Descriptive Phonetics of Uzbek Glynis MacMillan University of Massachusetts at Amherst 1 Introduction In this paper, I will give a beginning description of the phonetics of Uzbek (a Turkic language spoken primarily in Uzbekistan). Analyses are given based on recordings of the consultant 1 that were taken in the Phonetics Laboratory at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. The recordings were processed in Praat to produce the measurements and data presented in the following sections. The words chosen for recordings depended upon the focus of each recording. For the recordings focussing on stops, words with the target stop consonants intervocalically were chosen. A similar method was used when choosing voiceless fricatives to measure. In the case of voiced fricatives, only ones thought to devoice finally were measured. The words chosen to measure vowel formants were ones wherein the vowel was as undisrupted by neighboring sounds as possible. That is to say, vowels not adjacent to rhotics, laterals, glides, and voiced fricatives, and instead adjacent to stops or non-uvular voiceless fricatives. Uzbek has seven stop consonants, three affricates, eleven fricatives, two approximants, three nasals, one rhotic and one flap. It also has four front vowels, three of which are unrounded, one of which is. Two central unrounded vowels were found, and three back vowels were found, all of which were rounded. 1 The Uzbek speaker’s name is Mekhriban ‘Mika’ Abdullaeva, and is a graduate student at UMass. Her parents are from Samarkand, a city in the center of Uzbekistan famous for its place on the silk road, and she was born there. She also lived in Tashkent, the capital city, in the south of Uzbekistan. In grade school, she studied French, and at university, Arabic. She also speaks Russian fluently. She moved to the united states eight years ago. I owe Mika a great debt of gratitude for her patience in recording and working with me. 1
Transcript
Descriptive Phonetics of Uzbek
Glynis MacMillan
University of Massachusetts at Amherst
1 Introduction
In this paper, I will give a beginning description of the phonetics of Uzbek (a Turkic languagespoken primarily in Uzbekistan). Analyses are given based on recordings of the consultant1
that were taken in the Phonetics Laboratory at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.The recordings were processed in Praat to produce the measurements and data presented inthe following sections.
The words chosen for recordings depended upon the focus of each recording. For therecordings focussing on stops, words with the target stop consonants intervocalically werechosen. A similar method was used when choosing voiceless fricatives to measure. In the caseof voiced fricatives, only ones thought to devoice finally were measured. The words chosento measure vowel formants were ones wherein the vowel was as undisrupted by neighboringsounds as possible. That is to say, vowels not adjacent to rhotics, laterals, glides, and voicedfricatives, and instead adjacent to stops or non-uvular voiceless fricatives.
Uzbek has seven stop consonants, three affricates, eleven fricatives, two approximants,three nasals, one rhotic and one flap. It also has four front vowels, three of which areunrounded, one of which is. Two central unrounded vowels were found, and three backvowels were found, all of which were rounded.
1The Uzbek speaker’s name is Mekhriban ‘Mika’ Abdullaeva, and is a graduate student at UMass. Herparents are from Samarkand, a city in the center of Uzbekistan famous for its place on the silk road, and shewas born there. She also lived in Tashkent, the capital city, in the south of Uzbekistan. In grade school, shestudied French, and at university, Arabic. She also speaks Russian fluently. She moved to the united stateseight years ago. I owe Mika a great debt of gratitude for her patience in recording and working with me.
1
2 The Consonant Inventory of Uzbek
The consonants of Uzbek are listed in Table 1 below:
FricativesVoiceless F f s S x XVoiced B v z G KGlides V j
Laterals l ëNasals m n N Ng
Rhotics rTaps R
Table 1: Consonants of Uzbek
The consonant inventory of Uzbek includes voiceless and voiced stops and fricatives,along with three nasals, two laterals, one rhotic trill, one tap, and two approximants. Eachvoiceless stop has two possible variations (palatalization and aspiration), with the exceptionof the uvular [q] which is never palatalized, and always aspirated. The voiced stops wereseen with fewer possible variations, but can be breathy voiced when intervocalic, and in thecase of the velar [g] can be palatalized. More voiceless than voiced fricatives were found,and many of the voiced fricatives were seen to devoice when word final. Voiced intervocalicstops are seen to be breathy voiced. The velar nasal [N] can be released as a voiced velarstop when it is word final.
2.1 Variation in Stop Consonants
Voiceless bilabial stops appeared as initial, intervocalic, and final. They occur in two varia-tions: aspirated, and palatalized. The voiced counterpart appeared initially and finally, butnot intervocalically. Only once does the voiced bilabial stop appear as word final, and thisis in the case of the borrowed word [kjitob] ‘book’ (from Arabic).
Voiceless alveolar stops occurred initially, intervocalically, and finally. The voiced counterpart, was seen in the same pattern as the voiceless stop. However, only three instances of[d] were found in the data collected, besides the possibly productive morpheme [-d/tIr].
The voiceless velar stop was seen initially in two variations (aspirated, palatalized), onceintervocalically as a long stop, as well as finally. The voiced velar stop occurs initially, finally,and intervocalically. The voiceless uvular plosive occurs initially, intervocalically, and finally.It’s only occurrence as intervocalic is a long form of the consonant. It is always aspirated.
In the table below are the most notable stop consonant measurements. They are dis-cussed below and shown in full in the appendix.
The intervocalic stops were measured in Praat for closure duration and voice dura-tion/delay. The voiceless stops were found to be either long or standard. The long plosiveshad an extensive closure time, the longest of which was the intervocalic voiceless alveolarstop with a 308ms closure in the word [bit:a] ‘one’. The shortest closure time among thelong stops was 199ms, a voiceless uvular stop in the word [tøq:Iz] ‘nine’. The standard lengthintervocalic voiceless stops ranged in closure time from 66ms, a voiceless bilabial stop in theword [tu
˚prmOq] ‘spit’, to 118ms, a voiceless alveolar stop in the word [øtIrmOq] ‘sit’. The
voice onset time (VOT) for the voiceless stops in no case equal to the closure duration. Inone case the post-closure burst nearly doubled the length of the entire consonant (an alveolarstop with a closure duration of 72ms and a VOT of 136ms in the word [itarmOq] ‘push’.
The voiced intervocalic stops had similar closure duration to those of the voiceless stops.In all but one instance, the voicing fades before the end of the closure, and the release is sim-ilarly voiceless. This suggests breathy voicing for most intervocalic voiced stop consonants.This can be seen in words such as [odam] ‘person’, [muSug-Im] ‘my cat’, and [agar] ‘if’. Aspectrogram for [odam] ‘person’ is shown below.
The voiceless bilabial fricative was only seen in two instances. Once in [VaFot Etmoq] ‘pass away’,and again in [pu
˚FlamOq] ‘to blow’. The voiced bilabial fricative occurred intervocalically and
finally. This fricative sometimes takes the shape of a labiodental approximant for phonologicalreasons. Voiceless labiodental fricatives occur intervocalically, but were never seen to occur initiallyor finally. The voiceless alveolar fricative occurs initially and finally, and its voiced counterpartappears intervocalically and finally. The final voiced alveolar fricatives are often devoiced. Thevoiceless post-alveolar fricative occurs initially, intervocalically, and finally. Intervocalically, it isalso seen in a long form. The voiceless velar fricative is seen initially, intervocalically, and finally.The voiced velar fricative is seen only a few times, but it is seen initially, intervocalically, andfinally.
The longest of the fricatives were the [S] and [x]. The velar fricative [x] is often seen to appearin the uvular variant [X], sometimes between two pronunciations of the same words. The longestinstance of [S] was in the word [paS:a] ‘fly’, and was 343ms long. The longest instance of either [x]or [X] was 241ms in the word [tu
˚Xum] ‘egg’.
Many final alveolar fricatives lose their voicing part way through pronunciation. The [z˚
] in [qIz˚
]‘girl’, [køz
˚] ‘eye’, and [juz
˚] ‘face’ all show evidence of devoicing. The fricative itself will have a total
duration of 208ms to 252ms, while the voicing only lasts from 10ms to 78 ms. The devoiced portionof the fricative will last between 158ms to 249 ms. In all cases, the length of the devoiced portionof the fricative was longer than voiced portion.
Below, this devoicing can be seen in the spectrogram of the word [juz] ‘face’. Below the spec-trogram is a list of the measurements taken on these devoiced fricatives.
Uzbek has three affricates: [ts<], [tS], and [dZ]. The affricate [ts<] occurs only in one word, and it is aborrowed russian word, [ts<Erkul] ‘compass (drawing tool).’ The second affricate, [tS] occurs initially,intervocalically, and finally. The last affricate, [dZ], occurs in the word [dZIgar] ‘liver’ and in theborrowed Arabic names, [dZamol] and [dZamila].
2.3 Nasals, Liquids & Glides
Uzbek has three nasal consonants: [m], [n], and [N]. The bilabial nasal and the alveolar nasal occurinitially, intervocalically, and finally. The velar nasal is only ever seen finally intervocalically. Whenthe velar nasal is final, it is sometimes seen to release as a voiced velar stop when word final, as inthe possessive ending [-INg].
Uzbek has two lateral consonants; one alveolar, the other velar. The alveolar lateral consonantsappeared intervocalically and finally, while the velar variation only occurred finally. The rhotic trillis seen intervocalically and finally. Sometimes, when it is word final, it devoices. More on this ispresented in 2.3.3. An alveolar tap was seen once, in the word [buRun] ‘nose’. The palatal glideoccurred initially, intervocalically, and finally. The labiodental approximant was seen initially onthe words [VaFot EtmOq] ‘pass away’ and [Va] ‘and’. It was also seen intervocalically, in words like[suV-Im] ‘my water’. In some circumstances, this was due to morphologic and phonologic rules.
Many of the trilled rhotics were seen to devoice. This seemed to happen in particular wordswhen the sound was both intervocalic or final. Because of this it should be distinguished from thedevoicing of the fricative consonants discussed in 2.2. The table below lists all measurements fordevoiced rhotics, and the measurements are discussed below.
5
rhotic word length voicing length devoicing
[r˚
] er˚
kak 65ms 29ms 36ms70ms 25ms 45ms73ms 49ms 24ms
-lar˚
156ms 23ms 133ms109ms 26ms 83ms143ms 27ms 116ms
jEr˚
127ms 15ms 112ms99ms 14ms 85ms92ms 18ms 74ms
ar˚
qon 99ms 73ms 26ms77ms 19ms 58ms52ms 27ms 25ms
The range in total consonant length for these devoicing rhotics was from 52ms in the word[ar˚
qon] ‘rope’ to 156ms in the plural ending [-lar˚
]. The shortest voicing length was 14ms in theword [jEr
˚] ‘land’, and the longest was in the word [ar
˚qon] at 73ms. The shortest amount of devoicing
was in [er˚
kak] ‘man’ at 36ms, while the longest was 133ms in the plural morpheme [-lar˚
]. This isenough evidence to conclude that rhotic trills in Uzbek can be pronounced with minimal voicing,and are then devoiced.
3 The Vowel Inventory of Uzbek
Uzbek has seven major vowel sounds, each with their own variations. There are high, mid, andlow front vowels. The mid front vowel can be rounded or unrounded. There are four back vowels(high, mid, low-mid, and low) and all of them are rounded. Within each of these vowel sounds,there is possibility for length difference, devoicing, grouping of two cardinal vowels into one vowelspace, and in one case, centralization because of uvular consonants.
Table 2 shows the monophthongs of Uzbek.
Front Central Backunrounded rounded unrounded rounded
high i I I umid e ø o
mid-low E Olow a
Table 2: Vowels of Uzbek
The vowels were measured in Praat for the first and second formant, as well as vowel duration.The measurements of the first and second formants were used to create a graph of the vowel space.This was done by plotting the second formant (F2) minus the first formant (F1) by the first for-mant (F1) and reversing both axes. A generalized version of this chart is presented below. The full
6
version can be found in the appendix.
F2-F1
F1
2500 0
1000
Fig 3: Simplified Vowel Graph
[i] [I]
[I][e]
[E]
[ø]
[u]
[o]
[O]
[a]
Here, I have grouped the vowels together into what appears to be their target area in the vowelquadrilateral. Sounds that share a target vowel space are similar vowels that fall in the same orneighboring ares of the plot when graphed. I will discuss each target vowel area in the followingsections.
3.1 High front vowels
The high front vowels were seen to be either tense or lax, and also appeared in a short variety.They are one of two vowels in Uzbek that has the potential to be seen voicelessly, as in the word[tI˚qmOq] ‘stab’. The tense form of the vowel has a range of 248 Hz in [ıtSki] ‘guts’ to 515 Hz in [ip]
‘thread’ in the first formant. In the second formant, the range is from 2145 Hz in [ism] ‘name’ to2496 Hz in [istak]. The observed long version of this vowel ranged in length from 57ms in [ism] to102ms in [ip]. In the short version, the length ranged from 32ms in [ıtSki] to 115ms in [ıt] ‘dog’.
The lax high front vowel ranged in the first formant from 245 Hz to 312 Hz in [ISmOq] ‘to swell’.The second formant ranged from 2376 Hz to 2801 Hz in [ItSmOq]. The length of this vowel rangedfrom 27ms to 60ms . The formant range of the front high vowels places them in the low on they-axis, but high on the x-axis of the vowel graph.
Many of the formant measurements for these vowels recorded as high front vowels suggest thatthis is not a correct transcription. No lip rounding was observed during pronunciation of thesevowels, ruling out the front high rounded vowel [y]. Other options include centralized lax vowels [I]or high back unrounded vowels [W]
7
Centralized high vowel
When the high front vowel appears adjacent to a uvular consonant, it becomes the centralized highlax vowel [I]. This vowel is present in words like [qIz] ‘girl’, [øKIl] ‘boy’, and [tøq:I z
˚] ‘nine’.
vowel F1 range F2 range durration range
[I] 545 Hz - 763 Hz 1194 Hz - 1729 54ms - 114ms
Measurements for this vowel variation ranged from 545 Hz (in [qIz]) to 763 Hz (in [øKIl]) in thefirst formant, and 1194 Hz (in [øKIl]) to 1729 Hz (in [qIz]) in the second formant. This formantrange placed this variant of the high front vowel further back on the vowel graph. It is likely thatthis vowel is centralized when next to a uvular consonant because of the backness of the articulationrequired for uvular sounds.
3.2 Mid vowels
Three front mid vowels were found. The two unrounded mid front vowels, [e] and [E], were seento have measurements landing them in the same part of the vowel space. For this reason they aretreated as the same vowel. The third mid vowel was the rounded vowel [ø]. Measurements for thesevowels are in the table below.
The unrounded mid front vowels, [e] and [E], were seen to fall within the same target vowelarea in the vowel space. The measurement range for the first formant for these vowels was 548 Hzin [eSak] ‘donkey’, to 708 Hz [EtmOq] from [VaFot EtmOq] ‘pass away’. The range for the secondformant was from 1079 Hz in [sEp] ‘dowry’ to 2443 Hz in [beS] ‘five’. This measurement rangeplaced the mid front vowels just below the high front vowels on the plot, as expected.
The only front rounded vowel was the rounded mid front vowel [ø]. The measurements forthe first formant of this vowel ranged from 499 Hz in [øt] ‘grass’ to 645 Hz in [køk] ‘blue’. Forthe second formant, the measurements ranged from 1605 Hz in [køk] to 1833 [køp] ‘many’. Whengraphed, this vowel fell slightly lower on the x-axis than its unrounded counterparts [e] and [E], butclose to equal to these counterparts on the y-axis.
3.3 The Low Central Vowel
The low central vowel [a] had a length variation from 59ms in [pat] ‘feather’ to 178ms in [ota] ‘fa-ther’. The first formant varied from 693 Hz in [gap] ‘sentence’ to 1216 Hz in [aka-m] ‘my brother’.The second formant had a range from 1344 Hz in [pat] to 2155 Hz in [gap]. When graphed, theseformant measurements place the vowel [a] in higher ranges on the y-axis and low to mid ranges onthe x-axis. It is the least dense collection of vowels plots on the graph.
Back vowels in Uzbek were always seen to be rounded. The high back rounded vowel [u] wasobserved to be in either long or short variants. The long variant ranged from 162-179ms, while theshort variant ranged from 63-84ms. These times were measured from the words [utS] ‘three’ and[utSmOq] ‘to fly’. In the third person singular pronoun [u], the vowel length ranged from 353ms to392ms. The first formant for this vowel ranged from 271 Hz in [utSmOq] to 331 in [utS]. The secondformant ranged from 704 Hz in [u] ‘3sg’ to 924 Hz in [utSmOq]. These formant ranges places thevowel [u] in the corner closest to the origin on the graph. The high back rounded vowel was theother of the two vowels that had the possibility of appearing voicelessly. This can be found in wordslike [tu
In the range of mid back rounded vowels, both [o] and [O] are present. However, in the sameway that the front unrounded counterparts of these vowels were seen to overlap in measurements,[o] and [O] do as well. The range of the fist formant for [o] was 521 Hz in [box] ‘garden’ to 726 Hzin [toG] ‘mountain’. The range of the second formant for the same vowel was 853 Hz in [box] to1068 in [toG]. The length of this vowel ranged from 114ms in [boS] ‘head’ to 280ms in [toG]. Turningto [O], we find the first formant range is from 622 Hz [qOtS] ‘leave’ to 804 Hz in the same word.The second formant range is found to be from 987 Hz in [qOtS] to 1241 Hz in the same word. Thelength range for this vowel was from 122ms in [qOtS] to 197ms in the same word. These formantmeasurements place these vowels in the same vowel space on the vowel graph; they are slightlyhigher on the y-axis than the high back rounded vowel.
3.4.1 Diphthongs
Four diphthongs were seen in the data set collected. One in a borrowed word and two as stand alonewords. The borrowed word was [hai<Bon] ‘animal’, which comes from the Turkish [hai<von]. The twodiphthongs that were stand alone words were [ui<] ‘house’ and [oi<] ‘moon’. The last diphthongoccurred in the word [dario<] for ‘river’. Instances of vowels adjacent to palatal glides forming alarger set of vowel sounds were seen in some words as well. Examples of this include [ajol] ‘woman’,[ojOq] ‘foot/leg’, and [qojoS] ‘sun’.
9
4 Conclusion
Stop consonants were found to be word initial, word final, and intervocalic. Voiceless stops can beaspirated, unaspirated, or palatalized. Voiced stops can be breathy voiced or fully voiced. Stopsare bilabial, alveolar, velar, and uvular. They are found to be voiced and voiceless in all cases butthe uvular, which is only found voiceless. The fricatives were bilabial, alveolar, post-alveolar, andvelar. The post-alveolar fricative was only seen voicelessly, and the voiceless velar fricatives wasseen to appear uvular in some cases. Word final voiced fricatives are sometimes seen to devoice,such as in the words [qIz
˚] ‘girl’, [køz
˚] ‘eye’, and [juz
˚] ‘face’. The glides included the labiodental
approximant and the palatal glide. Laterals were seen to be both alveolar and uvular. Nasals werebilabial, alveolar, and velar. An effect similar the devoicing of the alveolar fricative is seen withthe rhotic trill. However the phone does not have to be word final for this to occur. Instances ofthis devoicing were seen in words like [ar
˚qon] ‘rope’ and [jEr
˚] ‘land’.
There are more high vowels in Uzbek than there are low vowels. All back vowels are rounded, andmost front vowels are unrounded. One rounded front vowel ([ø]) is seen. The two mid unroundedfront vowels [e] and [E] were seen to share qualities in the first and second formants, as were thetwo mid rounded back vowels [o] and [O]. The most complex vowel is the front high unrounded [i],which can appear long or short, tense or lax, devoiced, and centralized.
10
Appendix
Word List for Consonants
[p] tu˚purmOq ‘spit’
[t] bit:a ‘one’øtIrmOq ‘sit’itarmOq ‘push’
[k] ik:I ‘two’[q] tøq:Iz
˚‘nine’
[b] none found intervocallically[d] odam ‘person’[g] kutSug-Im ‘my dog’
