On non-distinctive voicing in Russian

Abstract

In his illuminating article for the Max Vasmer Festschrift, Jakobson (1956) gave a concise description of the implementation of the voicing feature in Russian obstruents. In addition to stating well-known facts about the pronunciation of contemporary standard Russian, Jakobson brought to the attention of students of Russian phonetics a fact which had been completely overlooked in previous investigations, namely the determinative role of the segment FOLLOWING the morphonemes {v} and {v,} in the distribution of voicing, rather than these sounds themselves. With respect to the feature of voicing, obstruent clusters containing medial {v} or {v,} were demonstrated to be entirely composed of voiced segments or unvoiced segments, depending on the value of the last obstruent in the cluster. Thus it was pointed out that voiceless obstruents were assimilatively voiced not only in Πρосьба [-z, b-] ‘request’, сдача [zd-] ‘submission’, ĸ жене [gž-] ‘to one's wife’, трехДнеВньІЙ [-γd-] ‘3-day’, but also in ОТ ВДоВьІ [-dvd-] ‘from the widow’, с вДовоЙ [zvd-] ‘with the widow’, к вДове [gvd-] ‘to the widow’, оΤ взгляДов [-dvzg-] ‘from the glances’, к взДохам [gvzd-] ‘to the sighs’; not only in зтот гороД [-d | g-] ‘this city, купец бьІЛ [-3|b-] ‘the merchant was (there)’ здесь же [ž-|ž-] ‘but here’, Лечь бьІ [-3|b-] ‘go lie down’, хоть дома [-d,|d-] ‘at least at home’, так зЛо [-g|z-] ‘so maliciously’, запах дьІма [-γ|d-] ‘smell of smoke’, бЛиз берега [-z,|b,-] ‘near the shore’, сквозь доску [-z,|d-] ‘through the board’ but also in как вдова [-g|vd-] [like the widow’, хоть вздохнуЛ [-d, | vzd-] ‘at least he rested’, вот в детстве [-d|vd,-] ‘but in childhood’, чтоб взять, [-b|vz,-] ‘in order to take’, поев вдовоЛь, [v |:d-] ‘having eaten one's fill’, против вдовьІ [-v|:d-] ‘against the widow’, уж в вдовах [-ž|v:d-] ‘already among the widows’, воЛхв же [-γv|ž-] ‘but the sorcerer’, без жертв бьІ [-dv|b-] ‘without sacrifices’, от моЛитв-де [-dv|d,-] ‘supposedly from prayers’, ветвь даже [-d, v,|d-] ‘even the branch’. This treatment of the voicing feature provided the basis of Halle's discussion (1959: 63–5). For some inexplicable reason, the facts brought to light by Jakobson apparently went completely unacknowledged in the Soviet Union (and elsewhere, for that matter, outside the United States) and were not reflected in the works on Russian phonetics which appeared after 1956. Thus, for instance, one notes no revision of the appropriate section in Avanesov (1958); nor in Avanesov & Ožegov (1959).