Introducing Some Idiosyncratic Phonological Features of Rūdbāri (Kerman) Dialect

Rūdbāri belongs to Baškardi dialects and is a less-investigated member of south-western Iranian languages whose varieties are spoken in southern part of Kerman province using several idiosyncratic vowel and consonantal features in their phonological systems; features which have not yet been investigated linguistically and precisely, hence, their scientific investigation based on accepted principles of modern linguistics is necessary. It should be noted that some of these features have remained from Middle Persian phonological features and some others resulted from particular changes in the Middle Persian phonological system into this dialect. However, the present study attempts to linguistically investigate and identify five items of those outstanding phonological features from a synchronic point of view based on the analysis of a fieldwork; the corpus includes free speech recordings of old uneducated informants of the linguistic variety spoken in Qale-Ganj township. More precisely, using "absolute minimal pair" test, it tries to investigate the phonological value of five special phones used in the phonological system of that dialect, including falling diphthongs of [ɪə]-[ʊə], (flap) liquid of [ɾ], and labialized consonants of [gw]-[xw] in syllable onset. The findings indicate that all those sounds distinguish meaning and therefore, have a phonological value in the phonological system of Rūdbāri dialect. Their phonological contrast, however, is not equal; i.e. these five phonemes constitute a vertical four-slot phonological-contrast continuum which the vowels of [ɪə] and [ʊə] jointly stand on top, and the consonants of [ɾ], [gw] and [xw], respectively, stand in 2nd to 4th positions.