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Ubykh, an extinctNorthwest Caucasian language, has the largest consonant inventory of all documented languages that do not use clicks, with 84, due to extensivesecondary articulation, and also the most disproportionate ratio of consonants to vowels. It has consonants in at least eight, perhaps nine, basicplaces of articulation and 29 distinctfricatives, 27sibilants, and 20uvulars, more than any other documented language. Only Khoisan languages such asTaa have larger consonant inventories due to their large inventories ofclick consonants.
Below is anInternational Phonetic Alphabet representation of the Standard Ubykh consonant inventory.
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 Turkishkarga),/kawar/ ('slat, batten') from Lazk'avari 'roofing shingle'),/makʼəf/ ('estate, legacy') from Turkishvakıf),/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 smallacoustic difference can be phonemic when so many consonants are involved. However, the alveolopalatal labialised fricatives/ɕʷʑʷ/ were sometimes realised as alveolar labialised fricatives[sʷzʷ], and the uvular ejective stop/qʼ/ was often pronounced as a glottal stop[ʔ] in the past tense suffix -/qʼa/, due to the influence of theKabardian andAdyghe 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 aphonaesthetic concept of rolling or a repeated action in a few verbs, notably/bəqˤʼəda/ ~/bəqˤʼərda/ ('to roll around') and/χˤʷəχˤʷəda/ ~/χˤʷəχˤʷərda/ ('to slither').
A divergent dialect of Ubykh spoken by Osman Güngör, an inhabitant of Karacalar in Balıkesir province[3] was investigated byGeorges Dumézil in the 1960s.[4] Below is anInternational Phonetic Alphabet representation of the Karacalar Ubykh consonant inventory.
Güngör's speech differed phonologically from Standard Ubykh in a number of ways:
Ubykh has very few basic phonemic vowels. The analysis inVogt (1963) retains/oː/ as a separate vowel, but most other linguists[5] do not accept this analysis, preferring one with simplervertical 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 anddiachronically, it is often derived from two instances of/a/.
| Central | Back | |
|---|---|---|
| Close | (u) | |
| Mid | ə | |
| Open | a |
Even with so few vowels, there are manyvowelallophones, affected by the secondary articulation of the consonants that surround them. Eleven basic phonetic vowels appear, mostly derived from the two phonemic vowels adjacent tolabialised orpalatalised consonants. The phonetic vowels are[aeiouə] and[aːeːiːoːuː]. In general, the following rules apply:[6]
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 intovowel 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 thedefinite article./ə/ is extremely restricted initially, appearing only inditransitive verb forms where all three arguments arethird 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 azero allomorph.
Fenwick (2011) argues that there are three vowels[ɐɜɨ] which correspond to Dumézil's[aaaə] respectively and this is evident in the minimal triplet of/ɐsʃɨn/ ('I milk X'),/ɐsʃɜn/ ('I reap X'), and/ɐsʃɐn/ ('I milk them; I reap them').