---
title: "Chuvash"
author: "Emily Strand"
bibliography: cv.bib
output: html_document
---

Last Updated: 2019-08-06

# Background

**Language Family**: Turkic / Bolgar

* Chuvash, also called Bulgar, is spoken in the Chuvashia republic in western Russia.

# Phonology

## Consonants

* /b/, /d/, /g/, /f/, /z/, /ʒ/, /ts/, and /dʒ/ are preserved only in loanwords (Russian) [@johanson_chuvash_2006, p. 434]. Therefore, voicing is not phonemic within the Chuvash language.

```{r echo=FALSE, message=FALSE, warning=FALSE, results = 'asis'}

library(dplyr)
library(knitr)
library(kableExtra)


consonants <- read.table(textConnection('
"Manner of Articulation"   Labial    Alveolar       Alveopalatal  Postalveolar  Palatal   Velar
Stops                       "p"         "t"           ""               ""         ""       "k"
Affricates                   ""         ""            ""              "tʃ"        ""       ""  
Fricatives                   "v"        "s"           "ɕ"             "ʃ"         ""       "χ"
Nasals                       "m"        "n"           ""               ""         ""       ""
Trills                       ""         "r"           ""               ""         ""       ""
Approximants                 ""         "l"           ""               ""         "j"      ""
'), TRUE)

kable(consonants, col.names = c("Manner of Articulation", "Labial", "Alveolar", "Alveolo-Palatal", "Postalveolar", "Palatal", "Velar"), align = 'c') %>%
  kable_styling("bordered") %>%
  add_header_above(c("", "Place of Articulation" = 6)) %>%
  column_spec(1, bold = TRUE)
```


## Vowels

* There is some debate concerning /ӗ/ and /ӑ/ in terms of what phonemes they actually represent. They are said to be reduced, with /ӑ/ being a back-to-central vowel and /ӗ/ being a front to central vowel [@johanson_chuvash_2006, p. 434]. Based on this description and the diagram he provides, I have chosen to use /ɛ/ and /ʌ/.
* **Note:** /o/ does not seem to be included in the phonemic inventory; however, it is often mentioned as appearing heavily through Russian loanwords (and in the Crúbadán corpus) [@johanson_chuvash_2006, p. 434]. I have opted to include it in the ruleset.

```{r echo=FALSE, message=FALSE, warning=FALSE, results = 'asis'}

vowels <- read.table(textConnection('
         Front       Back
High     "i  y"     "ɯ  u"
High-Mid  "e"         ""
Low-Mid   "ɛ"        "ʌ"
Low        ""        "ɑ"
'), TRUE)

kable(vowels, align = 'c') %>%
  kable_styling("bordered") %>%
  column_spec(1, bold = TRUE) %>%
  footnote(general = "Note: The high front and back vowel are ordered unrounded and rounded. The rest of the vowels are unrounded.", general_title = "")
```    

# Alphabet

* Much of the grapheme to phoneme mapping was inferred from @kruger_chuvash_1997.

```{r echo=FALSE, message=FALSE, warning=FALSE, results = 'asis'}

alphabet <- read.table(textConnection('
Grapheme      Phoneme                      Comment
"a"            "/ɑ/"                          ""
"ӑ"            "/ʌ/"                          ""
"в"            "/v/"                          ""
"e"         "/je/; /e/"      "/je/: word-initially; /e/: elsewhere"           
"ӗ"	           "/ɛ/"                          ""                           
"и"            "/i/"                          ""
"й"            "/j/"                          ""
"к"            "/k/"                          ""
"л"            "/l/"                          ""
"м"            "/m/"                          ""
"н"            "/n/"                          ""
"п"            "/p/"                          ""
"о"            "/o/"               "appears heavily in loanwords"
"р"            "/r/"                          ""
"с"            "/s/"                          ""
"ҫ"            "/ɕ/"                          ""
"т"            "/t/"                          ""
"у"            "/u/"                          ""
"ӳ"            "/y/"                          ""
"х"            "/χ/"                          ""
"ч"            "/tʃ/"                         ""
"ш"            "/ʃ/"                          ""
"ы"            "/ɯ/"                          ""
"э"            "/e/"                          ""
"ю"            "/ju/"                         ""
"я"	           "/jɑ/"                         ""
'), TRUE)

kable(alphabet, align = 'c') %>%
  kable_styling("bordered")
```

# Lenition Rules

* Voiceless consonants are voiced intervocalically, after sonorants, and before vowels [@johanson_chuvash_2006, p. 435]     

# Misc. Rules

* Consonants palatalize preceding and following front vowels [@johanson_chuvash_2006, p. 435].
* The Chuvash language requires vowel harmony [@johanson_chuvash_2006, p. 436].    
* Gemination can occur with any consonant (specification only on native phonemes) [@dobrovolsky_chuvash_1996, p. 31].    
* Geminate consonants are realized as voiceless (ibid.).

# References
