Acoustic Study of the Nepali Nasal Consonants (original) (raw)
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Managing the distinctiveness of phonemic nasal vowels: Articulatory evidence from Hindi
The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 2012
There is increasing evidence that fine articulatory adjustments are made by speakers to reinforce and sometimes counteract the acoustic consequences of nasality. However, it is difficult to attribute the acoustic changes in nasal vowel spectra to either oral cavity configuration or to velopharyngeal opening (VPO). This paper takes the position that it is possible to disambiguate the effects of VPO and oropharyngeal configuration on the acoustic output of the vocal tract by studying the position and movement of the tongue and lips during the production of oral and nasal vowels. This paper uses simultaneously collected articulatory, acoustic, and nasal airflow data during the production of all oral and phonemically nasal vowels in Hindi (four speakers) to understand the consequences of the movements of oral articulators on the spectra of nasal vowels. For Hindi nasal vowels, the tongue body is generally lowered for back vowels, fronted for low vowels, and raised for front vowels (with respect to their oral congeners). These movements are generally supported by accompanying changes in the vowel spectra. In Hindi, the lowering of back nasal vowels may have originally served to enhance the acoustic salience of nasality, but has since engendered a nasal vowel chain shift. V
WPP, No. 104: Breathy Nasals and /Nh/ Clusters in Bengali, Hindi, and Marathi
Department of Linguistics Ucla, 2005
Previous work on breathiness in Indic languages has focused primarily on the acoustic properties of breathy (also known as aspirated) oral stops in languages like Hindi ([baː ː ː ːl] 'hair' vs. [bʱ ʱ ʱ ʱaː ː ː ːl] 'forehead') or Bengali ([bati] 'bowl' vs. [bʱ ʱ ʱ ʱati] 'kiln'). However, breathiness in some Indic languages also extends to nasals, as in Marathi ([maː ː ː ːr] 'beat' vs. [m̤ ̤ ̤ ̤ aː ː ː ːr] 'a caste'). It is not clear if languages such as Hindi and Bengali have breathy nasals in addition to breathy oral stops. This study addresses the following question: in Bengali and Hindi, are /N/ + /h/ sequences single breathy nasals ([N̤ ̤ ̤ ̤ ]), or are they clusters ([Nh])? To answer this question, simultaneous audio, aerodynamic, and electroglottographic recordings were made of Hindi, Bengali, and Marathi speakers. Within-and cross-language comparisons were made, and phonological evidence was examined. While some within-language comparisons gave inconclusive results for Hindi and Bengali, other comparisons with Marathi and within-language phonological evidence pointed to the lack of breathy nasals in Hindi and an uncertain status for breathy nasals in Bengali.
SIR-1103-012-Duration-Correlates-of-Nasal-Consonants-in-Akan 4
The study examines the duration of Akan nasal consonants at different word positions. In all, 70 speakers were recorded, ten from each of the seven Akan communities, made up of five males and five females. The subjects were asked to repeat the words presented in a carrier frame "Ɔse {key word} anaa?" [ɔsɪ…anaa] three times, which were recorded and analyzed using Kay Elemetrics Computerized Speech Laboratory (CSL) model 4500 software. The study reveals that the bilabial nasal [m]has the longest duration, followed by the alveolar nasal [n], the velar nasal [ɲ] and the palatal nasal [ŋ] respectively. At different word-positions, the duration at wordinitial is longer than word-medial and word-final, as that of word-medial is also longer than word-final¹.
2021
The current study builds upon the literature on secondary articulations in Malayalam liquids to investigate whether another set of sonorants, i.e. the nasals, also involve palatalization, velarization, or varying configurations of the tongue root. Specifically, the current study focuses on the anterior nasals, i.e. dental n vs. alveolar n̠, a marginal contrast which has not been examined phonetically for secondary articulations. What is known about these two nasals is that they stem from different historical sources, they contrast in precise place of articulation, and they have been described impressionistically as distinguishable by velarization on the dental n and palatalization on the alveolar n̠, although no phonetic evidence has ever been provided to support either claim. Preliminary acoustic results from a single speaker in the current study suggest that these claims are in fact borne out: back vowels are generally fronted when adjacent to geminate alveolar n̠n̠, compared to t...
Voiceless Nasal Sounds in Three Tibeto-Burman Languages
This paper focuses on two types of voiceless nasal sounds in Xumi, a Tibeto-Burman language: (1) the voiceless aspirated nasals /m̥/ [m̥h̃] and /n̥/ [n̥h̃]; and (2) the voiceless nasal glottal fricative [h̃]. We provide a synchronic description of these two types of sounds, and explore their similarities and differences. Xumi voiceless nasal consonants are described with reference to the voiceless nasal consonants /m̥/ and /n̥/ in Burmese and Kham Tibetan, because Burmese voiceless nasals are the best described type of voiceless nasals, and are therefore used as a reference point for comparison; whereas voiceless nasals in Kham Tibetan, which is in close contact with Xumi, represent a characteristic regional feature. The synchronic description is based on acoustic and aerodynamic measurements (the total duration of the target phonemes, the duration of the voiced period during the target phonemes, mean nasal and oral flow). Our study (i) contributes to a better understanding of voiceless nasals as a type of sound; (ii) provides a first-ever instrumental description (acoustic and aerodynamic) of the voiceless nasal glottal fricative [h̃], as attested in a number of Tibeto-Burman languages of Southwest China; and (iii) suggests a possible phonetic basis for the observed dialectal and diachronic variation between voiceless nasals and [h̃] in some Tibeto-Burman languages.
Perception and representation of Bengali nasal vowels
2015
The paper addresses the question of native speakers’ online awareness and perceptual use of phonetic nasalisation by examining surface nasalisation in two types of surface vowels in Bengali: underlying nasal vowels and nasalised vowels before a nasal consonant. In a cross-modal forced-choice experiment, we investigate the hypothesis that only unpredictable nasalisation is represented and that this sparse representation governs listeners’ interpretation of vowel nasality. Auditory primes consisting of CV segments of monosyllabic CVC words containing either nasal vowels ([cã] for cãd), oral vowels ([ca] for cal) or nasalised oral vowels ([ca(n)] for can) preceded visual full-word targets. Faster reaction times and fewer errors are observed after nasal vowel primes compared to both oral and nasalised vowel primes. This indicates that nasal vowels are specified for nasality and lead to faster recognition compared to the oral vowel conditions, which are underspecified and thus cannot be ...
Bengali nasal vowels: lexical representation and listener perception
Phonetica
This paper focuses on the question of the representation of nasality as well as speakers’ awareness and perceptual use of phonetic nasalisation by examining surface nasalisation in two types of vowels in Bengali: underlying nasal vowels (CṼC) and nasalised vowels before a nasal consonant (CVN). A series of three cross-modal forced-choice experiments was used to investigate the hypothesis that only unpredictable nasalisation is stored and that this sparse representation governs how listeners interpret vowel nasality. Visual full-word targets were preceded by auditory primes consisting of CV segments of CVC words with nasal vowels ([tʃɑ̃] for [tʃɑ̃d] ‘moon’), oral vowels ([tʃɑ] for [tʃɑl] ‘unboiled rice’) or nasalised oral vowels ([tʃɑ̃(n)] for [tʃɑ̃n] ‘bath’) and reaction times and errors were measured. Some targets fully matched the prime while some matched surface or underlying representation only. Faster reaction times and fewer errors were observed after CṼC primes compared to bo...
An Acoustic Investigation of The Duration of Vowel Nasalization in Ga
2017
Relationship between vowel quality and nasalization has seen a number of investigations in languages with results indicating that the duration of nasalization varies with the quality of vowel. While some of the investigations reported that greater velopharyngeal opening occurs in mid-high and high back vowels in some languages, other investigation results show that low vowels are nasalized with greater velopharyngeal opening than high vowels in some other languages. It has been argued that in vowel nasalization low vowels are preferred because low vowels have longer duration in that long vowels are more likely to be nasalized than short vowels. This study sets out to investigate the relationship between the quality of vowels and nasalization in Ga by using acoustic measures. The study makes use of four native Ga speakers’ production of oral and nasal vowels in words. The words were recorded in a carrier frame and was analysed using PRAAT. The results indicate that nasal vowels have ...