First syllable vowels in Surgut Khanty according to the ultrasonography data

This paper describes the Surgut Khanty vowel articulation by ultrasonography methods. 193 vowel segments were sampled by Articulate Instruments equipment and processed with Articulate Assistant Advanced software. 97 consonant segments were recorded to estimate a contact influence of vowels on consonants. The data were collected from a woman, a Tromagan dialect native speaker born in 1970. The tongue contours were analyzed by certain features: the highest point and its coordinates, the most remote point and its distance from the coordinate center. The most distant point was found to allow distinguishing three basic tongue movement types according to J. Esling’s laryngeal articulator theory: front movement correlates with phonemes /i:/, /ɨ:/, /ɘ/, /ɛ/, raised movement correlates with phonemes /ʊ:/, /ɔ:/, /ɔ/, /o/, a combination of these two types yields /ʉ/, /ɨ:/, /o:/, and retracted movement is characteristic of phonemes /a:/, /a/. The vocal movement types can be differentiated by the most distant point number. The points 1-8 are placed in the frontal part of the dorsum, the points 9-16 are in the middle part, the points 17-24 are placed in the back part. Front vowels have the most distant point in the range 14-17. Retracted vowels and combination of front and raised position are characterized by 18-19 and raised vowels by 19-20. The distance of tongue shift within each type allows distinguishing individual phonemes. The radical plosive phoneme was proved experimentally to have velar allophone [k] and uvular allophone [q] depending on the vowel row.

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