“Post-stopped nasals”: An acoustic investigation

Abstract

In some dialects of Chinese and Miao, the nasals in syllable-initial position have been described as being accompanied by a homorganic stop, which are often transcribed with superscripts: [mb], [nd], and [ŋg], as a deliberate attempt to characterize these segments as phonetically distinct from prenasalized stops, [mb], [nd], [ŋg]. In our study, the acoustic nature of these “post-stopped” nasals will be explored, since no instrumental study has been conducted on them. A preliminary investigation of data from two Zhongshan Chinese speakers confirm that these nasals are different both perceptually and acoustically from the prenasalized stops in other languages. It is found that the so-called “stop” component in Zhongshan syllable-initial nasals is not a stop, but a burst that occurs simultaneous with the oral release following the nasal. Such bursts occur sporadically in English, but are consistently produced in the Zhongshan nasals, and are perceived as homorganic stops accompanying the nasals. The waveforms also show a characteristic shape, with a sharp rise in amplitude at vowel onset. The results suggest the precise synchronization of velic closure with oral release.

Voice onset time is necessary but not always sufficient to describe acquisition of voiced stops: The cases of Greek and Japanese

“…In other words, prenasalized stops are characterized as having higher (nasal-like) amplitude at the beginning and lower (voiced stop-like) amplitude at the end. As Chan & Ren (1987), Gordon & Maddieson (1999), Demolin et al (2006), and others have pointed out, prenasalized stops may vary in the extent to which amplitude is high at the beginning and/or lowered at the end, resulting in a continuum of types from “hyper-voiced stops” (Iverson & Salmons, 1996) to “post-stopped nasals” (Chan & Ren, 1987). Arvaniti and Joseph (2000) also note considerable variation in the realization of voiced stops in Greek, with the ratio of the nasal part to the oral part at the end varying between and even within speakers.…”

Voiced stop prenasalization in two dialects of Greek

“…The amplitude trajectories of Greek voiced stops showed that voiced stops started with an amplitude level comparable to that of nasals and ended with an amplitude that was lower than the nasals', which is a characteristic feature of prenasalized stops in other languages as well (Burton et al, 1992;Chan and Ren, 1987). Moreover, this downward trend of amplitude was stronger in word-medial position than in word-initial position in Greek.…”

“…In their inspection of spectrums, the spectral characteristics of prenasalized stops during the initial portion of the closure duration were similar to those of nasal consonants by having the second and the third spectral peaks at a high frequency range. Similarly, Chan and Ren (1987) described the prenasalized stops in Malagasy as having an amplitude drop preceded by a relatively strong nasal murmur. The amplitude envelope of Malagasy prenasalized stops displayed a falling trajectory starting from the highest amplitude of the nasal murmur (see Fig.…”

“…The amplitude envelope of Malagasy prenasalized stops displayed a falling trajectory starting from the highest amplitude of the nasal murmur (see Fig. 4 of Chan and Ren, 1987). Kong (2009) used this amplitude measure to compare word-initial voiced stops and nasals in Greek produced by adult and child speakers of Thessalonikan Greek.…”

“…Prenasalization denotes complex phonetic articulations that are produced with an accompanying nasal murmur during all (or part of) the stop closure (Arvaniti, 2007;Burton et al, 1992;Chan and Ren, 1987;Demolin et al, 2006). The articulation of prenasalized stops differs from that of nasals with regard to the timing of the gestures of oral release and velopharyngeal port closure.…”