Summary: _pol_ (including _polbanka_)
Loren A. BILLINGS
billings at rz.uni-leipzig.de
Wed Aug 27 00:45:43 UTC 1997
Dear colleagues:
This a summary of the responses to the first of my recent queries
(originally entitled "Question on Russian phonetics"). I will reply to the
second, related query (tiled "_polbanka_ [sic.] ?") in a separate summary.
I will deal with each in turn. In several places I've edited responses
(some of which were machine translations into English!) for spelling and
grammar, but not for original content. I've also removed repeated text
wherever possible.
I'll repeat the various responses I got. (Each responder is identified.
Thank you all.) Then I respond to each point at the end.
----------------------------------------
I wrote the following query to this list on 12 August 1997:
>I'm wondering if any of you know a phonetic distinction between the
>following two _so^cetanija_:
>
>1. pol komnaty "floor of room"
>
>2. polkomnaty "half of room"
>
>I already know the following: Whereas /o/ after a non-palatalized
>consonant reduces to [a] or [@] (=schwa), depending on whether it's in
>first-pretonic unstressed syllable or not (e.g., /moloko/ --> [m at laKO]
>"milk"), the /o/ in _pol_ "1/2" always retains lip-rounding (i.e., example
>1. above is never *[p at l...] or *[pal...], but always [pol...]).
>
>Still, it seems to my ear that 1. and 2. are phonetically distinct; 1.
>behaves like a so-called stump compound (like _zavkafedry_ "department
>head"), while 2. is a combination of two morphological words with separate
>word stresses (but phrasal emphasis only on the second word).
>
>I'd be very interested in instrumental evidence that these two differ.
>Please distribute this query to anyone you know who works on Russian
>phonetics.
----------------------------------------
Edward Dumanis <dumanis at acsu.buffalo.edu> wrote the following to me,
off-list, on 12 August 1997:
>There is no phonetic distinction between 1 and 2, whatsoever.
----------------------------------------
Richard L. Leed <rll6 at cornell.edu>, by way of Slava Paperno, wrote me the
following, off-list, on 13 August 1997:
>I think your analysis of pol komnaty and polkomnaty is correct, but I don't
>know of any instrumental studies.
----------------------------------------
Yurij Lotoshko <lotofil at tversu.ac.ru> wrote to me, off-list, on 13 August
1997. His response was interspersed with my original query. Instead of
repeating the whole thing, I summarize the contentful portions of his
response:
>> 1. pol komnaty "floor of room"
>Transcription: [po'l ko'm&ty]
>
>> 2. polkomnaty "half of room"
>Transcription: [p&lko'mn&ty]
>
>Legend: ' - stress
> & - reduction vol.
>
>we distinguish 2 positions:
>moloko
>-2-1-O(stress)
>
>[...] o and a have about 4 variants. Its depends on stress and position [...]
>>_zavkafedry_ "department head"
>Transcription: [z&fka'fi/edry]
>stress - one
----------------------------------------
Georges Adassovsky <gadassov at mail.pf> responded on-list on 13 August 1997:
>It seems to me that 1 is pronounced with two stresses, two full "o" and a
>little stop between the two words, while 2 has only one stress, no
>stopping, and the first "o" may be a little reduced or not depending on the
>speaker. Some speakers may also reduce the "l" (w).
>But depending on the context, it is also possible to put emphasis on "pol"
>in 2. In this case, the "o" would receive a large stress, but there would
>be no stopping between "l" and "k".
>Difficult to establish a general rule without context. Is the utterer
>speaking about some neutral "half a room", or is he willing to tell "a part
>of the room as large as its half" ?
----------------------------------------
Edward Dumanis <dumanis at acsu.buffalo.edu>, apparently responding to
Adassovsky's preceding posting, wrote the following to the list on 20
August 1997:
>No, No, No.
>Pol komnaty byl horosho vymyt.
>Pol komnaty bylo zastavleno veshchami.
>
>No phonetic difference whatsoever!
----------------------------------------
Tom Beyer <beyer at jaguar.middlebury.edu> wrote the following to the list on
21 August 1997:
>I do not remember ever seeing reference to the phenomenon in Russia, but
>English linguistic practice-back in the sixties when I was a student
>used the concept of "plus juncture" to distinguish between
>I saw a black bird.
>I saw a blackbird.
----------------------------------------
Georges Adassovsky <gadassov at mail.pf> responded on 22 August 1997 to
Dumanis's recent posting on-list. (It includes a transmission from
Lotoshko directly to Adassovsky off-list.)
>Dear phonologists!
>
>I am transmitting the following criticism to my answer, that was directed
>to my personal address from Tver State University. (subject: pol komnaty +
>pol-limona, I appreciate the humor)
>
>Yurij wrote :
>>1) L reduces only in territorial dialects, in the literary language
>>there is no reduction of 'L'.
>>
>>2) [...] see Avanesov "Russkoje literaturnoje proiznos^enije" and
>>other works.
>
>I agree with the two points (I said : "Some speakers may also").
>1) The reduced "l" is used in the eastern former Soviet Union (Pol'skij "l").
>Some speakers may use a whole "l" in "pol komnaty", and reduce the "l" in
>"polkomnaty", that is when "l" and "k" are tied. It is certainly often the
>case with "pol-litra" (or pol-limona).
>
>2) Of course there are rules and excellent books. I suppose Loren A.
>Billings, who asked the question, has read these books, but she is
>interested on the way people speak.
>
>Edward Dumanis wrote :
>>No, No, No.
>>Pol komnaty byl horosho vymyt.
>>Pol komnaty bylo zastavleno veshchami.
>>
>>No phonetic difference whatsoever!
>
>I don't agree.
>First lets remark that when "pol" means "half", it is orthographically
>tied with the following word : "polkomnaty". If the first letter of this
>word is "l" or a vowel, there is a "-" : pol-litra vodki.
>So, "pol komnaty" are two words, with two stresses, "l" and "k" are not
>tied, while "polkomnaty" is one word, with one stress, and "lk" tied.
>Pol(half) is a proclitic.
>The problem of reducing the "l" is secondary, and, as said Yurij, territorial.
>
>There are some strange facts with "pol" : polkomnaty is neuter (polkomnaty
>bylo...), while polovina as well as komnata are feminine. Stranno, no tak.
>If it is preceded by an adjective, it becomes plural: "tselye polkomnaty
>byli".
----------------------------------------
Then, on 26 August 1997, Georges Adassovsky <gadassov at mail.pf> forwarded to
me a message he wrote directly to Dumanis off-list. (The following also
includes parts of what Dumanis had written to Adassovsky off-list.)
>To:Edward M Dumanis <dumanis at acsu.buffalo.edu>
>From:gadassov at mail.pf (Georges Adassovsky)
>Subject:Re: Pol otveta
>
>At 1:14 AM 8/23/97, [Dumanis] wrote:
>
>>I disagree with your phonetic comment.
>>Let me give you a better example.
>>Ty vymyl tol'ko pol komnaty.
>>Ty vymyl tol'ko polkomnaty.
>>
>>In both cases, "pol" will be under stress, as well as "kom" in "komnaty,"
>>of course.
>>So, "polkomnaty" can be pronounced with either with one or two
>>stressed syllables depending on the situation.
>
>That's true. In my first answer, I wrote [on-list, 13 August 1997]:
>
>>But depending on the context, it is also possible to put emphasis on "pol"
>>in 2. In this case, the "o" would receive a large stress, but there would
>>be no stopping between "l" and "k".
>>Difficult to establish a general rule without context. Is the utterer
>>speaking about some neutral "half a room", or is he willing to tell "a
>>part of the room as large as its half" ?
>
>Your example enters into the case where emphasis is put on the half not
>because this half is something large, but because this half is not
>sufficient. But even in this case, there is a difference : "lk" stay tied.
>Your example is a particular case, not interfering with the general rule,
>that exists, as Yurij told.
----------------------------------------
On 26 August 1997 Yurij Lotoshko wrote the following to me (cc:
Adassovsky) off-list:
>Unfortunately, I cannot send answers directly to everybody, who discuss
>"pol-litra, pol-Ameriki, pol-Kieva... ", therefore I send to those whose
>addresses I have. You can resend this answer anywhere and to anybody.
>
>Listen to files zagadka1.wav and zadagka2.wav
>
>These are two Russian phonetic puzzles/riddles. Try to answer them.
>
>additional phonetic evidence --> na balkone Engl. balcony
> na bal koni Engl. horses at the dance
>This is also from puzzle, but I don't remember the full puzzle
>
[In response to Adassovsky:]
>
>In Russian territorial dialects there are 4 main types of reduction of the
>russian sound 'L'. 3 types reduced are described in the book for
>students "Russkaja dialektologija/ Pod redakcijej N.A. Mestjerskogo -
>M.:Vyss^aja S^kola, 1972- Str. (page) 64-65.
>
>Ex.:
>
>polka {shelf} --> [pouka/powka] and with l (Central European l)
>palka {stick} --> [pauka/pawka]
>
>Listen to files
>pol1.wav --> Pol komnaty blestit
>
>pol2.wav --> Polkomnaty zastavleno...(kakoj-to mebel'ju, predmetami)
>and
>pol3.wav ---> polminuty, polversty, pol-Ameriki, pol-Rossiji, pol-Tveri
>
>> [Adassovsky:] There are some strange facts with "pol" : polkomnaty is
>> neuter (polkomnaty bylo...),
>
>You are mistaken, you not right
>
>polkomnaty as polversty, polminuty - fem. and only fem.
>
>> If it is preceded by an adjective, it becomes plural:
>>"tselye polkomnaty byli".
>
>Here there are two mistakes. (semantic and sintactic rules)
>
>>>Ty vymyl tol'ko pol komnaty.
>>>Ty vymyl tol'ko polkomnaty.
>>>
>>>In both cases, "pol" will be under stress, as well as "kom" in
>>>"komnaty,"of course.
>>>So, "polkomnaty" can be pronounced with either with one or two
>>>stressed syllables depending on the situation.
>
>You are wrong: only one stressed syllable. Listen to the files.
>============================
>
>With best wishes
>
>Lotoshko Yurij Rostislavovic
>=================
>P.s. Some words about 'lk'.
>
>Using a computer I analyzed 5 928 928 syllables and find that in Russian
>language use 12003 syllables (including misprints/errata, but without
>reduced vocal). (The demo version of program (russyl.zip) you can find
>somewhere on
>
>http://www.funet.fi/pub/culture/russian
>
>
>Combination 'LK' is very rare for Russian. It came to my
>attention in the following combinations (including misprints/errata):
>
>alk -1
>balk-1
>bolk-1
>vdolk-8
>vlksm-1
>volk-13
>dolk-5
>lk-5
>lkpi-1
>falk-1
>molk-31
>nlki-1
>polk-17
>tpolk-1
>smolk-4
>tlko-1
>tolk-8
>lkha-2
>fpolk-1
>fs^olk-4
>s^olk-4
>stjolk-13
>c^l'sjka-1
>
>try to find frequency
>
>and that is all
>
>some phonetics if your computer can see russian letters in codepade 1251
>
>http://www.funet.fi/pub/culture/russian/html_pages/language/rusphon.html
>
>All in Russian codepade 1251: TvGU (Tver State University)
>Rossija, 17002, Tver, pr.Cajkovskogo, 70, Filfak, kafedra russkogo jazyka
>http://www.tversu.ac.ru/Region/Education/TSU/Russian/persons/5034.ru.html
----------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
That's all that I've received about _pol_ so far. I have not yet accessed
Yurij Lotoshko's e-mail attachments. I presume that these are recordings
of some sort. Let me comment on the textual responses:
Dumanis:
>No phonetic difference whatsoever!
In Dumanis's defense, how else is one to expected prove a negative? My own
impression (and Richard Leed's, see above) is that there is a difference.
This is what I will try to disprove below:
Lotoshko:
>> 1. pol komnaty "floor of room"
>Transcription: [po'l ko'm&ty]
>
>> 2. polkomnaty "half of room"
>Transcription: [p&lko'mn&ty]
>
>Legend: ' - stress
> & - reduction vol.
(I presume that in the fist transcription the _n_ should be present.) The
problem, in my opinion, with transcriptions using _&_ is that phonetic
features are not made explicit. Everyone, to my knowledge, pronounces
_pol_ "1/2" with lip-rounding. That is, no one reduces this vowel to [a],
schwa, or any other unrounded vowel. This is my primary evidence against
the following statement as well:
Adassovsky:
>Pol(half) is a proclitic.
Prepositions are said to be proclitics in Russian. Compare the vowels
_pol_ "1/2" and _pod_ "under" in the following near-minimal pairs:
3. pod arbuzom "under watermellon"
4. pol-arbuza "half watermellon"
In 4 the first vowel is still (qualitatively) [o], while in 3 the vowel
reduces to [a] (in Standard Russian). Moreover, look at the syllabic
affiliation of the /l/ and /d/: In 4 [l] is clearly the coda of the first
syllable and not the onset of the following one, while in 3 [d] must be the
onset of the following syllable.
Still, I agree with Adassovsky - "the first "o" may be a little reduced or
not depending on the speaker" - that the vowel reduces _quantitatively_
(i.e., whereas the lip-roundng is not lost, the loudness or even pitch
might be different).
Moving to Beyer's comment about so-called plus juncture, this is exactly
what I am trying to prove: _pol_ "1/2" forms a compound _word_ with the
following quantified element, while _pol_ "floor" forms a syntactic phrase
with the following (adnominal-genitive) complement. In English it is easy
to distinguish between compound words and syntactic phrases, thank to the
well known Compound Stress Rule. This rule is manifest in the examples
Beyer provided: _BLACKbird_ "^cernij drozd" has initial stress, while
_black BIRD_ "^cernaja ptica" has final stress. Russian is not as simple,
because the latter member has more prominent stress in both _polkomnaty_
"1/2 room" and _pol komnaty_ "floor (of a/the) room". This is why I've
gone looking for other evidence.
I might add that while Beyer's examples can be simplistically stressed as
_BLACKbird_ "^cernij drozd" has initial stress, while _black BIRD_, it's
more accurate to stress the latter as _BLACK BIRD_, with two stresses.
This principle extends to my original Russian examples above as well:
Adassovsky:
>It seems to me that 1 is pronounced with two stresses, two full "o" and a
>little stop between the two words, while 2 has only one stress, no stopping
The difference is that 1, _pol komnaty_ "floor (of a/the) room", has two
stresses, but one is _usually_ louder. Thus, I should have made it clear
in my query that I'm not interested in so-called contrastive focus, wherein
a particular element is emphasized (e.g., _Pol komnaty, a ne potolok!_ "The
room's floor, and not its ceiling!" or _Polkomnaty, a ne ^cetvert'!_ "Half
a room, and not a quarter!"). The following comments seem to fall under
this rubric:
Adassovsky:
>it is also possible to put emphasis on "pol" in 2. In this case, the "o"
>would receive a large stress
Adassovsky:
>emphasis is put on the half not because this half is something large, but
>because this half is not sufficient.
Contrastive foci are thus an unnecessary variable in this problem.
Nor is orthography necessarily indicative: Mel'^cuk (1985:131) lists an
elaborate algorythm for how to spell this element, depending upon whether
the following element is (a) one or more words, (b) vowel- or
consonant-initial, and (c) _l_-initial or not. Prepositions are invariably
_written_ as separate words, but pronounced as the same word prosodically,
while _pol_ "1/2" can be written together with the following word but does
not subordinate prosodically to the following word with regard to
vowel-reduction.
The one test, apparently attested in just parts of the Russian-speaking
area, does show that _pol_ "1/2" is different from _pol_ "floor":
Adassovsky:
>Some speakers may use a whole "l" in "pol komnaty", and reduce the "l" in
>"polkomnaty", that is when "l" and "k" are tied. It is certainly often the
>case with "pol-litra" (or pol-limona).
Lotoshko:
>>1) L reduces only in territorial dialects, in the literary language
>>there is no reduction of 'L'.
Lotoshko:
>In Russian territorial dialects there are 4 main types of reduction of the
>Russian sound 'L'. 3 types reduced are described in the book for
>students "Russkaja dialektologija/ Pod redakcijej N.A. Mestjerskogo -
>M.:Vyss^aja S^kola, 1972- Str. (page) 64-65.
>
>Ex.:
>
>polka {shelf} --> [pouka/powka] and with l (Central European l)
>palka {stick} --> [pauka/pawka]
I will, suffice it to say, be pursuing this phenomenon further!
Regarding Lotoshko's reference to Avanesov, I haven't consulted _Russkoe
literaturnoe proizno^senije_, but I have found discussion of _pol_ "1/2" in
another work that (I believe) Avanesov was involved in:
_Orfo`epi^ceskij_ (1989:409) [...] mentions that in every example
in which _pol_ precedes an _l_-initial word - all examples that
begin with palatalized /l'/ (e.g., _pol-litra_ 'half-liter') - the
two liquid consonants are in separate syllables and there is no
palatalization assimilation[...]. _Orfo`epi^ceskij_ (1989:11)
also reports that this separate syllabification is standard for
words that begin with syllables that exhibit secondary stress as
with [...] zavlaboratoriej. [Billings (1995:83)]
I now turn to one of the other examples raised:
Lotoshko:
>additional phonetic evidence --> na balkone Engl. balcony
> na bal koni Engl. horses at the dance
>This is also from puzzle, but I don't remember the full puzzle
The full riddle is _Na balkone xodjat_ "(people) walk on the balcony," and
_Na bal koni xodjat_ "horses go to the ball. These are funny because of
their similarity: Each syllable undergoes approximately the same level of
reduction. These examples differ slightly from mine: While these compare
a sequence of words _bal koni_ with a simplex (non-compound) word
_balkone_, in mine a sequence of words _pol komnaty_ is compared to a
compound word. (Moreover, _bal_ + _koni_ in the first example isn't a
syntactic constituent at all, but just two adjacent syntactic words.)
Finally, I correct some comments about gender:
Adassovsky:
>There are some strange facts with "pol" : polkomnaty is neuter (polkomnaty
>bylo...), while polovina as well as komnata are feminine. Stranno, no tak.
>If it is preceded by an adjective, it becomes plural: "tselye polkomnaty
>byli".
I agree with the preceding comment in for the most part.
Lotoshko:
>polkomnaty as polversty, polminuty - fem. and only fem.
>
>> If it is preceded by an adjective, it becomes plural:
>>"tselye polkomnaty byli".
The first part of the preceding comment is erroneous: If _pol_ plus the
quantified noun form the subject of the clause, then there is NEVER
feminine-singular agreement. I modify one of Dumanis's examples:
5. *Polkomnaty byla zastavlena veshchami.
1/2room [was cluttered]fem.sg. things
Instead, neuter-singular agreement is attested:
6. Polkomnaty bylo zastavleno veshchami.
1/2room [was cluttered]neut.sg. things
REFERENCES:
Billings, Loren A. (1995) _Approximation in Russian and the
single-word constraint._ Princeton University Ph.D.
dissertation.
Mel'^cuk, Igor' A. (1985) _Poverxnostnyj sintaksis russkix
^cislovyx vyra^zenij._ (= Wiener slawistischer Almanach
Sonderband 11.) Wien: Institut f"ur Slawistik der
Universit"at Wien.
_Orfo`epi^ceskij slovar' russkogo jazyka. Proizno^senie,
udarenie, grammati^ceskie formy. Okolo 65 000 slov._
(1989) 17th ed. Moskva: Russkij jazyk.
Finally, one other factual error:
>Billings, who asked the question, has read these books, but she is
>interested on the way people speak.
In fact, I am male. (Don't worry, I get this all the time.) And yes, I am
interested in how people speak.
Androgynously,
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Loren A. BILLINGS, Ph.D. (e-mail: billings at rz.uni-leipzig.de)
Institut fuer Slavistik Home address:
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