Nasal consonant

In phonetics, a nasal, also called a nasal occlusive, nasal stop in contrast with a nasal fricative, or nasal continuant, is an occlusive consonant produced with a lowered velum, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. Examples of nasals in English are [n] and [m], in words such as nose and mouth. Nasal occlusives are nearly universal in human languages. There are also other kinds of nasal consonants in some languages.

Definition

Nearly all nasal consonants are nasal occlusives, in which air escapes through the nose but not through the mouth, as it is blocked (occluded) by the lips or tongue. The oral cavity still acts as a resonance chamber for the sound. Rarely, non-occlusive consonants may be nasalized.

Most nasals are voiced, and in fact, the nasal sounds [n] and [m] are among the most common sounds cross-linguistically. Voiceless nasals occur in a few languages such as Burmese, Welsh, Icelandic and Guaraní. (Compare oral stops, which block off the air completely, and fricatives, which obstruct the air with a narrow channel. Both stops and fricatives are more commonly voiceless than voiced, and are known as obstruents.)

In terms of acoustics, nasals are sonorants, which means that they do not significantly restrict the escape of air (as it can freely escape out the nose). However, nasals are also obstruents in their articulation because the flow of air through the mouth is blocked. This duality, a sonorant airflow through the nose along with an obstruction in the mouth, means that nasal occlusives behave both like sonorants and like obstruents. For example, nasals tend to pattern with other sonorants such as [r] and [l], but in many languages, they may develop from or into stops.

Acoustically, nasals have bands of energy at around 200 and 2,000 Hz.

1. ^ The symbol ⟨n⟩ is commonly used to represent the dental nasal as well, rather than ⟨n̪⟩, as it is rarely distinguished from the alveolar nasal.

Examples of languages containing nasal occlusives:

The voiced retroflex nasal is [ɳ] is a common sound in Languages of India.

The voiced palatal nasal [r] is a common sound in European languages, such as: Spanish ⟨ñ⟩, French and Italian ⟨gn⟩, Catalan and Hungarian ⟨ny⟩, Czech and Slovak ⟨ň⟩, Polish ⟨ń⟩, Occitan and Portuguese ⟨nh⟩, Serbo-Croatian ⟨nj⟩, and (before a vowel) Modern Greek ⟨νι⟩.

Many Germanic languages, including German, Dutch, English and Swedish, as well as varieties of Chinese such as Mandarin and Cantonese, have [m], [n] and [ŋ]. Tamil has a six-fold distinction between [m], [n̪], [n], [ɳ], [r] and [ŋ] (ம,ந,ன,ண,ஞ,ங).

Catalan, Occitan, Spanish, and Italian have [m], [n], [r] as phonemes, and [ɱ] and [ŋ] as allophones. Nevertheless, in several American dialects of Spanish, there is no palatal nasal but only a palatalized nasal, [nʲ], as in English canyon.

In Brazilian Portuguese and Angolan Portuguese [r], written ⟨nh⟩, is typically pronounced as [ȷ̃], a nasal palatal approximant, a nasal glide (in Polish, this feature is also possible as an allophone). Semivowels in Portuguese often nasalize before and always after nasal vowels, resulting in [ȷ̃] and [w͂]. What would be coda nasal occlusives in other West Iberian languages is only slightly pronounced before dental consonants. Outside this environment the nasality is spread over the vowel or become a nasal diphthong (mambembe [mɐ̃ˈbẽjbi], outside the final, only in Brazil, and mantém [mɐ̃ˈtẽj ~ mɐ̃ˈtɐ̃j] in all Portuguese dialects).

The term 'nasal occlusive' (or 'nasal stop') is generally abbreviated to nasal. However, there are also nasalized fricatives, nasalized flaps, nasal glides, and nasal vowels, as in French, Portuguese, and Polish. In the IPA, nasal vowels and nasalized consonants are indicated by placing a tilde (~) over the vowel or consonant in question: French sang [sɑ̃], Portuguese bom [bõ].

Voiceless nasals

A few languages have phonemic voiceless nasal occlusives. Among them are Icelandic, Faroese, Burmese, Jalapa Mazatec, Kildin Sami, Welsh, and Central Alaskan Yup'ik. Iaai of New Caledonia has an unusually large number of them, with /m̥ m̥ʷ n̪̥ ɳ̊  ɲ̊ ŋ̊/, along with a number of voiceless approximants.

Other kinds of nasal consonant

Ladefoged and Maddieson (1996) distinguish purely nasal consonants, the nasal occlusives such as m n ng in which the airflow is purely nasal, from partial nasal consonants such as prenasalized stops and prestopped nasals, which are nasal for only part of their duration, as well as from nasalized consonants, which have simultaneous oral and nasal airflow.^[1] In some languages, such as Portuguese, a nasal consonant may have occlusive and non-occlusive allophones. In general, therefore, a nasal consonant may be:

• a nasal occlusive, such as English m, n, ng
• a nasal approximant, as in Brazilian Portuguese nh
• a nasal flap, such as the nasal retroflex lateral flap in Pashto
• prenasalized stops, prestopped nasals and post-stopped nasals
• a nasal click, such as Zulu nq, nx, nc
• other nasalized consonants, such as nasalized fricatives

Languages without nasals

A few languages, perhaps 2%,^[2] contain no phonemically distinctive nasals. This led Ferguson (1963) to assume that all languages have at least one primary nasal occlusive. However, there are exceptions.

Lack of phonemic nasals

When a language is claimed to lack nasals altogether, as with several Niger–Congo languages^{[note 1]} or the Pirahã language of the Amazon, nasal and non-nasal or prenasalized consonants usually alternate allophonically, and it is a theoretical claim on the part of the individual linguist that the nasal is not the basic form of the consonant. In the case of some Niger–Congo languages, for example, nasals occur before only nasal vowels. Since nasal vowels are phonemic, it simplifies the picture somewhat to assume that nasalization in occlusives is allophonic. There is then a second step in claiming that nasal vowels nasalize oral occlusives, rather than oral vowels denasalizing nasal occlusives, that is, whether [mã, mba] are phonemically /mbã, mba/ without full nasals, or /mã, ma/ without prenasalized stops. Postulating underlying oral or prenasalized stops rather than true nasals helps to explain the apparent instability of nasal correspondences throughout Niger–Congo compared with, for example, Indo-European.^[3]

This analysis comes at the expense, in some languages, of postulating either a single nasal consonant that can only be syllabic, or a larger set of nasal vowels than oral vowels, both typologically odd situations. The way such a situation could develop is illustrated by a Jukunoid language, Wukari. Wukari allows oral vowels in syllables like ba, mba and nasal vowels in bã, mã, suggesting that nasals become prenasalized stops before oral vowels. Historically, however, *mb became **mm before nasal vowels, and then reduced to *m, leaving the current asymmetric distribution.^[4]

In older speakers of the Tlingit language, [l] and [n] are allophones. Tlingit is usually described as having an unusual, perhaps unique lack of /l/ despite having six lateral obstruents; the older generation could be argued to have /l/ but at the expense of having no nasals.

Lack of phonetic nasals

Several of languages surrounding Puget Sound, such as Quileute (Chimakuan family), Lushootseed (Salishan family), and Makah (Wakashan family), are truly without any nasalization whatsoever, in consonants or vowels, except in special speech registers such as baby talk or the archaic speech of mythological figures (and perhaps not even that in the case of Quileute). This is an areal feature, only a few hundred years old, where nasals became voiced stops ([m] became [b], etc.) after colonial contact. For example, Snohomish is currently pronounced sdohobish, but was transcribed with nasals in the first English-language records.

The only other places in the world where this is known to occur is in New Guinea. In the central dialect of the Rotokas language of Bougainville Island, nasals are only used when imitating foreign accents. (A second dialect has a series of nasals.) The Foau language of West Irian is similar.

The unconditioned loss of nasals, as in Puget Sound, is unusual. However, currently in Korean, word-initial /m/ and /n/ are shifting to [b] and [d]. This started out in nonstandard dialects and was restricted to the beginning of prosodic units (a common position for fortition), but has expanded to many speakers of the standard language to the beginnings of common words even within prosodic units.^[5]

See also

• Oral consonant
• Nasal click
• Nasal vowel
• Nasalization
• List of phonetics topics

Notes

References

Bibliography

• Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19814-8. 
• Ferguson (1963) 'Assumptions about nasals', in Greenberg (ed.) Universals of Language, pp 50–60.
• Saout, J. le (1973) 'Languages sans consonnes nasales', Annales de l Université d'Abidjan, H, 6, 1, 179–205.
• Williamson, Kay (1989) 'Niger–Congo overview', in Bendor-Samuel & Hartell (eds.) The Niger–Congo Languages, 3–45.

International Phonetic Alphabet   IPA topics IPA International Phonetic Association History of the IPA Extensions to the IPA Kiel convention (1989) Journal of the IPA (JIPA) Naming conventions Phonetics Diacritics Segments Tone letter Place of articulation Manner of articulation Special topics Case variants of IPA letters Handwritten IPA Obsolete and nonstandard symbols IPA chart for English dialects Encodings SAMPA X-SAMPA Kirshenbaum TIPA Phonetic symbols in Unicode WorldBet IPA Braille   Consonants IPA pulmonic consonantschart image • audio Place → Labial Coronal Dorsal Laryngeal ↓ Manner Bilabial Labio­dental Linguo­labial Dental Alveolar Palato- alveolar Retroflex Alveolo- palatal Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyngeal / Epiglottal Glottal Nasal m̥ m ɱ n̼̊ n̼ n̥ n ɳ̊ ɳ ɲ̊ ɲ ŋ̊ ŋ ɴ̥ ɴ Stop p b p̪ b̪ t̼ d̼ t d ʈ ɖ c ɟ k ɡ q ɢ ʡ ʔ Sibilant affricate ts dz tʃ dʒ ʈʂ ɖʐ tɕ dʑ Non-sibilant affricate pɸ bβ p̪f b̪v tθ dð tθ̠ dð̠ t̠ɹ̠̊˔ d̠ɹ̠˔ cç ɟʝ kx ɡɣ qχ ɢʁ ʡħ ʡʕ ʔh Sibilant fricative s z ʃ ʒ ʂ ʐ ɕ ʑ Non-sibilant fricative ɸ β f v θ̼ ð̼ θ ð θ̱ ð̠ ɹ̠̊˔ ɹ̠˔ ç ʝ x ɣ χ ʁ ħ ʕ h ɦ ʔ̞ Approximant ɸ˕ ʋ θ̞ ɹ̥ ɹ ɻ̊ ɻ j̊ j ɰ̊ ɰ Flap or tap ⱱ̟ ⱱ ɾ̼ ɾ̥ ɾ ɽ̊ ɽ ɢ̆ ʡ̮ Trill ʙ r̼ r̥ r ɽr̥ ɽr ʀ̥ ʀ ʜ ʢ Lateral affricate tɬ dɮ ʈɭ̊˔ cʎ̥˔ kʟ̝̊ ɡʟ̝ Lateral fricative ɬ ɮ ɭ̊˔ ʎ̥˔ ʎ̝ ʟ̝̊ ʟ̝ Lateral approximant l̼ l̥ l ɭ̊ ɭ ʎ̥ ʎ ʟ ʟ̠ Lateral flap ɺ̼ ɺ ɭ̆ ʎ̮ ʟ̆ Non-pulmonic consonants Simple clicks ʘ ʘ̬ ʘ̃ ǀ ǀ̬ ǀ̃ ǃ ǃ̬ ǃ̃ ǂ ǂ̬ ǂ̃ ǁ ǁ̬ ǁ̃ ǃ˞ ǃ̬˞ ǃ̃˞ Other clicks ʘ̃ˀ ʘˀ ˀʘ̃ ʘ͡q ʘ͡qχ ʘ͡qʼ ʘ͡qχʼ ¡ ʞ Implosives ɓ ɗ ᶑ ʄ ɠ ʛ ɓ̥ ɗ̥ ᶑ̥ ʄ̊ ɠ̊ ʛ̥  Ejectives pʼ tʼ ʈʼ cʼ kʼ qʼ ʡʼ fʼ θʼ sʼ ɬʼ ʃʼ ʂʼ ɕʼ xʼ χʼ tsʼ tɬʼ tʃʼ ʈʂʼ tɕʼ cʎ̝̥ʼ kxʼ kʟ̝̊ʼ qχʼ Co-articulated consonants Continuants ʍ w ɥ̊ ɥ ɫ Occlusives k͡p ɡ͡b ŋ͡m ɧ t͡p d͡b n͡m q͡ʡ — These tables contain phonetic symbols, which may not display correctly in some browsers. [Help] — Where symbols appear in pairs, left–right represent the voiceless–voiced consonants. — Shaded areas denote pulmonic articulations judged to be impossible or not distinctive. Chart image Pulmonics Non-pulmonics Affricates Co-articulated   Vowels Front Near-​front Central Near-​back Back Close •iy •ɨʉ •ɯu •ɪʏ •ɪ̈ʊ̈ •ɯ̽ʊ •eø •ɘɵ •ɤo •e̞ø̞ •əɵ̞ •ɤ̞o̞ •ɛœ •ɜɞ •ʌɔ •æ •ɐɞ̞ •aɶ •äɒ̈ •ɑɒ Near-close Close-mid Mid Open-mid Near-open Open IPA help • chart •  chart with audio • view