This article talks about the phonology of the standard Ukrainian language. Ukrainian can be analyzed as having 6 phonemic vowels and 33 phonemic consonants as well as 5 marginal consonants, those being palatalized labials: /mʲ,pʲ,bʲ,fʲ,ʋʲ/. Ukrainian does not have phonemic vowel length, however consonants are distinguished based on gemination: па́на /'pana/ "sir (genitive)" vs па́нна /'panːa/ "lady".
Ukrainian has no phonemic distinction between long and short vowels; however, unstressed vowels are shorter and tend to be more centralized.[2] The unstressed vowel allophones are as follows:[3]
While all consonants can be realized as semi-palatalized before /i/ or in loan words, semi-palatalized labial consonants may also occur in certain words before /a/ or /ɔ/.[5][6] The phonemicity of palatalized labials (/pʲ/, /bʲ/, /fʲ/, /ʋʲ/, /mʲ/) is debated, as there are no minimal pairs with their non-palatalized counterparts.[7] They mainly occur in loanwords, imitating foreign /y/, for example: бюро́ [bʲu'rɔ] "bureau", пюре́ [pʲu'rɛ] "purée", фю́зен ['fʲuzɛn] "fusain"; of French origin. /ʋʲ/ and /mʲ/ only occur in a handful of native words in a consonant cluster, for example: свя́то /'s(ʲ)ʋʲatɔ/ "holiday", духмя́ний /dux'mʲanɪi̯/ "fragrant".
/r/ and /rʲ/ are often realized as single tap [ɾ] and [ɾʲ].
The realization of the labial approximant varies between [ʋ], [β] and [w].[5] It is most commonly pronounced as [w] (also transcribed as [u̯]) in syllable codas as well as word initially, before a consonant where it often alternates with /u/.
There is no complete agreement about the phonetic nature of sound rendered by the letter Г. It is realised in three most frequent allophones: velar [ɣ], pharyngeal [ʕ], and glottal [ɦ].[10][11][12] In weak devoiced positions it can also be realised as [ħ] or sometimes [x].[13] The sound is described as "laryngeal fricative consonant" (гортанний щілинний приголосний) in the official orthography in 2012 [14] and as a pharyngeal fricative (глотковий щілинний приголосний) in the most recent edition of the official orthography in 2019.[15]
Unlike Russian and several other Slavic languages, Ukrainian does not have final devoicing for most obstruents, as can be seen, for example, in віз "cart", which is pronounced [ˈʋ⁽ʲ⁾iz]ⓘ, not *[ˈʋ⁽ʲ⁾is].[5]
Ukrainian however has assimilatory voicing: voiceless obstruents are voiced when preceding voiced obstruents.[16] (Voiced sonorants do not trigger voicing.)
With a few exceptions, there is no word-final or assimilatory devoicing in Ukrainian. The exceptions are легко, вогко, нігті, кігті, дьогтю, дігтяр, and their derivatives: /ɦ/ may then be devoiced to [h] or even merge with /x/.[5]
Unpalatalized dental consonants /n,t,d,t͡s,d͡z,s,z,r,l/ become palatalized if they are followed by other palatalized dental consonants /nʲ,tʲ,dʲ,t͡sʲ,d͡zʲ,sʲ,zʲ,rʲ,lʲ/. They are also typically palatalized before the vowel /i/. Historically, contrasting unpalatalized and palatalized articulations of consonants before /i/ were possible and more common, with the absence of palatalization usually reflecting that regular sound changes in the language made an /i/ vowel actually evolve from an older, non-palatalizing /ɔ/ vowel. Ukrainian grammar still allows for /i/ to alternate with either /ɛ/ or /ɔ/ in the regular inflection of certain words. The absence of consonant palatalization before /i/ has become rare, however, but is still allowed when the і succeeding a consonant originated from older о, evidenced by о preserved in some word forms such as стіл / стола ("table", N sg./G sg.).[5]
While the labial consonants /m,p,b,f,w/ cannot be fully phonemically palatalized, they can still precede one of the iotating vowels є і ьо ю я, and are realized as semi-palatalized, with many speakers replacing the would-be sequences *|mʲ,pʲ,bʲ,fʲ,wʲ| with the consonant clusters /mj,pj,bj,fj,wj/, a habit also common in nearby Polish.[5] The separation of labial consonants from /j/ is already hard-coded in many Ukrainian words (and written as such with an apostrophe), such as in В'ячеслав/wjat͡ʃɛˈslaw/ "Vyacheslav", ім'я/iˈmja/ "name" and п'ять/pjatʲ/ "five".[citation needed] The combinations of labials with iotating vowels most commonly occur in loan words, e. g. бюро/bʲuˈrɔ/ "bureau", as well as in certain native words when following consonants and followed by /a/ or /ɔ/, e.g. духмяний/duxˈmʲanɪj/ "aromatic", мавпячий/ˈmawpʲat͡ʃɪj/ "monkey (adj.)", and цвьохнути/ˈt͡sʲwʲɔxnutɪ/ "to clang". Such combinations are written without the apostrophe after consonants (except ⟨р⟩) in the same morpheme, e.g. свято/ˈsʲwʲatɔ/ "holiday" (but черв'як/t͡ʃerˈwjak/ "worm" and зв'язок/zwjaˈzɔk/ "union", where з- is a prefix).[17] Unlike other semi-palatalized labial consonants, /wʲ/ can have a distinguishing role in words, e.g. свят/ˈsʲwʲat/ "holiday, G pl." and сват/swat/ "matchmaker".[5]
Dental sibilant consonants /t͡s,d͡z,s,z/ become palatalized before any of the labial consonants /m,p,b,f,w/ followed by one of the iotating vowels є і ьо ю я, but the labial consonants themselves cannot retain full phonemic palatalization.[5]
Sibilant consonants (including affricates) in clusters assimilate with the place of articulation and palatalization state of the last segment in a cluster. The most common case of such assimilation is the verbal ending -шся in which |ʃsʲa| assimilates into /sʲːa/.[5]
Dental plosives /t,tʲ,d,dʲ/ assimilate to affricate articulations before coronal affricates or fricatives /t͡s,d͡z,s,z,t͡sʲ,d͡zʲ,sʲ,zʲ,t͡ʃ,d͡ʒ,ʃ,ʒ/ and assume the latter consonant's place of articulation and palatalization. If the sequences |t.t͡s,d.d͡z,t.t͡sʲ,d.d͡zʲ,t.t͡ʃ,d.d͡ʒ| regressively assimilate to */t͡s.t͡s,d͡z.d͡z,t͡sʲ.t͡sʲ,d͡zʲ.d͡zʲ,t͡ʃ.t͡ʃ,d͡ʒ.d͡ʒ/, they gain geminate articulations /t͡sː,d͡zː,t͡sʲː,d͡zʲː,t͡ʃː,d͡ʒː/.[5]
Morphophonology
Vowel alternations
Ukrainian exhibits a system of vowel alternations, where the open-mid vowels /ɛ/ and /ɔ/ get raised to /i/ in closed syllables:[18]
Second palatalization: Occured to velars before front vowels. Now is mainly seen with the locative ending -і:
/k/ → /t͡sʲ/: рука /ruka/ "hand" → на руці /narut͡sʲi/ "on the hand"
/x/ → /sʲ/: вухо /ʋuxɔ/ "ear" → у вусі /uʋusʲi/ "in the ear"
/ɦ/ → /zʲ/: нога /noɦa/ "leg" → на нозі /nanɔzʲi/ "on the leg"
Alternation of vowels and semivowels
The semivowels /j/ and /w/ alternate with the vowels /i/ and /u/ respectively. The semivowels are used in syllable codas: after a vowel and before a consonant, either within a word or between words:[citation needed]
Він утоми́вся./ˈʋ⁽ʲ⁾inutɔˈmɪwsʲa/ ('He's gotten tired.')
Він у ха́ті./ˈʋ⁽ʲ⁾inuˈxat⁽ʲ⁾i/ ('He's inside the house.')
Вона́ в ха́ті./wɔˈnawˈxat⁽ʲ⁾i/ ('She's inside the house.')
підучи́ти/piduˈt͡ʃɪtɪ/ ('to learn/teach (a little more)')
ви́вчити/ˈʋɪwt͡ʃɪtɪ/ ('to have learnt')
Vowel epenthesis
When two or more consonants occur word-finally, a vowel is epenthesized under the following conditions:[19] Given a consonantal grouping C1(ь)C2(ь), ‘C’ being any consonant, the vowel is inserted between the two consonants and after the ь. A vowel is not inserted unless C2 is /k/, /w/, /l/, /m/, /r/, or /t͡s/. Then:
If C1 is /w/, /ɦ/, /k/, or /x/, the epenthesized vowel is always [o].
No vowel is epenthesized if the /w/ is derived from a Common Slavic vocalic *l, for example, /wɔwk/ (see below).
If C2 is /l/, /m/, /r/, or /t͡s/, then the vowel is [e].
The combinations /-stw/ and /-sk/ are not broken up.
If C1 is /j/ (й), both the form with the epenthetic vowel (according to the above rules) and the form without it can be found.
Stress
Stress is phonemic in Ukrainian, therefore is not predictable. Some words or inflections are distinguished only via the stress placement, for example: плачу́ /plɐ'tʃu/ "I pay" vs пла́чу /'platʃu/ "I cry" or голови́ /ɦɔlɔ'ʋɪ/ "head (genitive)" vs го́лови /'ɦɔlɔʋɪ/ "heads".
The position is generally fixed for the various cases of the noun (though inflection stress shifts to the last vowel of the stem if the inflection is a zero suffix), but may change with number (stem stress in both singular and plural, e.g. теа́тр 'theater' ~ теа́три 'theaters'; stem stress in the singular and inflection stress in the plural, e.g. жі́нка 'woman' ~ жінки́ 'women'; and so on for all permutations.)
The pattern with adjectives is similar to that of nouns, but does not differ between singular and plural (all stem stress or all inflection stress). In some inflection-stressed adjectives, stress shifts to the stem in the comparative.
With most verbs, stress falls on a syllable in the stem. That syllable may differ between the perfective and imperfective aspects (verbs with 'shifting stress'), but otherwise the stress remains on the same syllable for all inflections. A small group of verbs which do not shift for aspect and have е in their stems bear stress on the inflection. That stress is always on the last syllable of the word apart from in the future imperfective, where it is on the same syllable as in the infinitive (INF нести́, FUT.NPFV.3SG нести́ме 'carry').
With numerals, stress placement may differ between ordinal and cardinal forms.
For names, stress may shift between given names (Богда́н, Рома́н) and family names (Бо́гдан, Ро́ман), and between patronymics (Іва́нович, Богда́нович) and family names (Івано́вич, Богдано́вич).
Deviations of spoken language
There are some typical deviations which may appear in spoken language (often under the influence of Russian).[20] They are usually considered phonetic errors by pedagogists.[why?][21]
[t͡ɕ] for /t͡ʃ/ and [ɕt͡ɕ] or even [ɕː] for [ʃt͡ʃ]
[rʲ] for /r/, [bʲ] for /b/, [vʲ] for /w/ in certain words (Ха́рків, Об, любо́в’ю)
[v] or [f] (the latter in syllable-final position) for [w~u̯~β̞~ʋ~ʍ] (любо́в, роби́в, вари́ти, вода́),[22] in effect also turning /f,w/ into a true voiceless-voiced phoneme pair, which isn't present in the standard language
Modern standard Ukrainian descends from Common Slavic and is characterized by a number of sound changes and morphological developments, many of which are shared with other East Slavic languages. These include:
In a newly closed syllable, that is, a syllable that ends in a consonant, Common Slavic *o and *e mutated into /i/ if the following vowel was one of the yers (*ŭ or *ĭ); for example, CSl. *pêktь → Ukr. піч (pič "oven") & CSl. *nôsъ → Ukr. ніс (nis "nose").[23][24]
Pleophony: The Common Slavic combinations, *CoRC and *CeRC, where R is either *r or *l, become in Ukrainian:
CorC gives CoroC (Common Slavic *borda gives Ukrainian boroda, борода́)
The Common Slavic nasal vowel *ę is reflected as /ja/; a preceding labial consonant generally was not palatalized after this, and after a postalveolar it became /a/. Examples: Common Slavic *pętĭ became Ukrainian /pjatʲ/ (п’ять); Common Slavic *telę became Ukrainian /tɛˈlʲa/ (теля́); and Common Slavic *kurĭčę became Ukrainian /kurˈt͡ʃa/ (курча́).[citation needed]
Common Slavic *ě (Cyrillic ѣ), generally became Ukrainian /i/: CSl. *cělъjь → Ukr. ці́лий (cílyj "whole, entire (adj.)"); except:[citation needed]
word-initially, where it became /ji/: Common Slavic *(j)ěsti became Ukrainian ї́сти/ˈjistɪ/
after the postalveolar sibilants where it became /a/: Common Slavic *ležěti became Ukrainian /lɛˈʒatɪ/ (лежа́ти)
Common Slavic *i and *y are both reflected in Ukrainian as /ɪ/[citation needed]
The Common Slavic combination -CĭjV, where V is any vowel, became -CʲːV, except:[citation needed]
if C is labial or /r/ where it became -CjV
if V is the Common Slavic *e, then the vowel in Ukrainian mutated to /a/, e.g., Common Slavic *žitĭje became Ukrainian /ʒɪˈtʲːa/ (життя́)
if V is Common Slavic *ĭ, then the combination became /ɛj/, e.g., genitive plural in Common Slavic *myšĭjĭ became Ukrainian /mɪˈʃɛj/ (мише́й)
if one or more consonants precede C then there is no doubling of the consonants in Ukrainian
Sometime around the early thirteenth century, the voiced velar stop lenited to [ɣ] (except in the cluster *zg).[25] Within a century, /ɡ/ was reintroduced from Western European loanwords and, around the sixteenth century, [ɣ]debuccalized to [ɦ].[26]
Common Slavic combinations *dl and *tl were simplified to /l/, for example, Common Slavic *mydlo became Ukrainian /ˈmɪlɔ/ (ми́ло).[citation needed]
Common Slavic *ŭl and *ĭl became /ɔw/. For example, Common Slavic *vĭlkŭ became /wɔwk/ (вовк) in Ukrainian.[citation needed]
Derksen, Rick (2008). Etymological Dictionary of the Slavic Inherited Lexicon (Leiden Indo-European Etymological Dictionary Series; 4). Leiden, Boston: Brill.
Mascaró, Joan; Wetzels, W. Leo (2001). "The Typology of Voicing and Devoicing". Language. 77 (2): 207–244. doi:10.1353/lan.2001.0123. S2CID28948663.
Pohribnyj, M.I., ed. (1986), Орфоепічний словни, Kyiv: Radjans’ka škola
Pompino-Marschall, Bernd; Steriopolo, Elena; Żygis, Marzena (2016), "Ukrainian", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 47 (3): 349–357, doi:10.1017/S0025100316000372, S2CID232344731
Ponomariv, O.D., ed. (2001), Сучасна українська мова: Підручник, Kyiv: Lybid’
Pugh, Stefan; Press, Ian (2005) [First published 1999], Ukrainian: A Comprehensive Grammar, London: Routledge
Rusanivs’kyj, V. M.; Taranenko, O. O.; Zjabljuk, M. P.; etal. (2004). Українська мова: Енциклопедія. Вид-во "Українська енцклопедія" ім. М. П. Бажана. ISBN978-966-7492-19-9.
Shevelov, George Y. (1993), "Ukrainian", in Comrie, Bernard; Corbett, Greville (eds.), The Slavonic Languages, London and New York: Routledge, pp.947–998
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