Talk:Russian phonology/Archive 4

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Vowel explanation ambiguities

2 of them (please, reply below respective bullets):

♦Chart from Jones-Trofimov (updated by Ward) is much more precise in position and articulation of allophones, but contradicts the table below in their set and mapping to originating phonemes. Moreover, table in Russian WP-article includes other allophones. Can we make it more consistent? All of them have their respective sources. Tacit Murky (talk) 20:16, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

♦It's wrong to say about «long-standing dispute among linguists is whether Russian has five vowel phonemes or six». Here is my understanding:

• SP school is using „European approach“ with phonemes as top level for sound hierarchy; they have 6 phonemes, and that what is described here, despite that «most popular view among linguists (and that taken up in this article) is that of the Moscow school»;
• Moscow school (traditional rusists with own, quite different terminology, especially in grammar) decided not to use the «phoneme» term, but a new one — morphoneme, intermediate between phoneme and morpheme. This word is almost absent in English literature (German WP just copies Russian article), but this approach is predominant in Russian, and Russian WP-article is based on it. According to M-school, there are 5 morphonemes; one of them (|и| or |i|) is used for both /i/ and /ɨ/ phonemes (which as a term is secondary to morphoneme, so there is no contradiction). /ɨ/ can also be found in unstressed position of |e| and |o| (which is one of morphophonological schemes called «ыканье» — Ы-ing; strangely, it's the only scheme that isn't described on Russian vowel reduction).

So, dispute is not about 5 or 6 phonemes (both schools agree on 6, which is why «Russian pedagogy has typically taught that there are 6 vowels (the term phoneme is not used)»), but whether phoneme (SP) or morphoneme (M) should be used as a sound term, that is between morpheme and allopone in a hierarchy. English articles and sources are largely ignoring «morphonemes», so this one actually sticks to SP-school, which is why vowel table here starts with «phoneme» column. „Fixing“ this may be quite clumsy…Tacit Murky (talk) 20:16, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Is morphoneme just another term for morphophoneme, or a separate concept altogether? — Eru·tuon 21:22, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Yes, it should be short version of it. Standard definition is: main unit for morphonology (=morphophonology), a class of phonemes (rarely — of phoneme clusters), alternating in allomorphs under the influence of grammatical context of current morpheme. WP-article mentions important thing: «the morphophonological analysis may bypass the phoneme stage and produce the phones itself» — that is what some M-school rusists are doing; SP-school linguists don't. Tacit Murky (talk) 03:24, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Here's an example of getting it very wrong (from «1.1.3.3 Phonemic analysis» section): «Moscow phonology school treats [ɐ] as either /a/ or /o/» — no! It's |a| and |o|, which are morpho(pho)nemes. Phonemes in their analysis derive from morphonemes and can vary — see table below. Other such misconceptions in this text are abundant. Tacit Murky (talk) 22:26, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

♦Translated version of Russian vowel table (with some Cyrillic markings): Tacit Murky (talk) 20:49, 12 September 2016 (UTC)

Main vowel allophones

letters	morphonemes	phonemes (sorted by occurrence)	stressed		unstressed word-initial (·V)	1st pre-stressed syllable			other unstressed syllables
			CV́C	CʲV́Cʲ		CV, exc. /ʐ/, /ʂ/	/ʐ/V, /ʂ/V	CʲV	CV	CʲV
и, ы	|i|	/i/, /ɨ/	[ɨ]	[i]	[ɪ], [ɨ̞]	[ɨ̞]	[ɨ̞]	[ɪ] ([ие])	[ɨ̞]	[ɪ] ([ь])
е, э	|e|	/e/, /i/, /ɨ/, /a/	[ɛ]	[e]	[ɨ̞]	[ɨ̞] ~ [ɘ]	[ɨ̞]	[ɪ] ([ие])	[ɨ̞]	[ɪ] ([ь])
а, я	|a|	/a/, /i/	[a]	[æ]	[ɐ]	[ɐ]	[ɐ]	[ɪ] ([ие])	[ə]	[ɪ], [ə]
о, ё	|o|	/o/, /a/, /i/, /ɨ/	[o]	[ɵ]	[ɐ]	[ɐ]	[ɨ̞]	[ɪ] ([ие])	[ə]	[ɪ] ([ь])
у, ю	|u|	/u/	[u]	[ʉ]	[u]	[ʊ]	[ʊ]	[ʉ̞]	[ʊ]	[ʉ̞]

After staring on that table for couple of hours I'm shocked about how inaccurate and even outright wrong it is in so many cells. Even that it seems to be backed by Ward's work (of 1969), but some of it looks like a disinformation now. Unfortunately, so is the table in this article, too. Talking about sources… Tacit Murky (talk) 03:24, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Which one? The one from Russian WP or our table? Mr KEBAB (talk) 04:24, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Both! Especially if we want to make this one consistent with another and with Jones-Trofimov's chart (which is more precise in some points). Tacit Murky (talk) 19:01, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

I'd like to know where our table is supposedly 'inaccurate' or 'wrong'. Mr KEBAB (talk) 20:03, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Ahem… Looking in our table I see the same problem: not all combinations of V's and C's are there. I changed «V, CV» to «(C)V», because these 2 cases are the same. But some are missing (dot means word-end): «CʲV·» for {я, е} and «CV·» for {э/e}. Unlike cases with «C{у}·» and «Cʲ{ю}·», these ones are suppose to be ending with [ɪ] („iking“, иканье) or [ɨ̞] („yking“, ыканье) in unstressed positions. That is correct for «CʿʲʾV*», but not if it's word-final phoneme. To prove it, listen (or see Wiktionary IPA transcripts) for words like «во́ля»; this is good example, because if iking would apply here (as table suggested before my correction), there wouldn't be possible to distinguish most of these cases (for singular): «во́ля» (N), «во́ли» (G and P), «во́ле» (D), «во́лю» (A), «во́лей» (I). First 3 of them should have same ending of [ɪ]. But «во́ля» and «во́ле» aren't! In recommended literary Russian 3 MPh-schemes are working: aking, iking and yking (see their descriptions in a text above original Russian table). But even there and unlike casual urban street-speak (which differs in about the same way, as London «posh» differs from Oxford's recommended dialect), these schemes are unapplicable to word-final vowel. That is why «other unstressed syllables» for «CʲV» case in Russian version shows word-final [ə] apart from [ɪ] (which can be word-final only for |i|), but only for |a|. It's likely [ə~ɜ~ɐ] for |o| and [ɨ̞~e] for |e|. Tacit Murky (talk) 23:10, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

Word-final vowels are different in many ways. Aking is abundant MPh-scheme, missing only in a rural Volga dialect (it has opposite scheme of oking — (во́ложское) о́канье). But even that one is violated in some loans like ра́дио, Ма́рио, роде́о (that's /э/ here), Мака́о — unstressed |o| is still close to [o] (that no-one disputes). Word-final yking is also dubious: this example of вы́ше seem to show different vowels. Somehow, Ward manage to find it even in «ко́жа», as claimed here; Wiktionary, Russian table and any good ear prove him wrong. Tacit Murky (talk) 01:03, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Same violation may appear if unstressed vowel is followed by another vowel: эо́ловый with [ɛ'o-]; but not for {оо} in words like коопера́ция, сообража́ть; nor in коа́ла. Unstressed word-initial {э} is also sometimes pronounced purely even when followed by consonant: электр* (dozens of words with this prefix), эма́ль, энтузиа́ст, эпи́ческий… Tacit Murky (talk) 02:05, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

I think you missed the fact that our table is titled 'A quick index of vowel pronunciation', which cannot be fully exhaustive. Details are covered in the article itself.

Somehow, Ward manage to find it even in «ко́жа», as claimed here; Wiktionary, Russian table and any good ear prove him wrong. I think 'outdated pronunciation' is the phrase you're looking for, not 'wrong'. Mr KEBAB (talk) 04:42, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Yes, lots of details are covered, but the table should reflect all most common cases. We still have missing cases of «CʲV·» for {я} and {е} and «CV·» for {э/e} (which are not subject to iking or yking, unless current word is followed by next one with initial consonant). I noticed 2 links to Avanesov and correct example with «жи́тел*», but that text is too far below the table, and these cases are quite frequent. Readers may easily miss them. Tacit Murky (talk) 17:48, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

(Moved from here to a new section below.)Tacit Murky (talk) 21:13, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

I think the table would benefit from a short note explaining that vowel reduction does not apply in some word-final cases, one of the points Tacit Murky mentioned, since those are pretty common. For instance, the name of Vostok Station is pronounced [ˈstant͡sɨjə vɐˈstok], not [ˈstant͡sɨjɪ vɐˈstok], and the name of Tolstoy's family home is not [ˈjasnəjɪ pɐˈlʲanə]. If I remember right, I was puzzled as to why these words did not follow the rules given in the table, and if I was, I'm sure other people will be. I can't think of any cases of word-final /je/ in Wikipedia articles right now... maybe word-final /ja/ is more common. — Eru·tuon 10:30, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

vowel reduction does not apply in some word-final cases — that's exactly what I was talking — see above @ 17:48, 14 September 2016. There are missing «CV·» and «CʲV·» cases. And I's not just a note: in order to make a list of cases full (as it should be), there must be separate table rows for them. With «е·» you can find any sea name in Russian, like «Чёрное мо́ре» (Black Sea) = [ˈt͡ɕɵrnəjə ˈmorʲe]. Good enough?

BTW, I'd oppose this [-əjə] here; in fluent speak [j] in «V/j/V» is gone (as shown in a table in statistical analysis paper linked above and, likely, other sources), and 2nd [ə] is fronted relatively to 1st one (as I noted below about relativity); sounds like [- ɜ~ɐ ə̘~e̽]. Probably, if next sound is «Cʲ», [ɜ] should be properly fronted to [ɪ], as «iking» requires: «чёрное де́ло» („black“ business) = [ˈt͡ɕɵrnəɪ ˈdʲelə]. «Станция Восток» and «Ясная поляна» are «V(j)V·C» cases both, not «V(j)V·Cʲ». Tacit Murky (talk) 21:13, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

A quick index of vowel pronunciation

Phoneme	Letter (typically)	Position	Stressed	Reduced
/a/	а	(C)V	?[ä], [ɑ]	[ə], [ɐ]1
	я, а5	CʲV·(C)	[ä]	[ə]
		CʲVC		[ɪ]
		CʲV(·)Cʲ	[æ]
/o/	о	(C)V	[o̞ ~ ɔ]	[ə], [ɐ]1
	ё, о	CʲV	[ɵ]	—2
/e/	е	CʲV·(C)	[ɛ̝]	[e]
		CʲVC		[ɪ]
		CʲV(·)Cʲ	[e]
	э	Cʲ·V	[ɛ̝]	?[ɪ], ?[ɛ̝]
		(C)·V	[ɛ]	[ɪ̈]
	э, е34	CV(·)(C)
		CV(·)Cʲ	?[ɛ]
/u/	у	(C)V	[u]	[ʊ]
	ю, у5	CʲV(C)
		CʲVCʲ	[ʉ]	[ʊ̈]
/i/	и	(Cʲ)V	[i]	[ɪ]
/ɨ/	ы, и4	(C)V	[ɨ]	[ɪ̈]
1 [ɐ] is used in unstressed word-initial and pre-stressed syllables; [ə] is elsewhere; 2 ⟨ё⟩ and Cʲ⟨о⟩ are always stressed; 3 ⟨е⟩ is used in most loans, except if word-initial; 4 ⟨е, и⟩ are used after ⟨ц, ш, ж⟩; 5 ⟨а, у⟩ are used after ⟨ч, щ⟩.

Pardon for more OR, but here's a useful modification of a table (draft one). Notes are changed and added; Latin «e» changed to Russian «е» (2 times); more position cases with word boundaries added. New details are sufficient to reproduce correctly all endings for «во́ля» and other mentioned words. But some cells call for a check (marked with «?»):

1. Can anyone prove existence of [ä] in «(C)V́» position and [e] in «CV́Cʲ» with anything more recent, that Ward's 1969 work? Wiktionary says [t͡sɛlʲ] for «цель», not [t͡se̠lʲ] (for that exact audio example^ⓘ here); and then «це́лый» [ˈt͡sɛlɨj]^ⓘ with same [ɛ] with a hard /l/. There is an occurrence of [e] in «лечь» [lʲet͡ɕ]^ⓘ, but this «CʲV́Cʲ» case is the only one to comply with the text: «After soft consonants (but not before), it ^/e/ is a mid vowel [ɛ̝] …, while a following soft consonant raises it to close-mid [e]». Pairwise example for «же́ст» [ʐɛst]^ⓘ is «Же́ня» [ˈʐɛnʲə]^ⓘ.
2. What is the difference in /e/ for «CʲV·», «CʲV(·)C» and «CʲV(·)Cʲ» unstressed cases? «Море» is [ˈmorʲe] in Wiktionary, and I assume it's better than [ˈmorʲɛ̝], since it shows „unfinished iking“, e.g. raising of unstressed /e/, but not all the way to [ɪ]. Surprisingly, this seems to happen even with a following «C» («море Лаптевых» = [ˈmorʲe ˈlaptʲɪvɨx]), so «CʲV·(C)» is one case, and «CʲVC» is another. But I'm not sure if unstressed «CʲV·Cʲ» is [e] or [ɪ].
3. Word-initial unstressed «э» can be anything: [ɪ̈] as in «эта́п» [ɨˈtap]^ⓘ or if «C·V», [ɪ] if «Cʲ·V», and (probably) [ɛ̝] in „missing [j]“ cases like «широ́кий экра́н» („wide screen“), which sounds almost like «широ́кие кра́ны» („wide cranes“; sans last vowel). Unfortunately, I can't find any audio examples for later 2 cases. «Cʲ·⟨э́⟩C» does not differ from mid-word case «Cʲ⟨э́⟩C», but I can't say for «Cʲ·⟨е́⟩Cʲ».

Tacit Murky (talk) 03:03, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

In the recordings of цель and це́лый, the first е is definitely raised and the second is not; the second sounds open-mid, while the first is probably mid (and perhaps a bit retracted). This is an easy distinction for me to hear, because I think I have a close-mid vowel in FACE, an open-mid or near-open vowel in DRESS, and a mid vowel in KIT (referring to Wells's lexical sets). And the vowel of сюже́т sounds fronted, much like my vowel in GOOSE.

I like how your version of the table omits /o/ in unstressed CʲV; I have no idea which words unstressed /Cʲo/ is supposed to occur in... — Eru·tuon 03:53, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

Oh, duh. Unstressed /Cʲo/ probably means що, чо. So perhaps it should be added back? — Eru·tuon 04:02, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

I agree with you for this particular pronounce of «цель». Second example — Же́ня [ˈʐɛnʲə]^ⓘ — is with other voice actor. It doesn't sound that raised.

Yes, you are right. There is a rare set of Russian words with legal combination of «чо» and «що» (that sound just like «чё»-«щё»): чо́кнутый [ˈt͡ɕɵknʊtɨɪ̯], чо́порный [ˈt͡ɕɵpərnɨɪ̯], трущо́ба [trʊˈɕːɵbə]. Much more frequent are endings like -ой and -ом (for oblique cases), attached directly to roots, ending with ч: лучо́м, мочо́й. Or many words with diminutive suffixes «-ьо́к-» and «-ьо́нок-», that cause palatalization and lenition of root's last |k| morphoneme to /t͡ɕ/: бачо́к [bɐˈt͡ɕɵk]. Would you believe — they are all stressed. There seem to be just one more-or-less frequent counterexample: Йошкар-Ола́ ([jɵʂˌkar.ɐˈla] or [(j)ɪʂˌkar.ɐˈla]), capital of Mari El Republic in Russia; that name, of course, is not Slavic. I guess, most cases above still fall for «typical» letter use, so I changed a note for that. Thanks. Tacit Murky (talk) 04:55, 19 September 2016 (UTC)

I think that — «When a soft consonant or /j/ precedes, both /o/ and /a/ merge with /i/… /o/ is written as ⟨e⟩ in these positions.» — is wrong twice: /o/ is never occurring in unstressed syllables (except very rare cases such as «Йошкар-Ола́») and it's never ⟨e⟩. Word «жена́» ('wife') can't have «underlying /o/»; it can be phonetically respelled as «жэна́» or «жына́» (with „yking“ used as for most dialects), but not «жона́». M-school analysis declares here ⟨e⟩ letter, |e| morphoneme, /e/ or /ɨ/ phonemes and some allophones (for various dialects). SP-school (for standard pronounce) declares ⟨e⟩ letter, /e/ phoneme and [ɪ̈] allophone for «CV(·)(C)» case. Tacit Murky (talk) 01:26, 24 September 2016 (UTC)

That's a bit tautological. If the argument is that /o/ becomes identical to /e/ in those contexts and is even spelled ⟨e⟩, then you can't really use phonetic or orthographic evidence to contradict it. That statement comes from an old source that some in this conversation have presumed is really talking about morphophonology, though I'm not sure what the basis for that interpretation is. Either way, I suspect that this statement depends on a particular phonological analysis. More recent sources would be helpful in clarifying the issue. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 05:17, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Then we've caught ourselves in a trap, because there will be no such source to disprove non-existent feature of „unstressed /o/“ (save for «Йошкар-Ола́», which can also be pronounced with /ji-/ for some speakers). Rather we should look for sources that say «When a soft consonant precedes /o/, /o/ is always stressed». That's correct even for French loans like «медальо́н, батальо́н, бульо́н» (should be «-ьён» everywhere). BTW, there is no reason now to distinguish between «soft consonant or /j/», because since 1970-s rusists are not considering /j/ as a semivowel, but a normal consonant (onе of 3 always-soft ones). There can be only one point of confusion here: because of „unstable“ nature of that most recently added latter, sometimes dots above Ёё are not printed/displayed, so reader should know, whether it is orthographically «е» or «ё». Full modern rules for spelling Ёё in a text are quite complex and, probably, should be mentioned here (can be taken from much more detailed Russian WP-article). Tacit Murky (talk) 19:58, 25 September 2016 (UTC)

Unfortunately, the problem with that kind of search leads to confirmation bias. A quick look through for "Russian phonology" in Google Scholar turns up a number of sources that confirm the analysis given in this article.

There's this source from 2000 that says:

Russian has a vowel-reduction process affecting non-high vowels. The facts are well known (see, for example, Avanesov 1968 and Jones 1923): e, o and a reduce to [i] in syllables with a soft onset (ikanie) and to a elsewhere (akanie)

(One example he gives is село ('village'), which is сёла in the nominative plural).

Then there's this source from 2015 that gives a diagram that clearly shows /o/ being reduced to /i/ and gives the example pair of слёз ('tears' gen.pl) and слезоточивый (a type of tear gas).

In both cases, it's clear that this analysis is commonly accepted by phonologists working with Russian. This was just a cursory glance at sources, but I strongly suspect further inquiry will lead to no other findings. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 02:45, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

I'm looking now on that 1st source by Jerzy Rubach. Unfortunately, it's full of gross mistakes, and rarely cite Russian source newer than Avanesov (1968). List (1) takes half of page 1 (39) and contains at least 6 errors:

1. a), b) and c) are cases of consonant mutation (itself a case of Sandhi) or alternation, not palatalization (a case of assimilation); Russian term for this is «чередование согласных»;
2. moreover, c) is not even iotation (there is no /j/ in /tɕ͡/);
3. «ść» is outdated translation of «щ»;
4. «ruć+en'k+a» is wrong — there is «ё» in original, so it should be «ruć+on'k+a»;
5. inability to distinguish «ц/тс» with «ts» and (probably) «э/е» from (Latin) «e»;
6. «xvost+e» should be called prepositional, not locative, as they have same endings for this noun.

Rubach even manage to mistype Avanesov as Avensov on page 7 (45). Basically, authority of this scholar is very disputable even by this surface analysis (at least on this topic).

Now, the case of /o/: «s'ól+a „villages“ — s'ol+ó [s'iló] „village“»; with modern notation it should be: «сёла ← село́» /sʲóla ← sʲeló/ ['sʲolə ← sʲɪ'lo] (assuming „iking“). There is no way to interpret morphological process as phonetic: «е» in «сел» root (as in many other cases) morphs to «ё» when gaining stress; reverse process is also widely known (ёж — ежа́; that example is also given wrong as «jož+­á»). Both cases are explicitly denoted orthographically (as long as one put all the dots above ё, where is occurs) and phonemically (by /e↔o/ change). Writing „s'oló“ for «село́» is wrong for both transliteration and phonemic translation. In a table above it's /e/ (for ⟨е⟩) in «CʲVC» unstressed case. Rubach seems to use own awkward notation to replace Cyrillic. It's not useful as a source.

Effect of „aking“ (akanie) is only applicable to unstressed /о/ (if using SP-school approach, as in our table), which orthographically can only be «о», not «ё». Also I should note, that gaining stress doesn't necessary produce «ё» from «е»; so there is «лёгкий» (lightweight ~ easy, adj.), «ле́гче» (easier; not «*лёгче») and «легко́» (easy).

Then, Jaye Padgett in 2nd source writes: [slʲos] «tears» (gen.pl.) — [slʲizətɐ'tʃivˠij] «tear-gas» (adj.). Well, modern analysis from WT gives [s⁽ʲ⁾lʲɵs] — [s⁽ʲ⁾lʲɪzətɐˈt͡ɕivɨj]. (Missing [ɨ] in Padgett's work is a severe mistake.) But who says there was /o/? «Слеза́» has |e| and /e/, «слёзы» has |о| and /о/. It's not the only way vowels are morphed in Russian roots; here's a case for |о↔а| for «to ask» (roots are italicized): спроси́ть (perf.) — спра́шивать (imp.); «с↔ш» change in is another lenition case. |о↔а| and |e↔o| is not a phonetic effect. Padgett is also wrong by drawing arrows (on his diagrams) from morphemes to other morphemes (not allophones) when showing morphophonological effect. That is a wrong notation, so he makes wrong conclusions.

Tacit Murky (talk) 07:25, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

We should go to all lengths to find really rare (all non-Slavic) cases of actual unstressed «ё» (not even «йо», as in Йошкар-Ола). There is a mineral Goethite, named after famous German poet (and owner of mineral collection) Johann Goethe. In Russian his name preserve stress and even (partially) spelling with «-е»: Гёте ['gʲɵtɛ]. Mineral-forming suffix «-и́т» (-ite) in Russian is always stressed. So goethite is called гёти́т [ɡʲɵˈtʲit] (audio on Forvo). As you can hear, „iking“ is not applied to this case.

Other, even more rare examples include some Japanese names and words, properly translated in Russian with Polivanov's system: Ёсито́си А́бэ (Yoshitoshi ABe), Минамо́то-но Ёрито́мо (Minamoto no Yoritomo), сёгу́н + сёгуна́т (shogun + shogunate, Forvo's examples). More with Hungarian names and words: Пал Э́рдёш (Paul Erdős), Ша́ндор Пе́тёфи (Sándor Petőfi). Recently, «Пёрл-Ха́рбор» (Pearl-Harbor) is getting more occasional. But that's as far as we can go; all these cases are by no means „typical“.

I should remind above-mentioned definition of morphoneme (morphophoneme): a class of phonemes (rarely — of phoneme clusters), alternating in allomorphs under the influence of grammatical context of current morpheme. So alternations like |о↔а| and |e↔o| are examples of allomorphism in Russian, that's why they are not a direct subject for any morphophonological effect like vowel reduction. (Curiously, proponents of M-school should have much better understanding of this.) Tacit Murky (talk) 09:15, 26 September 2016 (UTC)

Q. "There is no way to interpret morphological process as phonetic." We've got three authors who use morphological alternations to indicate vowel allophony. Morphological alternations are quite typical in showing this sort of thing. There are certainly cases where an alternation is morphophonological, but we've got three sources who say otherwise for for this particular feature of Russian. Maybe your analysis of what is and is not phonology is not quite accurate. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 03:03, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

Maybe, but do you know any non-Russian linguists who describe Russian, actively using terms like «morpho(pho)neme» and «allomorph»? OTOH, most Russian scholars agree, that Russian spelling is based on morphological patterns. Quoting philologist Vladimir Pakhomov, chief editor of Gramota.ru: «96% of Russian word spellings are based on a single principle — main one for Russian orthography. It's morphological principle: … every morpheme … spells the same way despite different pronounce in various words. So, we say „ду[п]“ and „ду[б]ы“, but always spell this root as „дуб“.» Tacit Murky (talk) 05:31, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

Wait, what? There are plenty of examples of morphemes (including root morphemes) being spelled differently. I know this and I don't even speak Russian. The variance you're talking about is a phonological process that leads to different allophones. That's not morphology. It's not even morphophonology. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 17:19, 27 September 2016 (UTC)

It's not me :) Pakhomov's article was made for very wide and unprepared audience, so he oversimplified it a bit. Of course, there are many allomorphs. Like nominal spelling for «воз-» prefix has 3 more options: вос-, вз-, вс- (i.e. ±voicing and ±elision) — восход, всход, возыметь, взимать. For all these cases we know what to write «here» and [here]. But what about |here| and /here/? According to Rubach, we should still write /o/ even where it's none. Absurd… Tacit Murky (talk) 04:56, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

♦Do we have a source that says: stressed /á/ is [ä], not [a]? I thought, it's [ä] for «CʲV́» and [a] for «CV́» or «·V́». Except this uncited note here: «[ɑ] appears between a hard consonant (or a pause) and /l/», but that's not a case for letter's name. I just undid someone's attempt to change that for Russian alphabet. Tacit Murky (talk) 22:01, 28 September 2016 (UTC)

Symbols for the near-close central vowels

I vote to replace all of ɨ̞ to ɪ̈ and ʉ̞ to ʊ̈ (in both table and text). That'll make it consistent with official IPA chart, where symbols with diacritic modifiers are not allowed. Tacit Murky (talk) 23:41, 13 September 2016 (UTC)

That looks better to me: the centralization diacritic is more legible than the downtack. — Eru·tuon 00:46, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Both sets have diacritics, but go ahead if you really want to. The downtack sometimes looks not-so-clearly. Mr KEBAB (talk) 04:42, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

My preference is for keeping the current diacritics. There should be a much clearer (and valid) rationale to change what is otherwise an equivalent diacritic. Moreover, I'm not sure I've seen anything other than the current diacritics in linguistic literature on Russian. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 16:12, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Well, I just changed it, so we can compare to the previous version. Tacit Murky (talk) 17:48, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

Consonants: (attempt to) revise

(Moved here from a section above:)

I looked thru other examples from Jones & Ward (of 1969), and we really need to do something about them — some are correct, some outdated and some seem to be illiterate pronounce mistakes or speech defects. Like notes [92-94]. Tacit Murky (talk) 20:36, 14 September 2016 (UTC)

About the notes [92-94]: sorry, you're almost completely wrong. First off, let's analyze the recordings:

• : velarized, transcription correct
• : velarized with a labial offglide (a short [w]), transcription correct
• : The nasal is clearly palatalized [nʲ], but the labialization is rather weak, the /o/ is also not very central and perhaps could be better transcribed [ɔ̈] (but we don't need such a detailed transcription there). When it comes to the offglide, palatalized (denti-)alveolar and alveolo-palatal nasals always (well, AFAIK) have a short [j̆] offglide when they occur before vowels. A completely narrow transcription would be something like [nʲʷj̆ʷɔ̈s], with, again, [ʷ] denoting a weak labialization (for which IPA provides no separate symbol). Again, we don't need such a narrow transcription in the article (it's just my OR interpretation anyway, and WP is not my personal blog).

Now on to the sources:

• See the first note in the Consonants section.
• Yanushevskaya & Bunčić (2015) state, that:

1. All hard consonants are velarized (page 222)
2. Consonants and consonant clusters are labialized before /o, u/ (page 224)
3. The vowel /o/ is phonetically a diphthong [ʊ̯o] or a triphthong [ʊ̯ɔʌ̯], with lip rounding being the strongest at the beginning and weakest at the end (page 225).

Mr KEBAB (talk) 06:07, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Reply:

• I don't mind about default velarization.
• I'd agree with (usually weak and unnecessary) labial offglide in «бок», «мок» or «мог», if you confirm it's existence in English «mock».
• «Short [j̆] offglide … before vowels» sounds more like [ĭ], that's why it's indistinguishable with an actual /i/ (here's «никогда́»: [nʲɪkɐɡˈda]^ⓘ). Moreover, it's probably nonexistent before never-labialized /a, e/: «гуля́ть» [ɡʊˈlʲætʲ]^ⓘ and «ле́гче» [ˈlʲext͡ɕe]^ⓘ.
• /o/ can be polyphthonged with [ʊ̯] after bilabials /p, b, m/. But elsewhere it doesn't makes sense; articulation of lips and tongue can be independent in many cases.

Some more snips:

• Above, in same «Consonants» section — «/j/ may be dropped: аист [ˈa.ɪst] ('stork')»; wrong example: «и» is non-iotted by default (only as «ьи» and never-occurring «ъи»). 2nd example is correct, but there's more with «V/e/» (especially in relaxed pronounce, but less so in careful one); moreover, second vowel of a fluent pair is also non-iotted: see «ле́тняя», «ле́тнее», «ле́тнюю»; this may be less noticeable, when first vowel is stressed, as in «скоре́е» [skɐˈrʲeʲe].
• Can you hear devoiced [r̥] for Ward's note [77]?
• Paragraph above (about /x/→[ɣ]) needs an example of similar effect: бухгалтер (with 3 pronounces).
• An example in «Voicing» section is incorrect. Phrase «граф болеет» doesn't show any exceptions: /f/ is supposed to be hard and it is.
• Classic example for assimilative palatalization (for correspondent section) is «есть» [jesʲtʲ]^ⓘ. /nʲ/ is also softing some preceding consonants: «пе́сня» [ˈpʲesʲnʲə]^ⓘ. However, this only happens in some «CC» combinations. Here's a Russian source (philology faculty of Moscow State University): assimilative palatalization , long (double) consonants and unpronounced consonants (in a table). (Note, that M-school use «Orthoepy» term widely.)

Tacit Murky (talk) 23:07, 15 September 2016 (UTC), updated 02:31, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

@Tacit Murky: I don't understand what you say about про́сьба. It does show voicing assimilation: voiceless /sʲ/ changes to voiced /zʲ/ by assimilation with voiced /b/. You seem to be confusing palatalization and voicing assimilation, which are assimilations relating to two different phonological features: palatalization (hard or soft) and voicing (voiceless or voiced). — Eru·tuon 01:18, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

Oh, shame, thanks. Yes, that's a blooper — I was thinking about assimilative palatalization with some examples given… I'll correct myself. Tacit Murky (talk) 02:30, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

So we have the same situation as on Help talk:IPA for Cantonese#Mistakes?. You don't fully understand the IPA and phonetic terminology in English. I don't mean to sound offensive, but I think the best solution to this is that you take a break, read a decent book on phonetics (e.g. "Understanding Phonetics" by P. Ashby (2011) or "Practical Phonetics and Phonology" by B. Collins & I. Mees (2013), or both, I think you can find both of them online) and then come back. You're mixing up basic concepts (assimilative palatalization vs. voicing, or labial offglide vs. palatal offglide (should be 'onglide' by the way, my bad)) as well as basic symbols (extra-short [j] ([j̆]) vs. extra-short [i] ([ĭ])), and that's a sign that you aren't yet ready to fully understand what reliable sources that use IPA say. Sorry man, someone had to say this. I care for the quality of WP articles.

We have reliable sources and we go with what they say. There's hard research behind this, Yanushevskaya & Bunčić (2015 - published one year ago!) was published in JIPA, one of the most important linguistic journals in the world. You'd expect them to know what they're talking about, no?

• What do you mean by saying that the labial offglide is "usually weak and unnecessary"? If you want to make up your own standard of speech, please create a blog and describe it there. We're describing real standard Russian. No, I don't confirm its existence in any variety of standard English, though a similar sound can be commonly heard in Icelandic as a long allophone of /ɔ/. Why are you going off topic?
• Short [j̆] offglide (my mistake - should be 'onglide') … before vowels» sounds more like [ĭ] - no, it's [j̆], as it's a onglide (a short approximant). [ĭ] describes a short vowel.
• that's why it's indistinguishable with an actual /i/ (here's «никогда́»: [nʲɪkɐɡˈda]^ⓘ). No, [j̆] appears as a natural consequence of releasing [nʲ] (or any other palatalized sound) into a vowel. Sometimes it's audible, sometimes it's not (as before /i/).
• Moreover, it's probably nonexistent before never-labialized /a, e/: «гуля́ть» [ɡʊˈlʲætʲ]^ⓘ and «ле́гче» [ˈlʲext͡ɕe]^ⓘ. We're not talking about the labial onglide, but the palatal onglide. Sorry, you're wrong again - both recordings contain a short [j̆], a transitional sound between [lʲ] and the following vowel.
• /o/ can be polyphthonged with [ʊ̯] after bilabials /p, b, m/. But elsewhere it doesn't makes sense; articulation of lips and tongue can be independent in many cases. Again, you're wrong - the source is saying that the diphthongization occurs "particularly when occurring word-initially or word-finally under the stress". I can confirm that 'молоко' is indeed pronounced [məɫ̪ɐˈkʊ̯o] or even [məɫ̪ɐˈkʊ̯ɔʌ̯] (I used a narrow transcription in both cases), this can be heard on Forvo (though not on all recordings).
• An example in «Voicing» section is incorrect. Phrase «граф болеет» doesn't show any exceptions: /f/ is supposed to be hard and it is. This is not about /f/ being hard or soft, but voiceless.

Mr KEBAB (talk) 08:37, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

It's strange, that, while pointing to my mistakes, you are misinterpretating my own points (or did I explained them so bad?). I don't argue with all the sources, but only with old ones like Ward (and others before ~1990), suspecting them of at least outdated pronounces as you say, that must be corrected with newer ones. Because: 1) there is nothing wrong with my Russian or being able to hear and distinguish sounds; 2) all phonetics for all languages are based on assumption of same oral anatomy of all the (healthy) people, so effects like labialization can be predicted comparatively. That is why it's strange to me that some sound appears as a natural consequence, but for another one you don't confirm its existence in any variety of standard English, despite that «мок» and «mock» are supposed to be pronounced very much alike (generally). As if English speakers have alien oral anatomy. Hm?

• it's [j̆], as it's a onglide (a short approximant). [ĭ] describes a short vowel — correct, and that's what I meant, it's not a mistake. That is to say, that next vowel is slightly diphtongized with added [ĭ] instead of preceding consonant glides on [j̆]. At least that's what I hear. Perhaps, there is a difference in speed: Russian careful pronounce may greatly differ with fluent casual one (example of «бухгалтер» above is very telling). Are you sure you know which one was used in every one of those sources? So, «usually weak» means «even if it's there — you wouldn't hear it, unless you are a lingusist and/or concentrating on a sound record in a loop»; and «unnecessary» — «in careful slow speech it's likely absent». Yes, these statements are not backed up by sources, but is there anything wrong with them?
• We're not talking about the labial onglide, but the palatal onglide — you've got me wrong here again, but that was my mistake with 2 paragraphs mixing up: I was talking about [ʷ] only in that phrase. You are correct for [j̆], but [ʷ] is missing in those words.
• diphthongization occurs "particularly when occurring word-initially or word-finally under the stress" — I may still argue about exceptions. Labialization (and height/closeness) in Russian may be relative; difference in stressed and unstressed «о» is sometimes weak and derived comparatively with preceding vowel and by slightly longer voicing of a stressed one: топо́р [tɐˈpor]^ⓘ (slight closing) and по́лный [ˈpolnɨj]^ⓘ (no preceding vowel, closeness is absolute) may sound with different «ó»'s (thou, not necessary in those recordings). Since this appear to be happening for closing, but not opening, we can find an example of the «ó» with preceding syllable around even more closed and labialized /u/: уро́к [ʊˈrok]^ⓘ. We can't ask Yanushevskaya & Bunčić, but is it [ʊˈrʊ̯ɔ(ʌ)k] to you?
• I admit, example with «граф болеет» is correct after all. Any comments on other points? MSU's professors on their site usually cite other M-school scholars like Зализняк.

Tacit Murky (talk) 21:05, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

@Tacit Murky: Do you mean that you were talking about labialization in гуля́ть and ле́гче? Why (and where) would these words have labialization according to the article? The article says labialization occurs after /o u/, not after /a e/. — Eru·tuon 21:34, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

No, these /l/'s are palatalized. I agree with article statement, but I was confused with @Mr KEBAB:'s «when they occur before [all?!] vowels», misreading start of that phrase (which is about [j̆]). It's all clear, but we should've used more bullets • ♦ or paragraphs to separate things. Tacit Murky (talk) 22:07, 16 September 2016 (UTC)

2) all phonetics for all languages are based on assumption of same oral anatomy of all the (healthy) people, so effects like labialization can be predicted comparatively. That is why it's strange to me that some sound appears as a natural consequence, but for another one you don't confirm its existence in any variety of standard English, despite that «мок» and «mock» are supposed to be pronounced very much alike (generally). As if English speakers have alien oral anatomy. Hm?

I can't even... If you're not trolling, then you really, really need to read a decent book on phonetics. Let's just end our discussion here, it's become pointless. Mr KEBAB (talk) 08:48, 17 September 2016 (UTC)

Concerning ы

I'm having trouble understanding how ы can be considered ɨ (IPA) or ɪ̈ (IPA), regardless of stress. It sounds a lot closer to the back vowels, and has a diphthong in it I believe. Can someone enlighten me as to why this letter is categorized with those vowel sounds? It's also a damn challenge to pronounce; I've been trying for a long time and I still can't tell if I'm saying it right in most words. Pariah24 ┃ ☏ 20:58, 29 October 2016 (UTC)

It kind of depends on the context. After labial consonants, that's definitely the case. Jaye Padgett has made the case (cited in the article) that velarization of consonants is very strong before ы and that can lead to the perception of a more central vowel, rather than a diphthong. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 17:05, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

No wonder non-Slavic people are having trouble of pronouncing actual eastern Slavic «ы». Even IPA examples for [ɨ] and [ɪ̈] are not precise. They don't represent true vowel in . Tacit Murky (talk) 18:21, 30 October 2016 (UTC)

Phonemicity of soft velar consonants (ɡʲ, kʲ, xʲ)

Looks like Padgett's example is outdated or not working for all dialects. Word-final /ɡ, k, x/ may be softened be a following /i/ (which is the only combination for such a case, since other «soft vowels» are iotted by default). Clip [k ‿ɨvanu]^ⓘ is mislabeled and should be either [k·ɨvɑnʊ] (as Padgett suggests, still used in rural speak), [k·ʔivɑnʊ] (as pronounced here with a rare ʔ in Russian) or [kʲ·ivɑnʊ] (as most Russian citizens are saying now). Same for other two sounds. However, it is correct to say «Hard variants occur (almost) everywhere else», except for some given words. Also, there are no native Slavic words with word-final /ɡʲ, kʲ, xʲ/. Tacit Murky (talk) 19:58, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Phonemicity of soft velar consonants (ɡʲ, kʲ, xʲ)

Looks like Padgett's example is outdated or not working for all dialects. Word-final /ɡ, k, x/ may be softened be a following /i/ (which is the only combination for such a case, since other «soft vowels» are iotted by default). Clip [k ‿ɨvanu]^ⓘ is mislabeled and should be either [k·ɨvɑnʊ] (as Padgett suggests, still used in rural speak), [k·ʔivɑnʊ] (as pronounced here with a rare ʔ in Russian) or [kʲ·ivɑnʊ] (as most Russian citizens are saying now). Same for other two sounds. However, it is correct to say «Hard variants occur (almost) everywhere else», except for some given words. Also, there are no native Slavic words with word-final /ɡʲ, kʲ, xʲ/. Tacit Murky (talk) 19:58, 1 November 2016 (UTC)

Phonemic notation

This page doesn't give any examples of phonemic notation for individual words or what it would look like for unstressed vowels in particular. I added the following statement, but that is about as far as the article goes in discussing phonemic transcriptions:

Russian has five or six vowels in stressed syllables, /a e i o u/ and in some analyses /ɨ/, but only two or three vowels in unstressed syllables: /a i u/ (or /a ɨ u/) after hard consonants and /i u/ after soft ones.

I have added phonemic notation to History of the Russian language (§ The yo vowel) and to Vowel reduction in Russian, and have assumed that unstressed [ɐ] and [ə] are to be identified as /a/, rather than /e/ or /o/, as they apparently contrast with unstressed vowels that can be clearly identified as either /e/ or /o/, as in ви́део [ˈvʲidʲɪo] (= /ˈvʲidio/?), де́лаете [ˈdʲelə(j)ɪtʲe] (= /ˈdʲelajite/?), се́рдце [ˈsʲert͡sə] (= /ˈsʲert͡sa/?). But these transcriptions are my guesses based on reading this article and looking at the automatically generated transcriptions on Wiktionary, so they may not agree with actual sources.

(It occurs to me that the quoted statement from the article isn't quite accurate in view of the examples де́лаете and ви́део with unstressed /e o/, so it should be reworded.)

Thinking of unstressed vowels in terms of phonemes has helped me to understand Russian pronunciation, so I think it would be worth including in the article. — Eru·tuon 19:08, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

@Erutuon: The JIPA article on Russian would write /ˈvʲidʲio, ˈdʲelajitʲe, ˈsʲert͡sa/. This is far more reasonable than identifying vowel phonemes based on spelling. Some scholars would write /ˈvʲidʲɪo, ˈdʲelɐjɪtʲe, ˈsʲert͡sɐ/, as they identify a weak vowel (sub)system consisting of /ɪ, (ᵻ), ʊ, ɐ/, much like /i, u, ə/ in English. This is also fine. Mr KEBAB (talk) 19:30, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

@Mr KEBAB: Thank you! I will begin adding phonemic transcriptions where appropriate, then. — Eru·tuon 20:20, 9 July 2017 (UTC)

About /o/ vs. |o| for the supposed /o/-/i/ merging in the «Unstressed vowels» example: since we are talking about phonemes, it should not be right to say that morphophoneme |o| merges with phoneme /i/ or with morphophoneme |i|. This article says: «Phonemic merger is a loss of distinction between phonemes. Occasionally, the term "reduction" refers to phonemic merger. It is not to be confused with the meaning of the word "reduction" in phonetics, such as vowel reduction, but phonetic changes may contribute to phonemic mergers.» So, are we talking in that section about phonetic "vowel reduction" (as it says in the "Main article" link) or phonemic "reduction = merger"? AFAIK, the main reason for introducing morphophonemes in Moscow school theory is that they tend to be stable across the paradigm (unlike phonemes and allophones). — Tacit Murky (talk) 07:55, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

Ahh, you're right. Saying that a morphophoneme merges with a phoneme is a confusion in categories (much like saying that a phoneme merges with an allophone). The explanatory note that I added needs to be reworded.

However, the statements like /e/ merges with /i/ might also need to be reworded. It seems potentially misleading. It claims that /e/ in unstressed position is a (current?) phoneme and yet at the same time merges with /i/. In that case, how do you transcribe this merged unstressed /e/: as /e/ or as /i/? It would be more accurate to rephrase it in terms of morphophonemes or of historical sound change: something like, |e| is generally pronounced as /i/, or historical /e/ has merged with /i/. — Eru·tuon 19:33, 11 July 2017 (UTC)

Spelling difficulties generally require to know the paradigm of the word in question in order to find at least one occurrence, where questionable vowel is stressed — in most of these cases it's written phonetically. Is it «леве́е» („leftwards“, correct) or «ливе́е» (as pronounced with reduction /e/ to /i/) — see «ле́вый» („left“). However, this rule doesn't take into account „running vowels“ (беглые гласные) in roots (an example of allomorphs). Like: лить („to poor liquid“, inf.), лил (past cont.), лей! (imp.); in all cases vowel is stressed and spelled phonetically, but the imperative has «ле» allomorph replaced main «ли». I'm not sure how these words are analyzed in Moscow school now, since some linguists tend to replace phonemic analysis with morphophonemic one. Even more tricky, «Russian spelling, which is quite phonemic in practice, is a mix of the morphological and phonetic principles, with a few etymological or historic forms, and occasional grammatical differentiation» (from here). However, I can's find any examples in Russian, where vowel reduction (a phonetic effect) is expressed in orthography. Perhaps, long standing dispute about «заяц» spelling is one. — Tacit Murky (talk) 09:04, 12 July 2017 (UTC)

I think an example of reduction influencing spelling is паро́м. I can't remember where I read about it, but it comes from Proto-Slavic *pormъ, so the expected spelling would be *поро́м. — Eru·tuon 00:55, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

This example (and some others) shows vowel change over the entire paradigm. But I was talking about cases, where both spellings of the root are still used — looks like there are none. Otherwise it would be harder to distinguish between words like пора́ («it's time to»), по́ра («pore») and па́ра («pair» or Gen. for пар, «steam»). Tacit Murky (talk) 09:56, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

@Tacit Murky: Yes, that's why if Russian orthography was finally to be reformed, introducing mandatory stress marks (as in Greek) could be a good idea, but I'm not sure how many truly minimal pairs there are (i.e. you can't immediately figure out from context what is meant). Mr KEBAB (talk) 10:24, 15 July 2017 (UTC)

No, that is unnecessary. Current rules for stress marking are overlapping rules for explicitly marking dots above «ё»: it's obligatory in texts for studies (dictionaries, manuals, textbooks); for distinguishing minimal pairs (not so many of them); to mark correct pronounce of some rare words (incl. names, loans) and frequently misaccented words. This can't be solid reason to reform anything :) Tacit Murky (talk) 14:38, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

@Tacit Murky: You got that the other way around. I said the opposite of what you understood. Mr KEBAB (talk) 16:54, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

I'm saying that «mandatory stress marks» is a bad idea, even if other reforms are going to happen. Tacit Murky (talk) 17:50, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

@Tacit Murky: That may be true, I'm not going to argue. Mr KEBAB (talk) 17:51, 16 July 2017 (UTC)

Word-final /e/

Avanesov (p. 124) literary writes for жители, (о) жителе, жителя

[жы́т’ьл’и], [ʌ-жы́т’ьл’и^e], [жы́т’ьл’ъ]

Which now are transcribed

[ˈʐɨtʲɪlʲɪ], [(o) ˈʐɨtʲɪlʲɛ], [ˈʐɨtʲɪlʲə]

First of all, the [o] part is not correct, must be [ɐ] (thus the sound file with affected unreal [o] is also not correct).

Second, how should we write [и^e]? I have little idea how to represent this with the IPA but it's certainly not [ɛ].--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 23:08, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

See big tables here. Original source had «[ɪ] ([и^e])» and «[ɪ] ([ь])». They couldn't decide as well. Tacit Murky (talk) 23:27, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

Probably [i̞] or [ɪ̟]? The difference becomes less evident, though. And what about [э^и] in ekanye?--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 23:56, 1 August 2017 (UTC)

Where did you find [э^и] here? Tacit Murky (talk) 03:21, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Why did I have to look there? A lot of authors write [э^и] (e.g. Panov, etc.). What is your objection?--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 19:37, 2 August 2017 (UTC)

Citations from 1962

Right here the citation is from 1962. That certainly does not reflect modern, pedagogical nor generative opinions.

"In the mid-twentieth century, a small number of reductionist approaches made by structuralists[61] put forth that palatalized consonants occur as the result of a phonological processes involving /j/ (or palatalization as a phoneme in itself), so that there were no underlying palatalized consonants.[62] Despite such proposals, linguists have long agreed that the underlying structure of Russian is closer to that of its acoustic properties, namely that soft consonants are separate phonemes in their own right.[63]" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.57.162.12 (talk) 20:56, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

Feel free to add more recent academic sources. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 22:53, 13 February 2018 (UTC)

New vowel chart

I've finally added a new vowel chart. This must resolve many disputable issues.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 21:07, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, it'll be useful. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 23:17, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

ɵ

What is the source transcribing /o/ after a soft consonant with [ɵ]? Jones & Ward write "ö" (i.e. [ɵ]) only between two soft consonants, saying this explicitly (p.64, §12.165). So this is hardly different from the context of [æ] and [ʉ].--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 20:10, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes, that was my point of keeping that earlier fix for the «Help:IPA/Russian» article. Cf. «тётя» vs «тётка». Because we don't have half-centralized vowels, the /CʲoC/ case should be much like the general /Co/, unlike /CʲoCʲ/. Tacit Murky (talk) 22:37, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm not a source, but the vowel in ёж^ⓘ is definitely not a back one. If it's not fully central, then at least it's noticeably centralized. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 22:44, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

It's also not Crosswhite (2000), which doesn't even discuss the topic. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 22:53, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Looking in the «Crosswhite's (2000) article on p. 167 (as referenced here along with Jones & Ward), I see no mention of centralizing there, only fronting: «One complicating factor is that the unstressed back rounded vowel /u/ does not undergo fronting when preceded by a palatalized consonant, but the unstressed back rounded vowel /o/ does.» Not sure, why we have a link there. Tacit Murky (talk) 23:03, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Yeah, that's failed verification. I've fixed the article accordingly. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 23:09, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

Here we go. Halle (1959) says that "[ö]" (F1 500: F2 1200) "occurs when preceded by a palatalized consonant, or between palatalized consonants" — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 22:59, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

And if this [ö] is „half-centralized“ /o/ (not so much as [ɵ])? Tacit Murky (talk) 23:03, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I understand your question. Do we have an indication that there's a partial centralization in some contexts? If so, I'd still support [ɵ] in those contexts. [ö] is just the symbol used for [ɵ]. The latter symbol didn't exist in the IPA back in 1959. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 23:09, 9 June 2018 (UTC)

There are 2 questions here; yes, probably, there is a partial centralization in /CʲVC/ cases in fluent speech (or as a transient phone in slower one). But symbols must be used for convenience, not undermining clarity. Is it possible to amend an IPA letter with a modifier meaning «somewhat centralized»? Tacit Murky (talk) 03:00, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

@Tacit Murky: How would using ⟨ɵ⟩ this way undermine clarity? You'll still be able see that the consonant following /o/ is hard, and that way you can know that this [ɵ] is probably more back than it is between soft consonants (although... can you reliably distinguish central and centralized back vowels by ear? I'm not sure if I can). It'd be akin to how we use ⟨ɨ, ʉ⟩, which represent fully close vowels in stressed syllables and near-close ones when unstressed. I object to transcribing this allophone of /o/ with anything other than ⟨ɵ⟩ just because it's slightly more back. Just assume the presence of the "retracted" diacritic on ⟨ɵ⟩ as you assume the presence of the "lowered" diacritic on unstressed [ɨ, ʉ]. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 12:30, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

If that's so, we must present a sufficient explanation as to why /o/ is that different from /a/ and /u/: switching to centralized allophone outside of expected /CʲVCʲ/ case. Tacit Murky (talk) 16:06, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

@Tacit Murky: Yes, and we can do it once in this article. There's no need to repeatedly state it in the transcription. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 16:09, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes, it did. If one wants to convey a vowel not completely central as [ɵ] would suggest, or draw attention to the fact that it's a centralized allophone of the phoneme /o/, the choice of [ö] over [ɵ] is a pretty sensible one. Nardog (talk) 04:05, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

The problem is that we don't have a source that says there is a partial centralization and we do have a source that explicitly describes the CʲoC allophone as the same as the CʲoCʲ one. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 21:16, 10 June 2018 (UTC)

I can't access Halle, but according to another very good and newer source (which many have ignored, it even wasn't listed in the bibliography section) /CʲoC/ and /CoCʲ/ are practically identical, while /CʲoCʲ/ is definitely further front than the both. So either we transcribe /CoCʲ/ also with [ɵ] or only /CʲoCʲ/. --Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 21:16, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm fine with using [ɵ] for /CoCʲ/, /CʲoC/, and /CʲoCʲ/. Thanks for finding the source! — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 21:34, 11 June 2018 (UTC)

So «воля» should be [ˈvɵlʲə] with the same vowel as in «вёл»? Hmm, I wouldn't vote for this. We definitely need more symbols to expand the vowel allophony table. Tacit Murky (talk) 01:36, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

What's the problem? It seems to satisfy the linguists who study Russian. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 17:06, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Well, the problem is that it would contradict all other sources (including Wiktionary), where «воля» is [ˈvolʲə]. The only thing «linguists who study Russian» can agree is that /CoCʲ/ and /CʲoC/ are very close (and currently both are [o]), so (in more detailed narrow transcription) these phones can be denoted with the same symbol (half-centralized [something like ö]), but not necessary the same as for /CʲoCʲ/ (more centralized [ɵ]). The difference in the F2 formants is too large. So, I tend to agree with Nardog: «choice of [ö] over [ɵ] is a pretty sensible one». Besides, we already do have Cʲa(C) = [ä] and CʲaCʲ = [æ] (for /a/ = «я»). Perhaps, the same should be with CʲV(C) = [ü] (not [u]), when /u/ = «ю». Tacit Murky (talk) 17:31, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

For the record, I was only commenting on whether it is appropriate to use ⟨ö⟩ in place of ⟨ɵ⟩, not alongside it. I honestly don't know enough about Russian to say we should or shouldn't use both. Nardog (talk) 17:37, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

And I mean „alongside“ — both symbols. Tacit Murky (talk) 17:44, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

Are we talking in this article specifically or on Wikipedia's transcriptions of Russian? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 19:39, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

That's a good question, because there should be no difference. I don't know how hard it is to change all the transcriptions in Wikimedia projects and archives, but this article has all the charts and tables of allophones, so readers may look up here to be ensured about additional symbols. OTOH, we can postulate „local narrowness“ of the phonetic transcriptions, so we can use „half-centralized“ vowels only here — that is more convenient for editors, but not so for readers, who would surely miss this warning about narrowness and will get less precise transcriptions elsewhere. Tacit Murky (talk) 21:55, 12 June 2018 (UTC)

This is a very minor phonetic note, akin to the difference between the mid and open-mid allophones of /e/ that we already gloss over. I don't think the distinction between centralized and half-centralized is something that readers will need in our Wikipedia transcriptions. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 14:02, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Then what about [ä]—[æ] pair, that is already there? Tacit Murky (talk) 19:13, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

We don't use ⟨ä⟩ in our transcriptions of Russian. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 20:32, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

Yet there it is in the allophone table. I assume, there was a source for that? And it's not represented as [æ] «for simplicity». Tacit Murky (talk) 02:46, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

@Tacit Murky: That [ä] is centralized in relation to cardinal [a], not to any Russian vowel. The soft allophone of /a/ isn't centralized but fronted and raised. It's the main allophone of /a/ that is central. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 02:53, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

I agree with your explanation, but: 1) it's not contradicting my original postulate, and 2) there is/are no source(s) mentioned for that table or in your answer. Aren't we suppose do describe main allophones of all 5-6 phonemes? If yes, why [ä] is never mentioned in the text (let alone transcriptions)? Tacit Murky (talk) 22:57, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

@Tacit Murky: It is mentioned. We transcribe it with the plain ⟨a⟩. The sources are Jones & Ward and the JIPA article. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 22:59, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

I must be blind, but «Back vowels» section mentions that «/a/ is retracted to [ɑ̟] before /l/», and that's all. Century-old vowel chart by Jones & Trofimov (1923:55) has [ɑ] and [ʌ] among 4 allophones for /a/. [ä] is only in the table. Tacit Murky (talk) 23:20, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

@Tacit Murky: The vowel chart puts the main allophone of /a/ in the front-central (near-front) position. The vowel chart in the JIPA article (from 2015) puts it exactly in the central position. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 23:30, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Then why don't we explicitly link the allophone table to a particular page of Yanushevskaya & Bunčić article? This source is newer, too. Tacit Murky (talk) 00:06, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

Suggestions

My suggestions:

• Change all the instances of [CʲɵC] here to [CʲöC] or to [Cʲo̟C]. This may further apply to /CoCʲ/ > [CöCʲ].
• Change all the instances of [CʲɵC] in Help:IPA/Russian to [CʲoC] for the sake of simplicity and consistency with [CʲaC] and [CʲuC]. Changing to [CʲæC] and [CʲʉC] would require much more work than changing just one symbol, not to mention this will only complicate our transcription which is aimed at the general public not linguists. We can do it gradually. Fortunately Russian words with ё are not so ubiquitous as with ю and я, so this will not be many articles. A bot may help.

--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 19:59, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

I think we can make it pretty easy on ourselves by not bothering with a threeway distinction between [o], [ɵ], and [ö]. We can say in the relevant portion of the article: "Between soft consonants, /o/ is centralized to [ɵ] as in тётя [ˈtʲɵtʲə]^ⓘ ('aunt'). There is some partial centralization when /o/ is adjacent to only one soft consonant,[source] as in [example] and [example] (hereafter [ö] is represented as ɵ for simplicity)."

I'm not sure if "consistency with [CʲaC] and [CʲuC]" is a good enough reason to use [o] instead of [ɵ] in our Wikipedia transcriptions. I'd be in favor of using the latter. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 20:32, 13 June 2018 (UTC)

I'd rather write the near-back allophone with ⟨ɵ̠⟩. It makes more sense if we want to simplify it to ⟨ɵ⟩. I'm for writing it with ⟨ɵ⟩ by the way. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 12:19, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

You mean this [ɵ̠] must be between [ɔ] and [ɵ]? Tacit Murky (talk) 22:57, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

@Tacit Murky: I don't think I understand the question. I thought its phonetic value was already obvious... or isn't it? Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 23:01, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

Not quite. «Back vowels» section says «/o/ is a mid vowel [o̞], but it can be more open [ɔ] for some speakers». But fully centralized [ɵ] is unified. So, half-centralized [ɵ̠] must be between this and… What exactly? Tacit Murky (talk) 23:20, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

@Tacit Murky: I'm sorry but you seem to have problems comprehending rather basic English. Please re-read my reply to Aeusoes1. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 23:27, 14 June 2018 (UTC)

No, I seem to have problems understanding that «near-back» can be just one phone, even when fully backed vowel is [o̞ ~ ɔ] continuity. I thought your explanation should be more precise about how much open-close this [ɵ̠] is allowed to be (vertical in the chart). Tacit Murky (talk) 00:06, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

@Tacit Murky: Sorry, but you still don't understand my message. All I was talking about was the symbol I thought we should use for this particular allophone. Nothing more. If you want to know the exact phonetic value of the vowel, you have the formant chart for that. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 00:11, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

@Aeusoes1: I do not see how using [ä, ö, ü] in this particular article may cause any difficulties. For most cases this is just a simple "find-replace" operation. Right now [ä] is restricted to the overview table, so I think [ö, ü] may find the same place as well.

@Aeusoes1 and @Kbb2: I do not understand why you so stick to [CʲɵC]. Who, at all, has started to write this way? This must be definitely an early error that unfortunately persisted for so long. You (we) even have had no idea of the source of such a transcription, until you, Aeusoes1, finally located the proper citation (though with quite an arbitrary interpretation that [ö] of the source ultimately have to be converted into [ɵ] here). Your suggestion to write things like hereafter [ö] is represented as ɵ for simplicity is just to further allow the error. /CʲaC/ and /CʲuC/ are fronted as well, so [CʲæC] and [CʲʉC] can - or rather should in this case - be written. There is no simplicty in writing [CʲɵC], while opting for [CʲaC] and [CʲuC]. This is openly self-contradictory. Russian phonology does not work this way! There is nothing unique in /CʲoC/ that would stand it out from /CʲaC/ and /CʲuC/. Simplicity would be hereafter [ö] is represented as [o]. This is what I'm now actually suggesting both here and in Help:IPA.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 20:24, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

I don't have much problem with using it [ä, ö, ü] in this article, I just don't think it's a necessary level of detail for our transcriptions outside of when we talk about that particular feature. Having a three way distinction is definitely too much for our Wikipedia transcriptions. In general, we try to avoid the level of detail that requires using diacritics.

Do other people agree that we should treat the other two vowels the same as we do /o/ in regards to fronting? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 20:46, 15 June 2018 (UTC)

@Aeusoes1:: In general, we try to avoid the level of detail that requires using diacritics. I do not insist on an overly detailed transcription using additional diacritics or different letters for partial fronting. It was actually you who insisted on using a different letter (ɵ) for partially fronted /o/ after a soft consonant. But this is wrong to explicitly indicate semi-fronted /o/, because /a/ and /u/ are not any different in that respect. Either we explicitly transcribe partial fronting of all of them or none. So I've suggested a compromise: we can add a specifying diacritic for partial fronting, but leave the special letters [æ, ɵ, ʉ] for /CʲVCʲ/. I'm OK not to signify partial fronting at all, it may be quite enough to describe it verbally in the relevant sections here. (My former idea to write [æ, ɵ, ʉ] for /CʲVC/ I now disregard.)

Do other people agree... No-no, it is not others or me who must prove anything. It is actually you must prove that fronting of /o/ is special. Because it was actually you who have made this change and provided a wrong citation. I understand it was over 10 years ago, but did not you really remember at all in the context of this discussion? You have practically corrected your own misattribution error that has persisted for all this time. But correcting the citation is not enough, because all the sources I know, both Russian and English, treat and hence transcribe the fronting of /a, o, u/ in a similar way, so from your side it has been actually a misinterpretation at least, and likely an OR. /CʲoC/ is NOT special, I don't even know where you got this wrong idea.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 05:48, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

It seems by your tone that you are disagreeing with me on something, but I can't tell what. You made IMHO a convincing case for treating the three vowels the same and I asked other participants if you convinced them as well and your response is that I have to prove something that I'm not making a case for (and I have no idea what I was thinking with citing Crosswhite. It's possible I meant to cite another source). I think everyone agrees on this matter, including me. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 18:32, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

@Aeusoes1: Sorry for the tone if you felt it discomforting. I thought you asked me to give you a scientific proof from other linguists, that three phonemes behave the same as if your POV is established and my POV is somewhat marginal (whereas it is vice versa: your POV may be vaguely justified by only one source). It does not matter whether other editors agree or disagree with me, as it is not my POV, it is an established scientific fact. [CʲɵC] was an error from the very start and its correction is long overdue.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 09:23, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

I agree with Любослов: /CʲoC/ is not an exception. The newly added formants chart clearly shows differences in /CVC/, /CʲVC/+/CVCʲ/ and /CʲVCʲ/ cases for all vowels. So, an explanation about amount of centralization is necessary, and [ä, ö, ü] are the best symbols to represent medial cases (better than [æ̠, ɵ̠, ʉ̠], which is then simplified to non-amended „central“ symbols). However, outside of the narrow transcription in the «vowel allophone» section, it's still possible to simplify it to 2 symbols (explicitly). Not so sure about «Help:IPA» page, though… Tacit Murky (talk) 07:35, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

@Tacit Murky: What do you mean by "non-amended"? Also, [æ] is a front vowel, not a central one. And just because we'd write something with [ɵ, ʉ] does not mean that the vowel has to necessarily be central, the retracted diacritic can be implied. [ö, ü] can also denote fully central vowels. Sorry, but you seem to be making amateurish mistakes. I think you should read more on phonetic transcription and the cardinal vowel system.

[ä] is a bad symbol for the not-quite-fully-fronted allophone of /a/. It's how we should transcribe the main allophone of /a/ in narrow transcription.

I vote for transcribing the somewhat fronted allophones with ⟨æ̠, ɵ̠, ʉ̠⟩ once in the article and with ⟨æ, ɵ, ʉ⟩ elsewhere, including Help:IPA/Russian. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 07:51, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm fine with Kbb2's proposal. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 13:40, 16 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm against.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 06:05, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

By "non-amended" I mean "not complemented by diacritic symbols". But if «retracted diacritic can be implied», then [ɪ, ɪ̈, ʊ] are all „central“ to some degree, implying possible backed or fronted option; yet these are different symbols used in a table here…

If «[ä] is a bad symbol for the not-quite-fully-fronted allophone», perhaps, some of these [ ä̘ ä̟ a̙ a̠ ] could be better as „a bit centered“ one, while leaving [æ] for „a bit fronted“. If you need both, we have [a̽] (mid-centered). Therefore, I vote for any symbol set with minimal add-on elements. That is: [o̘ u̘] are preferred over [ɵ̠ ʉ̠] (assuming they mean the same sounds). Tacit Murky (talk) 06:27, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

⟨◌̘, ◌̙⟩ are symbols for advanced and retracted tongue root, not for any sort of relative articulation. [a] is a front vowel, so ⟨◌̈⟩ (centralized) and ⟨◌̟⟩ (advanced) cancel each other. ⟨◌̽⟩ (mid-centralized) represents an approximation to [ə] in both horizontal and vertical axes, not "slightly centralized". I regret to say I have to agree with Kbb2 that you may need to familiarize yourself with the IPA chart and with phonetic transcription, if not with phonetics and phonology in general. Nardog (talk) 07:07, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

I didn't say "slightly centralized" for mid-centralized symbol, I said «both» (fronted and centered relative to [a]), that is exactly «an approximation to [ə] in both horizontal and vertical axes». There is no mistake here. Yes, tongue root symbols are ruled out, but what about [ä̟] or [a̽]? This later symbol looks symmetric with [ɯ̽] (relative to schwa in the vowel table) — isn't that what we need to complement [æ]? Tacit Murky (talk) 13:27, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

I'm not sure if I follow you. Are you implying that ⟨ä̟⟩ and ⟨a̽⟩ represent equivalent values? Nardog (talk) 14:27, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

No, [ä̟] is fully open. According to formants, it fits better with /CʲaC/, while /CaCʲ/ is „a bit closed“ [a̽]. But if we must choose only 1 symbol for both cases, what would it be? Kbb2 wants to avoid „too precise“ notations (like [ɪ̈]) for general transcriptions, so I thought [æ̠] is worse than [a̽] in that regard. Tacit Murky (talk) 00:05, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

That, again, is false. That's not what I want to do. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 00:10, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I got it and was just editing my message with this: if simplifying to related symbol is more important, then [æ̠]-[æ] is better. (And I'm not ruling out showing a total of 4 allophones for some stressed vowel (like /a/) at least once.) Tacit Murky (talk) 00:16, 18 June 2018 (UTC)

@Tacit Murky: The prototypical [ɪ, ʊ] are nothing more than schwa-like sounds in-between the cardinals [i, e, ɨ] and [u, o, ʉ], respectively. They're somewhat centralized by definition, and their being centralized (and slightly lowered) in Russian in comparison with their stressed counterparts [i, u] is a direct effect of their being unstressed (unstressed vowel space is more central than the stressed one, which is more peripheral).

We use [ɪ̈] (actually not, we write it [ɨ̞]) to denote a fully central vowel.

I won't reply to the rest of your post as Nardog's done a good job at it. Most of your transcriptions don't look correct. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 11:21, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

Hm, so «we write it [ɨ̞]», because [ɪ̈] is not so precise about how much it is centered? Tacit Murky (talk) 13:27, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

@Tacit Murky: This question is off-topic, but no. We write it as such because we simplify it to [ɨ] elsewhere in the article and on Help:IPA/Russian, just as we do with the corresponding rounded vowel. [ɪ̈] is a very precise symbol in my opinion. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 13:30, 17 June 2018 (UTC)

@Kbb2: [ä] is a bad symbol for the not-quite-fully-fronted allophone of /a/. Agree. I have no idea why I mentioned this along with [ö, ü], must have lost my attention.

I vote for transcribing... Do you mean also for /CʲVC/ and /CVCʲ/? But this must considerably change our current system of transcription. If you do not like [ö, ü] what then is wrong with [o̟, u̟] and good with [ɵ̠, ʉ̠]? The latter would imply that [ɵ, ʉ] are the basic values that undergo backing, while it is the opposite, the basic are [o, u] (and hence the phonemes are transcribed accordingly) that undergo fronting/raising to a degree after or before a soft consonant; and finally they become fully central/raised between two soft consonants, and this is why it is justified to use different symbols for the latter case. I don't see any justification for using different symbols by default for vowels "somewhat" fronted/raised.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 06:05, 19 June 2018 (UTC)

So this leaves us with 2 options: [æ̠, ɵ̠, ʉ̠] and [ɐ̟, o̟, u̟]. («While the IPA does not specify the rounding of [ɐ]», Russian, as almost all other languages, uses unrounded phone, as we need here.) But all of them are «different symbols by default», isn't it?… Tacit Murky (talk) 06:53, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

@Tacit Murky: No, the former is not an option. There is no Russian /æ, ɵ, ʉ/ phonemes that undergo backing/retracting but vice versa, was I not clear on that? I'll avoid commenting whether the [ɐ̟] transcription is a good one, let us concentrate in what to do with the back vowels for this moment. No, by "different symbols" I rather mean letters. There are different letters and there are modified letters. You may argue that [ɵ, ɵ̠, o, o̟] are four different symbols, but this is not what I meant: these are only two different letters, though two of them are modified with diacritics.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 09:26, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

IMHO much of this discussion is original research. The question is not whether [æ̠, ɵ̠, ʉ̠] or [ɐ̟, o̟, u̟] should be used, but which symbols are attested in reliable, published sources. If no appropriate symbol is found there, a vowel chart will have to do the job. — Apart from that, the IPA clearly favours "[o]rdinary roman letters" (IPA Principle 4 (a), Handbook of the IPA, p. 159). Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 10:05, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Sorry, LiliCharlie, but your interpretation of NOR is way too strict to be allow for functional editing. The IPA is a tool and as a tool we use it the way we deem best based on sourcing. Attestation of specific transcription choices in sources can only be used as a guide here. As I've shown, sources don't necessarily indicate this and so we've got to make a judgment how to use the IPA to indicate the sound. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 16:39, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Now I agree with Aeusoes1. If we were to follow the sources to the letter, we might have ended in using half a century old IPA conventions which is not a good thing (e.g. they favoured the palatal hook which is now obsolete, etc.). We must employ the usage as contemporary as possible. Though the mention of the principle 4(a) is a good argument.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk)

That principle is a bit chauvinistic and West-centric. IPA also uses a few Greek letters, but almost no Cyrillic ones (only «з», I think). Better symbol diversity could have helped in situations like this. Pity, sigh… Tacit Murky (talk) 13:45, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

CʲeC

• The choice of [ɛ̞] is rather arbitrary. /CʲeC/ is exactly midway between /e/ and /ɛ/, so both [e̝] and [ɛ̞] are legit representations. I know that [ɛ̞] exactly follows Jones, and I believe this is why Kbb2 made his edit. I myself created a diagram which uses exactly [ɛ] for the very same reason: because the source (Jones & Trofimov) uses that. But our transcription differs from Jones's in so many ways that what is the point following him in this regard?
• Other sources may prefer [e]. So Jones is not the ultimate authority on the subject.
• What is even more important that /CʲeC/ behave in a similar way to /CeCʲ/ and /CʲeCʲ/ rather than to /CeC/. /CeC/ is rather marginal in Russian and in native words restricted to the position after /t͡s, ʂ, ʐ/ and in some few function words (эт-, etc.), while /CʲeC/ is ubiquitous. We may say /CʲeC/, /CeCʲ/ and /CʲeCʲ/ constitute one group and /CeC/ another. We may even further say that /i/ and /e/ constitute one group. As /i/ moves back in /CiC/, so /e/ moves down in /CeC/. And in the former case we use a different symbol [ɨ], and logically in the latter [ɛ]. But it would be really strange to write [ɨ̟] for /CʲiC/, while we do write [ɛ̞] for /CʲeC/. I strongly think the latter must be opposite. It is really strange that we write эти [ˈetʲɪ], but лето [ˈlʲɛtə], as if a soft consonant that follows /e/ has a bigger effect than a soft consonant that precedes /e/. In fact /CʲeC/ and /CeCʲ/ are articulated practically the same as seen from the formant diagram.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 11:08, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

As /i/ moves back in /CiC/, … we use a different symbol [ɨ] — careful here. I prefer SPb school with phonemic /ы/. Even if this article claims an attribution to Moscow school (which is not so, because morphophonemes are not described nor used anywhere), some might argue. As for /e/, are you suggesting [ˈɛtʲɪ]+[ˈlʲetə] or [ˈɛ̞tʲɪ]+[ˈlʲetə]? Tacit Murky (talk) 14:08, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

I don't think it's worth changing. I don't see why /CʲeC/, /CeCʲ/ and /CʲeCʲ/ have to be a separate category from /CeC/ (or why it's so important). That seems arbitrary (and even a little OR analysis). — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 15:42, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

@Tacit Murky: I'm suggesting a broad transcription [ˈetʲɪ], [ˈlʲetə], reserving [ɛ] for /(C)eC/, the way it was before April 2016. You may use whatever additional diacritics in a narrow transcription (I see you are a big fan of the narrowest one), of course, if it corresponds to the actual pronounciation and is not an OR.

@Aeusoes1: Worth changing what? It was /CʲeC/ = [CʲɛC] before April 2016, that is the current version is only 2 years old. I'm proposing not changing, but reverting a change nobody cared about before (I gave a link above if you didn't notice).

I don't see why... Sorry, but I have feeling that despite you have written much of this article, much of your "why" is explained that you have a very vague idea about Russian phonetics and maybe the Russian language as a whole (I do not know if you speak or know it well, my feeling you don't). /CʲeC/ and /CeCʲ/ are a separate category because they pronounced in the same place! I thought I was clear on that. Why have I repeat things twice? We hence shouldn't transcribe them differently on one hand, and on the other hand we shouldn't transcribe /CʲeC/ and /CeC/ identically, because the latter pair is not in the same place. I don't know why Jones chose [ɛ] as the principal symbol, but we have no obligation to follow him in every respect (we already do not follow him in a lot of things). --Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 18:42, 24 June 2018 (UTC)

Representing /CʲeC/ as [CʲɛC] has been the case for a lot longer than that. You can even see in this edit from 12 years ago that I had marked it as such, though representing this allophone this way precedes even my time at Wikipedia. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 01:57, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

I can't get what your link is supposed to show or prove. Probably, it may only show that this erroneous transcription existed 12 years ago.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 15:21, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

reserving [ɛ] for /(C)eC/ — IMO, [ˈetʲɪ] is too broad and too close to phonemic transcription. We have to be more precise here. Moreover, in careful pronounce (as expected for someone studying any language) /CVCʲ/ tends to be more like /CVC/, and /CʲVCʲ/ gets closer to /CʲVC/; that is, for broad transcription you may ignore the following sound. This may affect fluent speech transcriptions. Tacit Murky (talk) 08:47, 25 June 2018 (UTC)

Yes, I'm speaking about the broad transcription first. I'm not against narrowing it if needed. But there is no such need right now, [Cʲe] provides quite enough necessary information already. I think you (and some others) do not understand the real nature of four variants of Russian /e/. This is not only about the vowel height.--Lüboslóv Yęzýkin (talk) 15:40, 30 June 2018 (UTC)

Then, maybe, you can elaborate this „real nature“, providing some reliable sources for that? (Formants chart is very helpful, BTW; but there is no analysis…) Tacit Murky (talk) 07:21, 1 July 2018 (UTC)

"Chew 2003" citation

The paragraphs on the Leningrad view of и-ы vowels cite "Chew 2003" as their source, and yet no such source is in the references - did it get lost somewhere along the way? --Mothmvn (talk) 12:00, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

Apparently so. I've added it back. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 15:50, 11 June 2019 (UTC)

J&W and unstressed /CʲiCʲ/

Kbb2, our article content doesn't reflect this edit summary's claim that J&W backs up a transcription of [i] for unstressed /CʲVCʲ/ instead of [ɪ]. I'm having trouble finding the relevant text in Jones & Ward (1969) saying as much. Can you help us out here? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 15:56, 25 October 2019 (UTC)

@Aeusoes1: They don't transcribe it with ⟨i⟩, you're right. Their claim that unstressed /i/ is close in the /CʲiCʲ/ context is an oversimplification anyway - sometimes it is, sometimes it's not. I bet it also depends on the exact strength of palatalization (which seems to be variable unlike in Polish, where e.g. /tʲ/ is consistently weakly palatalized), some consonants (/kʲ/ is probably one of them) may trigger the shift to [i] more readily than the others. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 13:22, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

It's been my hunch since I started working on the vowel side of this article that palatalization is very closely linked to vowel quality. I mean, what's the point of raising the mid vowel in цель all the way to the close-mid height if not to show that the final consonant is /lʲ/ (which, by the way, sounds awfully like an ordinary /l/ of Spanish or Italian, except when prevocalic)? The six-vowel approach is flawed (as it is in the case of Polish, for almost the same reasons), and thankfully it's not widespread among scholars. It's the hard-soft distinction among consonants that is phonemic, and it is reinforced by all those different vowel qualities (which are allophonic). I wonder if the existence of all those allophones isn't the main reason the hard-soft contrast is still phonemic in the word-final position! Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 21:34, 2 November 2019 (UTC)

They don't transcribe it that way and, as far as I can tell, they don't claim that the two contexts create different allophones. Can you provide quotes to justify the change in transcription? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 05:55, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

@Aeusoes1: I've self-reverted, but check pages 31 and 32. I was going with what we already have in the article by the way. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 10:34, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

I'm sorry, I'm not seeing it. Pages 31 and 32 don't even talk about unstressed syllables. Moreover, page 37 has quite a few example words in the section on [ɪ]. Given this, I appreciate your self-revert. If the article reflects the notion that unstressed /i/ in this context isn't [ɪ], we should alter it. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 03:27, 4 November 2019 (UTC)

@Aeusoes1: Do you have the physical book or are you using Google Books? I can only see page 32 on the latter, where the authors say that stressed /i/ is raised between soft consonants. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 12:50, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

I'm using Google Books, but apparently I can see more pages than you.

This is from page 29: The Russian i-phoneme has four easily discernible members: two stressed members [i] and [ɨ], and two unstressed, [ɪ] and [ᵻ]. A fifth member, stressed [i̝], is also described in this book.

This is from page 30: The Russian sound [i] only occurs in stressed syllables. The only consonants that can precede it are the soft consonants but it does not occur between two soft consonants (here the sound [i̝] occurs...

This is from page 37: The sound [ɪ] occurs only in unstressed syllables. The only consonants that can precede it are the soft consonants. Example words with the sound give include идти, пиши, поле, and язык. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 15:18, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

@Aeusoes1: Thanks. I'll remove the unsourced information from the article, at least for now. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 15:52, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Given that I was the one who added that particular wording and cited it, I'll have to double check my notes. If I recall correctly, the google books version has slightly different pagination than the physical book I had access to at the time. It may be that another source I was reading at the time makes this claim and I just goofed. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 16:46, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

That's interesting. Applying Daniel Jones's description of cardinal [i] ("If the tongue were raised higher, the breath-pressure remaining constant, the result would be a fricative j") the [i̝] between two soft consonants must be a fricative. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 17:06, 5 November 2019 (UTC)

Not always. It depends on the place of articulation: /pʲipʲ/ would sound usual, but /tʲitʲ/ will have transient [j] glides. Tacit Murky (talk) 13:11, 6 November 2019 (UTC)

is this a mistake?

Velar consonants are soft when preceding /i/; within words, this means that velar consonants are never followed by [ɨ]. did we mean to write something else? —Soap— 22:20, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

@Soap: Nothing wrong with that. According to the analysis presented here the phoneme /i/ is pronounced [ɨ] after hard (i.e., non-soft) consonants, and [i] or [ɪ] elsewhere, depending on stress. Hence, if the velar consonants /k; ɡ; x/ are always soft [kʲ; ɡʲ; xʲ] preceding /i/ the pronunciation [ɨ] for that vowel phoneme is literally ruled out. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 22:48, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

But what about, say, кы? Does that sequence not occur in native words? Im not saying youre wrong, and in fact Im pretty sure youre right, but I still dont get it .... I have a really difficult time keeping all the symbols straight in my mind and dont see how the sentence can possibly be right unless there are no sequences of velars followed by ы in the entire language. And if that is the case, we should say that too. —Soap— 23:16, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

Well, the sequence [kɨ] does exist in Russian because word-final /k/ is always hard [k]. Thus, if the following word starts with a /i/ the /i/ is pronounced [ɨ]. That's why the citation reads "within words," but maybe that restriction should be mentioned in the first part of the sentence. — As far as I know orthographic кы doesn't occur in native words. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 23:38, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

Okay thank you. Better wording is possible, I think, and perhaps the original book we're quoting from contains a more detailed explanation than what we've borrowed. i reworded what we have based on what i can see in the abstract but i dont have access to the full text. —Soap— 01:08, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

Aren't the words быть (to be) and бить (to beat)an example of a minimal pair for the two sounds? JonathanHopeThisIsUnique (talk) 16:28, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

And if that is a minimal pair, doesn't that imply that they are separate phonemes? (These aren't rhetorical questions, by the way. I'm not a trained linguist, so I might be completely off the mark.) JonathanHopeThisIsUnique (talk) 16:30, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Aren't the words быть (to be) and бить (to beat)an example of a minimal pair for the two sounds? No they aren't, bacause /b/ and /bʲ/ are separate phonemes, so the vowels are not preceded by the same consonant. It is the consonant that determines which vocalic allophone ([ɨ] or [i]) is appropriate, not the vowel that determines which consonantal allophone ([b] or [bʲ]) is appropriate.

And if that is a minimal pair, doesn't that imply that they are separate phonemes? Yes, if that were the case it probably would. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 17:06, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Хворосто́вский

Is pronounced [xvərɐˈstofskʲɪj] correct? --Espoo (talk) 22:14, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

Yep, assuming we are distinguishing between unstressed positions of /a/: general [ə] and pretonic [ɐ]. Tacit Murky (talk) 11:13, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

@Tacit Murky: And why wouldn't we? It's the standard practice. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 11:20, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Sure, I'm not arguing. Although [ɐ] is not stated in the allophones table — we are using [ʌ], so it may be confusing for some readers whether these are the same in Russian (and what kind of it). Tacit Murky (talk) 16:51, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

@Tacit Murky: Yeah, Help:IPA/Russian should be updated to match this article. Then, хворостовский should indeed be transcribed [xvərʌˈstofskʲɪj]. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 20:25, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

And, IMO, /j/ may be subject to both word-final and assimilative devoicings. That is [ j̥ ] (or [ j̊ ]?). Tacit Murky (talk) 03:45, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

@Tacit Murky: We won't be transcribing that but yeah, probably. It's [ç] per Yanushevskaya & Bunčić (2015). It makes me wonder if /j/ isn't better classified as a fricative. Kbb2 (ex. Mr KEBAB) (talk) 07:11, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Inconsistent ɵ

I will suggest two changes that I would rather discuss about before committing them:

Russian_phonology#Back vowels: Following a soft consonant, ... o is raised to /ɵ/ which is followed by references "Jones & Ward" and "Halle". Halle agrees while Jones & Ward page pg 64 claims it is raised **only** between two soft consonants. The Jones & Ward reference should be removed? Currently Wiktionary generates IPA for /ɵ/ in accordance with Halle.

A quick index of vowel pronunciation

Phoneme	Letter (typically)	Position	Stressed	Reduced
/o/	о	(C)V	[o]	[ə], [ʌ]
	ё*	CʲV	[ɵ]	[ɪ]
* Reduced ⟨ё⟩ is written as ⟨е⟩.

The larger problem is about the table in Russian_phonology#Allophony. For letter "o", none of the cited works claim (C)VCʲ is /ɵ/. Both references agree that raising requires the preceding consonant to be soft, so maybe we should update the table:

About half of the occurrences of /ɵ/ on the page aren't preceded by a soft consonant. Later, those should be replaced? Serios3723 (talk) 16:33, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, we should remove Jones & Ward. In an earlier version of the article, the claim was made that [ɵ] only appeared between soft consonants. When this was altered, the citation to Jones & Ward was not removed when it should have been.

If we can't find a source that says [ɵ] can appear in (C)VCʲ contexts (which contradicts Halle, who says it's only CʲVC[ʲ]), we should fix the article and any transcriptions to be in line with Halle. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 19:53, 19 June 2020 (UTC))

If we don't distinguish two very close allophones of stressed /o/ in (C)VC vs (C)VCʲ — then I'm with Halle on this: [ɵ] should be in CʲV only (although CʲVC cases have [ɵ] only in fast fluent speech). Reference to Jones & Ward should be kept too, then… Tacit Murky (talk) 09:00, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Halle, referring to ɵ: [ö] occurs when preceded by a palatalized consonant, or between palatalized consonants (C,V...), (C,VC,). So ellipsis doesn't include C? I only have a very basic understanding of the syllable structure notation. Serios3723 (talk) 18:07, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

Well, second claim (CʲɵCʲ) is a subset of first one (Cʲɵ). [ö] is an outdated notation for [ɵ]. Tacit Murky (talk) 11:59, 21 June 2020 (UTC)

Another inconsistency: In the allophony section "/u/ is centralized to [ʉ] between soft consonants. When unstressed, ... central between soft consonants, ʊ in other positions" Both references agree with the part about stressed /u/. Yet, the table shows ʉ as "CʲV". I'm planning to change the table to the one on the right side, any comments? Then, after fixing this inaccuracy in IPA examples, there's something else I want to discuss: Halley claims unstressed /ʉ/ doesn't exist. Do we want to keep it or use [ʊ] for all unstressed /u/, which is what Wiktionary does? Serios3723 (talk) 18:07, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

A quick index of vowel pronunciation

Phoneme	Letter (typically)	Position	Stressed	Reduced
/u/	у	(C)V(Cʲ)	[u]	[ʊ]
	ю	CʲV
		CʲVCʲ	[ʉ]

Yeah, I'm for the changes the table regarding /u/. That makes it consistent with the text.

If by "Halley" you mean Halle, then he doesn't make that claim. Other sources make it clear that the conditions that make stressed /u/ into [ʉ] also make unstressed /u/ into [ʉ̞]. We tend to avoid the diacritic for simplicity in our transcriptions of Russian.

Halle's transcriptions are consistent with this. For example, he transcribes жюри as [ʑʉˈrʲi] (once we modernize his transcriptions anyway). — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 21:23, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

@Aeusoes1 and Tacit Murky: Could you please review the new, complete table? Rewritten o and u rows and I've changed и from (Cʲ)V(C) to CʲV. If you agree, I want to remove letter a's (C)VCʲ because there is already (C)V. Serios3723 (talk) 08:23, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

A quick index of vowel pronunciation

Phoneme	Letter (typically)	Phonemic position	Stressed	Reduced
/i/	и	(Cʲ)i	[i]	[ɪ]
	ы, и	Ci	[ɨ]
/e/	э, е†	(C)e(C)	[ɛ]
		(C)eCʲ	[e]	[ɛ]
		Cʲe		[ɪ]
/a/	а	(C)a	[a]	[ʌ], [ə]
	я	Cʲa(C)		[ɪ], [ə]
		CʲaCʲ	[æ]	[ɪ]
/o/	о	(C)o	[o]	[ʌ], [ə]
	ё*	Cʲo	[ɵ]	[ɪ]
/u/	у	(C)u	[u]	[ʊ]
	ю	Cʲu(C)
		CʲuCʲ	[ʉ]
„C“ represents hard consonants only. * Reduced ⟨ё⟩ is written as ⟨е⟩. † ⟨е⟩ after a hard consonant is used mostly in loanwords (except if word-initial). ⟨э⟩ is always (C)V.

I think 1. phonemes had better been listed in "vowel-trapezoid order" /i–e–a–o–u/ which allows the reductions [ə~ʌ] to share a single field (or would it be better still to show contexts columnwise to allow all [ɪ]s and identical stressed realizations of /e/ to share a single field, too?); 2. it should be explained that ⟨C⟩ only represents hard consonants rather than consonants in general (or should a different symbol such as ⟨Cˠ⟩ be used?); and 3. the contexts for /i/ should probably be /Cˠ_/ vs. any other context so that utterance-initial and post-vocalic /i/ don't get realized as [ɨ]. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 11:45, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

P.S.: Due to the overlapping contexts /_Cˠ/ and /Cʲ_/ there are two different solutions [ɛ] and [e] for /e/ in the sequence /CʲeCˠ/. Users might conclude there is variation, which is not the case. — Similarly: The sequence /Cˠe/ in final or pre-vocalic position, which actually occurs, is not provided for. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 12:16, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, that was really useful feedback. 1) Reordered. If we want [ə], [ʌ] to have a single box then I need to reorder rows but currently for every vowel the hard letter is first (except /e/. I'll edit that later after researching э: e/ɛ) 2) I have added an explanation at the bottom. Using Cˠ would reduce accessibility for users on small/old screens. 3) Fixed that. All soft letters used to be CʲV but now /i/ is (Cʲ)V which make sense since unstressed i at the beginning of a word is "i" while an unstressed "yu" at the beginning is "ju". Serios3723 (talk) 14:59, 23 June 2020 (UTC)

My suggestions: 1) Mark central column as «Phonemic position» to avoid misinterpretation, that V is a vowel letter; 2) Maybe, joining two [a] cells would help? Tacit Murky (talk) 14:11, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Done,thanks. Now I only need to fix CVCʲ for /e/ and unstressed э (I believe?) Serios3723 (talk) 15:04, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

I suggest adding a footnote that bracketed (C) and (Cʲ) mean that either a consonant may be present, or another vowel, or an utterance boundary, and then we should alter our formulas accordingly. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 15:18, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Could you please give an example of a position that should change after adding the definition? Serios3723 (talk) 17:04, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

/e/: V→(C)V and CV→CV(C); /a/ and /u/: CʲV→CʲV(C). Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 17:25, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

P.S. I'm in favour of abandoning the distinction between two /e/s (word-initial in native words or not) in the table, and mention the orthographic distribution of ⟨э⟩ and ⟨е⟩ in a footnote. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 17:38, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

That'll do. Tacit Murky (talk) 10:12, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Now I need to fix Word-initial ⟨э⟩ (it doesn't reduce to i, does it? Модуль:ru-pron says no, Module:ru-pron says yes. My ears agree with Модуль:ru-pron) and CVCʲ /e/. And Russian/IPA page has a statement confusing me: /e/ is realized as [e] before and between palatalized consonants. Halle pg 163 says [e] between two palatalized, [ɛ] after palatalized, [ɛT] otherwise (including initial). Should we update the article about it? Serios3723 (talk) 14:35, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

After listening to a few recordings I believe Halle is right. The contexts for /e/ are probably (C)e(C) vs. CʲeCʲ, at least for stressed /e/, and we should alter the article accordingly. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 18:16, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

According to what I hear /e/ is [ɪ] after soft consonants irrespective if what follows. If this is true we have (C)e(C) (C)e [ɛ]; Cʲe(C) [ˈɛ] and [ɪ]; CʲeCʲ [ˈe] and [ɪ]. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 18:35, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Now, Halle is somewhat outdated. Yanushevskaya & Bunčić (2015) shows modern state of things. Cʲe(C) as [ˈɛ] is wrong: cf. «се́но» vs «се́ни». Unstressed C/e/C(ʲ) would be: «сена́т» vs «зени́т». Also, check if you can hear the difference between these two unstressed vowels: «эшело́н». Tacit Murky (talk) 19:00, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Note my above remark that (C) can be a hard consonant, a vowel, or nothing, but not a soft consonant. We should explain this use of brackets in a footnote. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 19:44, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Y & B 2015 has no CeCj, so I don't know what it reduces to. Updated the table. (I will add a footnote LiliCharlie)Serios3723 (talk) 20:03, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Our table seems to be wrong about stressed /e/ in intial (это) and post-vocalic (поэт) position, where it is [ɛ] rather than [e]. And do we have a source that initial unstressed /e/ (экран) is as close as [ɨ]? I find that hard to believe, but if this is the case we can probably write (C)V for any /e/ (stressed or reduced) not preceded by a soft consonant. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 16:57, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Agree, I believe э is [ɛ] everywhere. In my last comment, I decided to reserve [e] for CʲVCʲ, any comments on that? (Never mind, it's currently consistent, we transcribe [ɛT] as ɛ and both [e] and [ɛ] as e) I have no idea why Wiktionary's Module:ru-pron adopted {{IPA|[ɨ]} for initial э. Their commit gave the example of электроэнергия which on Forvo sounds like [ɛ] to me. I'll ask them once the table is done. Serios3723 (talk) 17:20, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Wouldn't it be more user-friendly to replace V with the respective phoneme: (Cʲ)i, Ci, etc.? Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 18:01, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

The article states After soft consonants (but not before), it is a mid vowel [ɛ̝] (hereafter represented without the diacritic for simplicity), while a following soft consonant raises it to close-mid [e]. Another allophone, an open-mid [ɛ] occurs word-initially and between hard consonants.

There are thus three relevant allophones of /e/, close-mid (before and between soft consonants), mid (after soft consonants, but not between them), and open-mid (between hard consonants or word initially before a hard consonant). — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 18:57, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Are those the same three positions (C)e, Cʲe(C), CʲeCʲ that I mentioned above a few minutes ago? Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 19:06, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

They don't seem to be, looks more like eCʲ, Cʲe(C), (C)eC. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 19:13, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

The question remains if unstressed /e/ is [ɪ] after soft consonants, and an opener vowel elsewhere, see above. If that were the case we would need four positions altogether, I think: CʲeCʲ, (C)eCʲ, Cʲe(C), (C)eC. Is that correct? Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 19:29, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

We've done that 4 years ago — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Russian_phonology/Archive_4 . Check all of that first. Also, don't forget «Russian stressed vowel chart according to their formants and surrounding consonants, from Timberlake (2004:31, 38)» from the article, where we have 4 cases for all phonemes: CVC, CʲVC, CVCʲ, CʲVCʲ. Tacit Murky (talk) 20:04, 26 June 2020 (UTC)

Then our vowel chart https://i.imgur.com/4Eyjv7n.png ? CʲeC and CeCʲ cause problems. Serios3723 (talk) 10:01, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Serios3723/sandbox I'm going to replace the current page with the different table and adapted transcriptions. Anything to improve?Serios3723 (talk) 17:01, 23 December 2020 (UTC)

Vowel reduction degrees

@Sol505000: Special:Diff/1031967913 that transcription is wrong and the statement is wrong. Russian has two types of reduction: phonemic neutralisation and duration-dependent phonetic reduction. Final syllables are the domain of the phonetic, duration-dependent type. There is no phonemic neutralisation, and the contrast between final -це and -цы is thus maintained. I'm a native speaker of the language and that pronunciation is impossible because the target is э /ɛ/, and raising to [ɨ] as an artifact of reduced duration is not possible. I will later improve the article by adding this information and see if there are further mistranscriptions. Brutal Russian (talk) 08:22, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

@Brutal Russian: Per pages 525–6 of the first PDF you mention, the statement is actually correct. The latter PDF deals with akanye, which seems not to be relevant to this discussion. Sol505000 (talk) 08:33, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

If the statement is correct, then the interpretation that allows for the pronunciation [ˈsontsɨ] is incorrect. The statement doesn't apply to that environment. I don't see anything on pages 525-6 that's directly relevant to this context - non-palatalised is dealt with in the previous section. In any case, the normally neutralised contrast here is солнце~солнца, but only as a function of duration: speaker ramzes2 hyperarticulates the /a/ and maintains the contrast. This applies to ц/ж/ш. Akanye is a specific part of the general system of reduction that both PDFs are dealing with. It clearly exemplifies the difference between phonemic neutralisation and duration-related articulatory undershoot. Brutal Russian (talk) 08:53, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

@Brutal Russian: Look closer, above and below the Figure 1. Forvo and especially our phonetic analysis of the recordings found there are not WP:RELIABLE.

That still doesn't make it relevant to this particular discussion. The /e–ɨ/ merger has no direct relation to akanye. Sol505000 (talk) 08:58, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Yes, I see what you're referring to. It describes "moderate reduction", regarding which he says: "Unstressed phrase-final open syllables exhibit a gradient effect: moderate reduction is possible but not compulsory in this position." The sum of these statements is consistent with my observations, but he does not further treat the specific problem of final contrasts after ц/ж/ш/ч. I think I know what's going on here. Final syllables exhibit paradigmatically-motivated lack of neutralisation. Where /-i/ is found in the same paradigm, raising to /i/ (ikan'ye) is blocked. Thus в зда́нии "in the building" contrasts with зда́ния "buildings"; в мо́ре can contrast with из мо́ря. The phenomenon is treated in Bethin 2012 (scihubbable), in particular the table at p. 438 is relevant to the case of солнце: на со́лнце [nɐˈsontsɨ̞] "on the sun" is possible, perhaps normal. The only issue with it is that it writes ə without specifying the level of representation. The previous two papers show that there's no phonemic schwa in Russian, necessitating a choice of phoneme. In overarticulated speech со́лнце ends in the same vowel as цеце́ "tsetse", namely [ɛ]. I know that Forvo, us and our analysis are not admissible as references. Nevertheless the recordings and my native intuition represent linguistic reality, and we should look for proper references to adjust the article to reflect this reality; failing this, at least statements and references that clearly clash with reality should be removed. Brutal Russian (talk) 11:32, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

@Brutal Russian: The WP:BURDEN is on you to find other sources to prove any clash with reality, as you call it. Sol505000 (talk) 11:57, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

I know, and Bethin 2012 (again, available at scihub) is sufficient to support the statement that the nominative/accusative of солнце doesn't end in an [ɨ], the reason being that neutralisations interact with morphology. The other two linked papers support the same conclusion, and support a separate articulatiory, phonetic reduction. The latter, as well as the lack of complete merger of /e/ and /i/ is also supported by Padgett, Tabain 2005. I'm not sure if there's a single work that provides an exhaustive analysis of all these phenomena; however, these individual papers do converge on the same conclusions. Brutal Russian (talk) 13:31, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

+5 копеек: As stated before, Jones & Ward are somewhat outdated. Y&B and other sources from this century refer to modern state of Russian and have updated phonological analysis methods. We even have reference to Padgett & Tabain (2005) already in the «Vowel mergers» subsection (for [ʌ] as an unstressed /o~a/). However, updated version still needs an explanation — why it is applicable only to ц/ж/ш/ч cases (soft «ч», too, really?). Tacit Murky (talk) 16:42, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

@Tacit Murky: The ч- is there because it's another non-alternating consonant, but since it's soft it belongs with the здание set. туча != тучи like здании != здания: ikan'ye cannot apply like it can in тучами, зданиями. Overall I think we need to emphasise that vowel reduction in Russian isn't categorical, and isn't a single phenomenon: it hides morphological restructuing. There's also a whole separate article that might need the same treatment: Vowel reduction in Russian. Brutal Russian (talk) 15:54, 7 July 2021 (UTC)

Actually on Sol's and my own coincidentally the same edit of today earlier (Special:Diff/1031967913): There seems to be a three-way contrast of пти́ца vs пти́це vs пти́цы (same as ко́жа-ко́же-ко́жи, пе́рца-(о)пе́рце-пе́рцы, со́лнца-со́лнце-*со́лнцы etc) with the latter two subjectively sounding much closer to each other. (A narrow transcription of the actual sounds that my native Russian mouth makes would be something like [ɐ~ə] vs [ɨ̞~ɘ] vs [ɨ̞] in rapid speech, and [ɐ] vs [ɛ̠] vs [ɨ] in a very careful enunciation). Note that the latter two (but not the first!) would also merge (as ɨ̞) if we assume a FULL ыканье-merger (ж[ы^э]на́, ц[ы^э]лова́ть etc; optionally extending to foreign loans: би́зн[ы^э]с, с[ы^э]ксуа́льный; as well as case-endings, mimicking the older Moscow norm for Ikanye: в доли́н[и^е], из ча́щ[и^е] = в ча́щ[и^е], пу́ле = пу́ли etc, but after hard consonants) OmoiEgaite (talk) 00:06, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

«ко́жы, пы́рца» ?? Hm… Are you certain you are native Russian? Tacit Murky (talk) 03:29, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

Of course, i obviously meant to write пе́рца, (о) пе́рце, пе́рцы. ('pepper/paprika', see my original edit Special:Diff/1171574867). Что касается "кожы", то LOL, that was another lazy bulk-editing fail on my part. Which happens to the best of us! Well...

Meanwhile, i was checking out that Pavel Iosad paper shared earlier in this thread... It looks like the answer to why wikipedians prefer to use a schwa in words like со́лнце could be in the fact that ж, ш and ц may trigger a "radical reduction" of a word-final [ы^э] by clipping its duration with their articulatory features (velarization and innate labialization in case of [ʂʷ] and [ʐʷ] and having affricative quality in case of [t͡s]), so it cannot quite make a sound as raised as [ɨ] (like it would make in positions where it exhibits only a "moderate reduction"). At least it can not be the same sound on the surface level of a measurable phonetic perception, regardless of any subjective differences in how the speaker feels to be articulating it versus other forms with "paradigmatically-motivated" non-neutralized case-endings.

...And now, after having realized all that, i slightly touched up the article, reverted my [ɨ]-edits, and came up with a brilliant new plan of using the IPA symbol [ɘ] in this position instead! (For се́рдце, пе́рцы, да́же, ло́же, сту́жи, бо́льше, лу́чше, Бо́же, туда́-же etc). I believe this is a good compromise solution to represent a sound that is very close to schwa, but still is not exactly identical to it. (Examples of words that end in [ə] would include: со́лнца, пе́рца, де́ви́ца (both ways), гре́ться, лу́жа, ка́ша, possibly интерме́ццо and ба́нджо^ⓘ)

I also added Ykanye (Ыканье) reduction into the vowel summary table. It was incorrectly indicated that /e/ always remains [ɛ ~ e], which would include words like цепл‎я́ть, шесты́, лжеца́, where it clearly belongs to an underlying |e| morphophoneme of the Moscow School (because of ц[э́]пь, ш[э́]ст), молод[е́]ц), and yet such words are clearly pronounced with [ы^э] in an unstressed position, the same sound as in цыпля́т, шести́, кру́жится etc OmoiEgaite (talk) 11:45, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

«why wikipedians prefer to use a schwa»? — Because there must be no original research, but a statement in the reliable sources — which we do use a lot. Vowel reduction is variable and depends on palatalization of surrounding consonants (as seen in the F1+F2 formants chart). However more precise detalization invokes excessive use of diacritics with usual IPA symbols, which makes things difficult to rear for the average WP reader.

«such words are clearly pronounced with [ыэ]» — can you cite at least one Rus.phonetics article to back up your claim? (А то я как носитель тоже могу сослаться на своё произношение как на якобы эталонное; так и будем бодаться ;•) Tacit Murky (talk) 16:13, 22 August 2023 (UTC)

I have no experience in finding and citing reliable sources. So maybe someone else can do that for me.

In my second message I was talking the Moscow phonology school analysis with examples. I believe it's pretty easy to verify that it considers [ы^э] (also written as [э^ы], roughly equivalent to [ɨ̞ ~ ɘ] based on its description) to be the unstressed allophone of |e| after hard consonants (or it can reduce even further towards merging with |a| in the schwa), which in turn is found in EVERY single word (be it native or recently borrowed) that's spelled with either е or э letters.

The problem seems to be that Ikanye and Ykanye are variant mergers that can alternate between speakers and registers, and apparently particular positions in a word as well, such as be suppressed in case endings, or between individual words themselves. So words like би́знес, экра́н and хештэ́г, or abbreviations like КВН (кэвээ́н) might not be subject to ykanye and have their [e ~ ɛ̠] unreduced. OmoiEgaite (talk) 08:20, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

Also, if we are talking narrow transcription with IPA diacritics then maybe every single instance of stressed e/ɛ after hard consonants should be marked with backing (retraction): e̠ and ɛ̠. This is because in Russian allophonic vowel frontness is a much more prominent feature of pronunciation than the difference represented by the symbols e and ɛ themselves: this article says it is the next consonant that determines which of these symbols to use, while most textbooks on Russian phonetics say that the softness of the preceding consonant has a greater effect on the vowel than that of the following one. (And in my native speech, contrary to the Moscow school description, this backing of /e/ even applies to onset-less э́ in the word Э́ТО, which i realize as: ['ɛ̠t̪ɐ ~ 'ɛ̠t̪ə], noticeably different from ЭЙ! [e̞i̯] (interjection, subjectively sounding as j-less "ей") and ЛЕ́ТО ['lʲɛ̝t̪ɐ ~ 'lʲɛ̝t̪ə] both having pretty much the same vowel) OmoiEgaite (talk) 11:27, 23 August 2023 (UTC)

«Эй» is definitely not [e̞i̯] in general city speak. [e̞] allophone can only be found after soft consonants; so it's your personal feature. And again: «The WP:BURDEN is on you to find other sources to prove any clash with reality, as you call it» + «Forvo and especially our phonetic analysis of the recordings found there are not WP:RELIABLE.

«this article says it is the next consonant that determines which of these symbols to use» — not quite; it says that the following phone affects the backness as well as preceding one (tho to less degree). No contradictions here. Some words, however, keep their unstressed vowel unreduced, as you've mentioned. But there is no systematic description for these cases. Tacit Murky (talk) 14:51, 24 August 2023 (UTC)

Soft ш through assimilation?

It seems to me that ш may be softened by assimilation to a following soft sonorant. For example "шлем" could be [ɕlʲem], and "шлёпать" could be [ɕlʲɵpətʲ]. Don't you think? I'm not saying that this is universal or "correct", but it seems pretty common to me. I'm not Russian, so I might be mistaken, but that's what I hear. 88.64.225.53 (talk) 22:19, 15 November 2023 (UTC)

As a native Russian speaker (from the Ural region) i can confirm that i always produce very hard and slightly lip-rounded [ʂʷ] and [ʐʷ] for the /ш/ and /ж/ phonemes in all positions (only assimilating them by voice, and use them, or the geminated versions of them, as a result of various cluster assimilations/simplifications, eg. [ʐʷːe̠t͡ɕ] for "сжечь" etc). Moreover, articulating something like ['ɕlʲɵpɐt̪ʲ] or [nʲɪ'ɕmʲelʲ] ("не шмель") with a short щ-like sound (the kind i use in the word "ещё") would feel rather weird for me, as if i'm saying a foreign word or intentionally imitating an accent. So no, there is no softening of /ш/ whatsoever, at least for the version of the language that I have natively acquired. OmoiEgaite (talk) 11:06, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

PS. I also have the very limitedly occurring [ʑː] phoneme/allophone for historic /з+ж/ in certain alternating endings of stems only, such as in [vɪˈʑːa̝t̪ʲ] or ['piʑːe̝] (более пиздато xD), but it does not interfere with my pronunciation of any other clusters involving /ж/ or /ш/, so it is more like a separate marginal phoneme in the inventory. OmoiEgaite (talk) 11:33, 27 November 2023 (UTC)

Thank you :) Of course, this doesn't rule out that other speakers may have this softening. So further opinions are more than welcome. But I gather that it's likely more exceptional than I thought. 87.154.50.32 (talk) 21:10, 31 December 2023 (UTC)

I am a native Russian speaker, too. The consonants ш and ж are not palatalized before following soft consonants, so шлем is [ʂlʲem], шлёпать is [ʂlʲɵpətʲ]. The book Современный русский язык, часть 1 (Москва, Высшая школа, 1976) states on p. 138 that softening ш and ж before soft consonants sounds as a foreign accent. Burzuchius (talk) 19:30, 1 January 2024 (UTC)

All right! Thank you. So in this case forget about it :) I do have to say that I still hear them soft. But it must be my ears which are not natively used to soft sonorants and therefore somehow "expand" the softness to the whole cluster. 88.64.225.53 (talk) 00:54, 7 February 2024 (UTC)