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The
phonological Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
system of the
Polish language Polish (Polish: ''język polski'', , ''polszczyzna'' or simply ''polski'', ) is a West Slavic language of the Lechitic group written in the Latin script. It is spoken primarily in Poland and serves as the native language of the Poles. In ad ...
is similar in many ways to those of other
Slavic languages The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic, spoken during the ...
, although there are some characteristic features found in only a few other languages of the family, such as contrasting
postalveolar Postalveolar or post-alveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the ''back'' of the alveolar ridge. Articulation is farther back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but n ...
and
alveolo-palatal In phonetics, alveolo-palatal (or alveopalatal) consonants, sometimes synonymous with pre-palatal consonants, are intermediate in articulation between the coronal and dorsal consonants, or which have simultaneous alveolar and palatal artic ...
fricatives and affricates. The
vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (len ...
system is relatively simple, with just six oral
monophthong A monophthong ( ; , ) is a pure vowel sound, one whose articulation at both beginning and end is relatively fixed, and which does not glide up or down towards a new position of articulation. The monophthongs can be contrasted with diphthongs, wh ...
s and arguably two nasals in traditional speech, while the consonant system is much more complex.


Vowels

The Polish
vowel A vowel is a syllabic speech sound pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Vowels are one of the two principal classes of speech sounds, the other being the consonant. Vowels vary in quality, in loudness and also in quantity (len ...
system consists of six oral sounds. Traditionally, it was also said to include two
nasal Nasal is an adjective referring to the nose, part of human or animal anatomy. It may also be shorthand for the following uses in combination: * With reference to the human nose: ** Nasal administration, a method of pharmaceutical drug delivery * ...
monophthong A monophthong ( ; , ) is a pure vowel sound, one whose articulation at both beginning and end is relatively fixed, and which does not glide up or down towards a new position of articulation. The monophthongs can be contrasted with diphthongs, wh ...
s, with Polish considered the last
Slavic language The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic, spoken during the Ea ...
that had preserved nasal sounds that existed in
Proto-Slavic Proto-Slavic (abbreviated PSl., PS.; also called Common Slavic or Common Slavonic) is the unattested, reconstructed proto-language of all Slavic languages. It represents Slavic speech approximately from the 2nd millennium B.C. through the 6th ...
. However, recent sources present for modern Polish a vowel system without nasal vowel phonemes, including only the aforementioned six oral vowels.


Oral


Close

* is close front unrounded . It is somewhat more open than cardinal . * ranges from almost close-mid near-front to (advanced) close-mid central or alternatively from near-close near-front unrounded to close-mid central unrounded . These descriptions are essentially equivalent. Traditionally, is used in narrow transcriptions (as if close central unrounded). Older sources describe this vowel as follows: ** According to , it is intermediate between cardinal and , but closer to the latter one. Alternatively, it is intermediate between cardinal and , but closer to the former. He places it on a vowel chart closer to . ** According to it is articulated with the centre of the tongue raised up and moved somewhat forward; the pharynx also widens. She places it on a vowel chart closer to . ** According to , it is near-close central unrounded , with a close-mid central unrounded allophone being optional before and in some unstressed positions. A realization close to near-close near front unrounded is present in northeastern dialects. * is close back rounded . It is somewhat more open than cardinal , and intermediate between them in terms of labialization. ** There is no complete agreement about the realization of between soft consonants: *** According to , it is close back somewhat fronted . *** According to , it is close central . *** According to , it is close centralized .


Mid

* is open-mid front unrounded . It is somewhat more open than cardinal . ** There is no complete agreement about the realization of between soft consonants: *** According to , and , it is close-mid front unrounded . *** According to , it is either mid front unrounded or mid retracted front unrounded . *** According to the British phonetician John C. Wells, it is often noticeably centralized : somewhat closer to a central vowel in palatal contexts. * is open-mid back. It is somewhat more open than cardinal , and intermediate between them in terms of labialization. ** There is no complete agreement about the rounding of : *** According to , it is usually somewhat rounded , but sometimes, it is pronounced with neutral lips . In the latter case, the lack of rounding is compensated for by a stronger retraction of the tongue. *** According to , citing , it is unrounded . *** According to , it is simply "rounded" . ** There is no complete agreement about the realization of between soft consonants: *** According to , it can be any of the following: open-mid centralized back rounded , raised open-mid back rounded or mid advanced back rounded *** According to , it is close-mid advanced back rounded . *** According to , it is close-mid central rounded vowel . ** According to , a close-mid back is a free variant before .


Open

* is open central unrounded . According to most sources, it is intermediate between cardinal and . However, describes it broadly as open front unrounded . Traditionally, is used even in otherwise narrow transcriptions. ** There is no complete agreement about the realization of between soft consonants: *** According to , it is open front unrounded . *** According to , it is open front unrounded or even near-open front unrounded . She uses for the main central allophone. *** According to , it is near-open central unrounded . *** According to , it is near-open near-front unrounded .


Distribution

The vowels and have largely
complementary distribution In linguistics, complementary distribution, as distinct from contrastive distribution and free variation, is the relationship between two different elements of the same kind in which one element is found in one set of environments and the other ele ...
. Either vowel may follow a
labial consonant Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. The two common labial articulations are bilabials, articulated using both lips, and labiodentals, articulated with the lower lip against the upper teeth, b ...
, as in ''mi'' ('to me') and ''my'' ('we'). Elsewhere, however, is usually restricted to word-initial position and positions after
alveolo-palatal consonant In phonetics, alveolo-palatal (or alveopalatal) consonants, sometimes synonymous with pre-palatal consonants, are intermediate in articulation between the coronal and dorsal consonants, or which have simultaneous alveolar and palatal artic ...
s and approximants , while cannot appear in those positions (see § Hard and soft consonants below). Either vowel may follow a velar fricative but after velar the vowel is limited to rare loanwords e.g. ''kynologia'' ('
cynology Cynology (rarely kynology, ) is the study of matters related to canines or domestic dogs. In English, it is a term sometimes used to denote a serious zoological approach to the study of dogs as well as by writers on canine subjects, dog breeders, ...
') and ''gyros'' ('
gyro Gyro may refer to: Science and technology * GYRO, a computer program for tokamak plasma simulation * Gyro Motor Company, an American aircraft engine manufacturer * ''Gyrodactylus salaris'', a parasite in salmon * Gyroscope, an orientation-sta ...
'). Dental, postalveolar consonants and approximants are followed by in native or assimilated words. However, appears outside its usual positions in some foreign-derived words, as in ''chipsy'' ('
potato chip A potato chip (North American English; often just chip) or crisp (British and Irish English) is a thin slice of potato that has been either deep fried, baked, or air fried until crunchy. They are commonly served as a snack, side dish, or ap ...
s') and ''tir'' ('large lorry', see TIR). The degree of palatalization in these contexts is weak. In some phonological descriptions of Polish that make a phonemic distinction between palatalized and unpalatalized consonants, and may thus be treated as
allophone In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor ''phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in '' ...
s of a single
phoneme In phonology and linguistics, a phoneme () is a unit of sound that can distinguish one word from another in a particular language. For example, in most dialects of English, with the notable exception of the West Midlands and the north-wes ...
. In the past, was closer to , which is acoustically more similar to .


Nasal

Nasal vowels do not feature uniform nasality over their duration.
Phonetically Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds, or in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians. ...
, they consist of an oral vowel followed by a nasal
semivowel In phonetics and phonology, a semivowel, glide or semiconsonant is a sound that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary, rather than as the nucleus of a syllable. Examples of semivowels in English are the c ...
or (''są'' is pronounced , which sounds closer to Portuguese ''são'' than
French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
''sont'' – all three words mean '(they) are'). Therefore, they are phonetically
diphthong A diphthong ( ; , ), also known as a gliding vowel, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of the speech ...
s. (For nasality following other vowel nuclei, see § Allophony below.)


Phonological status

The nasal phonemes appear in older phonological descriptions of Polish e.g. , , . In more recent descriptions the orthographic nasal vowels ''ą'', ''ę'' are analyzed as two phonemes in all contexts e.g. , . Before a
fricative A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in ...
and in word-final position (in the case of ''ą'') they are transcribed as an oral vowel followed by a nasal consonant or . Under such an analysis, the list of consonantal phonemes is extended by a velar nasal phoneme or by two
nasal approximant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough nor with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a ...
s , .


Distribution

If analyzed as separate phonemes, nasal vowels do not occur except before a
fricative A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in ...
and in word-final position. When the letters ''ą'' and ''ę'' appear before stops and
affricate An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pai ...
s, they indicate an oral or followed by a
nasal consonant In phonetics, a nasal, also called a nasal occlusive or nasal stop in contrast with an oral stop or nasalized consonant, is an occlusive consonant produced with a lowered velum, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The vast major ...
homorganic In phonetics, a homorganic consonant (from ''homo-'' "same" and ''organ'' "(speech) organ") is a consonant sound that is articulated in the same place of articulation as another. For example, , and are homorganic consonants of one another sinc ...
with the following consonant. For example, ''kąt'' ('angle', 'corner') is , ''gęba'' ('mouth') is , ''pięć'' ('five') is and ''bąk'' ('bumble bee') is , as if they were spelled ''*kont'', ''*gemba'', ''*pieńć'' and ''*bonk''. Before or , nasality is lost altogether and ''ą'' and ''ę'' pronounced as oral // or //. The sequence is also denasalized to // in word-final position, as in 'I will be'.


Historical development

Distinctive
vowel length In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived length of a vowel sound: the corresponding physical measurement is duration. In some languages vowel length is an important phonemic factor, meaning vowel length can change the meaning of the word ...
was inherited from late
Proto-Slavic Proto-Slavic (abbreviated PSl., PS.; also called Common Slavic or Common Slavonic) is the unattested, reconstructed proto-language of all Slavic languages. It represents Slavic speech approximately from the 2nd millennium B.C. through the 6th ...
, although in Polish only some pretonic long vowels and vowels with the neoacute retained length. Additional vowel lengths were introduced in Proto-Polish (as in other
West Slavic languages The West Slavic languages are a subdivision of the Slavic language group. They include Polish, Czech, Slovak, Kashubian, Upper Sorbian and Lower Sorbian. The languages have traditionally been spoken across a mostly continuous region encom ...
) as a result of
compensatory lengthening Compensatory lengthening in phonology and historical linguistics is the lengthening of a vowel sound that happens upon the loss of a following consonant, usually in the syllable coda, or of a vowel in an adjacent syllable. Lengthening triggered ...
when a yer in the next syllable disappeared according to Havlík's law. In Polish this only happened in penultimate syllables (which thus became final syllables) before a voiced consonant (in other Slavic languages where a similar process occurred this could be more general). The resultant system of vowel lengths was similar to what is today preserved in Czech and to a lesser degree in Slovak, although the distribution of the sounds often differed (for example in Czech the old acute also lengthened vowels). In the emerging modern Polish, however, the long vowels were shortened again but sometimes (depending on dialect) with a change in quality (the vowels tended to become higher). The latter changes came to be incorporated into the standard language only in the case of long ''o'' and the long nasal vowel. The
vowel shift A vowel shift is a systematic sound change in the pronunciation of the vowel sounds of a language. The best-known example in the English language is the Great Vowel Shift, which began in the 15th century. The Greek language also underwent ...
may thus be presented as follows: * long oral > short oral (certain dialects: , ) * long oral > short oral (certain dialects: , or ) * long oral or > short oral or * long oral > short oral (certain dialects: ), written ''ó'' * long oral > short oral , written ''u'' * long nasal > short nasal , written ''ą'' Note that the that was once a long is still distinguished in script as ''ó'', except in some words which were later respelled, such as , , (instead of etymological , , ). In most circumstances, consonants were palatalized when followed by an original front vowel, including the soft yer (ь) that was often later lost. For example: ''*dьnь'' became ''dzień'' ('day'), while ''*dьnьmъ'' became ''dniem'' ('day' instr.). Nasal vowels ''*ę'' and ''*ǫ'' of late Proto-Slavic merged (''*ę'' leaving a trace by palatalizing the preceding consonant) to become the medieval Polish vowel , written ''ø''. Like other Polish vowels, it developed long and short variants. The short variant developed into present-day ''ę'', while the long form became , written ''ą'', as described above. Overall: * Proto-Slavic ''*ę'' > ''ię'' when short, ''ią'' when long (where the ''i'' represents palatalization of the preceding consonant) * Proto-Slavic ''*ǫ'' > ''ę'' when short, ''ą'' when long The historical shifts are the reason for the alternations ''o'':''ó'' and ''ę'':''ą'' commonly encountered in Polish morphology: ''*rogъ'' ('horn') became ''róg'' due to the loss of the following yer (originally pronounced with a long ''o'', now with ), and the instrumental case of the same word went from ''*rogъmъ'' to ''rogiem'' (with no lengthening of the ''o''). Similarly, ''*dǫbъ'' ('oak') became ''dąb'' (originally with the long form of the nasal vowel), and in the instrumental case, ''*dǫbъmъ'' the vowel remained short, causing the modern ''dębem''.


Dialectal variation

Polish dialects differ particularly in their realization of nasal vowels, both in terms of whether and when they are decomposed to an oral vowel followed by a nasal consonant and in terms of the quality of the vowels used. Also, some dialects preserve nonstandard developments of historical long vowels (see previous section); for example, ''a'' may be pronounced with in words in which it was historically long.


Consonants

The Polish
consonant In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced w ...
system is more complicated; its characteristic features include the series of
affricate An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pai ...
s and palatal consonants that resulted from four Proto-Slavic palatalizations and two further palatalizations that took place in Polish and Belarusian.


Phonemes

The consonant phonemes of Polish are as follows: The
postalveolar Postalveolar or post-alveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the ''back'' of the alveolar ridge. Articulation is farther back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but n ...
sounds ''(sz, ż, cz, dż)'' and the corresponding
alveolo-palatal In phonetics, alveolo-palatal (or alveopalatal) consonants, sometimes synonymous with pre-palatal consonants, are intermediate in articulation between the coronal and dorsal consonants, or which have simultaneous alveolar and palatal artic ...
s ''(ś, ź, ć, dź)'' both sound similar to the English palato-alveolar consonants (the ''sh'' and ''ch'' sounds and their voiced equivalents). The tongue shape of the postalveolar sounds is similar to the shape postalveolar approximant (one of the realizations of the English /r/ phoneme, see also
Pronunciation of English /r/ The pronunciation of the phoneme in the English language has many variations in different dialects. Variations Depending on dialect, has at least the following allophones in varieties of English around the world: *"Standard" R: labiali ...
). The
alveolo-palatal In phonetics, alveolo-palatal (or alveopalatal) consonants, sometimes synonymous with pre-palatal consonants, are intermediate in articulation between the coronal and dorsal consonants, or which have simultaneous alveolar and palatal artic ...
s are pronounced with the body of the tongue raised to the hard
palate The palate () is the roof of the mouth in humans and other mammals. It separates the oral cavity from the nasal cavity. A similar structure is found in crocodilians, but in most other tetrapods, the oral and nasal cavities are not truly separ ...
but a greater area of the front of the tongue is raised close to the hard palate compared to the English palato-alveolar sounds. The series are known as "rustling" ''(szeleszczące)'' and "humming" ''(szumiące)'' respectively; the equivalent alveolar series ''(s, z, c, dz)'' is called "hissing" ''(syczące)''. Polish contrasts
affricate An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation (most often coronal). It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pai ...
s and stop–fricative clusters by the fricative components being consistently longer in clusters than in affricates. Stops in clusters may have either a plosive release accompanied by a weak aspiration or a fricated release (as in an affricate) depending on the rate of speech and individual speech habits. * ('clean' fem.) vs. or ('three hundred'). * ('jam') with vs. or ('take a nap' imper. sing.). Both realizations of stop-fricative clusters are considered correct and typically respelled as ''tsz'', ''d-ż'' and ''czsz'', ''dżż'' respectively in normative descriptions of Polish pronunciation. The distinction is lost in colloquial pronunciation in south-eastern Poland both being realized as simple affricates as in some Lesser Polish dialects. According to , , such a simplification is allowed in the standard language variety only before another consonant or before a juncture, e.g. ''trzmiel'' or ('bumblebee'), ''patrz'' or ('look', imper. sing.). For the possibility of an additional velar fricative for , see § Dialectal variation below. On the same grounds as for gives a phonemic status for speakers who have in their system.


Allophones

* are
labial The term ''labial'' originates from '' Labium'' (Latin for "lip"), and is the adjective that describes anything of or related to lips, such as lip-like structures. Thus, it may refer to: * the lips ** In linguistics, a labial consonant ** In zoolog ...
except before where they are palatalized . * have a labiodental allophone , which occurs before labiodental consonants (as in ''symfonia'' 'symphony' or ''konfiguracja'' 'configuration'). Before fricatives, orthographic nasal consonants ''m'', ''n'' may be realized as
nasal approximant Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough nor with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a ...
s , analogous to below. This occurs in
loanword A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because ...
s, and in
free variation In linguistics, free variation is the phenomenon of two (or more) sounds or forms appearing in the same environment without a change in meaning and without being considered incorrect by native speakers. Sociolinguists argue that describing such ...
with the typical consonantal pronunciation (e.g. ''instynkt'' 'instinct'). * are
denti-alveolar In linguistics, a denti-alveolar consonant or dento-alveolar consonant is a consonant that is articulated with a flat tongue against the alveolar ridge and the upper teeth, such as and in languages such as French, Italian and Spanish. That is, ...
except before /i, j/ and postalveolar consonants. They are pronounced with the tip of the tongue very close or touching to the upper front teeth and partially the front of the alveolar ridge. In western and northern Poland, is maintained in native words across a morpheme boundary in ''nk'', e.g. ''sionka'' ('a small hallway') contrasts with ''siąka'' ('((s)he sniffs') . In other parts of Poland, the contrast is neutralized towards , i.e. is used for both. In foreign words ''nk, ng'' represent . * are palatalized laminal alveolar before in recent borrowings. They are pronounced with the blade of the tongue very close or touching the alveolar ridge. * are apical alveolar before apical postalveolar while is apical alveolar before . * can be assimilated to affricates before , before and before . * can be assimilated to before and to before . * are variously described as apical
postalveolar Postalveolar or post-alveolar consonants are consonants articulated with the tongue near or touching the ''back'' of the alveolar ridge. Articulation is farther back in the mouth than the alveolar consonants, which are at the ridge itself, but n ...
or as (laminal) flat postalveolar. They are articulated with a flat, retracted tongue body, the tongue tip being raised and the entire blade moved up and back behind the corner of the alveolar ridge. A recent study shows that and the release of are predominantly alveolar, while the place of articulation of the stop in varies between alveolar and postalveolar. This agrees with characterizations of as alveolar in older sources. They may be described as retroflex to indicate that they are not palatalized laminal postalveolar . Strictly speaking, this is at odds with the narrower definition of retroflex consonants as subapical, in which the tongue curls back and its underside becomes the active articulator. Occasionally, were used in a similar vein. * become palatalized laminal postalveolar before in recent loanwords. * are
alveolo-palatal In phonetics, alveolo-palatal (or alveopalatal) consonants, sometimes synonymous with pre-palatal consonants, are intermediate in articulation between the coronal and dorsal consonants, or which have simultaneous alveolar and palatal artic ...
. They are articulated with the blade of the tongue behind the alveolar ridge and the body of the tongue raised toward the palate. Before fricatives, is usually realized as a
nasalized palatal approximant The nasal palatal approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in some oral languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , that is, a j with a tilde. The equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is j~, and in th ...
, for example, ''państwo'' ('state/country') , ''Gdańsk'' . * are velar . Before fricatives and word-finally, is realized as
nasalized velar approximant In phonetics, nasalization (or nasalisation) is the production of a sound while the velum is lowered, so that some air escapes through the nose during the production of the sound by the mouth. An archetypal nasal sound is . In the Internatio ...
. According to , this allophone is non-labialized . * is primarily velar ; it has the strongest friction before consonants , weaker friction before vowels and weakest friction intervocalically, where it may be realized as glottal (this variant "may appear to be voiced"). has a voiced
allophone In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor ''phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in '' ...
, which occurs whenever is followed by a voiced obstruent (even across a word boundary), in accordance with the rules given under § Voicing and devoicing below. For example, ''klechda'' 'legend, myth' is , ''dach'' ('roof') is , but ''dach domu'' ('roof of the house') is . * before are postpalatal . If are acknowledged as phonemes they are as well, but their distribution is limited to contexts before . A postpalatal allophone of appears only in front of . * is apical alveolar and becomes denti-alveolar before a following denti-alveolar consonant . A palatalized laminal or
alveopalatal In phonetics, alveolo-palatal (or alveopalatal) consonants, sometimes synonymous with pre-palatal consonants, are intermediate in articulation between the coronal and dorsal consonants, or which have simultaneous alveolar and palatal artic ...
is used before . * is apical alveolar. It has been traditionally classified as a trill , with a tap supposedly only occurring as an allophone or in fast speech. However, more recent studies show that is predominantly realized as a tap , sometimes as an approximant or a fricative, but almost never as a trill. One study found that in an intervocalic context a trilled occurs in less than 3% of cases, while a tapped occurred in approximately 95% of cases. Another study by the same researcher showed that in a postconsonantal position, is realized as a tapped in 80–90% of cases, while trilled occurs in just 1.5% of articulations. A palatalized laminal tap is used before in recent loanwords. * is a palatal approximant . According to , is reduced and very short after consonants before vowels, for example ''miasto'' ('city') , ''piasek'' ('sand') . * is a velar approximant . According to , is most commonly non-labialized ; a labialization being typical only before . A palatalized allophone before is given by . * The approximants may be regarded as non-syllabic vowels when they are not followed by a vowel. For example, ''raj'' ('paradise') , ''dał'' ('he gave') , ''autor'' ('author') . * are regularly devoiced after a voiceless obstruent and optionally after a voiced obstruent which was devoiced. For example, ''wiatr'' ('wind') is pronounced , while ''kadr'' ('a frame") can be pronounced or . (See § Voicing and devoicing below.)


Distribution

Polish, like other Slavic languages, permits complex consonant clusters, which often arose from the disappearance of yers (see § Historical development above). Polish can have word-initial and word-medial clusters of up to four consonants, whereas word-final clusters can have up to five consonants. Examples of such clusters can be found in words such as ''bezwzględny'' ('unconditional' or 'heartless', 'ruthless'), ''źdźbło'' ('blade of grass'), ('shock'), and ''krnąbrność'' ('disobedience'). A popular Polish tongue-twister (from a verse by
Jan Brzechwa Jan Brzechwa (), (15 August 1898 – 2 July 1966) was a Polish poet, author and lawyer, known mostly for his contribution to children's literature. He was born Jan Wiktor Lesman to a Polish family of Jewish descent.
) is ('In
Szczebrzeszyn Szczebrzeszyn (; yi, שעברעשין, Shebreshin; uk, Щебрешин, Shchebreshyn) is a city in southeastern Poland in Lublin Voivodeship, in Zamość County, about 20km west of Zamość. From 1975–1999, it was part of the Zamość Voiv ...
a beetle buzzes in the reeds'). For the restrictions on combinations of voiced and voiceless consonants in clusters, see § Voicing and devoicing below. Unlike languages such as Czech, Polish does not have
syllabic consonant A syllabic consonant or vocalic consonant is a consonant that forms a syllable on its own, like the ''m'', ''n'' and ''l'' in some pronunciations of the English words ''rhythm'', ''button'' and ''bottle''. To represent it, the understroke diacrit ...
s: the nucleus of a
syllable A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological ...
is always a vowel. The consonant is restricted to positions adjacent to a vowel. It also cannot precede ''i'' or ''y''. (For other restrictions on consonants appearing before ''i'' or ''y'', see § Distribution above.)


Voicing and devoicing

Polish
obstruent An obstruent () is a speech sound such as , , or that is formed by ''obstructing'' airflow. Obstruents contrast with sonorants, which have no such obstruction and so resonate. All obstruents are consonants, but sonorants include vowels as well as ...
s (stops, affricates and fricatives) are subject to voicing and devoicing in certain positions. This leads to neutralization of voiced/voiceless pairs in those positions (or equivalently, restrictions on the distribution of voiced and voiceless consonants). The phenomenon applies in word-final position and in
consonant cluster In linguistics, a consonant cluster, consonant sequence or consonant compound, is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word ''splits''. In the education fie ...
s. In Polish consonant clusters, including across a word boundary, the obstruents are all voiced or all voiceless. To determine (based on the spelling of the words) whether a given cluster has voiced or voiceless obstruents, the ''last'' obstruent in the cluster, excluding ''w'' or ''rz'' (but including ''ż''), should be examined to see if it appears to be voiced or voiceless. The consonants ''n, m, ń, r, j, l, ł'' do not represent obstruents and so do not affect the voicing of other consonants; they are also usually not subject to devoicing except when surrounded by unvoiced consonants. Some examples follow (click the words to hear them spoken): * ('boat'), → before the voiceless ''k'' * ('jackdaw'), → before the voiceless ''k'' * ('also'), → before the voiced ''ż'' * ('as if'), → before the voiced ''b'' * ('bush'), → ; ''rz'' does not determine the voicing of the cluster * ('to replay'), → & → ; ''w'' does not determine the voicing of the cluster * ''dach domu'' ('roof of the house'), → ; the rule still applies across a word boundary In some dialects of
Wielkopolska Greater Poland, often known by its Polish name Wielkopolska (; german: Großpolen, sv, Storpolen, la, Polonia Maior), is a historical region of west-central Poland. Its chief and largest city is Poznań followed by Kalisz, the oldest city ...
and the eastern borderlands, remains voiced after voiceless consonants. The above rule does not apply to
sonorant In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant or resonant is a speech sound that is produced with continuous, non-turbulent airflow in the vocal tract; these are the manners of articulation that are most often voiced in the world's languages. Vowels ar ...
s: a consonant cluster may contain voiced sonorants and voiceless obstruents, as in , , ''słoń'' , ''tnąc'' . Utterance-finally, obstruents are pronounced voiceless. For example, the in ''bóg'' ('god') is pronounced , and the in ''zajazd'' ('inn') represents . If followed by a word beginning with a obstruent then the above cluster rules apply across morpheme boundaries. When the second word begins with a
sonorant In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant or resonant is a speech sound that is produced with continuous, non-turbulent airflow in the vocal tract; these are the manners of articulation that are most often voiced in the world's languages. Vowels ar ...
the voicing of any preceding word-final obstruent varies regionally. In western and southern Poland, final obstruents are voiced (''voicing pronunciation'') if the following word starts with a
sonorant In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant or resonant is a speech sound that is produced with continuous, non-turbulent airflow in the vocal tract; these are the manners of articulation that are most often voiced in the world's languages. Vowels ar ...
(here, for example, the in ''brat ojca'' 'father's brother' would be pronounced as ). On the other hand, they are voiceless (''devoicing pronunciation'') in eastern and northern Poland ( is pronounced ). This rule does not apply to prepositional clitics ''w, z, bez, przez, nad, pod, od, przed'' which are always voiced before sonorants.


Hard and soft consonants

Multiple palatalizations and some depalatalizations that took place in the history of Proto-Slavic and Polish have created quite a complex system of what are often called "soft" and "hard" consonants. These terms are useful in describing some
inflection In linguistic morphology, inflection (or inflexion) is a process of word formation in which a word is modified to express different grammatical categories such as tense, case, voice, aspect, person, number, gender, mood, animacy, and ...
patterns and other morphological processes, but exact definitions of "soft" and "hard" may differ somewhat. "Soft" generally refers to the palatal nature of a consonant. The
alveolo-palatal In phonetics, alveolo-palatal (or alveopalatal) consonants, sometimes synonymous with pre-palatal consonants, are intermediate in articulation between the coronal and dorsal consonants, or which have simultaneous alveolar and palatal artic ...
sounds ''ń, ś, ź, ć, dź'' are considered soft, as normally is the palatal ''j''. The ''l'' sound is also normally classed as a soft consonant: like the preceding sounds, it cannot be followed by ''y'' but takes ''i'' instead. The palatalized velars , and might also be regarded as soft on this basis. Consonants not classified as soft are dubbed "hard". However, a subset of hard consonants, ''c, dz, sz, ż/rz, cz, dż'', often derive from historical palatalizations (for example, ''rz'' usually represents a historical palatalized ''r'') and behaves like the soft consonants in some respects (for example, they normally take ''e'' in the nominative plural). These sounds may be called "hardened" or "historically soft" consonants. The historical palatalized forms of some consonants have developed in Polish into noticeably different sounds: historical palatalized ''t, d, r'' have become the sounds now represented by ''ć, dź, rz'' respectively. Similarly palatalized ''s, z, n'' became the sounds ''ś, ź, ń''. The palatalization of labials has resulted (according to the main phonological analysis given in the sections above) in the addition of , as in the example ''pies'' just given. These developments are reflected in some regular morphological changes in Polish grammar, such as in noun declension.


Phonological status of palatalized consonants

In some phonological descriptions of Polish, however, consonants, including especially the labials ''m, p, b, f, w'', are regarded as occurring in "hard" and "soft" pairs. In this approach, for example, the word ''pies'' ('dog') is analyzed not as but as , with a soft . These consonants are then also analyzed as soft when they precede the vowel (as in ''pić'' 'to drink'). Unlike their equivalents in Russian, these consonants cannot retain their softness in the
syllable coda A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds typically made up of a syllable nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically, consonants). Syllables are often considered the phonological " ...
(when not followed by a vowel). For example, the word for "carp" has the inflected forms ''karpia'', ''karpie'' etc., with soft (or , depending on the analysis), but the nominative singular is ''karp'', with a hard . Similar considerations lead to two competing analysis of palatalized velars. In , all three palatalized velars are given phonological status on the grounds of their distribution and minimal contrasts between , , and , , e.g. ''giełda'' ('stock market'), ''magiel'' ('laundry press ') but ''giętki'' ('flexible'), higiena ('hygiene'). Phonemes , and do not occur before where they are separated by a distinct e.g. ''kiosk'' ('kiosk'), ''filologia'' ('philology'), ''Hiob'' (' Job'). A system with and but without is given by , , and . This analysis is based on an assumption that there is actually no but only as ''chie'', ''hie'' occur only in loanwords. However, a decomposed palatalization of ''kie'', ''gie'' i.e. , in all contexts is a predominant pronunciation in contemporary Polish. Based on that, a system without palatalized velars is given by , and . In such a system palatalized velars are analyzed as , and before and , and before other vowels. This is the main analysis presented above. The consonants ''t, d, r'' (and some others) can also be regarded as having hard and soft forms according to the above approach, although the soft forms occur only in
loanwords A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because th ...
such as ''tir'' ('large lorry'; see TIR). If the distinction is made for all relevant consonants, then ''y'' and ''i'' can be regarded as
allophone In phonology, an allophone (; from the Greek , , 'other' and , , 'voice, sound') is a set of multiple possible spoken soundsor ''phones''or signs used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, (as in '' ...
s of a single phoneme, with ''y'' following hard consonants and ''i'' following soft ones (and in initial position).


Glottal stop

In more contemporary Polish, a phonetic
glottal stop The glottal plosive or stop is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages, produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract or, more precisely, the glottis. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents thi ...
may appear as the onset of a vowel-initial word (e.g. ''Ala'' ). It may also appear following word-final vowels to connote particular affects; for example, ''nie'' ('no') is normally pronounced , but may instead be pronounced or in a prolonged interrupted . This intervocalic glottal stop may also break up a vowel hiatus, even when one appears morpheme-internally, as in ''poeta'' ('poet') or Ukraina ('Ukraine') . A relatively new phenomenon in Polish is the expansion of the usage of glottal stops. In the past, initial vowels were pronounced with an initial
voiceless glottal fricative The voiceless glottal fricative, sometimes called voiceless glottal transition, and sometimes called the aspirate, is a type of sound used in some spoken languages that patterns like a fricative or approximant consonant '' phonologically'', bu ...
(so that ''Ala'' was pronounced ), pre-
iotation In Slavic languages, iotation (, ) is a form of palatalization that occurs when a consonant comes into contact with a palatal approximant from the succeeding phoneme. The is represented by iota (ι) in the Cyrillic alphabet and the Greek al ...
(so that ''igła'' ('needle') was pronounced ), or pre-
labialization Labialization is a secondary articulatory feature of sounds in some languages. Labialized sounds involve the lips while the remainder of the oral cavity produces another sound. The term is normally restricted to consonants. When vowels involv ...
(so that ''oko'' 'eye' was pronounced ).


Dialectal variation

In some Polish dialects (found in the eastern borderlands and in
Upper Silesia Upper Silesia ( pl, Górny Śląsk; szl, Gůrny Ślůnsk, Gōrny Ślōnsk; cs, Horní Slezsko; german: Oberschlesien; Silesian German: ; la, Silesia Superior) is the southeastern part of the historical and geographical region of Silesia, locate ...
) there is an additional
voiced velar fricative The voiced velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound that is used in various spoken languages. It is not found in Modern English but existed in Old English. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , ...
//, represented by the letter . It may be actually a voiced glottal fricative [] for some speakers, especially word-finally. In most varieties of Polish, both and represent . Some eastern dialects also preserve the velarized dental lateral approximant, , which corresponds to in most varieties of Polish. Those dialects also can palatalize to in every position, but standard Polish does so only allophonically before and . and are also common realizations in native speakers of Polish from Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine. notes that students of Polish philology were hostile towards the lateral variant of , saying that it sounded "unnatural" and "awful". Some of the students also said that they perceived the lateral as a variant of , which, he further notes, along with the necessity of deciding from context whether the sound meant was or , made people hostile towards the sound. On the other hand, some Poles view the lateral variant with nostalgia, associating it with the elegant culture of interwar Poland. In the Masurian dialect and some neighboring dialects, '' mazurzenie'' occurs: postalveolar merge with the corresponding dentals unless is spelled (a few centuries ago, it represented a fricative trill , distinct from ; only the latter sound occurs in modern Polish).


Stress

The predominant
stress Stress may refer to: Science and medicine * Stress (biology), an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition * Stress (linguistics), relative emphasis or prominence given to a syllable in a word, or to a word in a phrase ...
pattern in Polish is penultimate: the second-last syllable is stressed. Alternating preceding syllables carry secondary stress: in a four-syllable word, if the primary stress is on the third syllable, there will be secondary stress on the first., deferring to for further discussion. Each written vowel represents one syllable although the letter ''i'' normally does not represent a vowel when it precedes another vowel (it represents either , palatalization of the preceding consonant, or both depending on analysis; see
Polish orthography Polish orthography is the system of writing the Polish language. The language is written using the Polish alphabet, which derives from the Latin alphabet, but includes some additional letters with diacritics. The orthography is mostly phonetic, ...
and the above). Also, the letters ''u'' and ''i'' sometimes represent only semivowels after another vowel, as in ''autor'' ('author'), mostly in loanwords (so not in native ''nauka'' 'science, the act of learning', for example, nor in nativized ''Mateusz'' 'Matthew'). Some
loanword A loanword (also loan word or loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language. This is in contrast to cognates, which are words in two or more languages that are similar because ...
s, particularly from
classical languages A classical language is any language with an independent literary tradition and a large and ancient body of written literature. Classical languages are typically dead languages, or show a high degree of diglossia, as the spoken varieties of the ...
, have the stress on the antepenultimate (third-last) syllable. For example, ''fizyka'' () ('physics') is stressed on the first syllable. That may lead to a rare phenomenon of minimal pairs differing only in stress placement: ''muzyka'' 'music' vs. ''muzyka'' – genitive singular of ''muzyk'' 'musician'. When further syllables are added at the end of such words through
suffix In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns, adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs. Suffixes can carr ...
ation, the stress normally becomes regular: ''uniwersytet'' (, 'university') has irregular stress on the third (or antepenultimate) syllable, but the genitive ''uniwersytetu'' () and derived adjective ''uniwersytecki'' () have regular stress on the penultimate syllables. Over time, loanwords become nativized to have a penultimate stress. Another class of exceptions is verbs with the conditional endings ''-by, -bym, -byśmy'' etc. Those endings are not counted in determining the position of the stress: ''zrobiłbym'' ('I would do') is stressed on the first syllable and ''zrobilibyśmy'' ('we would do') on the second. According to prescriptive grammars, the same applies to the first and second person plural past tense endings ''-śmy, -ście'' although this rule is often ignored in colloquial speech (so ''zrobiliśmy'' 'we did' is said to be correctly stressed on the second syllable, although in practice it is commonly stressed on the third as ''zrobiliśmy''). The irregular stress patterns are explained by the fact that these endings are detachable
clitic In morphology and syntax, a clitic (, backformed from Greek "leaning" or "enclitic"Crystal, David. ''A First Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics''. Boulder, CO: Westview, 1980. Print.) is a morpheme that has syntactic characteristics of a ...
s rather than true verbal inflections: for example, instead of ''kogo zobaczyliście?'' ('whom did you see?') it is possible to say ''kogoście zobaczyli?'' – here ''kogo'' retains its usual stress (first syllable) in spite of the attachment of the clitic. Reanalysis of the endings as inflections when attached to verbs causes the different colloquial stress patterns. Some common word combinations are stressed as if they were a single word. That applies in particular to many combinations of preposition plus a personal pronoun, such as ''do niej'' ('to her'), ''na nas'' ('on us'), ''przeze mnie'' ('because of me'), all stressed on the bolded syllable of the preposition.


See also

* Evolution of the Polish language *
Polish alphabet The Polish alphabet ( Polish: ''alfabet polski'', ''abecadło'') is the script of the Polish language, the basis for the Polish system of orthography. It is based on the Latin alphabet but includes certain letters with diacritics: the ''kre ...
*
Polish orthography Polish orthography is the system of writing the Polish language. The language is written using the Polish alphabet, which derives from the Latin alphabet, but includes some additional letters with diacritics. The orthography is mostly phonetic, ...
* Help:IPA/Polish (a guide to pronunciation of Polish words as represented in Wikipedia articles)


References


Bibliography

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Historical phonology

* * * *


Further reading

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Polish Phonology
phonology Phonology is the branch of linguistics that studies how languages or dialects systematically organize their sounds or, for sign languages, their constituent parts of signs. The term can also refer specifically to the sound or sign system of a ...
Slavic phonologies