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Glossonnnnnnommmmmia is comin\u2019 through the nose this week: we\u2019re talking about Nasals, both consonants and vowels \u2013 nasalized vowels, that is. Hosts Phil Thompson and Eric Armstrong discuss not only English\u2019s 3 nasal consonants, but all the nasals the human mouth can utter. [note: Phil\u2019s recording starts to sound echoey in the second half. That\u2019s my fault for not editing it well. Sorry! Hope it isn\u2019t too annoying!]

Show Notes

Velo-Pharyngeal Port
- lifting and lowering the soft palate
- ban vs. band as a way of feeling the action of the lifting of the soft palate
- perhaps more noticeable on sing vs. sink

Sonorant vs. Obstruent (both)
- Sonorant is without turbulence or obstruction, generally a vowel or nasals, or L, approximants, like r, or glides/semivowels like w/j
- Obstruent has an obstructed airflow; nasals are technically stops with a dropped velum soft palate
- Nasal Consonants
\xa0\xa0 \xa0- in English
\xa0\xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0- m
\xa0\xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0- n
\xa0\xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0- n\u032a dentalized n before \u03b8 as in "tenth"
\xa0\xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0- or in accents where the placement of alveolars is
\xa0\xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0on the back of the teeth...
\xa0\xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0- \u014b velar nasal \u2013 only final or intervocalic, never initial
\xa0\xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0- \u0272 palatal nasal "nya nya nya" teasing, some accented versions
\xa0\xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0of /nj/ as in "onion"
\xa0\xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0- \u0271 \u2013 labiovelar: assimilation, usually n/m before v as in "invest,
\xa0\xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0invert, invent, inventory" or f "symphony, camphor,
\xa0\xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0influence, unfit"; may cause epenthetic dental p e.g.\xa0
\xa0\xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0symphony [s\u026a\u0271p\u031af\u0259n\u0268]
\xa0
\xa0Syllabic Consonants
\xa0 - a consonant which forms a syllable on its own or forms the nucleus of the syllable (taking the place of a vowel, usually schwa) e.g. ambition, bacon, ship 'em or happen (with assimilation, as [h\xe6pm\u0329] ) \u2013 immediately after an obstruent, as in leaden or chasm
\xa0
\xa0Nasal Plosion
\xa0 - The release of a plosive by lowering the soft palate so that air escapes through the nose\xa0
\xa0 - Hidden, sadden, sudden, leaden
\xa0 - e.g. on Ladefoged's site for A Course in Phonetics http://tinyurl.com/3r8yd6b
\xa0
\xa0\xa0 \xa0- International
\xa0\xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0- \u0273 \u2013 vd. retroflex nasal in Indic languages e.g. Hindi,
\xa0\xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0but also Norwegian, Swedish and Vietnamese (generally an
\xa0\xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0assimilation of /r+n/
\xa0\xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0- \u0272 \u2013 vd. palatal nasal, in Spanish (e\xf1e), lots of other
\xa0\xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0languages incl. French, Italian, Greek,\xa0
\xa0\xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0- \u014b \u2013 vd. velar nasal, \xa0in some languages at the beginning
\xa0\xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0of syllables, like Vietnamese, Thai, Shona, note
\xa0\xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0Samoyedic group of Uralic language family, Nganasan
\xa0\xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0language (only 1000 speakers in 1989, ethnologue says
\xa0\xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0500) it is in its name!
\xa0\xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0- initial velar nasal in 146 languages
\xa0\xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0- no initial velar in 88 languages
\xa0\xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0- no velar nasal in 235 languages
\xa0\xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0- \u0274 \u2013 vd. uvular nasal, e.g. Japanese final /n/ as in Nihon
\xa0\xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0-
- Nasalized Vowels
\xa0\xa0 \xa0- example languages: \xa0French, Portuguese, Breton, Polish
\xa0\xa0 \xa0- In French they developed from Assimilation (the vowels took
\xa0\xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0on nasality from the following nasal consonant which was then
\xa0\xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0dropped. ) Some accents of French still have final /n/, as in
\xa0\xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0Marseilles, where "accent" might be pronounced [aksa\u0272]
Example: Odette does her poem about her accent: http://tinyurl.com/3r6w9uq
- Languages without Nasals
\xa0\xa0 \xa0- fewer the 2.3% of languages lack nasals
\xa0\xa0 \xa0- e.g. Puget sound native languages lack them
\xa0\xa0 \xa0- "The only other places in the world where this occurs is in a
\xa0\xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0dialect of the Rotokas language of Papua New Guinea, where
\xa0\xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0nasal stops are used only when imitating foreign accents (a
\xa0\xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0second dialect does have nasal stops), and in some of the
\xa0\xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0 \xa0Lakes Plain languages of West Papua."
- Denasal consonants
\xa0\xa0 \xa0- pathological (usually a cold) where m=b, n=d, \u014b=k