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Iron Ossetic

Phylum: Indo-European

Genus: Iranic

Lat/lon: 42.974399, 44.249359

ISO code: oss

Consonants

Basic short series

bilabiallabio-velarlabio-dentaldentalalveolarpostalveolarpalatalvelaruvularglottal
stopb, pʰ, p’d̪, t̪ʰ, t̪’g, kʰ, k’qʔ
trillr
fricativef, vs, zʒ, ʃʁ, χh
affricatedz, ts, ts’dʒ, tʃ, tʃ’
nasalmn
approximantwj
lateral approximantl

Short labialised series

velaruvular
stopgʷ, kʷ, k’ʷ
fricativeʁʷ, χʷ

Vowels

Basic short series

frontcentralback
closeiu
close-mideo
midə
near-openɐ
opena

Licit initial clusters

ʃC

Licit finals

C, CC, C[-stop]ʃt

Licit syllabic templates

(ʃ)(C)V(C)(C)(C)

Source: David Erschler. 2017. Iron Ossetic. To appear in Polinsky, Maria (ed.) Handbook of the languages of the Caucasus. OUP. Draft

Comments: “In standard Iron, /ts/ only survives in certain clusters. Glottal consonants are marginal; the glottal stop /ʔ/ is automatically epenthesized before word-initial /a/, /ɐ/, and /ə/, and sometimes between vowels. The glottal fricative /h/ is present in very few words... Labialized consonants may be alternatively analyzed as sequences of the respective consonant and the labial glide /w/” (p. 4). “No processes are known that would target syllables. Word-initial clusters are of the form šC, a schwa may be inserted word-initially to resolve the cluster. A glottal stop is often inserted to avoid a null onset word-initially. Word-final clusters usually consist of two consonants (e.g. ruχš ‘light’; bərənk’ ‘tip’, kalm ‘snake’), although some triconsonantal ones exist as well: wɐχšk ‘shoulder’; ɐχšt ‘shot’” (p. 5).

Contributed by: Dmitry Nikolaev (dnikolaev@fastmail.com)