Ubykh phonology

Main article: Ubykh language

Ubykh, a North-West Caucasian language, has the largest consonant inventory of all documented languages that do not use clicks, and also has the most disproportional ratio of phonemic consonants to vowels. It also possesses consonants in at least eight, perhaps nine, basic places of articulation. Ubykh has 29 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 as clusters, which would reduce the number of phonemes in those languages.

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Contents

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. lat. plain lab. plain lab. pal. plain lab. phar. pal. plain lab. phar. phar. & lab.
Plosive voiceless p pˤ t tʷ kʲ k kʷ qʲ q qʷ qˤ qˤʷ
voiced b bˤ d dʷ ɡʲ ɡ ɡʷ
ejective pʼ pˤʼ tʼ tʷʼ kʲʼ kʼ kʷʼ qʲʼ qʼ qʷʼ qˤʼ qˤʷʼ
Affricate voiceless t͡s t͡ʃ t͡ɕ t͡ɕʷ ʈ͡ʂ
voiced d͡z d͡ʒ d͡ʑ d͡ʑʷ ɖ͡ʐ
ejective t͡sʼ t͡ʃʼ t͡ɕʼ t͡ɕʷʼ ʈ͡ʂʼ
Fricative voiceless f s ɬ ʃ ʃʷ ɕ ɕʷ ʂ x χʲ χ χʷ χˤ χˤʷ h
voiced v vˤ z ʒ ʒʷ ʑ ʑʷ ʐ ɣ ʁʲ ʁ ʁʷ ʁˤ ʁˤʷ
ejective ɬʼ
Nasal m mˤ n
Approximant l j w wˤ
Trill r

Notes

  1. Note the large number of basic series. Ubykh has basic consonants at nine places of articulation; some scholars group the palatal approximant /j/ with the palatalised velar series, which has been done here for concerns of space.
  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 ⟨ˤ⟩.
  4. The series labeled postalveolar, alveolo-palatal, and retroflex are all postalveolar.(See postalveolar consonant for details.)
    • The one labeled "retroflex" is apical postalveolar;
    • the one labeled "alveolo-palatal" is laminal postalveolar;
    • the one labeled "post-alveolar" has been described as laminal closed postalveolar and is transcribed /ŝ/, etc. by Catford.
  5. The velar stops /k/ /ɡ/ /kʼ/ and the labiodental fricative /v/ are only found in Turkish and Circassian loanwords.
  6. Out of the labials, the fricatives /v/ /vˤ/ /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') from Laz k'avari 'roofing shingle'), /makʼəf/ ('estate, legacy') from Turkish vakıf), /vər/ ('the sound of glass breaking'). As well, the pharyngealised labial consonants /pˤ/ /pˤʼ/ are almost exclusively noted in words where they are associated with another pharyngealised consonant (for instance, /qˤʼaapˤʼa/ 'handful'), but are occasionally found outside this context (for example, the verb root /tʼaapˤʼ/ '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 quite 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 a glottal stop, due to the influence of the Kabardian and Adyghe languages.

The consonant /pˤ/ has not been attested word-initially, and /pˤʼ/ is found initially only in the personal name /pˤʼapˤʼəʒʷ/, 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 /mˤ/ and /wˤ/ 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 /bəqˤʼəda/ ~ /bəqˤʼərda/ ('to roll around') and /χˤʷəχˤʷəda/ ~ /χˤʷəχˤʷərda/ ('to slither').

The Karacalar "Dialect"

A divergent form of Ubykh spoken by Osman Güngör, an inhabitant of Karacalar, was investigated by Georges Dumézil in the 1960s (Dumézil 1965:266-269). His speech differed phonologically from "standard" Ubykh in a number of ways:

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 one with 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'). This kind of allomorphy is called a zero allomorph.

References