Estonian phonology

This article is about the phonology and phonetics of the Estonian language.

Vowels

Estonian vowel chart, from Asu & Teras (2009:368). For some speakers, /ɤ/ can be more back (closer to /o/), or more back and higher (closer to /u/).

There are 9 vowels and 36 diphthongs, 28 of which are native to Estonian.[1] All nine vowels can appear as the first component of a diphthong, but only /ɑ e i o u/ occur as the second component. A vowel characteristic of Estonian is the unrounded back vowel /ɤ/, which may be mid back, close back, or mid central.[2]

Estonian vowel phonemes[3]
Front Back
unrounded rounded unrounded rounded
Close i y ɤ u
Mid e ø o
Open æ ɑ
Estonian diphthongs[4]
Vowel ɑ e i o u
ɑ ɑe̯ ɑi̯ ɑo̯ ɑu̯
e eɑ̯ ei̯ eo̯ (eu̯)
i (iɑ̯) (ie̯) (io̯) iu̯
o oɑ̯ oe̯ oi̯ ou̯
u (uɑ̯) (ue̯) ui̯ uo̯
ɤ ɤɑ̯ ɤe̯ ɤi̯ ɤo̯ ɤu̯
æ æe̯ æi̯ æo̯ æu̯
ø øɑ̯ øe̯ øi̯ (øo) (øu)
y yɑ̯ (ye̯) yi̯ (yo̯)

There are very few instances of vowel allophony; for instance, the long /y/ is pronounced as the diphthong [yi] in certain environments.

Simple vowels can be inherently short or long, written with single and double vowel letters respectively. Diphthongs are always inherently long. Furthermore, long vowels and diphthongs have two suprasegmental lengths. This is described further below.

Consonants

Consonant phonemes of Estonian[5]
Labial Alveolar Postalveolar Dorsal Glottal
plain palatalized
Nasal m n nʲ
Plosive short p t tʲ k
geminated pː tː tʲː kː
Fricative voiceless short f s sʲ ʃ h
voiced short v
geminated fː sː sʲː ʃː
Approximant l lʲ j
Trill r

Like the vowels, most consonants can be inherently short or long. For the plosives, this distinction is reflected as a distinction in tenseness/voicing, with short plosives being voiced and long plosives being voiceless. This distinction only applies fully for single consonants after stressed syllables. In other environments, the length or tenseness/voicing distinctions may be neutralised:

In addition, long consonants and clusters also have two suprasegmental lengths, like the vowels. This is described below.

Non-phonemic palatalization generally occurs before front vowels. In addition, about 0.15% of the vocabulary features fully phonemic palatalization, where palatalization occurs without the front vowel. A front vowel did historically occur there, but was lost, leaving the palatalization as its only trace (a form of cheshirization). It mostly occurs word-finally, but in some cases it may also occur word-medially. Thus, palatalization does not necessarily need a front vowel, and palatalized vs. plain continuants can be articulated. Palatalization is not indicated in the standard orthography.

Prosody

The stress in Estonian is usually on the first syllable, as was the case in Proto-Finnic. There are a few exceptions with the stress on the second syllable: aitäh ('thanks'), sõbranna ('female friend'). In loanwords, the original stress can be borrowed as well: ideaal ('ideal'), professor ('professor'). The stress is weak, and as length levels already control an aspect of "articulation intensity", most words appear evenly stressed.

Syllables can be divided into short and long. Syllables ending in a short vowel are short, while syllables ending in a long vowel, diphthong or consonant are long. The length of vowels, consonants and thus syllables is "inherent" in the sense that it is tied to a particular word and is not subject to morphological alternations.

Suprasegmental length

All stressed long syllables can possess a suprasegmental length feature. When a syllable has this feature, any long vowel or diphthong in the syllable is lengthened further, as is any long consonant or consonant cluster at the end of that syllable. A long syllable without suprasegmental length is termed "long", "half-long", "light" or "length II" and is denoted in IPA as ⟨ˑ⟩ or ⟨ː⟩. A long syllable with suprasegmental length is termed "overlong", "long", "heavy" or "length III", denoted in IPA as ⟨ː⟩ or ⟨ːː⟩. For consistency, this article employs the terms "half-long" and "overlong" and uses ⟨ː⟩ and ⟨ːː⟩, respectively, to denote them.

Both the regular short-long distinction and the suprasegmental length are distinctive, so that Estonian effectively has three distinctive vowel and consonant lengths, the distinction between the second and third length levels being at a level larger than the phoneme, such as the syllable or the foot.[6] In addition to realizing greater phonetic duration, overlength in modern Estonian involves a pitch distinction where falling pitch is realized in syllables that are overlong and level pitch is realized in syllables that are short or long.[7]

The suprasegmental length is not indicated in the standard orthography except for the plosives for which a single voiceless letter represents a half-long consonant while a double voiceless letter represents an overlong consonant. There are many minimal pairs and also some minimal triplets which differ only by length:[2]

The extra length distinction has a number of origins:

Notes

  1. ↑ Ross & Lehiste (2001:40)
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Asu & Teras (2009:369)
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Asu & Teras (2009:368)
  4. ↑ From Asu & Teras (2009:370)
  5. 1 2 3 4 Asu & Teras (2009:367)
  6. ↑ (Prince 1980)
  7. ↑ (Lippus & Ross 2011)

References

  • Asu, Eva Liina; Teras, Pire (2009), "Estonian", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 39 (3): 367–372, doi:10.1017/s002510030999017x 
  • Lippus, Pärtel; Ross, Jaan (2011), "Has Estonian quantity system changed in a century?", ICPhS, 17: 1262–1265 
  • Prince, Alan (1980), "A metrical theory of Estonian quantity", Linguistic Inquiry, 11 (3): 511–562 
  • Ross, Jaan; Lehiste, Ilse (2001), The temporal structure of Estonian runic songs, The Hague: Walter de Gruyter 
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