Last Updated: 2019-12-02
COMPROMISED: conflation among /u/, /w/, /ʷ/; some orthographic ambiguity related to consonant gemination
Background
Language Family: Indo-European / Indo-Iranian / Iranian / Eastern / Northeastern / Ossetic
- Also known as Ossetian, it is spoken in Russia and Georgia.
- Where dialects diverge, I will be following the more widely spoken Iron dialect.
Phonology
Consonants
- A small number of southern dialects include /ʃ/ and /ʒ/ (Testen 1997, 710).
- Abaev (1964) and Testen (1997) regard /j/ and /w/ as distinct phonemes (p. 6; p. 711), while Thordarson (1992) argues that they are just allophones of [i] and [u] respectively (p. 462). I have chosen to include them in the inventory below.
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Place of Articulation
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Manner of Articulation
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Labial
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Alveolar
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Postalveolar
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Palatal
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Velar
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Labiovelar
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Uvular
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Labiouvular
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Stops
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p b pʼ
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t d tʼ
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k ɡ kʼ
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kʷ ɡʷ kʷʼ
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q
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qʷ
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Affricates
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ts dz tsʼ
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tʃ dʒ tʃʼ
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Fricatives
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f v
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s z
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χ ʁ
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χʷ ʁʷ
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Nasals
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m
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n
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Trills
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r
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Approximants
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l
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j
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w
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Note: From left to right, phonemes that share a cell are voiceless, voiced, and ejective.
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Vowels
- Thordarson (1992) argues that /æ/ is actually realized closer to [ɐ] (p. 459).
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Front
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Central
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Back
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High
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i
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ɨ
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u
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Mid
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e
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o
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Low
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æ
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a
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Alphabet
- There is some amount of orthographic confusion regarding ⟨y⟩, which can be /u/, /w/, or simply a marker of labialization. Therefore, the language is compromised. In the ruleset, I use ⟨y⟩ to mark labialization wherever possible, and default to /u/ otherwise.
- Note: Due to this, /w/ is not represented.
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Grapheme
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Phoneme
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Comment
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а
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/a/
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ӕ
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/æ/
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б
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/b/
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в
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/v/
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г
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/ɡ/
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д
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/d/
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е
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/e/
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з
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/z/
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и
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/i/
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й
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/j/
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к
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/k/
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л
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/l/
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м
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/m/
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н
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/n/
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о
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/o/
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п
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/p/
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р
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/r/
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с
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/s/
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т
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/t/
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у
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/u/; /w/
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/u/: default
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ф
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/f/
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х
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/χ/
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ц
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/ts/
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ч
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/tʃ/
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ы
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/ɨ/
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Multigraph
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гу
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/ɡʷ/
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гъ
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/ʁ/
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гъу
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/ʁʷ/
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дж
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/dʒ/
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дз
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/dz/
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ку
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/kʷ/
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къ
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/kʼ/
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къу
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/kʷʼ/
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пъ
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/pʼ/
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тъ
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/tʼ/
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ху
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/χʷ/
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хъ
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/q/
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хъу
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/qʷ/
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цъ
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/tsʼ/
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чъ
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/tʃʼ/
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Lenition Rules
- Word-medial consonants voice after voiced consonants or vowels (Abaev 1964, 8).
- In a few specific words, /z/ approximantizes to [r] and /n/ approximantizes to [l] (ibid.).
Misc. Rules
- Epenthesis of [h] occurs before word-initial vowels (Thordarson 1992, 465).
- Gemination (which systematically occurs morphophonologically) causes stops to devoice (Testen 1997, 711, 713–15). It however is not consistently marked orthographically (Abaev 1964, 9); thus, it is not reflected in the rule set.
References
Abaev, V. I. 1964. “Grammar Sketch of Ossetic.” Translated by Herbert H. Paper.
Testen, David. 1997. “Ossetic Phonology.” In Phonologies of Asia and Africa, edited by Alan S. Kaye, 707–31. Eisenbrauns.
Thordarson, Fridrik. 1992. “Ossetic.” In Compendium Linguarum Iranicum, edited by Rüdiger Schmitt, 456–79. Dr. Ludwig Reichert.