Ubykh phonology
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Ubykh, an extinct Northwest Caucasian language, has the largest consonant inventory of all documented languages that do not use clicks, with 84, due to extensive secondary articulation, and also the most disproportionate ratio of consonants to vowels. It has consonants in at least eight, perhaps nine, basic places of articulation and 29 distinct fricatives, 27 sibilants, and 20 uvulars, more than any other documented language. Only Khoisan languages such as Taa have larger consonant inventories due to their large inventories of click consonants.
Consonants
Standard Ubykh Phonology
Below is an International Phonetic Alphabet representation of the Standard Ubykh consonant inventory. Template:Clear
- Note the large number of basic series; Ubykh has basic consonants at nine places of articulation.
- The glottal stop Template:IPA is also noted, but only as an allophone of Template:IPA.
- The three postalveolar series have traditionally been called "postalveolar", "alveolo-palatal", and "retroflex", respectively, and have been transcribed with their associated symbols.
- The laminal and apical postalveolar series are more accurately transcribed as Template:IPA and Template:IPA, respectively.
- There is no standard IPA notation for the laminal-closed postalveolar series. They are transcribed Template:Angbr IPA, Template:Angbr IPA, Template:Angbr IPA, etc. by Catford, or sometimes as Template:Angbr IPA, Template:Angbr IPA, Template:Angbr IPA, etc.
- The velar stops Template:IPA and the labiodental fricative Template:IPA are only found in Turkish and Circassian loanwords.
- Out of the labials, the fricatives Template:IPA are labiodental, the others bilabial.
- /tʷ, dʷ, tʷʼ/ are in free variation with [t͡p, d͡b, t͡pʼ].<ref name="ARA">Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>
All but four of the 84 consonants are found in native vocabulary. The plain velars Template:IPA and the voiced labiodental fricative Template:IPA are found mainly in loans and onomatopoeia: Template:IPA ('crow') from Turkish karga), Template:IPA ('slat, batten') from Laz k'avari 'roofing shingle'), Template:IPA ('estate, legacy') from Turkish vakıf), Template:IPA ('the sound of glass breaking'). As well, the pharyngealised labial consonants Template:IPA are almost exclusively noted in words where they are associated with another pharyngealised consonant (for instance, Template:IPA 'handful'), but are occasionally found outside this context (for example, the verb root Template:IPA 'to explode, to burst'). Finally, Template:IPA is mainly found in interjections and loans, with Template:IPA ('now') the only real native word to contain the phoneme. The frequency of consonants in Ubykh is quite variable; the phoneme Template:IPA alone accounts for over 12% of all consonants encountered in connected text, due to the presence of the phoneme in the ergative and oblique singular and plural case suffixes, the third person singular and plural ergative verbal agreement prefix, the adverbial derivative suffix, the present and imperfect tense suffixes, and in suffixes denoting several non-finite verb forms.
Very few allophones of consonants are noted, mainly because a small acoustic difference can be phonemic when so many consonants are involved. However, the alveolopalatal labialised fricatives Template:IPA were sometimes realised as alveolar labialised fricatives Template:IPA, and the uvular ejective stop Template:IPA was often pronounced as a glottal stop Template:IPA in the past tense suffix -Template:IPA, due to the influence of the Kabardian and Adyghe languages.
The consonant Template:IPA has not been attested word-initially, and Template:IPA is found initially only in the personal name Template:IPA, but every other consonant can begin a word. Restrictions on word-final consonants have not yet been investigated; however, Ubykh has a slight preference for open syllables (CV) over closed ones (VC or CVC). The pharyngealised consonants Template:IPA and Template:IPA have not been noted word-finally, but this is probably a statistical anomaly due to the rarity of these consonants, each being attested only in a handful of words.
The alveolar trill Template:IPA is not common in native Ubykh vocabulary, appearing mostly in loan words. However, the phoneme carries a phonaesthetic concept of rolling or a repeated action in a few verbs, notably Template:IPA ~ Template:IPA ('to roll around') and Template:IPA ~ Template:IPA ('to slither').
Karacalar Ubykh Phonology
A divergent dialect of Ubykh spoken by Osman Güngör, an inhabitant of Karacalar in Balıkesir provinceTemplate:Sfnp was investigated by Georges Dumézil in the 1960s.Template:Sfnp Below is an International Phonetic Alphabet representation of the Karacalar Ubykh consonant inventory. Template:Clear
Güngör's speech differed phonologically from Standard Ubykh in a number of ways:
- the labialised alveolar stops Template:IPA have merged into the corresponding bilabial stops Template:IPA.
- The labialised alveolopalatal fricatives Template:IPA have merged with their postalveolar counterparts Template:IPA.
- Template:IPA seems to have disappeared.
- Pharyngealisation is no longer distinctive, surviving only on the lexemes Template:IPA ('to be ill') and Template:IPA ('to bark'), and being replaced in many instances by gemination (standard Template:IPA ('dog') → Karacalar Template:IPA), and in at least one instance by ejectivisation (standard Template:IPA ('roasted maize') → Karacalar Template:IPA).
- Palatalisation of the uvular consonants is no longer phonemic, also being replaced in many instances by gemination (standard Template:IPA ('to cough') → Karacalar Template:IPA).
- The voiced retroflex affricate Template:IPA has, at least in some cases, merged with Template:IPA.
Vowels
Ubykh has very few basic phonemic vowels. The analysis in Template:Harvcoltxt retains Template:IPA as a separate vowel, but most other linguistsTemplate:Sfnp do not accept this analysis, preferring one with simpler vertical distinction: Template:IPA and Template:IPA. Other vowels, notably Template:IPA, appear in some loanwords. The question of whether an additional vowel Template:IPA should be retained is of some debate, since it differs from Template:IPA not in length but in quality. However, phonologically and diachronically, it is often derived from two instances of Template:IPA.
| Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| Close | (Template:IPA link) | |
| Mid | Template:IPA link | |
| Open | Template:IPA link |
Even with so few vowels, there are many vowel allophones, affected by the secondary articulation of the consonants that surround them. Eleven basic phonetic vowels appear, mostly derived from the two phonemic vowels adjacent to labialised or palatalised consonants. The phonetic vowels are Template:IPA and Template:IPA. In general, the following rules apply:Template:Sfnp
- Template:IPA and Template:IPA
- Template:IPA and Template:IPA
- Template:IPA and Template:IPA
- Template:IPA and Template:IPA
Other, more complex vowels have been noted as allophones: Template:IPA ('you did it') can become Template:IPA, for instance. On occasion, nasal sonorants (particularly Template:IPA) may even decay into vowel nasality. For instance, Template:IPA ('young man') has been noted as Template:IPA as well as Template:IPA.
The vowel Template:IPA appears initially very frequently, particularly in the function of the definite article. Template:IPA is extremely restricted initially, appearing only in ditransitive verb forms where all three arguments are third person, e.g. Template:IPA ('he gave it to him') (normally Template:IPA). Even then, Template:IPA itself may be dropped to provide an even shorter form Template:IPA.
Both vowels appear without restriction finally, although when Template:IPA is unstressed finally, it tends to be dropped: Template:IPA ('father') becomes the definite form Template:IPA ('the father'). In fact, the alternation between Template:IPA and zero is often not phonemic, and may be dropped root-internally as well: Template:IPA ~ Template:IPA ('hoe'). This kind of allomorphy is called a zero allomorph.
Template:Harvcoltxt argues that there are three vowels Template:IPA which correspond to Dumézil's Template:IPA respectively and this is evident in the minimal triplet of Template:IPA ('I milk X'), Template:IPA ('I reap X'), and Template:IPA ('I milk them; I reap them').