Uyghur phonology

Last updated

This article covers the phonology of the Uyghur language. Uyghur, a Turkic language spoken primarily in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region features both vowel harmony and vowel reduction.

Contents

Vowels

Front Back
UR RURR
Close ɪʏ(ɯ)u
Mid eøo
Open æɑ

Uyghur vowels are by default short, but long vowels also exist because of historical vowel assimilation (above) and through loanwords. Underlyingly long vowels would resist vowel reduction and devoicing, introduce non-final stress, and be analyzed as |Vj| or |Vr| before a few suffixes. However, the conditions in which they are actually pronounced as distinct from their short counterparts have not been fully researched. [1]

Official Uyghur orthographies do not mark vowel length, and also do not distinguish between /ɪ/ (e.g., بىلىم /bɪlɪm/ 'knowledge') and back /ɯ/ (e.g., تىلىم /tɯlɯm/ 'my language'); these two sounds are in complementary distribution,[ clarification needed ] but phonological analyses claim that they play a role in vowel harmony and are separate phonemes. [2]

The high vowels /ɪ/, /ʊ/, and /ʏ/ are devoiced in non-stressed positions when they occur between two voiceless consonants, or in word-initial position before a voiceless consonant: e.g. uka[ʊ̥kɑ] 'older brother', pütün[pʏ̥tʏn] 'entire', ikki[ɪ̥kkɪ] 'two'.

/e/ only occurs in words of non-Turkic origin and as the result of vowel raising. [3]

Vowel reduction

Uyghur has two processes of systematic vowel reduction (or vowel raising):

  1. Unrounded non-high vowels (/ɑ/ and /æ/) in initial open syllables followed by /ɪ/ are changed to /e/.
  2. Unrounded vowels in other non-final open syllables are changed to /ɪ/.

The former process is applied before the latter; As with other phenomena, long vowels are exempt. For example:

/ɑl+ɪŋ/ → /elɪŋ/ (cf. Turkish alın) 'take!'
/ɑtɑ+lɑr+ɪmɪz/ → /ɑtɪlɪrɪmɪz/ (cf. Turkish atalarımız) 'our fathers' (not *[etɪlɪrɪmɪz] in Uyghur because reduction to /e/ can only be applied before reduction to /ɪ/ in a word)
/ɑt+ɪm/ → /etɪm/ (cf. Turkish atım) 'my horse')
/pæːr+ɪm/ → /pæ(ː)rɪm/ 'my feather' (in some loanwords, vowel raising does not occur)

Vowel harmony

Uyghur, like other Turkic languages, displays vowel harmony. Words usually agree in vowel backness, but compounds, loans, and some other exceptions often break vowel harmony. Suffixes surface with the rightmost [back] value in the stem, and /e, ɪ/ are transparent (as they don't contrast for backness). Uyghur also has rounding harmony. [4]

Consonants

Labial Dental Post-alv./
Palatal 		Velar Uvular Glottal
Nasal mnŋ
Stop pbtdt͡ʃd͡ʒkɡqʁʔ
Fricative (f)(v)szʃʒxh
Trill r
Approximant ljw

Uyghur voiceless stops are aspirated word-initially and intervocalically. [5] The pairs /p,b/, /t,d/, /k,ɡ/, and /q,ʁ/ alternate, with the voiced member devoicing in syllable-final position, except in word-initial syllables. This devoicing process is usually reflected in the official orthography, but an exception has been recently made for certain Perso-Arabic loans. [6] Voiceless phonemes do not become voiced in standard Uyghur. [7]

Suffixes display a slightly different type of consonant alternation. The phonemes /ɡ/ and /ʁ/ anywhere in a suffix alternate as governed by vowel harmony, where /ɡ/ occurs with front vowels and /ʁ/ with back ones. Devoicing of a suffix-initial consonant can occur only in the cases of /d/ → [t], /ɡ/ → [k], and /ʁ/ → [q], when the preceding consonant is voiceless. Lastly, the rule that /ɡ/ must occur with front vowels and /ʁ/ with back vowels can be broken when either [k] or [q] in suffix-initial position becomes assimilated by the other due to the preceding consonant being such. [8]

Stops and affricates lenite when preceding a dissimilar consonant. /t͡ʃ/ goes to [ʃ], /d͡ʒ/ to [ʒ], /k/ to [ç], and /q/ to [χ]. /ɡ/ goes to [ɣ] in word-initial syllables, but in non-initial syllables, /ɡ/ and /ʁ/ behave like their unvoiced equivalents and go to [ç] and [χ] respectively. [5] These changes are not reflected in orthography, except when /b/ lenites to [v] or [w] as <w>. Similarly, /h/ tends to become [χ] before another consonant. [9] Lenition also occurs in certain intervocalic contexts, e.g. /b/ lenites to [β] and /ɡ/ as [ɣ] (not marked). [10]

Uyghur displays vocalic assimilation, atypical among Turkic languages. Syllable-final /r/, /l/, and /j/ are optionally assimilated to the preceding vowel which is lengthened, in the case of e and u, made lower and less tense; e.g., xelqler[xæːqlæː] ‘the nations’. However, this never occurs when /l/ and /j/ are word final. This phenomenon occurs most common in colloquial speech, but is often avoided when reciting, reading, or singing. As a result, Uyghur speakers often hypercorrect by inserting an [r] after a long vowel where there is no phonemic /r/, especially after attaching a vowel-initial suffix (e.g. bina 'building', binarim or binayim 'my building'). In addition, although this is not represented orthographically, a few cases of "r-deletion" have been lexicalized, such as تۆت töt ('four'). [11]

Loan phonemes have influenced Uyghur to various degrees. /d͡ʒ/ and /x/ were borrowed from Arabic and have been nativized, while /ʒ/ from Persian less so. /f/ only exists in very recent Russian and Chinese loans, since Perso-Arabic (and older Russian and Chinese) /f/ became Uyghur /p/. Perso-Arabic loans have also made the contrast between /k,ɡ/ and /q,ʁ/ phonemic, as they occur as allophones in native words, the former set near front vowels and the latter near a back vowels. Some speakers of Uyghur distinguish /v/ from /w/ in Russian loans, but this is not represented in most orthographies. Other phonemes occur natively only in limited contexts, i.e. /h/ only in few interjections, /d/, /ɡ/, and /ʁ/ rarely initially, and /z/ only morpheme-final. Therefore, the pairs */t͡ʃ,d͡ʒ/, */ʃ,ʒ/, and */s,z/ do not alternate. [12] [13]

Phonotactics

The primary syllable structure of Uyghur is CV(C)(C). [14] Uyghur syllable structure is usually CV or CVC, but CVCC can also occur in some words. When syllable-coda clusters occur, CC tends to become CVC in some speakers especially if the first consonant is not a sonorant. In Uyghur, any consonant phoneme can occur as the syllable onset or coda, except for /ʔ/ which only occurs in the onset and /ŋ/, which never occurs word-initially. In general, Uyghur phonology tends to simplify phonemic consonant clusters by means of elision and epenthesis. [15]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Allophone</span> Phone used to pronounce a single phoneme

In phonology, an allophone is one of multiple possible spoken sounds – or phones – used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, the voiceless plosive and the aspirated form are allophones for the phoneme, while these two are considered to be different phonemes in some languages such as Central Thai. Similarly, in Spanish, and are allophones for the phoneme, while these two are considered to be different phonemes in English.

Non-native pronunciations of English result from the common linguistic phenomenon in which non-native speakers of any language tend to transfer the intonation, phonological processes and pronunciation rules of their first language into their English speech. They may also create innovative pronunciations not found in the speaker's native language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Uyghur language</span> Turkic language of the Karluk sub-branch

Uyghur or Uighur is a Turkic language written in a Uyghur Perso-Arabic script with 8–13 million speakers, spoken primarily by the Uyghur people in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of Western China. Apart from Xinjiang, significant communities of Uyghur speakers are also located in Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan, and various other countries have Uyghur-speaking expatriate communities. Uyghur is an official language of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region; it is widely used in both social and official spheres, as well as in print, television, and radio. Other ethnic minorities in Xinjiang also use Uyghur as a common language.

In linguistics, lenition is a sound change that alters consonants, making them more sonorous. The word lenition itself means "softening" or "weakening". Lenition can happen both synchronically and diachronically. Lenition can involve such changes as voicing a voiceless consonant, causing a consonant to relax occlusion, to lose its place of articulation, or even causing a consonant to disappear entirely.

The phonology of Standard German is the standard pronunciation or accent of the German language. It deals with current phonology and phonetics as well as with historical developments thereof as well as the geographical variants and the influence of German dialects.

The phonology of Catalan, a Romance language, has a certain degree of dialectal variation. Although there are two standard varieties, one based on Central Eastern dialect and another one based on South-Western or Valencian dialect, this article deals with features of all or most dialects, as well as regional pronunciation differences.

The phonology of the Hungarian language is notable for its process of vowel harmony, the frequent occurrence of geminate consonants and the presence of otherwise uncommon palatal stops.

Turkana is the language of the Turkana people of Kenya and Ethiopia. It is spoken in northwestern Kenya, primarily in Turkana County, which lies west of Lake Turkana. It is one of the Eastern Nilotic languages, and is closely related to Karamojong, Jie and Teso of Uganda, to Toposa spoken in the extreme southeast of South Sudan, and to Nyangatom in the South Sudan/Ethiopia Omo valley borderland; these languages together form the cluster of Ateker Languages.

The phonology of the Persian language varies between regional dialects, standard varieties, and even from older variates of Persian. Persian is a pluricentric language and countries that have Persian as an official language have separate standard varieties, namely: Standard Dari (Afghanistan), Standard Iranian Persian and Standard Tajik (Tajikistan). The most significant differences between standard varieties of Persian are their vowel systems. Standard varieties of Persian have anywhere from 6 to 8 vowel distinctions, and similar vowels may be pronounced differently between standards. However, there are not many notable differences when comparing consonants, as all standard varieties a similar amount of consonant sounds. Though, colloquial varieties generally have more differences than their standard counterparts. Most dialects feature contrastive stress and syllable-final consonant clusters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Comanche language</span> Uto-Aztecan language spoken by the Comanche people in the United States

Comanche is a Uto-Aztecan language spoken by the Comanche, who split from the Shoshone soon after the Comanche had acquired horses around 1705. The Comanche language and the Shoshoni language are quite similar, but certain consonant changes in Comanche have inhibited mutual intelligibility.

This article describes the phonology of the Somali language.

This article deals with the phonology of the standard Ukrainian language.

This article describes those aspects of the phonological history of the English language which concern consonants.

This article discusses the phonological system of the Czech language.

The phonology of Turkish deals with current phonology and phonetics, particularly of Istanbul Turkish. A notable feature of the phonology of Turkish is a system of vowel harmony that causes vowels in most words to be either front or back and either rounded or unrounded. Velar stop consonants have palatal allophones before front vowels.

Hindustani is the lingua franca of northern India and Pakistan, and through its two standardized registers, Hindi and Urdu, a co-official language of India and co-official and national language of Pakistan respectively. Phonological differences between the two standards are minimal.

The phonology of Welsh is characterised by a number of sounds that do not occur in English and are rare in European languages, such as the voiceless alveolar lateral fricative and several voiceless sonorants, some of which result from consonant mutation. Stress usually falls on the penultimate syllable in polysyllabic words, while the word-final unstressed syllable receives a higher pitch than the stressed syllable.

This article describes the phonology of the Occitan language.

This article aims to describe the phonology and phonetics of central Luxembourgish, which is regarded as the emerging standard.

This article is about the phonology and phonetics of the Kyrgyz language.

References

Notes

  1. ↑ Hahn 1998 , p. 380
  2. ↑ Hahn 1991 , p. 34
  3. ↑ Vaux 2000
  4. ↑ Vaux 2000 , pp. 1–2
  5. 1 2 Hahn 1991 , p. 89
  6. ↑ Hahn 1991 , pp. 84–86
  7. ↑ Hahn 1991 , pp. 82–83
  8. ↑ Hahn 1991 , pp. 80–84
  9. ↑ Hahn 1991 , p. 74
  10. ↑ Hahn 1991 , p. 86
  11. ↑ Hahn 1991 , pp. 86–87
  12. ↑ Hahn 1998 , pp. 381–382
  13. ↑ Hahn 1991 , pp. 59–84
  14. ↑ Ethnologue: Uyghur
  15. ↑ Hahn 1991 , pp. 22–26

General

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.