Russian phonology

"For assistance in making phonetic transcriptions of Russian for Wikipedia articles, see "This article discusses the phonological system of standard Russian based on the Moscow dialect (unless otherwise noted). For discussion of other dialects, see Russian dialects. Russian possesses five vowels and consonants typically come in pairs of "hard" (твёрдый IPA| [ˈtvʲo.rdɨj] ) and "soft" (мягкий IPA| [ˈmʲæ.xʲkʲɪj] ) or plain and palatalized.

Vowels

Russian possesses five vowel phonemes which are subject to considerable allophony. A number of linguists [such as Lev Shcherba and Jerzy Rubach] consider IPA| [ɨ] to be a separate phoneme; the interpretation taken by this article is that it is an allophone of IPA|/i/:

For speakers who pronounce IPA| [ɕt͡ɕ] instead of IPA| [ɕɕ] , words like общий ('common') also constitute clusters of this type.

If IPA|/j/ is considered a consonant in the coda position, then words like айва ('quince') contain semivowel+consonant clusters.

Clusters of four consonants are possible, but not very common, especially within a morpheme [Harvcoltxt|Halle|1959|pp=51-52] . Some potential clusters are deleted as well. For example, dental plosives are dropped between a dental continuant and a dental nasal: лестный IPA| [ˈlʲɛsnɨj] ('flattering').

Supplementary notes

IPA|/n/ and IPA|/nʲ/ are the only consonants that can be geminated.

The historic transformation of IPA|/g/ into IPA|/v/ in the genitive case (and also the accusative for animate entities) of masculine singular adjectives and pronouns is not reflected in the modern Russian orthography: его IPA| [jɪˈvo] ('his/him'), белого IPA| [ˈbʲɛ.lə.və] ('white' gen. sg.), синего IPA| [ˈsʲi.nʲɪ.və] ('blue' gen. sg.). Orthographic г also represents IPA|/x/ when it precedes other velar sounds.

Between any vowel and IPA|/i/ (excluding instances across affix boundaries but including unstressed vowels that have merged with IPA|/i/), IPA|/j/ may be dropped: аист IPA| [ˈa.ɪst] ('stork') and делает IPA| [ˈdʲɛləɪt] ('does'). [Harvcoltxt|Lightner|1972|p=130 citing Harvcoltxt|Shapiro|1968|p=27-28] [Harvcoltxt|Halle|1959 cites заезжать and other instances of intervening prefix and preposition boundaries as exceptions to this tendency.]

Stress in Russian may fall on any syllable, and may shift within an inflexional paradigm: до́ма IPA| [ˈdo.mə] ('house' gen. sg.) vs дома́ IPA| [dɐˈma] ('houses'). The place of the stress in a word is determined by the interplay between the morphemes it contains, as some morphemes have underlying stress, while others do not. However, other than some compound words, such as морозоустойчивый IPA| [mɐˌrozəʊˈstojtɕɪvɨj] ('frost-resistant') only one syllable is stressed in a word. [Harvcoltxt|Lightner|1972|p=4. Notice that one of the stressed syllables has secondary stress while the other has primary stress] Russian also has an intonation pattern similar to that of English.Fact|date=June 2008

Non-open back vowels velarize preceding hard consonants: ты IPA| [tˠɨ] ('you' sing.). IPA|/o/ and IPA|/u/ labialize all consonants: бок IPA| [bʷok] ('side'), нёс IPA| [nʲʷos] ('he carried'). [Harvcoltxt|Jones|Ward|1969|p=79-80]

Historical sound changes

The modern phonological system of Russian is inherited from Common Slavonic, but underwent considerable innovation in the early historical period, before being largely settled by about 1400.

Like all Slavic languages, Russian was originally a language of "open syllables". All syllables ended in vowels (as in Fijian and Hawaiian), and consonant clusters, in far lesser variety than today, existed only at the start of a syllable.

By the time of the earliest records, Old Russian already showed characteristic divergences from Common Slavonic. Major features of this stage include:

The loss of the nasal vowels (the yuses of ancient Cyrillic), which had themselves developed from Indo-European [-en-] / [-an-] / [-on-] before a consonant — usually dental or labial — and at word boundaries. Non-nasalized vowels took their place, possibly iotated or with softening of the preceding consonant:
*PIE: *h₁sónti
*Lat: sunt
*ComSl: Unicode|*sǫtь
*OCS: Unicode|
*Russian: суть IPA| [sutʲ] ('they are').

Borrowings in the Finno-Ugric languages with interpolated [-n-] after Common Slavonic nasal vowels have been taken to indicate that the nasal vowels did exist in East Slavic until some time possibly just before the historical period.

Simplification of Common Slavic *-dl-/-tl- to "-l-":
* ComSl: IPA|*mydlo
* Polish: mydło
* Russian: мыло IPA| ['mɨ.lə] ('soap').

A tendency for greater maintenance of intermediate ancient [-s-] , [-k-] , etc. before frontal vowels, than in other Slavic languages, the so-called "incomplete second and third palatalizations":
* Uk нозі IPA|/nozʲi/
* Russian: ноги IPA| [ˈno.gʲɪ] ('legs').

"Pleophony" or "full-voicing" (polnoglasie, 'полногласие' IPA| [pə.lnɐˈgla.sʲɪ.jə] ), that is, the addition of vowels on either side of IPA|/l/ and IPA|/r/ between two consonants. Church Slavonic influence has made it less common in Russian than in modern Ukrainian and Belarusian:
* OCS: IPA|* [ˈvra.bii]
* Russian: воробей IPA| [və.rɐˈbʲej] ('sparrow')

* Uk: Володимир IPA|/voloˈdɪmɪr/
* Russian: Владимир IPA| [vlɐˈdʲi.mʲɪr] ('Vladimir') (although the nickname form in Russian is still Володя IPA| [vɐˈlodʲə] ).

Major phonological processes in the last thousand years have included the absence of the Slavonic open-syllable requirement, achieved in part through the loss of the ultra-short vowels, the so-called "fall of the yers", which alternately lengthened and dropped (the yers are given conventional transcription rather than precise IPA symbols in the Old Russian pronunciations):
* OR: Unicode|объ мьнѣ IPA|/o.bŭ mĭˈně/ > R: обо мне IPA| [ə.bɐ ˈmnʲe] ('about me')
* OR: "сънъ" IPA|/ˈsŭ.nŭ/ > R: "сон" IPA| [son] ('sleep' nom. sg.), cognate with Lat. somnus;
* OR: "съна" IPA|/sŭˈna/ > R: сна IPA| [sna] ('of sleep') (gen. sg.).

The loss of the yers has led to geminated consonants and a much greater variety of consonant clusters, with attendant voicing and/or devoicing in the assimilation:

* OR: Unicode|къдѣ IPA|/kŭˈdě/ > R: где IPA| [gdʲɛ] ('where').

Consonant clusters thus created were often simplified:
* здравствуйте IPA| [ˈzdra.stvuj.tʲə] ('hello'), "not" IPA|* [ˈzdra.fstvuj.tʲə] , although such a pronunciation could be affected in the archaic meaning "be healthy"
* сердце IPA| [ˈsʲɛ.rt͡sə] ('heart'), "not" IPA|* [ˈsʲɛ.rdt͡sə]
* солнце IPA| [ˈso.nt͡sə] ('sun'), "not" IPA|* [ˈso.lnt͡sə] .

The development of OR Unicode|ѣ IPA|/ě/ (conventional transcription) into IPA|/(j)e/, as seen above. This development has caused by far the greatest of all Russian spelling controversies. The timeline of the development of IPA|/ě/ into IPA|/e/ or IPA|/je/ has also been debated.

A greater variety of palatalized phonemes, and the systematic palatalization of consonants before IPA|/e/ and IPA|/i/.

Sometime between the twelfth and fourteenth century, the allophone of IPA|/i/ before velar consonants changed from IPA| [ɨ] to IPA| [i] with subsequent palatalization of the velars. [Harvcoltxt|Padgett|2003|p=39]

The retroflexing of postalveolars: IPA|/ʒ/ became IPA| [ʐ] and IPA|/ʃ/ become IPA| [ʂ] . This is considered a "hardening" since retroflex sounds are difficult to palatalize. At some point, IPA|/t͡s/ resisted palatalization, which is why it is also "hard" although phonetically it is no different than before. The sound represented by <щ> was much more commonly pronounced as IPA|/ɕt͡ɕ/ than it is today. Today's common and standard pronunciation of <щ> is IPA|/ɕɕ/.

The development of stressed IPA|/e/ into IPA|/o/ when between a palatalized consonant and a plain one: [Harvcoltxt|Crosswhite|2000|p=167]
* OR о чемъ IPA|/о ˈt͡ʃe.mŭ/ ('about which' loc. sg.) > R о чём IPA| [ɐ ˈt͡ɕom] .This has led to a number of alternations: [Examples, though with a phonological (rather than diachronic) analysis, from Harvcoltxt|Lightner|1972|p=20-23]

Loanwords from Church Slavonic reintroduced IPA|/e/ between a soft consonant and a hard one, including: [Harvcoltxt|Lightner|1972|p=75-76, 84]
*лед (from OCS ) vs лёд ('ice')
*лев vs лёв ('lion')
*небо vs нёбо ('sky')
*хребе́т vs. хребёт ('spine')

A number of Russian's phonological features are attributable to the introduction of loanwords (especially from non-Slavic languages), including:
* Sequences of two vowels within a morpheme. [Harvcoltxt|Lightner|1972|p=66; only a handful of such words, like паук ('spider') and оплеуха ('slap in the face') are not loanwords.]
**поэт IPA| [pɐˈɛt] ('poet'). From French "poète".
**траур IPA| [ˈtraur] ('mourning').
*Most instances of word-initial IPA|/e/. [Harvcoltxt|Lightner|1972|p=66; particles like этот ('this') are not loanwords]
**эра IPA| [ˈɛrə] ('era'). From German "Ära"
*Word-initial IPA|/a/. [Harvcoltxt|Lightner|1972|p=66; there are a few loanwords from Slavic languages, such as агнец ('lamb' from Church Slavonic), that have an underlying initial IPA|/a/.]
**авеню IPA| [ɐvʲɪˈnʲu] ('avenue').
**афера IPA| [ɐˈfʲɛrə] ('swindle').
*The phoneme IPA|/f/ (see Ef (Cyrillic) for more information). [Harvcoltxt|Lightner|1972|p=66]
**фонема IPA| [fɐˈnʲɛmə] ('phoneme'). From Greek φώνημα.
**эфир IPA| [ɪˈfʲir] ('ether'). From Greek Αἰθήρ.
**фиаско IPA| [fʲɪˈaskə] ('fiasco'). From Italian "fiasco".
*The occurrence of non-palatalized consonants before IPA|/e/. [Harvcoltxt|Lightner|1972|p=66]
*The sequence IPA|/dʐ/ within a morpheme. [Harvcoltxt|Lightner|1972|p=67, 82]
** джин IPA| [dʐin] ('gin') from English.
** джаз IPA| [dʐas] ('jazz) from English.

Many double consonants have become degeminated, though they are still written with two letters in the orthography. [Harvcoltxt|Glovenskaja|1968|p=81 (cited in Harvcoltxt|Lightner|1972|p=71) gives the example of long IPA| [tː] being pronounced in only half of the words that it appears written in while IPA| [fː] only a sixth of the time. Borrowed words that were written for doubled consonants but never pronounced doubled were not factored out of Glovenskaja's study.]

See also

*Russian alphabet, audio|RU-alfavit.ogg|Russian alphabet: audio
*Russian orthography
**Reforms of Russian orthography
* List of Russian language topics
*List of phonetics topics

References

Bibliography

*citation
last=Bidwell
first=Charles
year=1962
title=An Alternate Phonemic Analysis of Russian
journal=The Slavic and East European Journal
volume=6
issue=2
pages=125-129
*citation
last = Crosswhite
first= Katherine Margaret
year= 2000
title= [http://www.bcs.rochester.edu/cls/s2000n1/crosswhite.pdf Vowel Reduction in Russian: A Unified Accountof Standard, Dialectal, and 'Dissimilative' Patterns]
journal=University of Rochester Working Papers in the Language Sciences
volume=1
issue=1
pages=107-172
*citation
last=Folejewski
first=Z
year=1962
title= [An Alternate Phonemic Analysis of Russian] : Editorial comment
journal=The Slavic and East European Journal
volume=6
issue=2
pages=129-130
*citation
last=Glovinskaja
first=M. Ja.
year=1968
title=О некоторых особенностях произношения заимствованных слов
journal=Русский язык в школе
volume=1
pages=81-84
*citation
last =Jones
first= Daniel
authorlink=Daniel Jones (phonetician)
last2 =Dennis
first2= Ward
year= 1969
title= The Phonetics of Russian
publisher=Cambridge University Press
*citation
last =Halle
first= Morris
authorlink=Morris Halle
year= 1959
title= Sound Pattern of Russian
publisher=MIT Press
*citation
last=Hamann
first=Silke
year=2004
title=Retroflex fricatives in Slavic languages
journal=Journal of the International Phonetic Association
volume=34
issue=1
pages=53-67
*citation
last=Ladefoged
first=Peter
authorlink=Peter Ladefoged
last2=Maddieson
first2=Ian
authorlink2=Ian Maddieson
year=1996
title=The Sounds of the World's Languages
publisher=Blackwell Publishing
ISBN=0-631-19815-6
*citation
last =Lightner
first= Theodore M.
year= 1972
title= Problems in the Theory of Phonology, I: Russian phonology and Turkish phonology
place=Edmonton
publisher=Linguistic Research, inc
*citation
last =Padgett
first= Jaye
year= 2003
title= Contrast and Post-Velar Fronting in Russian
journal= Natural Language & Linguistic Theory
volume=21
issue=1
pages=39-87
*citation
last =Padgett
first= Jaye
last2 =Tabain
first2= Marija
year= 2005
title= [http://people.ucsc.edu/~padgett/locker/vreductpaper.pdf Adaptive Dispersion Theory and Phonological Vowel Reduction in Russian]
journal=Phonetica
volume=62
issue=1
pages=14-54
*citation
last=Shapiro
first=Michael
year=1968
title=Russian Phonetic Variants and Phonostylistics
journal=University of California Publications in Linguistics
volume=49
page=55
*citation
last =Skalozub
first= Larisa
year= 1963
title= Palatogrammy i Rentgenogrammy Soglasnyx Fonem Russkogo Literaturnogo Jazyka
publisher= Izdatelstvo Kievskogo Universiteta
*citation
last=Stankiewicz
first=E.
year=1962
title= [An Alternate Phonemic Analysis of Russian] : Editorial comment
journal=The Slavic and East European Journal
volume=6
issue=2
pages=131-132

Further reading

* cite book
title= Introduction to Russian Phonology and Word Structure
last= Hamilton
first=William S.
year=1980
publisher=Slavica Publishers
*citation
last=Hamann
first=Silke
year=2002
contribution= [http://www.let.uu.nl/~Silke.Hamann/personal/Hamann2002SlavicRet.pdf Postalveolar Fricatives in Slavic Languages as Retroflexes]
editor-last=Baauw
editor-first=S.
editor2-last=Huiskes
editor2-first=M.
editor3-last=Schoorlemmer
editor3-first=M.
title=OTS Yearbook 2002
pages=105-127
place=Utrecht
publisher=Utrecht Institute of Linguistics
access-date=2008-02-07
* citation
last= Press
first=Ian
year=1986
title= Aspects of the phonology of the Slavonic languages: the vowel y and the Consonantal Correlation of Palatalization
url=http://books.google.com/books?id=JYBgH2yEjR0C&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_summary_r&cad=0
publisher=Rodopi
ISBN=9062038484
*citation
last =Rubach
first= Jerzy
authorlink=Jerzy Rubach
year= 2000
title= Backness Switch in Russian
journal= Phonology
volume=17
pages=39-64
*citation
last =Shcherba
first= Lev Vladimirovich
authorlink=Lev Shcherba
year= 1912
title= Russkie glasnye v kachestvennom i kolichestvennom otnoshennii
place= St. Petersburg
publisher=Tipografiia IU.
*citation
last=Sussex
first=Roland
year= 1992
chapter=Russian
editor-last=Bright
editor-first=W
title=International Encyclopedia of Linguistics
edition=1st
publisher=Oxford University Press
place=New York