Russian Phonetics - Vowels - Allophony - Unstressed Vowels

Unstressed Vowels

Russian unstressed vowels have lower intensity and lower energy. They are typically shorter than stressed vowels and tend to merge:

• /o/ and /a/ generally have the same unstressed allophones (e.g. валы 'bulwarks' and волы 'oxen' are pronounced ).
• /e/ and /i/ have the same unstressed allophones (e.g. лиса 'fox' and леса 'forests' are pronounced ).

In most unstressed positions, only three phonemes are distinguished after hard consonants, and only two after soft consonants. There are at least two different levels of vowel reduction: vowels are less reduced when a syllable immediately precedes the stressed one, and more reduced in other positions. For the most part, Russian orthography (as opposed to that of closely related Belarusian) does not reflect vowel reduction.

The realization of unstressed /o/ and /a/ goes as follows:

• After hard consonants, both reduce to or ; appears in the syllable immediately before the stress and in absolute word-initial position. Examples: паром ('ferry'), облако ('cloud'), трава ('grass').
  • When ⟨aa⟩, ⟨ao⟩, ⟨oa⟩, or ⟨oo⟩ is written in a word, it indicates so that соображать ('to use common sense/to reason'), is pronounced .
• Both /o/ and /a/ merge with /i/ after soft consonants and /j/ (/o/ is written as ⟨e⟩ in these positions). This occurs for /o/ after retroflex consonants as well. Examples: жена ('wife'), язык ('tongue').
• These processes occur even across word boundaries as in под морем ('under the sea').

Across certain word-final suffixes, the reductions do not completely apply. In certain suffixes, after soft consonants and /j/, /a/ and /o/ (which is written as ⟨e⟩) can be distinguished from /i/ and from each other: по́ле ('field' nom. sg. neut.) is different from по́ля ('field' sg. gen.), and these final sounds differ from the realization of /i/ in such position.

There are a number of exceptions to the above comments on reduction of unstressed vowels.

• Vowels may not merge in foreign borrowings,, particularly with unusual or recently borrowed words (e.g. радио, 'radio'). In such words, unstressed /a/ may be pronounced as, regardless of context and word pairs like эмигра́нт/иммигра́нт or эмити́ровать/имити́ровать differ in pronunciation.
• There are a few word roots for whose derivatives some speakers merge /a/ with /e/ after the retroflex consonants (/ʐ/ and /ʂ/ and /t͡s/: жал- 'regret' and лошадь- 'horse'. This pronunciation applies to жале́ть ('to regret'), к сожалéнию ('unfortunately'), and plural oblique cases of лошадь ('horse'), such as лошаде́й, (pl. gen. and acc.). двадцати . Other examples include the -дцать- of numbers like двадцати }} ('twenty ') and тридцатью ('thirty '), ржаной ('rye '), and жасмин ('jasmine').

• Across certain word-final inflections, the reductions do not completely apply. For example, after soft or unpaired consonants, unstressed /a/, /e/ and /i/ of a final syllable may be distinguished from each other.. For example, жи́тели ('habitants') contrasts with both жи́теле (' an habitant') and жи́теля .
• /i/ replaces /a/ after /t͡s/ in the oblique cases of some numerals, e.g. двадцати, ('twenty').
• If the first vowel of ⟨oa⟩, or ⟨oo⟩ belongs to the conjunctions но- ('but') or то ('then'), it is not reduced, even when unstressed.
• In loanwords, unstressed /e/ does not merge with /i/ in initial position or after vowels, so word pairs like эмигрант/иммигрант or эмитировать/имитировать differ in pronunciation.

Because of mergers of different phonemes in unstressed position, the assignment of a particular phone to a phoneme requires phonological analysis. There have been different approaches to this problem:

• The Saint Petersburg phonology school assigns allophones to particular phonemes. For example, any is considered as a realization of /a/.
• The Moscow phonology school treats as either /a/ or /o/, depending on morphological alternations or etymology. To make a determination, one must seek out instances where an unstressed morpheme containing in one word is stressed in another word. Thus, if the word ('shafts') shows an alternation with ('shaft'), then this instance of is an allophone of /a/. Meanwhile, ('oxen') alternates with ('ox'), showing that this instance of is an allophone of /o/. If there are no alternations between stressed and unstressed syllables for a particular morpheme, then the assignment is based on etymology.
• Some linguists prefer to avoid making the decision. Their terminology includes strong vowel phonemes (the five) for stressed vowels plus several weak phonemes for unstressed vowels: thus, represents the weak phoneme /ɐ/, which contrasts with other weak phonemes, but not with strong ones.

In addition to this, the unstressed high vowels /i/ and /u/ become lax (or near-close) as in ютиться ('to huddle'), этап ('stage'), дышать ('to breathe'), and мужчина ('man').

In weakly stressed positions, vowels may become voiceless between two voiceless consonants: выставка ('exhibition'), потому что ('because'). This may also happen in cases where only the following consonant is voiceless: череп ('skull').