature. It cannot pretend to be an anthology, for the selection was made more on the basis of length and of type of vocabulary and subject matter than on that of literary value. It was preferred to present long excerpts which are complete in themselves, or complete works, rather than many fragments which might perhaps be more varied, but which would be incomplete. Although some of the selections were written before 1950, they have been edited to bring them into line with contemporary usage.



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