Phonemic Inventory of the Shor Language Uliana Kazagasheva
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Eastern Michigan University DigitalCommons@EMU Master's Theses, and Doctoral Dissertations, and Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations Graduate Capstone Projects 2016 Phonemic inventory of the Shor language Uliana Kazagasheva Follow this and additional works at: http://commons.emich.edu/theses Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Kazagasheva, Uliana, "Phonemic inventory of the Shor language" (2016). Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations. 838. http://commons.emich.edu/theses/838 This Open Access Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Master's Theses, and Doctoral Dissertations, and Graduate Capstone Projects at DigitalCommons@EMU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@EMU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Phonemic Inventory of the Shor Language by Uliana Kazagasheva Thesis Submitted to the Department of English Language and Literature Eastern Michigan University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS in English Linguistics Thesis Committee: Veronica Grondona, Ph.D., Chair Beverley Goodman, Ph.D. October 10, 2016 Ypsilanti, Michigan ii Dedication To my father, Yuri Kazagashev, Shor, who has been a great example and inspiration my entire life and who taught me about the Shor people and the Shor language. To the Shor people, who strive to preserve their language and culture and whose pride, diligence, and hard work won’t let their language and culture diminish. To my mother, Elena, and my brother, Mikhail, may you find love and acceptance of the Shor language. iii Acknowledgments I would like to extend my deepest gratitude to my thesis committee members, Dr. Veronica Grondona and Dr. Beverley Goodman, whose guidance and support enabled me to develop an understanding of the subject. I am tremendously thankful to Dr. Grondona, thesis chair and my graduate advisor, who has been greatly helpful and supportive during the years of my academic journey at Eastern Michigan University and whose kind advice mentored me in many ways. I would like to express my gratitude to Dr. Beverley Goodman, who raised my interest in the field of phonology and phonetics and whose encouragement and support led me throughout the work on my thesis. I would like to gratefully acknowledge Dr. Helen Aristar-Dry for giving me a chance to step into the journey of graduate assistantship and awaking in me an awareness of the linguistic community. I owe my gratitude to my language technology professor, Damir Cavar, who instilled my interest in the technical aspects of linguistics and language documentation. I would like to thank Sara, Stephanie, James, Ashley and my parents for moral support and encouragement throughout my project development. Lastly, I owe my gratitude to all those who stood by my side and supported me during the completion of this thesis. iv Abstract This thesis describes the phonemic inventory and morphophonological properties of the Shor language. Shor is a Turkic language spoken in southwest Siberia, in the area designated as Mountainous Shoriya. It is one of more than 100 minority languages spoken in the territory of Russia, and it is currently on the verge of extinction. The language is characterized by agglutinative morphology, vowel harmony, and consonant assimilation typical of Turkic languages, which are discussed in the project. The main phonological processes, morphotactics, and some aspects of grammar are described and discussed in this thesis. Along with the discussion of the morphophonology of Shor, the paper describes the geographic spread of the language, including important ethnographic and sociolinguistic data and information. v Table of Contents Dedication ....................................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgments.......................................................................................................................... iii Abstract .......................................................................................................................................... iv List of Tables ................................................................................................................................. ix List of Figures .............................................................................................................................. xiii Abbreviations ............................................................................................................................... xiv Notations ...................................................................................................................................... xiv Diacritics ...................................................................................................................................... xiv 1. Introduction and Background .................................................................................................. 1 1.1 Objective ................................................................................................................... 2 1.2 Project Significance .................................................................................................. 2 1.3 Structure of This Thesis ............................................................................................ 3 1.4 Ethnography of Shors ............................................................................................... 4 1.4.1 Geographic spread of the language. ............................................................... 4 1.4.2 Origin. ............................................................................................................ 7 1.4.3 History. ........................................................................................................... 9 1.4.4 Typology. ..................................................................................................... 11 1.4.5 Dialects. ........................................................................................................ 13 vi 1.4.6 Writing system. ............................................................................................ 18 1.5 Sociolinguistic Situation ......................................................................................... 18 1.5.1 Current status of Shor as an indigenous language of Siberia. ...................... 18 1.5.2 Cultural assimilation and shift to the Russian language. ............................. 23 2. Previous Research of the Shor Language .............................................................................. 25 2.1 Review of Related Literature and Preliminary Studies ........................................... 25 2.2 Comparison Study of the Shor Phonemic Inventory .............................................. 30 3. Shor Vowels .......................................................................................................................... 32 3.1 Overview of the Existing Descriptions of the Shor Vowel Inventories.................. 32 3.1.1 Dyrenkova, 1941. ......................................................................................... 33 3.1.2 Babushkin and Donidze, 1966. .................................................................... 34 3.1.3 Borodkina, 1977. .......................................................................................... 34 3.1.4 Chispiyakova and Shavlova, 1991. .............................................................. 36 3.1.5 Chispiyakov, 1992a ...................................................................................... 39 3.1.6 Chispiyakov, 1992b ...................................................................................... 40 3.1.7 Donidze, 1996. ............................................................................................. 41 3.1.8 Musaev, 2014 ............................................................................................... 41 3.2 Summary of the Existing Descriptions of the Shor Vowel Inventories .................. 42 3.3 Shor Vowel Inventory ............................................................................................. 44 3.3.1 Detailed description of the Shor vowel phonemes. ...................................... 48 vii 3.3.2 Phonological processes: Vowel harmony.. .................................................. 56 3.3.3 Summary. ..................................................................................................... 62 3.4 Chapter Summary ................................................................................................... 63 4. Shor Consonants .................................................................................................................... 64 4.1 Overview of the Existing Descriptions of the Shor Consonant Inventories ........... 64 4.1.1 Dyrenkova, 1941. ......................................................................................... 64 4.1.2 Babushkin and Donidze, 1966 ..................................................................... 65 4.1.3 Pospelova, 1977 ........................................................................................... 66 4.1.4 Chispiyakova and Shavlova, 1991.. ............................................................. 71 4.1.5 Chispiyakov, 1992a ...................................................................................... 73