Macedonian Language from the Perspective of its Balkan Environment ( Language Tendencies )

I the past fifteen years, Macedonian standard language and its dialects have been subject to various changes effected for the purpose of establishing clearer and simpler communication. At dialectal level, Macedonian speeches are dissolving and fewer differences can be noticed between city and rural speeches. Take Ohrid speech as an example which had many inherited Slavic features, especially at the lexical and phonetical level, and which, on the other hand, from a Balkan perspective, is the innovational core of the Balkan linguistic tendencies, on both the verb level and in the morphosyntactics domain. The specific features of the speech of the old part – Varoš, are slowly vanishing and nowadays we can speak of an Ohrid speech specific for the other parts of the town as well, which has spread even deeper into the region. Among those that use Ohrid speech nowadays are also those whose parents were native speakers of the Aromanian (Vlach), and sometimes even Turkish or Albanian language. In their everyday use of the language they introduce the features inherited from their “Balkan code” and in this manner they increase the tendencies originating from the period of convergent development of the Balkan linguistic community (Видоески 1999: 253). On the other hand, Macedonian contemporary language is subject to various changes and accelerated development both due to the dissolving of dialects and to the need of adaptation of the influences of foreign languages. For example, the capital city, Skopje, with a population of almost half of the entire population in Macedonia, is losing part of its dialect features, the language spoken there is developing into a kind of sociolect and becomes carrier of what could be called contemporary Macedonian language. It absorbs

both the features of the dialects and the foreign languages and adapts them with a prospect of achieving clearer and more transparent communication.
Therefore, in this text, I shall attempt to portray two linguistic phenomena, that have not been researched much until now, but that have recently become more intense and which, in a way, show the tendencies in both dialects and contemporary Macedonian language.The first phenomenon that I shall portray is the increasingly present use of double prepositions in Ohrid speech, a phenomenon that has not yet been researched or initiated in the Balkan linguistic environment.The other phenomenon concerns contemporary language and portrays how language deals (in relation to the accommodation by type and tense) with the verbs of foreign origin.

Doubling of prepositions in Ohrid speech -a Balkan tendency
Human relationship with space and interpretation of space have always been of interest to science."Space" has always been one of the most researched issues in mathematics, physics, psychology and linguistics.The most common question has been the relationship between the physical (the objective / the real) and the notional (philosophical/projected) understanding of space.Science has progressed from the "absolute" (Newton) to the "relative" understanding of space (Einstein).Precisely language is the medium that tries to link these two aspects of space and to convey (with linguistic means) the relations between the objects in space.The position of the human element (the speaker) in determining the spatial relationships is of course of key importance, especially in relation to common orientation of the participants in the communication.
In languages with synthetic declension, these relations are conveyed with prepositional -case constructions, while in those with analytical declension, the main conveyors of the spatial relations are the prepositions.In Macedonian language, which transited from synthetism towards analytism, prepositions (prepositional constructions) became the main conveyors of the case relations and "prepositive" grammatical indicators.
Aside from being burdened with case functions, i.e. the relations between the predicate and its arguments, with time, the prepositions also become burdened with another type of function.In this manner, several relationships with metaphorical meaning are established from the basic spatial (and temporal) relationships.On the other hand, the need for more precise spatial determination grew, and this is precisely where the role of the (secondary) complex prepositions comes into play: насред, накај, откај докај... (In other Slavic languages: испред, изнад, испод; wśród, spod, znad).Beside them, Macedonian language also possesses the so-called double prepositions, the main function of which is a more precise spatial determination.Hence, in Koneski (Конески 1981) a whole series of such constructions with double prepositions can be found: The monograph of T. Dimitrovski (Димитровски 1956) on the meaning and use of prepositions in Macedonian, also dedicates attention to the double prepositions (prepositional combinations); he says that this phenomenon is common in popular speech.He gives several examples: Дојди до зад куќа; Лаѓата стаса до сред море; И одеднаш, од зад буките, свикаа многу гласови.
Both Koneski and Dimitrovski consider that the prepositional phrase is also some kind of meaningful unit (Dimitrovski -a cognitive whole) that interacts with the second preposition (from the end).The accent also has a helpful role because when the first preposition is combined with onesyllable or two-syllable words, an accent unit is created: од пред_врата, за под_ глава, од зад_грб.

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What can be concluded from the aforesaid is that the doubling of prepositions in Macedonian language is a recognised phenomenon which is most common for the dialects of the western region.These double preposition constructions are commonly found in the Ohrid speech which uses accent units: Истај ги дрвана од под_скали Ми ја зеде книгата од пред_прсти.Aside from accent units, the first preposition and the noun also create a "cognitive" whole and come closer to the meaning of adverbial determination of location.As evident from the examples, (with the exception of the two last ones) where we have sequences of prepositions of which the first one, aside from creating an accent unit, also creates a cognitive whole with the noun (according to T. Dimitrovski).In this case, we may speak of localisation, i.e. the prepositional phrase takes on the role of a localiser in the spatial relation created with the second preposition.In the sentence: Истај ги парине од под кревет -"под_кревет" is a localiser, "парине" are the localized object, while the preposition од with its ablative meaning is dominative.This actually specifies the location with the help of first preposition.In the above examples, even if there are no accent units, it is still a single-meaning location determination with the appropriate prepositions (пред, зад, под, над, сред, etc.).

Doubling with spatial adverbs of single meaning
* * * Aside from the doubling of single-meaning spatial adverbs (од пред, од под, за над,...), there are some other constructions in Ohrid speech in which the first member is the preposition на (од на; до на; за на).This phenomenon has not yet been registered in the description of the speeches of the Ohrid and Struga region.This does not necessarily mean that it is a new process because in Ohrid it can also be found with the older generation and in Varoš (which is quite a conservative environment also from a linguistic point of view).This prepositional sequence (with на as the first item) appears not only in prepositional phrases with basic spatial meaning (на маса, на врата, на земја), but also in those with metaphorical meaning (на свадба, на риба, на лекар).
The basic spatial meaning of the preposition на (the localised object has contact with the localiser from the upper surface) must have contributed to its development into adverbial phrases such as (на свадба, на риба, на лекар, на визите), i.e. when combining the preposition на with the noun, this unit determinates localisation (delimitation in space).Here are some examples with "basic" spatial meaning:
But in sentences where the ablative relationship is depicted, which would be extended from the basic meaning (distancing from the localiser) to a broader meaning where од would mean "the source of action," in that case, these prepositional sequences become more single-meaning ones: The analysis of these and other examples, shows that with such doubling, "the cognitive whole" of the first preposition (на) and the noun, is mainly directed towards a kind of spatial delimitation that "localises" these prepositional phrases and takes on a spatial adverbial meaning.Hence, the phrase: на лекар, на риба, на свадба, на визита; actually becomes a localiser as a whole and we perceive it with its spatial determination.That is probably why the noun part does not appear with a determined article.If we try to interpret these sentences, we could say: Се вратив од на свадба = се вратив од местото каде се одржуваше свадбата; Идав од на лекар = доаѓав од местото каде се лечам / каде е мојот доктор.Therefore, this phenomenon is expanding its functional field of pure spatial meanings: на маса, на земја, to partially methaphorical ones: (institutions/static objects): на пазар, на школо, на плажа, and then to completely methaphorical ones: на лекар, на риба, на свадба, на визита.However, it should also be mentioned that the coalescence, i.e. forming of a prepositional phrase (localisation) causes such constructions to appear which have the same metaphorical dynamic meaning.So, another option for -Се враќам од на работа / Се вратив од на пат; is: -Го добив саатот од на работа / Се уморив од на пат.
That means that this doubling allows not only the forming of a prepositional phrase with spatial meaning (localisation), but also a broader understanding of space (на свадба, на риба, на лекар), while it also allows a broader understanding of the dynamic relation (not only a line of movement, but also a "source" of movement).
This phenomenon allows more accurate conveyance of the spatial relations with analytical means, but still, it needs to be said that not only the merging into an accent unit, but the localisation itself, i.e. the delimitation in space, is a new type of prepositive synthetism, i.e. a case indicator for locative (which resolves one huge issue in spatial relationships).
Where is the source of this phenomenon?In other western Macedonian peripheral dialects such constructions are very rare or are nonexistent.But in Aromanian, this phenomenon is actually most common: Neg la lukur = Одам на работа; Mi tor di la lukur = Се враќам од на работа.
As can be seen from the examples, preposition sequences are common in Aromanian.This phenomenon is also frequent and standard in Daco-Romanian.Hence, the prepositions: în, tu, = во ; pe, la, = на ; de = од; come in fusion or sequences of two prepositions: de + tu > dit, de + în > din; de pe, de la, pe la; etc. ( Mallinson 1986).As can be noticed, several Daco-Romanian prepositions (la, pe, *al) have their analogy in the preposition на (in Macedonian).This polysemy most probably made way for the sequences with на to take over the basic spatial meaning and to create localisations such as (на лекар, на визита, на свадба, на мајстор, ... and similar).
Adam Weinsberg (Weinsberg 1971) in his monograph on spatial prepositions in Polish, German and Romanian language claims that it is exclusively a Romanian feature and aside from Aromanian, it does not appear in any other Romance language, nor in other European languages.In his opinion, this feature makes the Romanian language unique in Europe.It can be found only in some Eastern Caucasian languages, but as postpositive.However, the influence of Turkish on Macedonian language should not be ignored and should be further researched.
Regarding the above, I believe that it can be said that Macedonian language, through Ohrid speech, has become familiar with this phenomenon.Although it is known that a certain analogy can be drawn between the basic spatial sequences (од пред врата, од под скали) and the Romanian sequence of prepositions (di pi masa, di sum skar), (Solecka 1979), still, until now, the sequences such as (од на пазар, од на лекар, од на работа, од на школо, од на мене) were neither recorded nor analysed in linguistic works.Those sequences in particular completely show the analogy that can be drawn between this unique Romanian (and Aromanian) phenomenon and Macedonian Ohrid speech.
Hence, from this perspective it can be said that Romanian is not the only language in Europe that uses such prepositional sequences.Macedonian language (in its Ohrid speech) has also embedded this particularity in its (spatial-case) system.
This certainly sheds a new light on Slavic/Latino/Roman relations, mainly regarding the place and role of Macedonian language in the Balkan language environment.Namely, the Balkanised (Romanised) structure of Macedonian language allows for certain tendencies to develop in directions much broader than in the source language/languages.
Precisely such a microsystem, as in Ohrid speech, a kind of innovation centre and one of the cores of the Balkan linguistic community, shows how those tendencies can be integrated into the system and help create a clearer and more precise communication and conveyance of the perception of the world around us.

Aspectual and temporal accommodation of the verbs with -ira in contemporary Macedonian language
In contemporary Macedonian language, especially in conversational language and in the language used in the media, it is more common to come across new prefixations in foreign verb forms formed with the suffix -ира.For example, it is becoming increasingly common to come across verb formations such as: исконтактира, изреагира, изреализира, изорганизира, исконтролира, изреволтира, изиритира, искоординира, испартизира, исполитизира, испрезентира, изанализира, издизајнира, излобира, избрифира, изменаџира, искомбинира, испромовира, etc.The fact that this is a more recent process is witnessed by verbs formed with this prefix that have originated directly under the influence of the English language: менаџер, лоби, брифинг, револт, принт (испринта) etc.
Even in the previous stages of development of contemporary Macedonian language, the suffix -ира appears as the most productive one in forming verbs of foreign origin.
Namely, the accelerated infiltration of new -ира verbs was first recorded by Blagoja Korubin in 1955 in one of his articles (Korubin 1955).He lists the following verbs: абонира, базира, вегетира, гарнира, ... etc., and his opinion is that this disturbs Macedonian language accentual system because of the penultima accent in these verbs.In his opinion, such forms would more easily integrate into Macedonian language, if they were formed with the suffixes -ува or -иса (агитува, бојкотува, организува, деморалиса, концентриса...).The problem of the -ира verbs was also analysed by Minova (Minova-Gjurkova 1966); she gives a comprehensive overview of the features of these verbs not only in Macedonian language, but also in Russian, Serbo/Croatian and in Bulgarian.In that text, Minova gives examples supporting the fact that, unlike the case in certain other Slavic languages, the suffixes -ува or -иса have not squeezed out the suffix -ира.She successfully depicts another issue typical for the -ира ending verbs which is their bi-aspectuality.She goes on saying that: "The aspect of these verbs comes to light from the context, i.e. the context reveals whether they are perfective or imperfective" (Minova-Gjurkova 1966).On the prefixation of these verbs, Minova mentions that the most commonly used prefix is по-(подиктира, понервира, потренира,...), followed by the prefix про-(продискутира, проконтролира, проанализира,...).Further, she lists other prefixes of less productivity.Using prefixation, Minova puts all this into the context of categorisation of these verbs by aspect.Already in 1967, in the Reverse Dictionary of Macedonian Language, issued by the Macedonian Language Institute, over 800 forms of -ира ending verbs are listed.Minova-Gjurkova readressed these verbs in an article from 1984 (Minova-Gjurkova 1984), this time she analyses past actions expressed with the -ира verbs.She lists several sentences where imperfect formations somehow solve the aspect issue with these verbs.For example: «(3) На почетокот на седницата претседавачот ги информираше присутните за некои промени во дневниот ред».If the aorist form is used in these examples (информира) the tense information (present versus aorist) will be unclear.In such cases, only a precise context or synonym replacement for the -ира verb can convey the correct information.In 1993, provoked by the increasing use of new -ира verb forms registered in the "Ortography of Macedonian Language" (Pravopisot na makedonskiot jazik) and in the audio-visual media, Simon Sazdov (Sazdov 1993) revisits the -ира verb issue.He lists several verbs which were unregistered until then in both the "Ortography of Macedonian Language" or the "Dictionary of Macedonian Language" Considering most of the researches of these verbs carried out thus far in the period of development of Macedonian contemporary language, and the monographs on word formation by K. Koneski (K.Koneski 2003) and S. Veleva (Veleva 2006), it can be concluded that the number of -ира verbs in Macedonian language is increasing, they are entering via several languages and are a powerful derivative core for the forming of various types of foreign words.The increased infiltration of new words contributed to the speeding up of the process of prefixation of the newly formed -ира verbs.
Namely, as I mentioned earlier, -ira verbs are increasingly infiltrating the Macedonian language and now the greatest problem is not the penultima accenting, but rather their bi-aspectual nature and their classification under the a-verb group.These features contribute, in many situations, to an identification of a verb as perfective or imperfective only from the context, the same goes for determining present tense or aorist (in the third person singular) or imperfect-aorist (in the first person singular).For example:
(imperfect -aorist)?As can be concluded, the only factor for determining the aspect and the tense is the context.However, in some examples, not even the context is enough to determine these categories.
That is why language, i.e. its speakers, used the least marked prefix, the из-(ис-) prefix, the main meaning of which is completing the action, i.e. its rounding up, which is closest to the perception of the perfective.
The prefix из-(ис-) introduces only a difference in aspect; foreign words do not carry information on the categorical meaning regarding the category of aspect; with this, из-(ис-) becomes an aspectual marker.Examples: 1. Vo emisijata ќe gi isprezentirame site modeli 2. Ќe iskomuniciram so niv za na sud 3. Nemam vreme da gi izdemantiram site navodi In this manner, the -ира verbs transit into perfective and more easily enter into aspectual and temporal oppositions.By the means of this prefixation, the present tense and the aorist can be distinguished (in the third person singular). Examples: 1. Неефикасноста на судството ги револтира цариниците.2. Одлуката на обвинителството ги изреволтира семејствата.3. Владата ја реализира својата одлука.4. Direct Media целосно го осмисли и изреализира проектот.One of the reasons why these verbs need to be accommodated in respect of the aspect and the tense is that these verbs are from the a-group which have same endings in different tenses.
The first person singular of the imperfect and the aorist are homonyms, so there is no information on the tense in the form -revoltirav (imp.-aor.).But the prefix solves this problem: The case is similar to the forms of the third person singular of present tense and aorist: -реализира -there is no information regarding the tense (present -aorist) The prefix из-(ис-) not only regulates the aspect: револтира -изреволтира револтирав -изреволтирав, it also specifies the tense information, which is no longer contextual.Also, this confirms the tendency that imperfective verbs use imperfect and perfective use aorist.

г-дин
Having in mind the above said and the majority of the researches of these verbs conducted thus far in the period of development of Macedonian contemporary language, it can be concluded that the -ира verbs in Macedonian language are increasing in number, and that this accelerated their prefixation process.The most productive prefix is the из-(ис-), prefix which solves many issues: a large group of bi-aspectual verbs can be categorised by aspect without an indicator of part, beginning, end, etc. of the action with iz-(is-) as a kind of aspectual marker; it solves the problem of homonymity of the unprefixed forms of -ира (due to the a-group) with regard to the tense category (present tense -past tense in the third person singular) (контактира-исконтактира), and it also solves the problem of distinction between the imperfect and the aorist (first person singular).
In conclusion, it can be said that languages, including Macedonian language, often, during their development discover inner-language means
актуелизира, модернизира, приватизира, анимира, аплицира, дистанцира, ескалира, интегрира, форсира etc. He, unlike Minova in 1984, writes that the most common group of prefixated -ира verbs in his research are those with the prefix из-(ис-) and lists verbs such as: истренира, изреагира, исконструира, издизајнира, etc.Other prefixes such as пре-(преаранжира, предимензионира, преструктуира) may even have no effect on the aspect of -ира verbs, unlike those with the prefix из-(ис-).Sazdov locates the greatest problem with the new -ира verbs in the accent (penultima) and in the aspect (bi-aspectual).In 2006 Aleksandra Gjurkova, in her text on the sociolinguistic aspects of Macedonian language (Gjurkova 2006), in the part in which she describes the effects of foreign languages on Macedonian language, especially of the influences of English, lists the following examples of new verb forms: администрира, акцептира, апдејтира, брифира, форматира, конектира, лобира.мониторира, процесира, таргетира, etc.Among other things, she refers to Minova-Gjurkova's article (Minova-Gjurkova 2002) in which it is stated that in order to solve the issue with the aspect of -ира verbs, they should be prefixated and linguists should look for an adequate solution.