proiznoshenie-e-

[Robert A. Rothstein]

I'm surprised that it hasn't occurred to any participant in this 
extended discussion to look at the published authorities on Russian 
literary pronunciation, for example, Ruben Ivanovich Avanesov. He 
addresses the question of the pronunciation of _e_ after hard consonants 
in his _Russkoe literaturnoe proiznoshenie_. In the fifth edition 
(Moscow, 1972), which I have at hand, the relevant discussion is on pp. 
57-58 (as part of the larger discussion of "Udarnye glasnye [a], [o], 
[e]"). I note that in the original of the quotation below Avanesov uses 
the cyrillic e-oborotnoe where I have used e*.


“Posle tverdykh soglasnykh obrazovanie glasnogo [e] stanovitsia bolee 
zadnim – iazykovoe telo zametno otodvigaetsia nazad (oboznachim takoe 
[e] znakom [e*]. Eta otodvizhka nazad proiskhodit posle tverdykh 
shipiashchikh [zh], [sh] i posle [ts], a v chasti slov inoiazychnogo 
proiskhozhdeniia – takzhe posle drugikh soglasnykh. Chtoby zametit’ etu 
otodvizhku nazad v obrazovanii [e], polezno obratit’ vnimanie na 
proiznoshenie sootvetsvuiushchego glasnogo, naprimer v slovakh _mest_ i 
_shest_: [m’est] i [she*st]. Pri etom pered tverdymi soglasnymi, a 
takzhe na kontse slova glasnyi [e*] imeet otkrytoe obrazovanie, a pered 
miagkimi soglasnymi – zakrytoe. Zakrytyi glasnyi [e*] v kontse svoei 
dlitel’nosti imeet bolee perednee i verkhnee obrazovanie, t. e. uklad 
iazyka, blizkii k [i].”

 Avanesov gives the following minimal pairs for the more open vs. more 
closed variants of [e*]: shest/shest’, zhest/zhest’, tsep/tsep’. He also 
gives more examples of the open variant

            NATIVE: zhenskii, zhertva, zhemchug, shedshii, shenkel’, 
tsennyi, tsex, na nozhe, v shalashe

            [NOT FULLY ASSIMILATED] FOREIGN ORIGIN: tent, tertsiia, 
derbi, seksta, temp, tembr, bazedova (bolezn’), beze, piure

 and of the closed variant

            NATIVE: zhenin, zhen’shen’, zherekh, shelest, shel’ma

            [NOT FULLY ASSIMILATED] FOREIGN ORIGIN: del’ta, tennis, 
otel’, sepiia.


Is there a phonetician on the list who can say whether anything has 
changed since Avanesov's description (other than full or fuller 
assimilation of some of the "foreign" words that Avanesov cites as 
examples).

Bob Rothstein

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