Nasalization

Last updated
Nasalized
◌̃
IPA Number 424
Encoding
Entity (decimal)̃
Unicode (hex)U+0303

In phonetics, nasalization (or nasalisation) is the production of a sound while the velum is lowered, so that some air escapes through the nose during the production of the sound by the mouth. [1] Examples of archetypal nasal sounds include [n] and [m].

Contents

In the International Phonetic Alphabet, nasalization is indicated by printing a tilde diacritic U+0303◌̃COMBINING TILDE above the symbol for the sound to be nasalized: [ã] is the nasalized equivalent of [a], and [ṽ] is the nasalized equivalent of [v]. A subscript diacritic [ą], called an ogonek or nosinė, is sometimes seen, especially when the vowel bears tone marks that would interfere with the superscript tilde. For example, [ą̄ą́ą̀ą̂ą̌] are more legible in most fonts than [ã̄ã́ã̀ã̂ã̌].

Nasal vowels

Many languages have nasal vowels to different degrees, but only a minority of world languages around the world have nasal vowels as contrasting phonemes. That is the case, among others, of French, Portuguese, Hindustani, Nepali, Breton, Gheg Albanian, Hmong, Hokkien, Yoruba, and Cherokee. Those nasal vowels contrast with their corresponding oral vowels. Nasality is usually seen as a binary feature, although surface variation in different degrees of nasality caused by neighboring nasal consonants has been observed. [2]

Degree of nasality

There are languages, such as in Palantla Chinantec, where vowels seem to exhibit three contrastive degrees of nasality: oral e.g. [e] vs lightly nasalized [ẽ] vs heavily nasalized [e͌], [3] [4] although Ladefoged and Maddieson believe that the lightly nasalized vowels are best described as oro-nasal diphthongs. [5] Note that Ladefoged and Maddieson's transcription of heavy nasalization with a double tilde might be confused with the extIPA adoption of that diacritic for velopharyngeal frication.

Nasal consonants

By far the most common nasal sounds are nasal consonants such as [m], [n] or [ŋ]. Most nasal consonants are occlusives, and airflow through the mouth is blocked and redirected through the nose. Their oral counterparts are the stops [ citation needed ].

Nasalized consonants

Nasalized versions of other consonant sounds also exist but are much rarer than either nasal occlusives or nasal vowels. The Middle Chinese consonant 日 ([ȵʑ]; [ʐ] in modern Standard Chinese) has an odd history; for example, it has evolved into [ ʐ ] and [ɑɻ] (or [ ɻ ] and [ ɚ ] respectively, depending on accents) in Standard Chinese; [ z ]/[ ʑ ] and [ n ] in Hokkien; [z]/[ʑ] and [n]/[ n̠ʲ ] while borrowed into Japan. It seems likely that it was once a nasalized fricative, perhaps a palatal [ʝ̃].

In Coatzospan Mixtec, fricatives and affricates are nasalized before nasal vowels even when they are voiceless. In the Hupa, the velar nasal /ŋ/ often has the tongue not make full contact, resulting in a nasalized approximant, [ɰ̃]. That is cognate with a nasalized palatal approximant [ȷ̃] in other Athabaskan languages.

In Umbundu, phonemic /ṽ/ contrasts with the (allophonically) nasalized approximant [w̃] and so is likely to be a true fricative rather than an approximant.[ further explanation needed ] In Old and Middle Irish, the lenited ⟨m⟩ was a nasalized bilabial fricative [β̃]. [6]

Ganza [7] has a phonemic nasalized glottal stop [ʔ̃] while Sundanese has it allophonically; nasalized stops can occur only with pharyngeal articulation or lower, or they would be simple nasals. [8] Nasal flaps are common allophonically. Many West African languages have a nasal flap [ɾ̃] (or [n̆]) as an allophone of /ɾ/ before a nasal vowel; voiced retroflex nasal flaps are common intervocalic allophones of /ɳ/ in South Asian languages.

A nasal trill [r̃] has been described from some dialects of Romanian, and is posited as an intermediate historical step in rhotacism. However, the phonetic variation of the sound is considerable, and it is not clear how frequently it is actually trilled. [9] Some languages contrast /r,r̃/ like Toro-tegu Dogon [10] and Inor. A nasal lateral has been reported for some languages, Nzema language contrasts /l,l̃/. [11]

Other languages, such as the Khoisan languages of Khoekhoe and Gǀui, as well as several of the !Kung languages, include nasal click consonants. Nasal clicks are typically with a nasal or superscript nasal preceding the consonant (for example, velar-dental ⟨ŋ͡ǀ⟩ or ⟨ᵑǀ⟩ and uvular-dental ⟨ɴ͡ǀ⟩ or ⟨ᶰǀ⟩). [12] Nasalized laterals such as [‖̃] are easy to produce but rare or nonexistent as phonemes; they may appear phonemically in languages such as Zulu. Often when /l/ is nasalized, it becomes [n].

True nasal fricatives

Nasal fricative
◌͋

Besides nasalized oral fricatives, there are true nasal fricatives, or anterior nasal fricatives, previously called nareal fricatives. They are sometimes produced by people with disordered speech. The turbulence in the airflow characteristic of fricatives is produced not in the mouth but at the anterior nasal port, the narrowest part of the nasal cavity. (Turbulence can also be produced at the posterior nasal port, or velopharyngeal port, when that port is narrowed – see velopharyngeal fricative. With anterior nasal fricatives, the velopharyngeal port is open.) A superimposed homothetic sign that resembles a colon divided by a tilde is used for this in the extensions to the IPA: [n͋] is a voiced alveolar nasal fricative, with no airflow out of the mouth, and [n̥͋] is the voiceless equivalent; [v͋] is an oral fricative with simultaneous nasal frication. No known language makes use of nasal fricatives in non-disordered speech.

Denasalization

Nasalization may be lost over time. There are also denasal sounds, which sound like nasals spoken with a head cold. They may be found in non-pathological speech as a language loses nasal consonants, as in Korean.

Contextual nasalization

Vowels assimilate to surrounding nasal consonants in many languages, such as Thai, creating nasal vowel allophones. Some languages exhibit a nasalization of segments adjacent to phonemic or allophonic nasal vowels, such as Apurinã.

Contextual nasalization can lead to the addition of nasal vowel phonemes to a language. [13] That happened in French, most of whose final consonants disappeared, but its final nasals made the preceding vowels become nasal, which introduced a new distinction into the language. An example is vin blanc [vɛ̃blɑ̃] 'white wine', ultimately from Latin vinum and blancum.

See also

Related Research Articles

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In phonology, an allophone is one of multiple possible spoken sounds – or phones – used to pronounce a single phoneme in a particular language. For example, in English, the voiceless plosive and the aspirated form are allophones for the phoneme, while these two are considered to be different phonemes in some languages such as Central Thai. Similarly, in Spanish, and are allophones for the phoneme, while these two are considered to be different phonemes in English.

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A fricative is a consonant produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth, in the case of ; the back of the tongue against the soft palate in the case of German ; or the side of the tongue against the molars, in the case of Welsh. This turbulent airflow is called frication.

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A lateral is a consonant in which the airstream proceeds along one or both of the sides of the tongue, but it is blocked by the tongue from going through the middle of the mouth. An example of a lateral consonant is the English L, as in Larry. Lateral consonants contrast with central consonants, in which the airstream flows through the center of the mouth.

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References

  1. ↑ "nasal | speech sound". Britannica. Retrieved 2022-07-23.
  2. ↑ Ladefoged & Maddieson 1996, p. 298.
  3. ↑ Blevins, Juliette (2004). Evolutionary Phonology: The Emergence of Sound Patterns . Cambridge University Press. p.  203. ISBN   9780521804288.
  4. ↑ Ladefoged, Peter (1971). Preliminaries of Linguistic Phonetics. p. 35.
  5. ↑ Ladefoged & Maddieson 1996, pp. 298–299.
  6. ↑ Thurneysen, Rudolf; Binchy, D. A. (1946). A Grammar of Old Irish. Translated by Bergin, Osborn. Dublin: Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. p. 85. ISBN   1-85500-161-6.
  7. ↑ Smolders, Joshua (2016). "A Phonology of Ganza" (pdf). Linguistic Discovery. 14 (1): 86–144. doi: 10.1349/PS1.1537-0852.A.470 . Retrieved 2017-01-16.
  8. ↑ Ladefoged & Maddieson 1996, p. 134.
  9. ↑ Sampson, Rodney (1999), Nasal Vowel Evolution in Romance, Oxford University Press, pp. 312–313, ISBN   0-19-823848-7
  10. ↑ Heath, Jeffrey (2014). A Grammar of Toro Tegu (Dogon), Tabi mountain dialect.
  11. ↑ Berry, J. (1955). "Some Notes on the Phonology of the Nzema and Ahanta Dialects". Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. 17 (1): 160–165. doi:10.1017/S0041977X00106421. ISSN   1474-0699. S2CID   162551544.
  12. ↑ Ladefoged & Maddieson 1996, p. 268.
  13. ↑ Hajek, John (2013). Dryer, Matthew S.; Haspelmath, Martin (eds.). "Vowel Nasalization". WALS Online (v2020.3) [Data set]. doi:10.5281/zenodo.7385533.

Works cited

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