Ubykh phonology

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ubykh, a North-West Caucasian language, has the largest consonant inventory of all documented languages which do not use clicks, and also has the most disproportional ratio of phonemic consonants to vowels. It also possesses consonants at at least eight basic places of articulation. Ubykh has 27 distinct fricative phonemes, 27 sibilants, and 20 uvular consonants, more than any other documented language. Some Khoisan languages, such as ǃXóõ, may have larger consonant inventories due to their extensive use of click consonants, although some analyses (see for instance Traill (1985)) view a large proportion of the clicks in these languages rather as clusters.

Contents 1 Consonants 1.1 Notes 1.2 The Karacalar "Dialect" 2 Vowels 3 References

[edit] Consonants

Below is an International Phonetic Alphabet representation of the Ubykh consonant inventory.

		labial		alveolar		post- alveolar		alveolo- palatal		retro- flex	velar				uvular					glottal
		plain	phar.	plain	lab.	plain	lab.	plain	lab.		pal.	plain	lab.	phar.	pal.	plain	lab.	phar.	phar. and lab.
stop	voiceless	p	pˁ	t	tʷ						kʲ	k	kʷ		qʲ	q	qʷ	qˁ	qˁʷ
	voiced	b	bˁ	d	dʷ						ɡʲ	ɡ	ɡʷ
	ejective	pʼ	pˁʼ	tʼ	tʷʼ						kʲʼ	kʼ	kʷʼ		qʲʼ	qʼ	qʷʼ	qˁʼ	qˁʷʼ
affricate	voiceless			ʦ		ʧ		ʨ	ʨʷ	ʈʂ
	voiced			ʣ		ʤ		ʥ	ʥʷ	ɖʐ
	ejective			ʦʼ		ʧʼ		ʨʼ	ʨʷʼ	ʈʂʼ
fricative	voiceless	f		s		ʃ	ʃʷ	ɕ	ɕʷ	ʂ		x			χʲ	χ	χʷ	χˁ	χˁʷ	h
	voiced	v	vˁ	z		ʒ	ʒʷ	ʑ	ʑʷ	ʐ		ɣ			ʁʲ	ʁ	ʁʷ	ʁˁ	ʁˁʷ
nasal		m	mˁ	n
approximant								j					w	wˁ
trill				r
lateral	voiceless fricative			ɬ
	ejective fricative			ɬʼ
	approximant			l

[edit] Notes

1. Note the large number of basic series; Ubykh has basic consonants at eight places of articulation.
2. The glottal stop [ʔ] is also noted, but only as an allophone of /qʼ/.
3. Of the three secondary articulations:
   • Palatalization, abbreviated "pal.", is indicated with <ʲ>.
   • Labialization, abbreviated "lab.", is indicated with <ʷ>.
   • Pharyngealization, abbreviated "phar.", is indicated with <ˁ>.
4. Ejectives are indicated with an apostrophe (<ʼ>).
5. The series labeled postalveolar, alveolo-palatal, and retroflex are all postalveolar. (See postalveolar consonant for details.) The rightmost column is apical postalveolar; the middle is laminal postalveolar; and the leftmost has been described as laminal closed postalveolar and is transcribed /ŝ/ etc. by Catford.
6. The velar stops /k/ /ɡ/ /kʼ/ and the labiodental fricative /v/ are only found in Turkish and Circassian loanwords.
7. Out of the labials, the fricatives /v/ /vˁ/ /f/ are labiodental, the others bilabial.

All but four of the 84 consonants are found in native vocabulary. The plain velars /k/ /ɡ/ /kʼ/ and the voiced labiodental fricative/v/ are found mainly in loans and onomatopoeia: /ɡaarɡa/ crow (from Turkish karga), /kawar/ slat, batten (possibly from Abdzakh Adyghe), /makʼəf/ estate, legacy (from Turkish vakıf), /vər/ (the sound of glass breaking). As well, the pharyngealised labial consonants /pˁ/ /pˁʼ/ are almost exclusively noted in words where they are associated with another pharyngealised consonant (for instance, /qˁʼaapˁʼa/ handful), but are occasionally found outside this context (the verb root /tʼaapˁʼ/ is an example, meaning to explode, to burst). Finally, /h/ is mainly found in interjections and loans, with /hənda/ now the only real native word to contain the phoneme. The frequency of consonants in Ubykh is very variable; the phoneme /n/ 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 were sometimes realised as alveolar labialised fricatives, and the uvular ejective stop /qʼ/ in the past tense suffix -/qʼa/ was often pronounced as glottal stop, due to the influence of the Kabardian and Adyghe languages.

The consonant /pˁ/ has not been attested word-initially, and /pˁʼ/ is found initially only in the personal name /pˁʼapˁʼəʒʷ/, 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 /mˁ/ and /wˁ/ 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 /r/ 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 /bəqˁʼəda/ ~ /bəqˁʼərda/ to roll around and /χʷˁəχʷˁəda/ ~ /χʷˁəχʷˁərda/ to slither.

[edit] The Karacalar "Dialect"

A divergent form of Ubykh spoken by Osman Güngor, an inhabitant of Karacalar, was investigated by Georges Dumézil in the 1960s (Dumézil 1965:266-269). Whether or not it was a distinctive dialect in the true sense of the word was never fully investigated, but this form of Ubykh was certainly different from "standard" Ubykh phonologically:

• the labialised alveolar stops /dʷ/ /tʷ/ /tʷʼ/ have merged into the corresponding bilabial stops /b/ /p/ /pʼ/.
• The labialised alveolopalatal fricatives /ɕʷ/ /ʑʷ/ have merged with their palatoalveolar counterparts /ʃʷ/ /ʒʷ/.
• /ɣ/ seems to have disappeared.
• Pharyngealisation is no longer distinctive, surviving only on the lexemes /abˁa/ to be ill and /qʷˁə/ to bark, and being replaced in many instances by gemination (standard /wˁa/ dog → Karacalar /wːa/), and in at least one instance by ejectivisation (standard /ʦaqˁapˁə/ roasted maize → Karacalar /ʦaqʼapʼə/).
• Palatalisation of the uvular consonants is no longer phonemic, also being replaced in many instances by gemination (standard /qʲa/ to cough → Karacalar qːa).
• The voiced retroflex affricate /ɖʐ/ has, at least in some cases, merged with /ʤ/.

[edit] Vowels

Ubykh has very few basic phonemic vowels. Hans Vogt's (1963) analysis retains /oː/ as a separate vowel, but most other linguists (Dumézil 1965) do not accept this analysis, preferring to maintain a simpler vertical distinction: /ə/ and /a/. Other vowels, notably /u/, appear in some loanwords. The question of whether an additional vowel /aa/ should be retained is of some debate, since it differs from /a/ not in length but in quality. However, phonologically and diachronically, it is often derived from two instances of /a/.

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 [a e i o u ə] and [aː eː iː oː uː]. In general, the following rules apply (Vogt 1963):

/Cʷa/ > [Co] and /aw/ > [oː]

/Cʲa/ > [Ce] and /aj/ > [eː]

/Cʷə/ > [Cu] and /əw/ > [uː]

/Cʲə/ > [Ci] and /əj/ > [iː]

Other, more complex vowels have been noted as allophones: /ajəwʃqʼa/ you did it can become [ayʃqʼa], for instance. On occasion, nasal sonorants (particularly n) may even decay into vowel nasality. For instance, /najnʃʷ/ young man has been noted as [nɛ̃jʃʷ] as well as [najnʃʷ].

The vowel a appears initially very frequently, particularly in the function of the definite article. /ə/ is extremely restricted initially, appearing only in ditransitive verb forms where all three arguments are third person, e.g. /əntʷən/ he gave it to him (normally /jəntʷən/). Even then, /ə/ itself may be dropped to provide an even shorter form /ntʷən/.

Both vowels appear without restriction finally, although when /ə/ is unstressed finally, it tends to be dropped: /tʷə/ father becomes the definite form /atʷ/ the father. In fact, the alternation between /ə/ and zero is often not phonemic, and may be dropped root-internally as well: /maqʷəta/ ~ /maqʷta/ hoe.

[edit] References

• Dumézil, G. 1965 Documents anatoliens sur les langues et les traditions du Caucase, III: Nouvelles études oubykhs. Librairie A. Maisonneuve: Paris.
• Traill, A. 1985 Phonetic and phonological studies of !Xóõ Bushman. Helmut Buske Verlag: Hamburg.
• Vogt, H. 1963 Dictionnaire de la langue oubykh. Universitetsforlaget: Oslo.