Prenasalized consonant
 | This articleneeds additional citations forverification.(April 2008) |
Prenasalized consonantsarephoneticsequences of anasaland anobstruent(or occasionally a non-nasalsonorant) that behavephonologicallylike singleconsonants.The primary reason for considering them to be single consonants, rather than clusters as in Englishfingerormember,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 acontrastbetween prenasalized consonants (NC) 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 modallyvoiced.Thus, a language may have "voiced"[ᵐbⁿdᵑɡ]and "voiceless"[ᵐpⁿtᵑk].However, in someSouthern Min(includingTaiwanese) dialects, voiced consonants are preceded by voiceless prenasalization:[ᵐ̥bⁿ̥dⁿ̥ɺᵑ̊ɡ].[4]Yeyihas prenasalizedejectives.[5]Adzerahas a/ⁿʔ/.[6]
Prenasalized stops may be distinguished frompost-oralizedorpost-stopped nasals(orally released nasals), such as the[mᵇnᵈɲᶡŋᶢ]ofAcehneseand similar sounds (including voiceless[mᵖ]) 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 partiallydenasalized,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]TheBantu languagesare famous for their prenasalized stops (the "nt" in "Bantu" is an example), but similar sounds occur across Africa and around the world.Ghana's politicianKwame Nkrumahhad a prenasalized stop in his name, as does the capital ofChad,N'Djamena(African prenasalized stops are often written withapostrophesin Latin script transcription although this may sometimes indicatesyllabicnasals instead). The sound[ŋ͡mg͡b]can also be found in approximately 90 languages in Africa.[9]
East Asia
[edit]InSouthern Minlanguages, such asTeochew,prenasalized stops are also found. The prenasalized stops in the vernacular readings of Southern Min languages evolved not from the differentMiddle Chineseinitials and thus are historically different from the voiced obstruents found inWuandXianglanguages.[10][11][12]
Prenasalized consonants are widely utilized in theLoloish languagesof theLolo–Burmesefamily, such asYiandNaxi.The following table illustrates the prenasalized consonants in northern Yi.
| Yi Character | OfficialPinyin | IPA | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| ꂃ | nbo | [ᵐbo˧] | skirt |
| ꅝ | ndo | [ⁿdo˧] | drink |
| ꈾ | mge | [ᵑɡɤ˧] | buckwheat |
| ꌅ | nzy | [ⁿd͡zz̩˧] | control |
| ꎧ | nry | [ⁿɖ͡ʐʐ̩˧] | wine,liquor |
| ꐳ | nji | [ⁿd͡ʑʑ̩˧] | quick, fast |
The prenasalized stops also occur in several branches of theHmong–Mienlanguage family of Southern China and Southeast Asia.
In dialects of northernJapan,standard voiced stops are prenasalized, and voiceless stops are voiced. For example,/itiɡo/"strawberry" is[it̠͡ɕiɡo]in most of the south, but[id̠͡ʑɨᵑɡo]in much of the north. Prenasalized stops are also reconstructed forOld Japanese.
Europe
[edit]InGreekthe orthographic sequences μπ, ντ γκ and γγ are often pronounced as prenasalized voiced stops[ᵐb],[ⁿd],and[ᵑɡ],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]TheGuaraní languagehas 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]TheIndo-Aryan languagesSinhalaandDhivehihave prenasalized stops.Sinhala scripthas prenasalized versions of/g/,/ʥ/,/ɖ/,/d̪/and/b/.Sinhala is one of only three languages reported to have acontrastbetween prenasalized consonants and their corresponding clusters, along withFulaandSelayarese,although the nature of this contrast is debated.[2][3]For example,
| Sinhala script | IPA | ISO 15919 | Translation |
|---|---|---|---|
| කද | [ka.d̪ə] | kada | shoulder pole |
| කන | [ka.nə] | kana | ear |
| කඳ | [ka.ⁿd̪ə] | kan̆da | trunk |
| කන්ද | [kan̪.d̪ə] | kanda | hill |
Sri Lankan Malayhas been in contact with Sinhala a long time and has also developed prenasalized stops. The spectrograms on the right show the wordgaambarwith a prenasalized stop and the wordsambalwith 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. Thesyllabificationof 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 byFijian.In this language, as in many inMelanesiaand also reconstructed forProto-Oceanic,there is a series ofvoicelessstops,[p,t,k],and a series of prenasalized stops,[ᵐb,ⁿd,ᵑɡ],but there are no simplevoicedstops,[b,d,ɡ].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 someOceanic languages,prenasalisation of voiced consonants depends on the environment. For example, inRaga,b and d are prenasalized when the preceding consonant is nasal (noⁿda"ours" ), but not elsewhere (gida"us" ).Uneapahas prenasalization word-medially, but not word-initially (goᵐbu"yam" ).
WhenTok Pisinis spoken by people inPapua New Guineawho have similar phonologies in their languages, voiced consonants are prenasalized. For example, the prepositionbilong(from Englishbelong) is pronounced[ᵐbiloŋ]by manyMelanesians.The prenasalization behaves as a phonetic detail of voicing, rather than a separate segment.
Australia
[edit]Prenasalized stops are also found in Australia. TheEastern Arrernte languagehas both prenasalized stops andprestopped nasals,but does not have any other word-initialconsonant clusters.Compare[mʷarə]"good",[ᵐpʷaɻə]"make",[ᵖmʷaɻə]"coolamon".
Transcription
[edit]When unambiguous, prenasalized consonants may simply be transcribed e.g. ⟨mb⟩. In the IPA, a tie bar may be used to specify that these are single segments, as in ⟨m͜b⟩. Another common transcription practice is to make the nasal superscript: ⟨ᵐb⟩. An old convention of the IPA was to mark the nasal as 'short' until the short and the nonsyllabic signs diverged, as in ⟨m̆b⟩.[15]
See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^Silverman (1995:65)
- ^abcFeinstein, Mark (1979)."Prenasalization and Syllable Structure".Linguistic Inquiry.10(2): 245–278.JSTOR4178108.Retrieved2024-01-31.
- ^abRiehl, Anastasia (January 2008). "NC type combination patterns".The Phonology and Phonetics of Nasal Obstruent Sequences(PDF)(PhD thesis). Cornell University.Retrieved2024-01-31.
- ^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. Köppe.
- ^Holzknecht, Susanne (1989).The Markham Languages of Papua New Guinea.Pacific Linguistics.ISBN0-85883-394-8.
- ^Chan (1987)Post-stopped nasals in Chinese: an areal study
- ^Cohn (1990) "Phonetic and Phonological Rules of Nasalization",UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics76, p. 7.
- ^"PHOIBLE 2.0 - Consonant ŋmɡb".phoible.org.Retrieved2022-05-28.
- ^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).Mân ngữ đích lịch sử tằng thứ cập kỳ diễn biến.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.S2CID145606058.Archived fromthe original(PDF)on 2016-03-03.
- ^Arvaniti, Amalia (2007)."Greek Phonetics: The State of the Art"(PDF).Journal of Greek Linguistics.8:97–208.CiteSeerX10.1.1.692.1365.doi:10.1075/jgl.8.08arv.Archived fromthe 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