Ukrainian Phonology - Consonants

Consonants

When consonants appear in pairs, the one to the left is voiceless and the one to the right voiced. While /x/ and /ɦ/ do not share a place of articulation, phonologically speaking they are a voiceless-voiced pair.

Phonetic details:

• /w/ is most commonly bilabial before vowels but can alternate with labio-dental (most commonly before /i/, also before /ɪ ɛ ɑ/). It is also vocalized to before consonant at start of word, after vowel before consonant and after vowel at end of word.
• /t d n/ are dental, while /l/ may have different passive places of articulations. All of them are apical.
• Alveolar sibilants are laminal.
• Postalveolar sibilants are somewhat rounded.
• /tʲ dʲ nʲ lʲ/ are soft counterparts to /t d n l/ and are noted for their high softness and have several possible realizations: laminal alveolo-palatal, apical alveolo-palatal, and laminal denti-palatal. The choice of symbols is based on phonological criteria rather than phonetic ones.
• All consonants except /j/ have a soft and hard variant, however this distinction is phonemic for only nine pairs. Soft variants are palatalized, and less rounded. In native words, those consonants that don't make a phonemic distinction are somewhat softer before /i/, softened labials also occur before /ɑ/ in special phonetic environments, while postalveolar geminates are softer than postalveolars before /i/. In loanwords, all of them are more common before /u ɑ/.

Gemination may occur:

• Between vowels for palatalized alveolar consonants (other than /rʲ/), and semi-palatalized allophones of postalveolar consonants.
• Between vowels across prefix-root or root-root boundaries for other coronal consonants as a result of their coincidence. In this case /w/+/w/ form .
• At the start of the word for forms of the verb лити (ллю /lʲːu/, ллєш /lʲːɛʃ/, etc.), the verb ссати /sːɑtɪ/ and derivatives.
• In other cases for /n/.

When two or more consonants occur word-finally, then a vowel is epenthesized under the following conditions. Given a consonantal grouping C₁(ь)C₂(ь), where C is any consonant. The vowel is inserted between the two consonants and after the ь. A vowel is only inserted if C₂ is either /k/, /w/, /l/, /m/, /r/, or /ts/. In this case:

1. If C₁ is either /w/, /ɦ/, /k/, or /x/, then the epenthisized vowel is always
   1. No vowel is epenthesized if the /w/ is derived from a Common Slavic vocalic *l, for example, /wowk/ (see below)
2. If C₂ is /l/, /m/, /r/, or /ts/, then the vowel is /ɛ/.
3. The combinations, /-stw/ /-sk/ are not broken up
4. If the C₁ is /j/ (й), then the above rules can apply. However, both forms (with and without the fill vowel) often exist

Ukrainian has a non-syllabic as an allophone of /j/. It also has a non-syllabic as an allophone of /w/. Moreover, due to their semi-vocalic nature these sounds alternate with the vowel phonemes /i/ and /u/ respectively, the latter being used at the absolute beginning of a phrase, after a pause or after a consonant and the former following a vowel and preceding a consonant (cluster), either within a word or at a word boundary:

він іде /win idɛ/ ('he's coming')

вона йде /wɔnɑ jdɛ/ ('she's coming')

він і вона /win i wɔnɑ/ ('he and she')

вона й він /wɔnɑ j win/ ('she and he');

Утомився вже /utɔmɪwsʲɑ wʒɛ/ ('already gotten tired')

Уже втомився /uʒɛ wtɔmɪwsʲɑ/ ('already gotten tired')

Він утомився. /win utɔmɪwsʲɑ/ ('he's gotten tired')

Він у хаті. /win u xɑtʲi/ ('he's inside the house')

Вона в хаті. /wɔnɑ w xɑtʲi/ ('she's inside the house')

підучити /pidut͡ʃɪtɪ/ ('to learn')

вивчити /wɪwt͡ʃɪtɪ/ ('to learn')

This feature distinguishes Ukrainian phonology remarkably from Russian and Polish, two related languages with many cognates.