Ukrainian Voicing and Linguistic Variation

Eugeniusz Cyran

Abstract


Ukrainian, like other Slavic languages, contrasts fully voiced obstruents with voiceless unaspirated ones, but it exhibits different patterns as regards final devoicing and voicing assimilation. In addition, the patterns of dialectal variation in Ukrainian further strengthen its unique place among Slavic languages. A systemic explanation of both inter- and intra-language variation is offered in which phonological representation and computation play a much lesser explanatory role than phonetics and mechanisms of phonetic interpretation. This requires a minimalist and acquisition based approach to laryngeal systems, in which linguistic evidence is only indirectly phonetic.


Keywords


laryngeal minimalism; phonetic interpretation; (de)voicing; assimilation; variation

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DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17951/lsmll.2026.50.3.107-118
Date of publication: 2026-10-30 11:37:58
Date of submission: 2026-04-17 11:12:37


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