Acceptability of the Kazakh Velar and Uvular Distribution

Abstract

This study investigates the productivity and distribution of place and voicing restrictions in Kazakh oral dorsals. Previous research shows velars occur with front vowels and uvulars with back vowels in native words; stem-final dorsal obstruents are voiceless word-finally and voiced intervocalically in all words; and the voiceless dorsal fricative appears only in loanwords, is not subject to the place restriction, but its voicing behaviour remains unclear. Two nonce word judgement tasks were conducted with native Kazakh speakers. The first task focused on word-final dorsals. Participants generally accepted licit forms and rejected illicit forms, with gradience in acceptability suggesting a preference for voicing over place. Within the voicing categories, forms obeying place were judged more favourably. The second task examined stem-final alternations in an inflected paradigm, and revealed that participants preferred paradigms satisfying place in both bare and inflected forms, with stronger preference for place being respected in inflected forms. Regarding the voiceless dorsal fricative, the results suggest that it patterns more closely with uvulars, but it was generally rejected, likely due to its restriction to loanwords and lack of integration into native phonology.