English Nasals

Chapter 99.2.5 Clusters with nasals

Presenter Name: Masoud Dolatshahi

In The Name of AllahM.Dolatshahi TEFL 941

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9.2.5 Clusters with nasalsNasal + plosive consonant which shares the same place of articulation : [mp nt nd k g] as in lamp, rant, land, lank and fingerIn these clusters, the oral closure is held and the velum is raised in order to produce oral airow. The three clusters with voiceless (-) plosives deserve some comment. Recall that vowels are longer before voiced (+) plosives, and before (-) plosives, many speakers produce creaky voice during the vowel nasal + plosive clusters :,

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If you look closely you will see that the nasal consonants have a much simpler waveform pattern than the vowels. This is because the nasal articulations favour low frequency spectral components and low frequency waves vary more slowly than high frequency waves.You can readily see where the consonant ends and the vowel starts by looking for two changes. The simplest change to see is the sudden increase in intensity that occurs as the oral cavity is opened at the start of the vowel. The open oral cavity allows more power or intensity to be transmitted from the larynx to the outside world. The other change that occurs is the change in pattern from the simple nasal consonant pattern (dominated by low frequencies) to the more complex vowel pattern (with a more even mixture of low and higher frequencies).

Another characteristic of this class of speech sounds is the general lack of aperiodicity, or aspiration, in the waveform and the absence of the bursts characteristic of the stops and affricates. If aperiodicity is very evident in the waveform it is likely to be characteristic of a pathological vocal condition such as an excessively breathy voiceThe slight interruption in the waveform near the beginning of the /n/ is probably due to a slight creak in the voice. Slight and occasional creakiness in the voice is perfectly normal and only becomes pathological when it occurs continuously or for an abnormally large proportion of a person's speech.M.Dolatshahi TEFL 943

Comparing lend and lent.


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In English, in that there is no word-final [-mb] cluster. [-nd], on the other hand, is very common.The velar cluster [-g] is more problematic. There are varieties of English where there is no nal [], since it is always pronounced as [g].

/s.r/ /f.r/


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There is also a phonetic explanation for the origin of the [/g] variation. To exit a nasal, the velum must be lowered, but the oral closure must also be released. In this case, the velar release is produced simply as a percussive, that is, it is a transient noise that arises from the separation two articulators. We will transcribe this as , using superscript to represent its shortness and low amplitude. But if it is preceded by more airow, and there is more pressure behind the closure, it is a short step from to[-g]


9.3 Nasalised vowels9.3.1 The production and transcription of nasalised vowelsIn cases where a nasal is syllable final, nasality starts before oral closure, giving rise to a period of oro-nasal airflow. The result of this is typically a nasalised vowel, which can be transcribed as a vowel symbol + the diacritic [], resulting in transcriptions like [h] , hang , [su:n] , soon, and [mn], men.

It is often said in fact that English does not have nasalised vowels, because the vowels that we can nd with oro-nasalair ow are different from languages which do have nasalised vowels in two respects.M.Dolatshahi TEFL 947

Oro-nasal


9.3.2 Nasalised vowels in conversational speech


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9.3.3 Nasalised vowels in the place of nasal consonants

This can be seen as a natural process, in that it has a simple phonetic explanation: the velum lowers early, producing nasality + vocalicity followed by nasality + a stop articulation.

M.Dolatshahi TEFL 9410vowel + nasal + voiceless plosive nasalised vowel + voiceless plosive

(nasal airow occurs concurrently with the open resonant articulation needed for the vowel)

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[-pn] [-pm] [-kn] [k][-gn] [-g]Between the [t] and the [n], then, there is no intervening vocalicportion. This is because by denition vowels have unimpeded airowthrough the vocal tract, but all through the sequence [tn], the tonguemakes a complete closure against the alveolar ridge. For this reason, thenasal in a sequence like [tn] in words like button is considered to besyllabic. M.Dolatshahi TEFL 9411

9.4 Syllabic nasalsNasals can be syllabic in English. This means that they occur in syllables without vowels in unstressed syllables.


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These cases are straightforwardly syllabic nasals, because the plosiveand nasal portions are homorganic: they share the same place of articulation. Slightly more difcult is the case of e.g. fricative + nasal, as inprison, reason, often, rhythm, oven.[prIzn] [prIzn] /f.n/ /f.tn/

/v.n/

In these cases, the two consonants do not necessarily share a place of articulation. For them to be syllabic, the join between the fricative portion and the nasal portion requires the oral closure for the nasal consonant to be made without a more open gesture intervening between the gesture of close approximation for the fricative and the oral closure needed for the nasal. This is easy to achieve in words like prison, where the tongue needs merely to be raised so as to make a complete closure against the alveolar ridge , giving [n].M.Dolatshahi TEFL 9413

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nasal + plosive + nasal sequencesThe distribution here is more difcult to explain: e.g. the name Clinton

syllabic nasals are often used as response tokens in conversation. Both mono- and di-syllabic versions are found. Monosyllabic tokens are mostly bilabial in English. In the disyllabic tokens, there is usually a glottal stop or a portion of voicelessness or breathiness in the middle.The place of articulation is usually bilabial, but alveolar tokens are also found. These are one of the few places in English where voiceless nasals are found.M.Dolatshahi TEFL 9414

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They can also occur word medially too, especially when there is amorpheme after the nasal. For example, the word instances, which hasa plural morpheme [-iz], can have a syllabic nasal:

One good place to observe this is in verbs formed from adjectives with the sufx -en.


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AppendixA slightly technical one this but the above is widely asserted in some very serious contexts, perhaps by people who know about phonetics but havent heard much Welsh spoken; but it does not stand up to the test of observation. The technical term voiceless nasal means simply that the sound emerges only through the nose, not the mouth, and there is no voice (the vocal cords are silent). Thus there would have to be audible friction within the nose, otherwise the result would be silence; it would be a sort of exhaled sniff, like the quick snort down the nose that you might make when something amuses you so briefly you dont bother to open your mouth and laugh normally. http://gwybodiadur.tripod.com/pronunc2.htmvoiceless nasalM.Dolatshahi TEFL 9416

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Cockney Analyze M.Dolatshahi TEFL 9417http://www.yorku.ca/earmstro/speech/dialects/cockney/

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English Nasals