THE ORTHOGRAPHY OF THE HYPHENATED COMPOUND NOUNS IN THE STANDARD MACEDONIAN LANGUAGE AND THE JOURNALISTIC SUB-STYLE

Abstract

            The orthography provides the basis for formation of a written text and its correct implementation guaranties the stability of the standard norm. At the same time, the development of society implies development of the language, because it has to address the needs of its users. New words permanently enter the language, so the orthography has to provide explanations and precise rules that will regulate their correct use. Thus, the orthography should constantly be updated with new examples and rules, which will contribute to decrease the possibility for ambiguous orthographic solutions. After almost a period of 20 year of using the same edition of the Orthography from 1998, it is a pleasure to announce the presence of the new edition of the Orthography, published in 2015. This edition is undoubtedly important for all speakers of the Macedonian language, especially for the Macedonian linguistic experts.  

            Taking into account that the orthography of the compound nouns evokes many dilemmas in the late edition of the Orthography it is very useful to notice whether the new edition of the Orthography has introduced some significant changes in their orthography. Hence, the paper provides an analysis of certain rules that refer to the hyphenated compound nouns in the edition of the Orthography from 1998 that are not clear and precise enough and leads to the possibility of dual interpretation. Then, these rules are compared with the same rules in the new edition of the Orthography from 2015 in order to get an insight into the changes and supplements. Finally, the rules from the new edition are analyzed regarding their preciseness and possibility for ambiguity.

            The research has qualitative paradigm (content analysis) and the descriptive design. The data processing and concluding employs analysis, comparison and synthesis. The results indicate that the new edition of the Orthography provides a great deal of clearness and new information in comparison with the previous edition. Still, new dilemmas and different interpretation of the rules are present. This encourages the idea of more frequent changes and modifications of the already existed rules, as well as frequent appearances of new orthography editions. 

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