Polish phonology
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[edit] Vowels
The Polish vowel system is relatively simple with only six oral and two nasal vowels. All Polish vowels are monophthongs. The oral vowels are as follows:
| Polish script | IPA | Description | English approximation | Polish example1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| i | /i/ | front close unrounded | seek | miś ('teddy bear') |
| e | /ɛ/ | front half open unrounded | ten | ten ('this') |
| y | /ɨ/ | central close unrounded | roses (depending on variety of English) | mysz ('mouse') |
| a | /a/ | central open unrounded | cat, cot or cut (depends on variety of English) | kat ('executioner') |
| u / ó | /u/ | back close rounded | boom, do, to | bum ('boom') |
| o | /ɔ/ | back half open rounded | caught | kot ('cat') |
The /ɛ/ has also a near-close allophone [e], pronounced before or after an aveolo-palatal consonant or /j/.
Unlike in other Slavic languages, the Proto-Slavic nasal vowels are preserved in Polish. However, nasality tends to be lost, especially at the end of a word. These vowels are never initial. In script they are marked by a diacritic known as ogonek.
Before all stops and affricates nasal vowels are now pronounced as vowel + nasal consonant (kąt pronounced as kont, gęba pronounced as gemba, ręce pronounced as rentse). At the end of the word nasal 'e' is pronounced as non-nasal 'e' by almost all native speakers. Practically nasal vowels survived in pronunciation only before fricatives and in (nasal ą) at the end of the word.
Unlike those in French, the nasal vowels in Polish are asynchronous, which means that in fact each nasal vowel is pronounced as an oral vowel followed by a nasal semivowel, or a nasal vowel followed by a nasal semivowel, for example ą is [ɔɰ̃] rather than [ɔ̃]. For the sake of simplicity these asynchronous nasal vowels will be henceforth represented as ordinary (synchronous) nasal vowels.
| Polish script | IPA | Description | English approximation | Polish example1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ę | /ɛ̃/ | nasal front half open unrounded | length | węże ('snakes') |
| ą | /ɔ̃/ | nasal back half open rounded | nasal o (not a), as in long | wąż ('snake') |
The length of a vowel is not phonemic in Polish, which means that how long a vowel is pronounced does not change the meaning of a word.
This was not the case in Proto-Slavic, which distinguished three vowel lengths - short, normal and long. There were two short vowels - hard (ъ) and soft (ь). Eventually, the short vowels either disappeared or turned into a normal e. In the former case two CV syllables became one CVC syllable. Disappearance of a short soft vowel caused the preceding consonant to become "softened" or palatalized. Example:
'Day' in nominative: dьnь → dzień;
'Day' in genitive: dьna → dnia
Meanwhile, long vowels were shortened to normal and simultaneously became higher - apart from the vowels which were already high - i and u. This vowel shift may be presented like this:
long a → normal o
long e → normal y or normal i
long i → normal i
long o → normal ó, indicates /u/
long u → normal u
long y → normal y
Note that the normal u which was once a long o is still distinguished in script as ó.
[edit] Consonants
The Polish consonant system is more complicated and its characteristic features are series of affricates and palatal consonants. Affricates are often marked by digraphs. Palatal consonants (known to Poles as "soft" consonants) are marked either by an acute accent or followed by an i. Like in English, voice is phonemic but aspiration is not.
| Polish script | IPA | Description | English approximation | Polish example1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| b | /b/ | voiced bilabial plosive | bus | bas ('bass') |
| p | /p/ | voiceless bilabial plosive | spot | pas ('belt') |
| m | /m/ | bilabial nasal | man | masa ('mass') |
| w | /v/ | voiced labiodental fricative | vase | wór ('bag') |
| f | /f/ | voiceless labiodental fricative | phase | futro ('fur') |
| d | /d/ | voiced dental plosive | dog | dom ('home') |
| t | /t/ | voiceless dental plosive | step | tom ('volume') |
| n | /n/ | dental nasal | not | noga ('leg') |
| r | /r/ | alveolar trill | rolled (vibrating) r as in arriba | krok ('step') |
| z | /z/ | voiced alveolar sibilant | zero | zero ('zero') |
| s | /s/ | voiceless alveolar sibilant | some | sum ('catfish') |
| dz | /ʣ/ | voiced alveolar affricate | woods | dzwon ('bell') |
| c | /ʦ/ | voiceless alveolar affricate | pots | co ('what') |
| l | /l/ | lateral alveolar approximant | lock | pole ('field') |
| ź | /ʑ/ | voiced alveolo-palatal fricative | where's your | źrebię ('foal') |
| ś | /ɕ/ | voiceless alveolo-palatal fricative | sheer | śruba ('screw') |
| dź | /ʥ/ | voiced alveolo-palatal affricate | would you | dźwięk ('sound') |
| ć | /ʨ/ | voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate | what's your | ćma ('moth') |
| ż / rz | /ʐ/ | voiced retroflex fricative | treasure | żona ('wife') rzeka ('river') |
| sz | /ʂ/ | voiceless retroflex fricative | shoe | szum ('rustle') |
| dż | /dʐ/ | voiced retroflex affricate | jam | dżem ('jam') |
| cz | /tʂ/ | voiceless retroflex affricate | kitchen | czas ('time') |
| ń | /ɲ/ | palatal nasal | el Niño | koń ('horse') |
| j | /j/ | palatal approximant | way or yes | jutro ('tomorrow') |
| ł | /w/ | labial-velar approximant | now or way | mały ('small'), łaska ('grace') |
| g | /g/ | voiced velar plosive | god | gmin ('plebs') |
| k | /k/ | voiceless velar plosive | rocket | kminek ('caraway'), buk ('beech tree') |
| h / ch | /x/ | voiceless velar fricative | loch | hak ('hook') chór ('choir') |
- The semivowels /w/ and /j/ become non-syllabic vowels ([u̯] and [i̯] respectively) in the syllable coda.
Within this consonant system one can distinguish three series of fricatives and affricates:
- alveolar, aka "hissing" (ciąg syczący): z s dz c
- laminal retroflex, aka "rustling" (ciąg szumiący): ż sz dż cz
- alveolo-palatal, aka "hushing" (ciąg ciszący): ź ś dź ć
In some Polish dialects, for example Masurian, the consonants of the rustling series are replaced by those of the hissing series.
The phoneme / x /, apart from the voiceless allophone [ x ] has also a voiced allophone (voiced velar fricative) [ ɣ ], which appears obligatorily whenever / x / is followed by an obstruent (also across a word boundary), e.g. dach is [dax] but dach domu is [daɣ domu]. The occurrence of a voiced glottal fricative [ ɦ ] is now found only in the speech of those people from Eastern Borderland who distinguish between the pronunciation of <h> and <ch>, ([ ɦ ]is the former). The same can be said about the velarized alveolar lateral approximant, the so-called "dark l" ( ɫ ), which is an older pronunciation of "ł" (now usually w ).
All palatal and alveolo-palatal consonants (that is ź ś dź ć ń j) as well as those preceding the vowel i are referred to as "soft" consonants. All the other consonants are "hard".
Note that Polish distinguishes between affricates and plosive + fricative consonant clusters, for example:
- czysta [ˈtʂɨsta] ('clean' fem.) vs trzysta [ˈt.ʂɨsta] ('three hundred')
- dżem [dʐɛm] ('jam') vs drzem (part of word drzemka meaning 'nap' )[ˈd.ʐɛm], also the interrogative form of drzemać, 'to have a nap').
In consonant clusters all adjacent obstruents are either voiced or voiceless. To put it another way, a consonant cluster cannot contain both voiced and voiceless obstruents. All the obstruents are either voiced (if the last obstruent is normally voiced) or voiceless (if the last obstruent is normally voiceless). This is also true across a word boundary. Word-final obstruents are also pronounced voiceless if the following word starts with a vowel. This rule does not apply to sonorants - a consonant cluster may contain voiced sonorants and voiceless obstruents. It is worth noting, though, that some regional variations of pronunciation, especially in Western and Southern Poland, make voiceless obstruents voiced if the following word starts with a vowel or a consonantal sonorant (for example [ˈbrad ojca] instead of the expected [ˈbrat ojca])
Examples:
- łódka [ˈwutka] ('boat'), /d/ → [t] (k is normally voiceless)
- kawka [ˈkafka] ('jackdaw'), /v/ → [f] (k is normally voiceless)
- także [ˈtagʐɛ] ('also'), /k/ → [g] (ż is normally voiced)
- jakby [ˈjagbɨ] ('as if'), /k/ → [g] (b is normally voiced)
- król [krul] ('king'), /k/ does not change (r is a sonorant)
- wart [vart] ('worth'), /t/ does not change (r is a sonorant)
The consonants w and rz are normally voiced, but if a consonant cluster ends with w or rz and the preceding consonant is normally voiceless, then the whole consonant cluster is voiceless.
Examples:
- krzak [kʂak] ('bush'), /ʐ/ → [ʂ] (k is normally voiceless)
- odtworzyć [ɔtˈtfɔʐɨʨ] ('to reproduce'), /d/ → [t] & /v/ → [f] (t is normally voiceless)
The most popular Polish tongue-twister, a fragment of the poem Chrząszcz by Jan Brzechwa, may serve as yet another example:
- W Szczebrzeszynie chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie.
- [fʂtʂɛbʐɛʂɨɲe xʂɔ̃ʂtʂ bʐmi ftʂʨiɲe]
- In [the town of] Szczebrzeszyn a beetle buzzes in the reed.
[edit] Stress
In Polish the stress falls generally on the penultimate (second to last) syllable, for example zrobił ('he did'), zrobili ('they did').
Exceptions in cultivated speech include:
- verbs in first and second person plural past tense, for example zrobiliśmy ('we did') - stress on the last but two syllable
- verbs in conditional tense, for example zrobiłbym ('I would do') - stress on the last but two syllable
- verbs in first and second person plural conditional tense, for example zrobilibyśmy ('we would do') - stress on the last but three syllable
- some words borrowed from Latin (for example matematyka, fizyka) can optionally be stressed on the last but two syllable, but this has mostly fallen out of use in last 50 years.
The explanation for the irregular verbal stress is that these endings are clitics, not verbal inflections: zrobili=śmy, zrobił=bym, zrobili=byśmy. They are remnants of the auxiliary być ('to be'). This can be demonstrated with phrases such as Kogo=ście zobaczyli?(in spoken Polish Kogo zobaczyli=ście?) ('Who did you see?'), where the clitic attaches to the word kogo 'who' rather than to a verb (Kogo zobaczyli=ście?), but kogo maintains its normal stress. However, these endings are in the process of being reanalyzed as suffixes, and as this happens, the stress is shifting to penultimate position in colloquial speech: zrobiliśmy, zrobiłbym, zrobilibyśmy. [1]
