Distribution and Origin of Various Phonation Types in the Turkic Languages of South Siberia

This article presents the preliminary results of a study that was supposed to clarify the questions of the presence of a phonological status and of the origin of a number of prosodic phenomena discovered over the past 50 years by various researchers. The authors collected field materials from speakers of a significant portion of dialects. The survey was carried out using a special questionnaire containing potential minimum and quasi-minimum pairs of monosyllabic stems with Turkic etymologies. These data were recorded using digital voice recorders. In each surveyed settlement, if possible, at least 3 speakers were interviewed. The material of the questionnaires was analyzed both by the auditory method and by the Praat acoustic analysis program; spectrograms and oscillograms were accompanied by transcriptional interpretation. With the help of acoustic analysis, coupled with the comparative historical support of sound dictionaries, it was possible to identify two geographical areas in the surveyed territory in which the historical processes of the formation of phonologically significant phonation types (including the Tuvan and Tofalar so-called “pharyngealization”) were of different nature. Pharyngealization, the effect of pre-aspiration on the reflexes of Proto-Turkic short vowels before obstruents, occurs in one of these areas: Tuvan, Tofa, Saryg Yugur (a close relation of Khakas), Chelkan Altaic. In the second area (Tashtyp, Shor, Kyzyl dialects of Khakas, Mrassu Shor, Melet subdialect of Middle Chulym, Tuba and Kumandy Altaic dialects), the authors have found kinds of glottalization of the reflexes of Proto-Turkic long vowels, which exist regardless of the quality of the subsequent consonants, but are realized in slightly different ways depending on it. In the case of sonantic finals, even the formation of a glottal stop after these sonants can be observed. Since the boundaries of both areas do not coincide with the boundaries of the genealogical groups of dialects, it can be assumed that the hypothesis of the Novosibirsk school of phonetic research, which connects “pharyngealizations” with pre-Turkic substrates, is correct. At the same time, the phonological difference itself, which has been reinterpreted in various ways in the phonetics of modern languages, of course, has its own Turkic origin.

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