Proto-Samoyed Language - Phonology

Phonology

A fairly complex system of vowel phonemes is reconstructed for Proto-Samoyed:

Two of the vowel contrasts are only retained in Nganasan: the distinction of front and back reduced vowels, and that of *i versus *e. For the remainder of the family, following the mergers *e → *i and *ø̈ → *ø, a further shared change is raising of *ä → *e.

Even though the number of vowel phonemes was high, there were no long vowels or phonemic diphthongs. A peculiar feature of the reconstructed vowel system is the occurrence of vowel sequences, which consisted of any full vowel followed by the reduced vowel /ə/: for example, *tuə 'feather', *kåəså 'man'. These sequences were not diphthongs, because the vowels belonged to separate syllables. Evidence of the vowel sequences has been preserved in only part of the Samoyed languages, primarily in Nganasan and Enets.

Proto-Samoyed had vowel harmony like many other Uralic languages. Harmony determined whether a front vocalic or a back vocalic allomorph of a suffix was used. However, the restrictions imposed by vowel harmony were not absolute because also disharmonic word-stems can be reconstructed. Such stems break vowel harmony by combining front and back vowels: e.g. Proto-Samoyed *kålä 'fish'.

In contrast to the vowel system, the consonant system is rather simple with only 13 phonemes:

The exact sound value of the affricate is not entirely clear; it may originally have been retroflex rather than dental or alveolar . It has remained distinct only in Selkup, merging elsewhere with *t.

As in Proto-Uralic, the ancestor of Proto-Samoyedic, initial consonant clusters were not allowed, so words could begin with a maximum of one consonant. Also carrying over from Proto-Uralic was the feature that the consonants *r and *ŋ were not allowed word-initially. Proto-Samoyedic had however innovated a limited amount of final consonant clusters. In all of these, the first consonant in the cluster was the semivowel *j, as in *wajŋ 'breath'. Inside words clusters of two consonants were common. Clusters of three consonants were also possible only if the first consonant of the cluster was *j, as in *wajkkə 'neck'.

As in Proto-Uralic, the first syllable of words was always stressed, and hence there was no contrastive stress. There were no contrastive tones.

Palatalization of consonants, most prominently *k, has occurred in all recorded Samoyedic languages. This is however a post-Proto-Samoyedic development, as the details differ in each branch due to vowel developments.

• The Nenets-Enets group palatalizes both *k and *s to /sʲ/.
• Nganasan, Selkup and Kamassian palatalize *k to a distinct /ʃ/. Nganasan also palatalizes *s to /sʲ/.
• Mator appears to have no palatalization of *k; however, *s is, somewhat counterintuitively, palatalized to /k/.
• Nenets-Enets and Nganasan have prominent palatalization of other consonants as well, leading to contraction of the vowel system.

Other widespread developments include prothesis of *ŋ, initial lenition of *p, and fortition of the semivowels *w, *j.

• In Nganasan, Nenets and Enets, PS vowel-initial words gain an initial /ŋ/.
• PS initial *p is lenited to /f/ in Enets, /h/ in Mator and Nganasan. (/f/ still appears in the oldest Nganasan records.)
• PS initial *w remains only in Nenets. In Selkup, it becomes /kʷ/; all other varieties shift it to /b/.
• PS initial *j remains in both Nenets and Enets. It becomes /tʲ/ in Selkup, and /dʲ/ in other varieties.
• In Mator and Kamassian, /b/, /dʲ/ are furthermore nasalized to /m/, /nʲ/ preceding a word-internal nasal.