Macedonian phonology
This article discusses the phonological system of Standard Macedonian (unless otherwise noted) based on the Prilep-Bitola dialect. For discussion of other dialects, see Macedonian dialects. Macedonian possesses five vowels, one semivowel, three liquid consonants, three nasal stops, three pairs of fricatives, two pairs of affricates, a non-paired voiceless fricative, nine pairs of voiced and unvoiced consonants and four pairs of stops. Vowels. Schwa. The schwa is phonemic in many dialects (varying in closeness to or ) but its use in the standard language is marginal. It is written with an apostrophe: . It can also be used for  dialectal effect; for example, , , etc. When spelling aloud, each consonant is followed by the schwa. The individual letters of acronyms are pronounced with the schwa in the same way: (). The lexicalized acronyms () and () (a brand of cigarettes), are among the few exceptions. Vowel length. Vowel length is not phonemic. Vowels in stressed open syllables in disyllabic words with stress on the penult can be realized as long, e.g. 'Veles'. The sequence is often realized phonetically as ; e.g. "'colloq." hour'. Consonants. and are officially dorsal-palatal plosives, and some speakers pronounce them that way. They have various other pronunciations, depending on  dialect. In some Northern Macedonian dialects they are alveolo-palatal affricates and (just like in Serbo-Croatian), while in the urban Prilep subdialect of the Prilep-Bitola dialect, they have merged into and , respectively. Phonological processes. At morpheme boundaries (represented in spelling) and at the end of a word (not represented in spelling), voicing opposition is neutralized. Stress. The word stress in Macedonian is antepenultimate, meaning it falls on the third from last syllable in words with three or more syllables, and on the first or only syllable in other words. This is sometimes disregarded when the word has entered  the language more recently or from a foreign source. The following rules apply: For example, 'child', 'mother' and 'father'. For example, 'mountain', 'the mountain' and 'the mountaineers'. Exceptions include: