Labialization

See data and maps.

Plain text

Moroz, G. (2021). “Labialization”. In: Typological Atlas of the Languages of Daghestan (TALD). Ed. by M. Daniel, K. Filatov, T. Maisak, G. Moroz, T. Mukhin, C. Naccarato and S. Verhees. Moscow: Linguistic Convergence Laboratory, NRU HSE. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.6807070. http://lingconlab.ru/dagatlas.

BibTeX

@incollection{moroz2021,
  title = {Labialization},
  author = {George Moroz},
  year = {2021},
  editor = {Michael Daniel and Konstantin Filatov and Timur Maisak and George Moroz and Timofey Mukhin and Chiara Naccarato and Samira Verhees},
  publisher = {Linguistic Convergence Laboratory, NRU HSE},
  address = {Moscow},
  booktitle = {Typological Atlas of the Languages of Daghestan (TALD)},
  url = {http://lingconlab.ru/dagatlas},
  doi = {10.5281/zenodo.6807070},
}

General chapter: Phonology

Labialization is widely attested in East Caucasian languages. However, there are some languages that have lost this feature (e.g. Budukh (Talibov 2007)). Unfortunately, sometimes scholars do not provide a full list of labialized consonants attested in a language, so it is hard to obtain a complete list. Following (Catford 1972) it is worth mentioning that there are several types of labialization:

• /w/-labialization — this kind of labialization is more or less independent of the main place of articulation. This kind of labialization is typical for velar and uvular fricatives and stops and widely attested in East Caucasian languages;
• /ɥ/-labialization — this kind of labialization is typical for pharyngeals. It looks like the tongue body is retracted (due to the pharyngeal place of articulation) and raised, which results in a /ɥ/-like sound that is not present in East Caucasian languages;
• /y/-labialization — this kind of labialization is typical only for post-alveolars found in Abkhaz and Abaza (West Caucasian), but also may be the case in Tabasaran (A. E. Kibrik et al. 1982: 7–8; Aleksandr E. Kibrik, Kodzasov 1990: 337) and Agul (Aleksandr E. Kibrik, Kodzasov 1990: 338).

Labialization is lost in Bezhta, Udi, Budukh and Khinalug. Possibly the absence of labialized consonants in Nakh languages results from a reinterpretation by scholars of the w as forming part of a diphthong. Georgian probably also has labialized consonants, but those cases are analyzed as a combination of a consonant and w.

References

Catford, J. C. (1972). Labialisation in Causasian Languages, with special reference to Abkhaz. Proceedings of the Seventh International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, 679–682. De Gruyter Mouton.

Kibrik, A. E., Bergelʹson, M. B., Bogatyrev, K. K., Boguslavskaja, O. Ju., Zalizniak, A. A., Kodzasov, S. V., Muravʹeva, I. A., Plungian, V. A., Rakhilina, E. V. (1982). Tabasaranskie étjudy. Izdatelʹstvo Moskvoskgo gosudarstvennogo universiteta.

Kibrik, Aleksandr E., Kodzasov, S. V. (1990). Sopostavitelʹnoe izučenie dagestanskix jazykov. Imja. Fonetika [A comparative study of Daghestanian languages. Noun. Phonetics] (Vol. 2). Moscow: Izdatelʹstvo Akademii nauk SSSR.

Talibov, B. B. (2007). Buduxskij jazyk [Budukh]. Moscow: Academia.

Typological Atlas of the languages of Daghestan (TALD) is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 International License.

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