Talk:Ukrainian phonology

Ukrainian phonology 2019
Please keep in mind distinction between reliable and unreliable sources. Phonetics (and phonology resulting from it) is an experimentally-based science. Please don't use ill-based conjectures on phonetic characteristics made in Ponomariv 2001, Buk et al. 2008, Danylenko and Vakulenko 1995. The phonetic experimental results are lacking, but they are still present: Bilidid 1969 (this work was used in Ponomariv 2001 and Danylenko and Vakulenko 1995), Pompino-Marschall et al. 2016 (however, some ungrounded conjectures are taken from Buk et al.); Vakulenko 2018; Vakulenko 2019. Mova2016 (talk) 04:44, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

The reliable sources which are based on phonetic experiments, suggest appearance of [ʢ],[ɣ], and, possibly, [ɦ] (Bilodid 1969; Pompino-Marschall et al. 2016, Vakulenko 2019). Mova2016 (talk) 04:32, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

I support the [] for the Ukrainian /в/. Please see my explanations in the "w" section.

Mova2016 (talk) 08:39, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

I would like to comment on some sources I classify as unreliable.


 * Antonina Bilous's thoughts presented in the doc file. If there were significant scholarly value, why not publish it in the scholarly journal? Anyway, some results of Bilous were duly cited in Vakulenko 2018.


 * Danylenko & Vakulenko 1995. This is a compilation of phonetic results described in Bilodid 1969, with minor (and not experimentally proved) additions. And they use incorrect IPA notations (for example, h for Cyrillic "г"). So the value of this work is only as an English version of Bilodid 1969 for the English-reading audience. However, the link is not working.


 * Press & Pugh 2015. They are Scottish linguists specializing on Russian linguistics. As we understand, this is not the same as the Ukrainian phonetics. The European phoneticians do not consider them as phoneticians at all. No experimental (instrumentally obtained) results are presented, just observations. So the value of this work is just as an additional side observation.


 * Buk et al. 2008. Having read this article, I was surprised where the authors got the material and why they do not refer to the experiment at all. I contacted Solomija Buk and asked her about it. She confessed that there were no experiment and they described their own feeling.


 * Ponomariv 2001. This is a journalist, not a phonetician. The authors do not carry out phonetic research and do not publish their results in the phonetic journals. This handbook uses the results of Bilodid 1969, but their arbitrary interpretation is given therein. Not a valuable source in the phonetic sense.

In addition to this. Much misunderstanding arises when the unknown authors of wiki-articles try to interpret the results of the sources. For Ukrainian, many of them use some more or less arbitrary Latin symbols fancying that they correctly represent the Ukrainian sounds (rendered in Cyrillic script). This is not the case, because correct IPA notation is a separate problem requiring profound investigation (see Pompino-Marschall et al. 2016; Vakulenko 2018, 2019).

Mova2016 (talk) 07:05, 9 September 2019 (UTC) The table provided in the article, does not include the rare (peripheric) phonemes mʲ, pʲ, ʒʲ, etc., regarding them as variants of their plain cognates. OK, this is acceptable for phonemic description. At the same time, the phoneme /g/ in Ukrainian is much more rare than those excluded from the table; its frequency, according to the encyclopedy "Українська мова", is less then 0.1%. In view of this, we must do one of the following:


 * either keep /g/ and include all rare and peripheric phonemes; thus the table will be rather phonetic (this is not advisable for an article named "Ukrainian phonology");


 * or exclude the /g/, too, regarding corresponding sounds as allophones of the /г/.

I suggest the second option.

Thus, the phoneme /г/ is realized in the following allophones: [g], [gʲ], [ɣ], [ɣʲ], [ʕ] or/and [ɦ] and, possibly, [ʕʲ] or/and [ɦʲ]. The appearance of [g], [ɣ], [ɣʲ], [ʕ] has been supported instrumentally. Please keep in mind that though [ɦ] was repoprted in Pompino-Marschall et al. 2016 and in Vakulenko 2019, this is only a visual or sensual perception. It may be both true or false. No reliable instrumental evidence of [ɦ] as [г] (opposed to [ʕ]) is known to me. If I am wrong, please provide due references.

I have a request to those who has access to articulographs (they are costly!) and Ukrainian speakers, too. Please make a short phonetic experiment aimed to establish articulation of the Ukrainian /г/ in different positions. I have a list of utterances needed for this. Please contact me for details. This may result in an interesting and important research article and, possibly, in a promising project. I am serious. My email is: science@dntb.gov.ua.

For the time being, based on current phonetic data, we must agree that ɦ cannot be regarded as the chief allophone of the /г/.

I suggest a ɣ.

Mova2016 (talk) 08:09, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

Please keep in mind that Ponomariv 2001 is NOT a reliable source. The authors try to use political arguments instead of phonetic facts. Actually, they did not carry out their own investigation and use Bilodid 1969 and some unknown Russian literature. Mova2016 (talk) 04:36, 2 September 2019 (UTC)

Please examine Vakulenko 2018 for more scholarly details. Mova2016 (talk) 16:22, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

Concerning the Ukrainian [и].

Thanks to W.M.Drossel for the formant frequencies table. In particular: F2([i]) = 3000-3500 Hz, F2 ([и]) = 1800 Hz (or 1650 Hz, if y is transliteration). This is pretty near the central vertical line. Please compare relevant vowel frequencies presented in Stevens 1998. Conventionally, the F2 value indicates horizontal position at the vowel (Jones) diagram. Please see Stevens 1998 for reference (or equivalent literature). According to this data, the Ukrainian [и] is a high lowered central vowel [ɨ̞].

It is remarkable that the experimental data of Vakulenko 2018 correlate well with these.

The references to other experimental data including perceptional experiments, are given in the text.

In view of this, we must denote the Ukrainian phoneme /и/ by the IPA symbol ɨ̞.

Objections? Please provide reliable and duly published experimental data, not assumptions or fantasies. For example, results of perceptional experiments showing equivalence of perception of [ɪ] as in "sit" and in [и] "сидіти", for example. And phonetic equivalence of an allophone of [i] as appearing in "безіменний", "передісторія", etc., and an [и].

Mova2016 (talk) 06:49, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

The Ukrainian [o] is mid high, not mid low. It causes the flattening effect. See details in Vakulenko 2018. Mova2016 (talk) 16:13, 1 September 2019 (UTC)

I suggest all [ɔ]'s to be changed into [o]'s. See above.

For those who still disagree.

1. Please provide reliable and duly published experimental data on vowel perception supporting an assumption of [ɔ]. The data supporting [o] are published in Govor (Vakulenko 2018) which is indexed in Scopus.

2. Please provide reliable and duly published experimental data on flattening effect of [ɔ]. The data supporting [o] are published in Govor (Vakulenko 2018) which is indexed in Scopus.

Otherwise, we must agree that the Ukrainian [o] is indeed a mid high back vowel, not mid low. Mova2016 (talk) 06:48, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

The experimental data published in Vakulenko 2019, clearly indicate that the Ukrainian /в/ is not a bilabial approximant [w].

I suggest to change the notation to ʋ, as in Pompino-Marschall et al. 2016, Vakulenko 2019.

Objections? Please provide the following:

1. The reliable and duly published experimental data on characteristic frequencies of the F1 and F2 (they should be below 700 Hz, if [w]).

2. The reliable and duly published experimental data on labiovelar articulation of a [в] (e. g. palatograms indicating tongue root rising during [в]). Please keep in mind that the palatograms of Bilodid 1969 indicate that this is not a [w].

3. The reliable and duly published data overcoming common agreement that diphtongs are not characteristic for Ukrainian.

4. The reliable and duly published experimental data overcoming Kawasaki's conclusion about unfavoured combinations wu, wo, uw, ow, etc.

Otherwise, we must agree on ʋ being realized through β̞ and v, vj. Mova2016 (talk) 06:48, 6 September 2019 (UTC)

The following statement is questionable: "/w/ is most commonly bilabial [β̞] before vowels but can alternate with labiodental [ʋ] (most commonly before /i/),[32] and can be a true labiovelar [w] before /ɔ/ or /u/.[16] It is also vocalized to [u̯] before a consonant at the beginning of a word, after a vowel before a consonant or after a vowel at the end of a word.[32][33] If /w/ occurs before a voiceless consonant and not after a vowel, the voiceless articulation [ʍ] is also possible.[16]"

No experimental evidence of rise of [w] in Ukrainian was given (please see above). On the contrary, there are facts indicating that appearance of [w] (/w/) in Ukrainian is not possible. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mova2016 (talk • contribs) 09:56, 9 September 2019 (UTC)

A questionable, dubious, and unjustified conjecture: "/ɪ/ may be classified as a retracted high-mid front vowel,[14] transcribed in narrow IPA as [e̠], [ë], [ɪ̞] or [ɘ̟]".

1. Why /ɪ/? No proofs are drawn for this choice. Only intuitive guesses.

2. "Narrow IPA" is designed, perhaps, to denote allophones? This assumption is not clearly formulated.

3. Determination of allophones is not an easy intuitive task. Where are the experimental proofs for this choice? Publications?

4. When the unknown authors use the formulation "transcribed as", they allegedly assume that this is the well-known fact. This is not so. Experimental proofs are required.

5. The use of IPA symbols for allophones is not a straightforward and intuitive deal. First of all, the general rules of vowel shifts on the Jones diagram should be met (see Stevens 1998 for details). In particular, in the absence of assimilation, the unstressed allophones move to the center, not to periphery. As I see from the notations, these principles are not observed. It seems that no theory and no experimental facts were used to write this assumption, rather someone's intuition. So please provide reliable proofs. These should be pretty revolutionary...

In view of this, I mark again this sentence as "dubious". Please keep it. If the proofs will not be cited, we must delete it.

Mova2016 (talk) 13:03, 9 September 2019 (UTC)


 * "Ponomariv 2001. This is a journalist, not a phonetician. The authors do not carry out phonetic research and do not publish their results in the phonetic journals."


 * What Ukrainian phonetic journals do you know? Костянтин Конь (talk) 05:28, 31 December 2020 (UTC)

[w] vs [u̯]
What is the difference between a true labiovelar [w] and vocalized [u̯]? Nardog (talk) 05:35, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
 * Even if there's a measurable phonetic difference between the two (with the coda variant being undershot), both should be written with ⟨w⟩. "If occurs before a voiceless consonant and not after a vowel, the voiceless articulation  is also possible." proves that it's a consonant, just like Slovak and Slovene  (so ⟨u̯⟩/⟨ʊ̯⟩ are also wrong in those cases). Sol505000 (talk) 14:20, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

"stop taking out the detailed information on the allophones please"
@Fdom5997 What are you talking about? Literally all the information was kept in the edit. Nicodene (talk) 01:39, 12 March 2022 (UTC)


 * 'Stressed vowels tend to be lengthened (1) while unstressed vowels tend to centralize (2)'
 * 'Unstressed vowels are somewhat reduced in duration (3) and quality (4)'
 * 1 and 3 are describing the same difference from opposite perspectives. 2 and 4 are describing the same thing, except that 2 uses much more specific terminology. There is no need for two sentences- it's repetition. Nicodene (talk) 01:48, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

@Nicodene I just re-added the info that you provided, as well as the info that you reduced. The first two things that you put are pretty necessary, but please stop taking away the other details from the other points. That is not repetition, it is also detail on the allophones, and it is much more organized as well. Fdom5997 (talk) 08:31, 12 March 2022 (UTC)


 * @Fdom5997 I'm sorry to ask this, but do you really understand what you are reading? Because my edit did not remove any information. It removed a few words, but all of the information contained in the original remained. If you disagree, please actually cite an example of information that my edit removed. 17:42, 12 March 2022 (UTC) Nicodene (talk) 17:42, 12 March 2022 (UTC)

really no ŋ in Ukrainian?
The article doesn't mention ŋ. Is nk as in Taras Shevchenko really not pronounced with a voiced velar nasal? --Espoo (talk) 20:52, 10 October 2022 (UTC)

Looking for clarity of IPA symbol for "и". Need letter-to-symbol transcription
I'm researching IPA symbols for Ukrainian vowels and found this file: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Ukrainian_vowels.svg It is very different from the image in this image. I don't know if it's right, but I do know that when I hear "и", the sound is not in this article's image. It's closer to /ɤ/ (close mid back unrounded vowel).

Can anyone add the phonetic symbols for Ukrainian vowel letters? DBlomgren (talk) 04:03, 14 November 2022 (UTC)