phonetics Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds or, in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians ...

, a nasal release is the release of a

stop consonant In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lip ...

into a nasal. Such sounds are transcribed in the

International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standard written representation ...

with superscript nasal letters, for example as in English ''catnip'' . In English words such as ''sudden'' in which historically the tongue made separate contacts with the alveolar ridge for the and , , many speakers today make only one contact. That is, the is released directly into the : . Although this is a minor phonetic detail in English (in fact, it is commonly transcribed as having no audible release: , ), nasal release is more important in some other languages.

Prestopped nasals

In some languages, such consonants may occur before vowels and are called '' prestopped nasals''. Prestopped nasals and prenasalized stops occur when the

oral cavity A mouth also referred to as the oral is the body orifice through which many animals ingest food and vocalize. The body cavity immediately behind the mouth opening, known as the oral cavity (or in Latin), is also the first part of the alime ...

is closed and the

nasal cavity The nasal cavity is a large, air-filled space above and behind the nose in the middle of the face. The nasal septum divides the cavity into two cavities, also known as fossae. Each cavity is the continuation of one of the two nostrils. The nas ...

is opened by lowering the velum, but the timing of both events does not coincide. A prenasalized stop starts out with a lowered velum that raises during the occlusion, much like the in ''candy''. A postnasalized stop or prestopped nasal begins with a raised velum that lowers during the occlusion. That causes an audible nasal release, as in English ''sudden''. The

Slavic languages The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavs, Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic language, Proto- ...

are most famous for having (non-phonemic) prestopped nasals. That can be seen in place names such as the

Dniester River The Dniester ( ) is a transboundary river in Eastern Europe. It runs first through Ukraine and then through Moldova (from which it more or less separates the breakaway territory of Transnistria), finally discharging into the Black Sea on Uk ...

. The Russian word for "day", for example, is inflected , . Prestopped nasals area also found in

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. Eastern Arrernte has both prenasalized stops and prestopped nasals, but it does not have word-initial consonant clusters. Compare "good" (with nasal stop), "make" (with prenasalized stop), "coolamon" (with prestopped nasal). There is little or no phonetic difference between a " prenasalized stop" () and a cluster (). It is similar for prestopped nasals. The difference is essentially one of phonological analysis. For example, languages with word-initial (or ) but no other word-initial clusters, will often be analyzed as having a unitary prenasalized stop rather than a cluster of nasal + stop. For some languages, it is claimed that a difference exists (often medially) between and . Even in such cases, however, alternative analyses are possible. Ladefoged and Maddieson investigated one such claimed case and concluded that the two sounds were better analyzed as /nd/ and /nnd/, respectively.

Final consonants with nasal release

However, some languages such as Vietnamese and Malay, which are generally described as having no audible release in final stops, actually have a short nasal release in such cases. Since all final stops in these two languages are

voiceless In linguistics, voicelessness is the property of sounds being pronounced without the larynx vibrating. Phonologically, it is a type of phonation, which contrasts with other states of the larynx, but some object that the word phonation implies v ...

, the nasal release is voiceless as well. Although the difference is commonly chalked up to aspiration, final nasal release is contrastive in Wolof: ::

References

{{IPA navigation Consonants

Release Release may refer to: * Art release, the public distribution of an artistic production, such as a film, album, or song * Legal release, a legal instrument * News release, a communication directed at the news media * Release (ISUP), a code to i ...

Prestopped nasals

Final consonants with nasal release

See also

References