8/3/2019 LING550 - Milestone 2

1/4

LING550 : CLMS Project Milestone 2

Thibaut Labarre

1 The phonology of Polish

The Polish phonology has a complex phonemic inventory that consists of 36 contrastive conson-

nants and 6 contrastive oral vowels. Polish also has 2 nasal vowels.

2 Polish vowels

Polish has 6 contrastive oral vowals and 2 nasal vowels. The oral vowel inventory consists of themonophtong forms of the high front unrounded vowel /i/, the high central unrounded vowel /1/, the

mid front unrounded vowel /E/, the low front unrounded vowel /a/, the mid back rounded vowel /O/

and the high back rounded vowel /u/. The length of vowels is not phonemic in Polish, the vow-

els are lax vowels. Two of these have allophones only in the presence of palatalized consonants

(Cavar, 2005). In this case /E/ is pronounced as a higher variant [e] and /a/ as a fronted variant [aff].

Polish also has two open-mid nasal vowels, the nasalized back rounded vowel /O/ and the nasalised

front unrounded vowel /E/ Jassem (2003:105). Gussman, (2007:2) describes these two vowels as

in fact the open-mid vowels [E] and [O] followed by a nasalized labio-velar glide [w] or sometimes

by a nasalised palatal glide [j].

3 Polish consonnants

Polish is very rich in terms of consonants since it has 36 contrastive consonnant phonemes. Palatal-

ization plays an important role in Polish. For the purpose of my study, I will only distinguish bi-

labial palaticized consonnants since according to Gussmann 2007, palatalized non-labials appear

primarily in loan words.

Among the sonorants we find 5 nasal stops, 2 liquids and 2 approximants. They tend to be de-

voiced after a voiceless obstruent.

The 4 non palatalized nasal stops distinguish between places of articulation and palatalization for

the bilabial nasal stop : a bilabial /m/, a dental /n/, a palatal // and a velar /N/. Before a fricative or

at the end of a word, the dental nasal will be pronounced as a nasal glide [j].

The 2 liquids are distinguished by their manner of articulation : a lateral alveolar consonant /l/

and an alveolar trill /r/.

The 2 approximants are distinguished by their place of articulation : a bilabial /w/ and a palatal /j/.

1

8/3/2019 LING550 - Milestone 2

2/4

Among the obstruents, each unvoiced consonant has its voiced counterpart except for the frica-

tive velar /x/.

The 8 stops are differentiated by voicing and their place of articulation : a bilabial unvoiced /p/

and voiced /b/, a dental unvoiced /t/ and voiced /d/, a palatal unvoiced /c/ and voiced / /, a velar

unvoiced /k/ and voiced /g/.

The 9 fricatives are differentiated by voicing and their place of articulation : a labiodental un-

voiced /f/ and voiced /v/, an alveolar unvoiced /s/ and voiced /z/, a postalveolar unvoiced /S / and

voiced /Z/, a palatal unvoiced /C/ and voiced // and finally a velar /x/ that has no voiced counter-

part. When /x/ is followed by a voiced obstruent, it has a voiced allophone [G].

The 6 affricates are differentiated by voicing and their place of articulation : an alveolar unvoiced// and voiced /dz/, a postalveolar unvoiced // and voiced //, a palatal unvoiced /tC/ and voiced

/d/.

We have to add to this set the palatalized consonant variants that are described by Gussmann

2007 : the bilabial plosives that can be unvoiced /pj / or voiced /bj/, the labiodental fricative that

can either be unvoiced /fj/ or voiced /vj/ and the nasal stop /mj/.

4 Other aspects of the phonology of Polish

4.1 Prosody

In Polish the main stress is on the next to final syllable. There can also appear secondary stress on

words of 4 syllables or more. Secondary stress will then be on the even syllables counting from the

last syllable : the second syllable will have primary stress, the fourth, the sixth, the eighth will have

secondary stress. Some loan words are exceptions to this rule as are some verbs with conditional

endings.

4.2 Phonotactics

Polish allows for complex consonant clusters. In some cases it leads to allophonic devoicing or

voicing of obstruents.

In Sobolewski 2007, it is stated that obstruents are always devoiced when final in a word. This

rule doesnt apply when the word is followed by a word starting with a voiced consonnant.

There are phonotactic constraints where a certain consonnant selects for a vowel. For example

a postalveolar unvoiced fricative /S / can be followed by a high central unrounded vowel /1 / and

a palatal unvoiced fricative /C/ by a high front unrounded vowel /i/ whereas the opposite is not

possible as noted by Cavar 2005.

2

8/3/2019 LING550 - Milestone 2

3/4

5 Examples of allophonic changes

Example of allophone of /x/ before a voiced obstruent (Grzegorz 2008)

chleb /xlEp/ bread [xlEp]

dach domu /daxdOmu/ a roof of a house [daGdOmu]

Example of devoiced obstruent when final (Sobolewski 2007)

rob /rub/ do (imperative) [rup]

6 IPA Charts

6.1 Vowels

This chart of the Polish vowels is largely inspired by Cavar 2005 with the addition of the 2 nasal

vowels (on the right when they exist).

Front Central Back

High i 1 u

Mid E E O O

Low a

6.2 consonnants

This chart of the Polish consonnants is largely inspired by Jassem 2003 with the addition of the

bilabial palatalized consonnants as shown in Cavar 2005 and as described in Gussmann 2007.

Bilabial Palatal. Labial Labiodental Dental Alveolar Postalveolar Palatal Velar

Plosive p b pj bj t d c k g

Fricative fj vj f v s z S Z C x

Affricate dz tC d

Nasal m mj n N

Lateral lTrill r

Front Back

Approximant j w

7 References

Gussman, Edmund (2007), The Phonology of Polish, Oxford University Press

Jassem, Wiktor (2003), Polish Journal of the International Phonetic Association 33

3

8/3/2019 LING550 - Milestone 2

4/4

Malgorzata E. Cavar (2005) ATR in Polish. Indiana University Linguistics Club Working Papers

Vol. 5.

Nawrock, Grzegorz (2008) Laryngeal articulations of /x/ in Southern Polish, ZAS Papers in Lin-guistics 49

Sobolewski, Dorota (2007) De la prononciation du Franais Langue trangre par une locutrice su-

doise et une locutrice polonaise

4