Type of articulation
Prenasalized consonants
are
phonetic
sequences of a
nasal
and an
obstruent
(or occasionally a non-nasal
sonorant
such as
[?]
) that behave
phonologically
like single
consonants
. The primary reason for considering them to be single consonants, rather than clusters as in English
finger
or
member
, lies in their behaviour; however, there may also be phonetic correlates which distinguish prenasalized consonants from clusters. Because of the additional difficulty in both articulation and timing, prenasalized fricatives and sonorants are not as common as prenasalized stops or affricates, and the presence of the former implies the latter.
[1]
Only three languages (
Sinhala
,
Fula
,
Selayarese
) have been reported to have a
contrast
between prenasalized consonants (
N
C) and their corresponding clusters (NC).
[2]
[3]
In most languages, when a prenasalized consonant is described as "voiceless", it is only the oral portion that is voiceless, and the nasal portion is modally
voiced
. Thus, a language may have "voiced"
[?b
ⁿd
??
??
??
??]
and "voiceless"
[?p
ⁿt
??
?c
?k
?q]
. However, in some
Southern Min
(including
Taiwanese
) dialects, voiced consonants are preceded by voiceless prenasalization:
[??b
ⁿ?d
ⁿ??
???]
.
[4]
Yeyi
has prenasalized
ejectives
.
[5]
Adzera
has a
/ⁿ?/
.
[6]
Prenasalized stops may be distinguished from
post-oralized
or
post-stopped nasals
(orally released nasals), such as the
[m?
n?
??
ŋ?]
of
Acehnese
and similar sounds (including voiceless
[m?]
) in many dialects of Chinese.
[7]
(At least in the Chinese case, nasalization, in some dialects, continues in a reduced degree to the vowel, indicating that the consonant is partially
denasalized
, rather than actually having an oral release.) No language is believed to contrast the two types of consonant, which are distinguished primarily by a difference in timing (a brief nasal followed by longer stop, as opposed to a longer nasal followed by brief stop).
[8]
Geographic distribution
[
edit
]
Africa
[
edit
]
The
Bantu languages
are famous for their prenasalized stops (the "nt" in "Bantu" is an example), but similar sounds occur across Africa and around the world.
Ghana
's politician
Kwame Nkrumah
had a prenasalized stop in his name, as does the capital of
Chad
,
N'Djamena
(African prenasalized stops are often written with
apostrophes
in Latin script transcription although this may sometimes indicate
syllabic
nasals instead). The sound
[
ŋ?m
g?b]
can also be found in approximately 90 languages in Africa.
[9]
East Asia
[
edit
]
In
Southern Min
languages, such as
Teochew
, prenasalized stops are also found. The prenasalized stops in the vernacular readings of Southern Min languages evolved not from the different
Middle Chinese
initials and thus are historically different from the voiced obstruents found in
Wu
and
Xiang
languages.
[10]
[11]
[12]
Prenasalized consonants are widely utilized in the
Loloish languages
of the
Lolo?Burmese
family, such as
Yi
and
Naxi
. The following table illustrates the prenasalized consonants in northern Yi.
Prenasalized consonants in Northern Yi
Yi Character
|
Official
Pinyin
|
IPA
|
Meaning
|
?
|
nb
o
|
[?bo?]
|
skirt
|
?
|
nd
o
|
[ⁿdo?]
|
drink
|
?
|
mg
e
|
[????]
|
buckwheat
|
?
|
nz
y
|
[ⁿd?zz??]
|
control
|
?
|
nr
y
|
[ⁿ??????]
|
wine,
liquor
|
?
|
nj
i
|
[ⁿd?????]
|
quick, fast
|
The prenasalized stops also occur in several branches of the
Hmong?Mien
language family of Southern China and Southeast Asia.
In dialects of northern
Japan
, standard voiced stops are prenasalized, and voiceless stops are voiced. For example,
/iti?o/
"strawberry" is
[it???i?o]
in most of the south, but
[id??????o]
in much of the north. Prenasalized stops are also reconstructed for
Old Japanese
.
Europe
[
edit
]
In
Greek
the orthographic sequences μπ, ντ γκ and γγ are often pronounced as prenasalized voiced stops
[?b]
,
[ⁿd]
, and
[??]
, respectively, especially in formal speech and among older speakers. Among younger Athenian speakers the prenasalization often disappears and in fast speech the voiced stop may be replaced by a fricative.
[13]
[14]
South America
[
edit
]
The
Guarani language
has a set of prenasalized stops which are alternate allophonically with simple nasal continuants; they appear only within a word, to the left of a stressed vowel that is oral.
South Asia
[
edit
]
The
Indo-Aryan languages
Sinhala
and
Dhivehi
have prenasalized stops.
Sinhala script
has prenasalized versions of
/
g
/
, /
?
/,
/
?
/
,
/
d?
/
and
/
b
/
. Sinhala is one of only three languages reported to have a
contrast
between prenasalized consonants and their corresponding clusters, along with
Fula
and
Selayarese
, although the nature of this contrast is debated.
[2]
[3]
For example,
A prenasalized consonant
[?b]
in Sri Lanka Malay
ga.mbar
has a shorter nasal segment and a longer preceding vowel
An
[mb]
cluster in Sri Lanka Malay
sam.bal
has a longer nasal and a shorter preceding vowel
Sri Lankan Malay
has been in contact with Sinhala a long time and has also developed prenasalized stops. The spectrograms on the right show the word
gaambar
with a prenasalized stop and the word
sambal
with a sequence of nasal+voiced stop, yet not prenasalized. The difference in the length of the [m] part is clearly visible. The nasal in the prenasalized word is much shorter than the nasal in the other word.
This phonetic information is complemented by phonological evidence: The first vowel in gaambar is lengthened, which only happens in open syllables in Sri Lanka Malay. The
syllabification
of gaambar must be gaa.mbar then, and the syllabification of sambal sam.bal.
Oceania
[
edit
]
An example of the unitary behavior of prenasalized stops is provided by
Fijian
. In this language, as in many in
Melanesia
and also reconstructed for
Proto-Oceanic
, there is a series of
voiceless
stops,
[p,
t,
k]
, and a series of prenasalized stops,
[?b,
ⁿd,
??]
, but there are no simple
voiced
stops,
[b,
d,
?]
. In addition, Fijian allows prenasalized stops at the beginning of a word, but it does not allow other consonant sequences. Thus the prenasalized stops behave like ordinary consonants. In some
Oceanic languages
, prenasalisation of voiced consonants depends on the environment. For example, in
Raga
, b and d are prenasalized when the preceding consonant is nasal (
noⁿda
"ours"), but not elsewhere (
gida
"us").
Uneapa
has prenasalization word-medially, but not word-initially (
go?bu
"yam").
When
Tok Pisin
is spoken by people in
Papua New Guinea
who have similar phonologies in their languages, voiced consonants are prenasalized. For example, the preposition
bilong
(from English
belong
) is pronounced
[?biloŋ]
by many
Melanesians
. The prenasalization behaves as a phonetic detail of voicing, rather than a separate segment.
Australia
[
edit
]
Prenasalized stops are also found in Australia. The
Eastern Arrernte language
has both prenasalized stops and
prestopped nasals
, but does not have any other word-initial
consonant clusters
. Compare
[m?ar?]
"good",
[?p?a??]
"make",
[?m?a??]
"
coolamon
".
Transcription
[
edit
]
When unambiguous, prenasalized consonants may simply be transcribed ⟨
mb, nd, ŋ?
⟩ etc. In the IPA, a tie bar may be used to specify that these are single segments: ⟨
m?b, n?d, ŋ??
⟩. Another common transcription practice is to make the nasal superscript: ⟨
?b, ⁿd, ??
⟩. An old convention of the IPA was to mark the nasal as 'short' until the short and the nonsyllabic signs diverged: ⟨
m?b, n?d, ŋ??
⟩.
[15]
See also
[
edit
]
References
[
edit
]
- ^
Silverman (1995
:65)
- ^
a
b
c
Feinstein, Mark (1979).
"Prenasalization and Syllable Structure"
.
Linguistic Inquiry
.
10
(2): 245?278.
JSTOR
4178108
. Retrieved
2024-01-31
.
- ^
a
b
Riehl, Anastasia (January 2008). "NC type combination patterns".
The Phonology and Phonetics of Nasal Obstruent Sequences
(PDF)
(PhD thesis). Cornell University
. Retrieved
2024-01-31
.
- ^
Chan (1987) "Post-stopped nasals in Chinese: an areal study",
UCLA WPP
#68
- ^
*Seidel, Frank (2008),
A Grammar of Yeyi: A Bantu Language of Southern Africa
. R. Koppe.
- ^
Holzknecht, Susanne (1989).
The Markham Languages of Papua New Guinea
. Pacific Linguistics.
ISBN
0-85883-394-8
.
- ^
Chan (1987)
Post-stopped nasals in Chinese: an areal study
- ^
Cohn (1990) "Phonetic and Phonological Rules of Nasalization",
UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics
76, p. 7.
- ^
"PHOIBLE 2.0 - Consonant ŋm?b"
.
phoible.org
. Retrieved
2022-05-28
.
- ^
Norman, Jerry (January 1974). "The Initials of Proto-Min".
Journal of Chinese Linguistics
.
2
(1). The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press: 27?36.
- ^
Norman, Jerry (May 1973). "Tonal Development in Min".
Journal of Chinese Linguistics
.
1
(2). The Chinese University of Hong Kong Press: 222?238.
- ^
Dai, Ligang (April 2005).
?語的歷史層次及其演變
. China Social Sciences Press.
- ^
Arvaniti, Amalia (1999).
"Illustrations of the IPA: Modern Greek"
(PDF)
.
Journal of the International Phonetic Association
.
29
(2): 167?172.
doi
:
10.1017/s0025100300006538
.
S2CID
145606058
. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on 2016-03-03.
- ^
Arvaniti, Amalia (2007).
"Greek Phonetics: The State of the Art"
(PDF)
.
Journal of Greek Linguistics
.
8
: 97?208.
CiteSeerX
10.1.1.692.1365
.
doi
:
10.1075/jgl.8.08arv
. Archived from
the original
(PDF)
on 2013-12-11.
- ^
Principles of the IPA
(1947: 17–18)
Sources
[
edit
]
- Silverman, Daniel (1995), "Optional, conditional, and obligatory prenasalization in Bafanji",
Journal of West African Languages
,
25
: 57?62