Prenasalized consonant
Encyclopedia
Prenasalized consonants are phonetic
sequences of a nasal
and an obstruent
(or a non-nasal sonorant
) that behave phonologically
like single consonants. The reasons for considering these sequences to be single consonants is in their behavior, not in their actual composition. However, there may also be phonetic correlates which distinguish prenasalized consonants from clusters involving nasal consonants. Because of the additional difficulty in both articulation and timing, prenasalized fricatives and sonorants are not as common as prenasalized plosives and the presence of the former implies the latter.
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 apostrophe
s in Latin script transcription although this may sometimes indicate syllabic
nasals instead).
, such as Teochew, prenasalized stops are also found. The prenasalized stops in the southern Min languages evolved from the nasals of Middle Chinese
and thus are historically different from the voiced obstruents found in Wu and Xiang languages.
Prenasalized consonants are widely utilized in Loloish languages
of Lolo–Burmese family, such as Yi and Naxi
. The following table illustrates the prenasalized consonants in northern Yi.
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, /itiɡo/ "strawberry" is [it̠͡ɕiɡo] in most of the south, but [id̠͡ʑɨᵑɡo] in much of the north.
has a set of prenasalized stops which are alternate allophonically with simple nasal continuants; they appear only in words without nasalized vowels.
too have prenasalized stops. The Sinhala alphabet
has prenasalized versions of g, ḍ (voiced retroflex plosive
), d̪ (voiced dental plosive
) and b.
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 stops 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.
. In this language, as in many in Melanesia
, there is a series of voiceless stops, [p, t, k], and a series of prenasalized stops, [mb, nd, ŋɡ], but there are no simple voiced stops, [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.
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 [mbiloŋ] by many Melanesians
. The prenasalization behaves as a phonetic detail of voicing, rather than a separate segment.
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 cluster
s. Compare [mʷarə] "good", [ᵐpʷaɻə] "make", [ᵖmʷaɻə] "coolamon
".
Phonetics
Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that comprises the study of the sounds of human speech, or—in the case of sign languages—the equivalent aspects of sign. It is concerned with the physical properties of speech sounds or signs : their physiological production, acoustic properties, auditory...
sequences of a nasal
Nasal consonant
A nasal consonant is a type of consonant produced with a lowered velum in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasal consonants in English are and , in words such as nose and mouth.- Definition :...
and an obstruent
Obstruent
An obstruent is a consonant sound formed by obstructing airflow, causing increased air pressure in the vocal tract, such as [k], [d͡ʒ] and [f]. In phonetics, articulation may be divided into two large classes: obstruents and sonorants....
(or a non-nasal sonorant
Sonorant
In phonetics and phonology, a sonorant is a speech sound that is produced without turbulent airflow in the vocal tract; fricatives and plosives are not sonorants. Vowels are sonorants, as are consonants like and . Other consonants, like or , restrict the airflow enough to cause turbulence, and...
) that behave phonologically
Phonology
Phonology is, broadly speaking, the subdiscipline of linguistics concerned with the sounds of language. That is, it is the systematic use of sound to encode meaning in any spoken human language, or the field of linguistics studying this use...
like single consonants. The reasons for considering these sequences to be single consonants is in their behavior, not in their actual composition. However, there may also be phonetic correlates which distinguish prenasalized consonants from clusters involving nasal consonants. Because of the additional difficulty in both articulation and timing, prenasalized fricatives and sonorants are not as common as prenasalized plosives and the presence of the former implies the latter.
Africa
The Bantu languagesBantu languages
The Bantu languages constitute a traditional sub-branch of the Niger–Congo languages. There are about 250 Bantu languages by the criterion of mutual intelligibility, though the distinction between language and dialect is often unclear, and Ethnologue counts 535 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
Ghana
Ghana , officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country located in West Africa. It is bordered by Côte d'Ivoire to the west, Burkina Faso to the north, Togo to the east, and the Gulf of Guinea to the south...
's politician Kwame Nkrumah
Kwame Nkrumah
Kwame Nkrumah was the leader of Ghana and its predecessor state, the Gold Coast, from 1952 to 1966. Overseeing the nation's independence from British colonial rule in 1957, Nkrumah was the first President of Ghana and the first Prime Minister of Ghana...
had a prenasalized stop in his name, as does the capital of Chad
Chad
Chad , officially known as the Republic of Chad, is a landlocked country in Central Africa. It is bordered by Libya to the north, Sudan to the east, the Central African Republic to the south, Cameroon and Nigeria to the southwest, and Niger to the west...
, N'Djamena
N'Djamena
N'Djamena is the capital and largest city of Chad. A port on the Chari River, near the confluence with the Logone River, it directly faces the Cameroonian town of Kousséri, to which the city is connected by a bridge. It is also a special statute region, divided in 10 arrondissements. It is a...
(African prenasalized stops are often written with apostrophe
Apostrophe
The apostrophe is a punctuation mark, and sometimes a diacritic mark, in languages that use the Latin alphabet or certain other alphabets...
s in Latin script transcription although this may sometimes indicate syllabic
Syllabic consonant
A syllabic consonant is a consonant which either forms a syllable on its own, or is the nucleus of a syllable. The diacritic for this in the International Phonetic Alphabet is the under-stroke, ⟨⟩...
nasals instead).
East Asia
In Southern Min languagesMin Nan
The Southern Min languages, or Min Nan , are a family of Chinese languages spoken in southern Fujian, eastern Guangdong, Hainan, Taiwan, and southern Zhejiang provinces of China, and by descendants of emigrants from these areas in diaspora....
, such as Teochew, prenasalized stops are also found. The prenasalized stops in the southern Min languages evolved from the nasals of Middle Chinese
Middle Chinese
Middle Chinese , also called Ancient Chinese by the linguist Bernhard Karlgren, refers to the Chinese language spoken during Southern and Northern Dynasties and the Sui, Tang, and Song dynasties...
and thus are historically different from the voiced obstruents found in Wu and Xiang languages.
Prenasalized consonants are widely utilized in Loloish languages
Loloish languages
The Loloish languages, also known as Ngwi or in China as Yi, are a family of fifty to a hundred languages of the Tibeto-Burman language family. They are most closely related to Burmese and its relatives. Both the Loloish and Burmish branches are well defined, as is their superior node, Lolo–Burmese...
of Lolo–Burmese family, such as Yi and Naxi
Naxi language
Naxi is a Tibeto-Burman language or group of languages spoken by some 310,000 people concentrated in the Lijiang City Yulong Naxi Autonomous County of the province of Yunnan, China. Nakhi is also the name of the ethnic group that speaks it.- Classification :There are at least two Naxi languages...
. The following table illustrates the prenasalized consonants in northern Yi.
| Yi Character Yi script The Yi script, also historically known as Cuan Wen or Wei Shu , is used to write the Yi languages.-Classical Yi:Classical Yi is a syllabic logographic system that was reputedly devised during the Tang dynasty by someone called Aki... | Official Pinyin Pinyin Pinyin is the official system to transcribe Chinese characters into the Roman alphabet in China, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan. It is also often used to teach Mandarin Chinese and spell Chinese names in foreign publications and used as an input method to enter Chinese characters into... | IPA International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet "The acronym 'IPA' strictly refers [...] to the 'International Phonetic Association'. But it is now such a common practice to use the acronym also to refer to the alphabet itself that resistance seems pedantic... | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| nbo | [mbo˧] | skirt | |
| ndo | [ndo˧] | drink | |
| mge | [ŋgɤ˧] | buckwheat Buckwheat Buckwheat refers to a variety of plants in the dicot family Polygonaceae: the Eurasian genus Fagopyrum, the North American genus Eriogonum, and the Northern Hemisphere genus Fallopia. Either of the latter two may be referred to as "wild buckwheat"... |
|
| nzy | [nd͡zɿ˧] | control | |
| nry | [nɖ͡ʐɿ˧] | wine, liquor | |
| nji | [nd͡ʑi˧] | 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
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
, 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.
South America
The Guaraní languageGuaraní language
Guaraní, specifically the primary variety known as Paraguayan Guaraní , is an indigenous language of South America that belongs to the Tupí–Guaraní subfamily of the Tupian languages. It is one of the official languages of Paraguay , where it is spoken by the majority of the population, and half of...
has a set of prenasalized stops which are alternate allophonically with simple nasal continuants; they appear only in words without nasalized vowels.
South Asia
The Indic languages Sinhala and DhivehiDhivehi language
Maldivian is an Indo-Aryan language predominantly spoken by about 350,000 people in the Maldives where it is the national language. It is also the first language of nearly 10,000 people in the island of Minicoy in the Union territory of Lakshadweep, India where the Mahl dialect of the Maldivian...
too have prenasalized stops. The Sinhala alphabet
Sinhala alphabet
The Sinhala alphabet is an abugida used in Sri Lanka to write the official language Sinhala and also sometimes the liturgical languages Pali and Sanskrit...
has prenasalized versions of g, ḍ (voiced retroflex plosive
Voiced retroflex plosive
The voiced retroflex plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is d`. The IPA symbol is a lowercase letter d with a rightward-pointing tail protruding...
), d̪ (voiced dental plosive
Voiced dental plosive
The voiced dental plosive is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is...
) and b.
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 stops 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
Syllabification
Syllabification is the separation of a word into syllables, whether spoken or written.It is also used to describe the process of something like a consonant turning into a syllable, but this is not discussed here...
of gaambar must be gaa.mbar then, and the syllabification of sambal sam.bal.
Oceania
An example of the unitary behavior of prenasalized stops is provided by FijianFijian language
Fijian is an Austronesian language of the Malayo-Polynesian family spoken in Fiji. It has 450,000 first-language speakers, which is less than half the population of Fiji, but another 200,000 speak it as a second language...
. In this language, as in many in Melanesia
Melanesia
Melanesia is a subregion of Oceania extending from the western end of the Pacific Ocean to the Arafura Sea, and eastward to Fiji. The region comprises most of the islands immediately north and northeast of Australia...
, there is a series of voiceless stops, [p, t, k], and a series of prenasalized stops, [mb, nd, ŋɡ], but there are no simple voiced stops, [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.
When Tok Pisin
Tok Pisin
Tok Pisin is a creole spoken throughout Papua New Guinea. It is an official language of Papua New Guinea and the most widely used language in that country...
is spoken by people in Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea
Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...
who have similar phonologies in their languages, voiced consonants are prenasalized. For example, the preposition bilong (from English belong) is pronounced [mbiloŋ] by many Melanesians
Melanesians
Melanesians are an ethnic group in Melanesia. The original inhabitants of the group of islands now named Melanesia were likely the ancestors of the present-day Papuan-speaking people...
. The prenasalization behaves as a phonetic detail of voicing, rather than a separate segment.
Prenasalized stops are also found in Australia. The Eastern Arrernte language has both prenasalized stops and prestopped nasals
Nasal release
In phonetics, a nasal release is the release of a plosive consonant into a nasal stop. Such sounds are transcribed in the IPA with superscript nasal letters, for example as . In English words such as sudden in which historically the tongue made separate contacts with the alveolar ridge for the /d/...
, but does not have any other word-initial consonant cluster
Consonant cluster
In linguistics, a consonant cluster is a group of consonants which have no intervening vowel. In English, for example, the groups and are consonant clusters in the word splits....
s. Compare [mʷarə] "good", [ᵐpʷaɻə] "make", [ᵖmʷaɻə] "coolamon
Coolamon (vessel)
A coolamon is an Indigenous Australian carrying vessel.It is a multi-purpose shallow vessel, or dish with curved sides, ranging in length from 30–70 cm, and similar in shape to a canoe....
".