Literature/Gjuhesi

Albanian Grammar
Differences between Geg and Tosk
Victor A. Friedman
University of Chicago

The two major dialect groups of Albanian are Geg (north) and Tosk (south). A significant bundle of isoglosses dividing the two dialect regions runs through the area south of the course of the river Shkumbî in central Albania and then along the the river Drin through the middle of Struga in the Republic of Macedonia. The overwhelming majority of Albanian speakers in former Yugoslavia speak one or another of the varieties of Geg, the only exception being the Tosk speakers of the Ohrid-Prespa region in southwestern Macedonia.1

1. Phonology
1.1 Stress
The stress patterns of Albanian dialects do not show significant variation (Gjinari 1970: 26). In general, Albanian stresses the final syllable of the stem, although there also exist certain classes of exceptions (see Newmark, Hubbard and Prifti 1982:15-18). One major difference between Tosk and Geg stress is in the treatment of Turkish loans in original final stressed -a or -e. In Tosk, Turkish loans are treated like other Albanian words with a final stressed vowel, hence babá 'father' , babái 'the father' , teneqé 'tin' , teneqéja 'the tin' , like native vëllá 'brother' , vëllái 'the brother' , rrufé 'lightning' , rruféja 'the lightning' . In Geg, however, the stress is shifted back and Turkish loans are adapted to the pattern of nouns in final schwa or original short -e, hence hállvë 'sweetmeat' , hállva 'the sweetmeat' , penxhére 'window' , penxhérja 'the window' , like native çúpë 'girl' , çúpa 'the girl' , déle 'ewe' , délja 'the ewe' . In the standard language, the solution has been to adapt a mixture of these. Thus both Tosk babá 'father' and Geg bábë 'father' are acceptable, but Geg tenéqe 'tin' and Tosk penxheré 'window' and hallvá 'sweetmeat' are all excluded (Kostallari 1976).2
1.2 Vowels
In Albanian, stressed schwa is characteristic of Tosk (and of the standard language) as opposed to Geg, which lacks it. Also, Geg drops unstressed schwa in many positions (with compensatory lengthening of preceding vowel in some cases), a feature that is represented in Standard Geg orthography, e.g. Geg vllezër 'brothers' Tosk vëllezër 'brothers'; Geg pla@k. 'old woman' Tosk plakë.
Geg dialects all have phonemic length and nasality and as a result have between 14 and 19 vocalic phonemes.3 By contrast, Tosk lacks nasality and most Tosk dialects, including those of the region of Korçë that serve as the basis of the standard language, lack both length and nasality. These Tosk dialects of the Korçë region have seven phonemes: /a, e, i, o, u, ü, /.4 It should be noted, however, that intellectuals of Kosova and Macedonia insist that phonemic length is a legitimate feature of the Kosovar variant of Standard Albanian, i.e. this is one of those features that is a subject of variation within Standard Albanian, at least for speakers living outside of Albania (cf. Zymberi 1991).
As indicated above, Geg lacks stressed schwa (Albanian orthographic <ë>). One area of important variation in this regard is the correspondence of Geg nasal /e)/ (orthographic <ê>) to Tosk /e/ or //, the distribution of which is complex, with southern Tosk being most consistent in the use of // (cf. Byron 1976 b:102). Pre-War Standard Tosk had //, but the post-War Standard has codified /e/, e.g. zemër 'heart' vs the dialectal variants zëmër and zêmër. Most of the Albanian dialects of Macedonia have fourteen vowels, viz. /a, e, i, o, u/ long, short, and nasal except nasal /o)/, which does not occur in any Albanian dialect. The /ü/ of other dialects here corresponds to /i/. The Central Geg dialects of Albania also lack /ü/ but add to this inventory also lack /ü/ but add to this inventory mid front rounded /ø/ and /ø)/ thus having the same number but not the same inventory of phonemes as Northeastern Geg including Kosova and Southern Geg including the villages between Struga and Debar (Albanian Dibër) in Macedonia, which all have /ü/ and nasal /ü)/ (Gjinari 1989:102-106).5
1.3 Consonants
Standard Albanian has a phonemic contrast between strident palatal affricates /c#, Z#/ and mellow palatal stops /k!, g!/ (Albanian orthographic <ç, xh> and , IPA [tS, dZ, c, J]). Most dialects of Kosova (also parts of Macedonia such as Kumanovo and Debar), however, merge the two into palatal affricates (Gjinari 1989:156).
In Albanian, original /n/ became /r/ in Tosk but remained in Geg, e.g. Tosk Shqipëri 'Albania' Geg Shqipni 'Albania'. In Standard Albanian, rhotacized forms are prescribed with a few lexical exceptions (e.g. dashnor 'lover', cf. dashuri 'love').
Final devoicing in Albanian is characteristic of Northern Tosk and transitional Southern Geg but not of the Standard.
2. Morphology
2.1 Verbs
In Albanian, there is a host of variants in verbal morphology. Thus, for example, in Northern Tosk the ending of the first singular present and subjunctive in vocalic stem verbs contains /n!/, elsewhere 1 sg pres./subj. uses /j/, e.g. Northern Tosk punonj 'I work' (PRES) and (SUBJ) other Tosk punoj 'I work' (PRES) and (SUBJ). 6 The morphologically distinct subjunctive, which occurs only in the second and third persons singular, is lost through generalization in Kosova and Macedonia. Thus, for example, Standard Albanian (and the dialect of Korçë) opposes punon 'work' (23SG PRES INDIC) to punosh 'work' (2SG PRES SUBJ) and punojë 'work' (3SG PRES SUBJ).7 In Kosova, however, the suffix -n is generalized for both persons in both moods while in some dialects of Macedonia, e.g. Debar, the form in -n is generalized for the third singular in both moods and the suffix -jsh is used for both second singulars (v. Ajeti 1978:11-17, Barsha 1989:186-190).8 The presence of /s#/ in the imperfect is characteristic of Geg (except the southeastern Geg of Albania), whereas its absence is characteristic of Tosk, e.g. Geg punojsha 'work' 1SG IMPF Tosk punonja 'work' 1SG IMPF. 9 The shape of the standard variant, -ja e.g. punoja 'work' 1SG IMPF -- is characteristic only of a small region just north of Southern Tosk, although the suffix /j/ followed by schwa, /e/, or Ø occurs throughout Southern Tosk as well as in Southeastern Geg (Gjinari 1989:248).
In Albanian, there is signficant variation in the formation of pluperfects and in the shape of the participle, which is essential for a variety of analytic constructions. Geg has a series of compound perfects (perfects composed of a perfect or pluperfect auxiliary plus the participle) which are used to express what I have called pre-anterior taxis (Friedman 1981), i.e. a past resultative event prior to another past resultative event, as in kam pasë shkue, literally '(I) have having gone', kisha pasë shkue, literally '(I) had having gone'; both are translatable as 'I had gone' but with nuances of great distance in time. The following example illustrates this concept:
(1) Është e vetmja brengë … shqiptoi (AOR) më qartë ai, pasi kishte folur (PLUP) … për një vajzë … me të cilën e kishin pasë fejuar (CPD PLUP) prindët qysh në fëmijëri 'It is the only trouble … he said (AOR) more clearly, after he had spoken (PLUP) about a girl … to whom his parents had engaged him (CPD PLUP) in childhood.' (Friedman 1981:278)
Tosk would simply use a pluperfect in both instances. In the participle, Geg has short and long variants as in shkue shkuem 'going' while Tosk has a single, rhotacized form as in shkuar 'going'. Also, in dialects where the aorists of the auxiliary verbs 'be' and 'have' are lost, the pluperfects formed with those auxiliaries in the standard language and other dialects are replaced by the imperfect (Basha 1989).
There is also variation in the expression of aspect. In Albanian, as noted above, the aorists of the verbs 'be' and 'have' are excluded from some dialects, which in turn affects the formation of pluperfects.
Morpho-syntactic differences between Geg and Tosk in analytic verbal constructions include the following: Geg infinitive of the type me shkuem (= 'with' + long participle) Tosk për të shkuar (= 'for' + subordinator + participle) 'to go',10 the Geg use of 'be' as the auxiliary of the perfect of intransitive active verbs as opposed to the Tosk generalization of 'have' for all active verbs (both dialects use 'be' for the perfect of medio-passive verbs), e.g. Geg jam shkue 'I am gone' but Tosk kam shkuar 'I have gone', the Geg future of the type kam me shkue ('have' + infinitive) 'I will go', as opposed to the Tosk type do të shkoj (particle based on 'want' + subordinator + present subjunctive verb) 'I will go', the Geg progressive of the type jam kah shkoj (present tense of 'be' + ‘towards’ + present tense verb) 'I am going' as opposed to the Tosk type po shkoj (progressive marker + present indicative verb) 'I am going' or jam duke shkuar (present indicative of 'be' + 'while' + participle) 'I am going', and the formation of gerunds Geg tue shkuem 'while going' Tosk duke shkuar 'while going'. The following sentence illustrates differences in future constructions and other items:
(2) Nuk kam me mûjtë me ardhë në Shqipni. Jo të tâna gjylpânat ishin të lame e të pastrueme.
Tosk: Nuk do të mund të vij në Shqipëri. Jo të tëra gjilpërat ishin të lara e të pastruara.
‘I will not be able to come to Albania. Not all the needles were washed and cleaned.’ (after Pipa 1989:16-18)
2.2 Nominals
In Albanian the main variation is the generalization of /-i/ as the definite article for all masculine nouns in Kosova (or those in /-h/ but not in /-k,-g/ in Macedonia [normally masculines in /h,k,g/ take /-u/]) (Gjinari 1989:254-56), e.g. bilbil/bilbili 'nightingale/the nightingale' but zog/zogu 'bird/the bird', krah/krahu 'wing, side/the wing, side'; but in Kosova zogi, 'the bird', krahi ' the wing, side' and in Macedonia zogu ' the bird', krahi ' the wing, side'. Albanian also has a difference in the indefinite article (Geg nji 'one, a' Tosk një 'one, a'), which although phonologically based, was the subject of a potential, artificial morphological distinction.11
In the expression of reflexive possession, Tosk lacks a morphologically distinct reflexive possessive pronoun, whereas Geg has i vetë 'one's own' for the third person, and this form has been adopted into the standard language. The use of i vetë 'one's own' in some Tosk writers for non-third persons appears to be a hypercorrection (Byron 1976b:118).
3. Variation and Standardization
Although a Tosk based standard was promulgated in Albania after World War Two and adopted by the ethnic Albanians of Yugoslavia in a process that lasted from 1968-1972. The lack of standardization before the publication of the standard reference tools of the 1970’s made it extremely difficult for the foreign learner to know which forms to memorize. The following four examples are illustrative:
(1) Present tense of ‘wait’
SG PL
1 pres presim
2 pret pritni OR prisni
3 pret presin
Imperfect stem is based on second plural, therefore:
prisja, prisje, etc. OR pritja. pritje, etc.
(2) gjen ‘find’ Four possible third person singular medio-passive aorists:
u gjet OR u gjind OR u gjënd OR u gjend
(3) rri ‘sit’ Four possible participles: ndejt-ur OR ndëjt-ur OR ndenj-ur OR ndënj-ur
The participle is the basis for both aorist and admirative paradigm, thus leading to four different sets of paradigms.
(4) ha ‘eat’ Two third singular aorists and an irregular participle, any of which can form the basis of the admirative paradigm:
hëngri OR hangri, participle ngrënë third singular present admirative: hëngërka OR hangërka OR ngrënka.

1
For the most part, the dialects of Montenegro belong to Northwestern Geg, those of Kosov@ to Northeastern Geg, and those of Macedonia to Central Geg. The dialects of Central Albania (Southern Geg and Transitional) are spoken in some villages between Debar and Struga (Gjinari 1989:53-57 ).
2
It should be noted that given the stress pattern in the Turkish source, it is Geg that uses stress shift and not Tosk, pace Pipa (1989:9). There are a few other lexical items where Tosk oxytone corresponds to Geg paroxytone, e.g. Geg véri Tosk verí 'north', etc. In such words, Southern Geg (Central Albania) patterns with Tosk. In clusters of two vowels such as /úa/, /íe/, /y!e/, some northern Tosk dialects shift the stress onto the second vowel and treat the sequence as a rising diphthong (see Gjinari 1975:91-95). In all these instances, Standard Albanian follows Tosk (or southern Tosk).
3
The dialects of Debar (Albanian Dibër) in Macedonia and Ulcinj (Albanian Ulqinj) in Montenegro are unique among Geg dialects in their lack of nasality.
4
The Southernmost Tosk dialects of Labëri in Albania and Çamëri in Greece (Greek E¤piros) have phonemic length. All Albanian dialects except those without phonemic high front rounded /ü/ (Albanian orthographic ) have these seven vowels as their unstressed inventory.
5
The Albanian dialects of Macedonia and adjacent Central Geg dialects of Albania also have a characteristic diphthongization of stressed /i/ and /u/ to [ai8, ei8, i8] and [au8, ou8] in many environments, e.g. in Debar [s#!ii8t] for standard shit 'sell!'-IMP, [nou8k] for standard nuk 'not' (Basha 1989:148-50). On the other hand, Geg in general tends to monophthongize original diphthongs, e.g. /ue > u@, ie > i@, ye > y@/. As mentioned above, in Tosk there is variation between treating these as diphthongs, which is characteristic of northern Tosk, or as vowel sequences, which is southern Tosk and standard. (Gjinari 1989:201). In general, Geg has /vo-/ and Tosk /va-/ from original initial *o-, e.g. votër vatër 'hearth' and /ue/ where Tosk has /ua/, e.g. mue mua 'me'.
6
This is part of a larger phenomenon of Geg /j/ Tosk /nj/ (cf. Byron 1976b:99-102).
7
Southern Tosk also has /-jë/ for the third singular subjunctive but it has /c#/ for the second singular subjunctive (Gjinari 1970:64-66).
8
The neutralization of the indicative/subjunctive opposition probably reflects the influence of Macedonian, which epxresses this distinctinction syntactically, i.e. only with the modal subordinator da (equivalent to Albanian të).
9
There is also considerable variation in the shape of the final syllable: /ja, je, n!a, n!e, n!am, n!j!, j!j, js#na, js#a, js#e/ (Gjinari 1989:248)
10
The Tosk type of construction also occurs in the Albanian dialects of Macedonia south of Debar. The Geg infinitive is permitted in certain expressions that have achieved wide currency, e.g. domethanë 'that is to say'.
11
Faik Konica proposed that Geg nji be used for feminine nouns and Tosk një for masculine, but his proposal was not accepted (Byron 1976a).