Nasalization

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
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].

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, [ą̄ ą́ ą̀ ą̂ ą̌] are more legible in most fonts than [ã̄ ã́ ã̀ ã̂ ã̌].

Nasal vowels

Many languages have nasal

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 occasional languages, such as in

velopharyngeal frication
.

Nasal consonants

By far the most common nasal sounds are

].

Nasalized consonants

Nasalized versions of other consonant sounds also exist but are much rarer than either nasal occlusives or nasal vowels. The

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

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]

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

!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

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 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 [vɛ̃ blɑ̃] ('white wine'), ultimately from Latin vinum and blancum.

See also

References

  1. ^ "nasal | speech sound". Britannica. Retrieved 2022-07-23.
  2. ^ Ladefoged & Maddieson 1996, p. 298.
  3. .
  4. ^ Peter Ladefoged (1971) Preliminaries of Linguistic Phonetics, p. 35.
  5. ^ Ladefoged & Maddieson 1996, pp. 298–299.
  6. .
  7. . Retrieved 2017-01-16.
  8. .
  9. ^ Heath, Jeffrey (2014). A Grammar of Toro Tegu (Dogon), Tabi mountain dialect.
  10. S2CID 162551544
    .
  11. .
  12. ^ The World Atlas of Language Structures Online – Chapter 10 – Vowel Nasalization