The Diachronic Coronal-Velar Nasal Relationship
Jenny Simone Lederer† † University of California, Berkeley E-mail: [email protected]
2. DIACHRONIC EXAMPLES ABSTRACT (2.1) Cuban Spanish This paper investigates the phonetic factors of diachronic A prototypical case of the alveolar nasal sifting to the nasal place change from the alveolar to the velar place of velar nasal is that of Cuban Spanish (Hammond 1976, articulation. Evidence is given from Cuban Spanish, Lederer 2000). In Cuban Spanish, all word-final instances Hausa, Brazilian Portuguese, and Chinese. There appear of a nasal consonant appear as the velar nasal []. By to be two distinct pathways leading to change. The first is contrast, in Peninsular Spanish, word-final nasals appear a pathway in which the word-final alveolar nasal becomes as the alveolar [n] (with the exception of dialects such as velar with no independent stage of phonemic word-final Andalusian, which also exhibits the word-final velar nasalized vowels (Cuban Spanish, Hausa, and certain nasal). dialectal groups of Chinese). In the second pathway Spain Cuba (Brazilian Portuguese), there is a documented stage of pa[n] pa[] ‘bread’ phonemically nasalized vowels. It is concluded that the esta[n] eta[] ‘they are’ change from alveolar-to-velar nasal is one of phonetic kamjo[n] kamjo[] ‘truck’ changes, in no way explained by an abstract notion of peruti[n] peruti[] ‘Peruchin’ markedness. seu[n] seu[] ‘following’
1. INTRODUCTION Table 1: Spanish examples of the [n] Æ [] change One can hypothesize that the word-final n of pre- In many languages, velar consonants have undergone [ ] colonial Spanish evolved into the word-final spoken place of articulation shift to the alveolar region. Some of [ ] in Cuba, since the alveolar nasal is found in most parts of this diachronic place change and synchronic alternation the Iberian Peninsula, and the velar nasal is realized word- has been collected and summarized in favor of a finally only in Southern Spain, Cuba, and other former phonological argument that coronals and velars are the Spanish colonial countries in the Caribbean (e.g. Puerto two unmarked places of articulation, and further that Rico, dialects of Caribbean Mexico). coronals and velars result from a single representation, a In order to begin the process of reconstructing how a Place node with no dependent (Rice, 1996). change like this might take place it is crucial to note The goal of the current analysis is to investigate and several factors about the phonetic differences between the explain this special diachronic relationship, relying more two dialects, differences that perhaps served as catalysts upon acoustic and articulatory factors, while shying away for the resulting change in articulatory position. The first from any phonological explanation of markedness and point to be noticed is that the Cuban velar nasal is unmarkedness. The focus on nasal place shift and the pronounced in a word-final environment. In Cuban reasons for this shift will exemplify the complexity of Spanish pre-consonantal nasals assimilate to the place of these specific phonetic/phonemic changes. Nasals are articulation of the following consonant: [emfasi] susceptible to place change simply because of their ‘emphasis’, [entufar] ‘to plug in’, [mao] ‘mango’, but nasality. in the word-final environment, the velar nasal serves as the This paper is organized as follows. In Section 2, several ‘default’ nasal. In continental Spanish, the system of unrelated languages will be examined in detail as evidence phonemic nasals consists of [m], [n], []. The velar [] is for the diachronic change from n to . Shared [ ] [] simply an allophonic variant of the alveolar nasal. In phonetic characteristics of the sample languages will be Cuban Spanish, however, a phonetic neutralization seems summarized. Section 3 will consist of experimental to have occurred. Because the velar-nasal is pronounced acoustic and articulatory studies, which will serve as more word-finally, and in the unconditioned coda position evidence toward the specific acoustic and articulatory sporadically (Hammond 1976), the [] has now taken over reasons that these changes occur diachronically. And, many of the positions of [n]. finally, Section 4 will be a list of necessary phonetic Another crucial difference between the two dialects, a factors that serve as a roadmap for this specific diachronic key factor to the alveolar-velar sound change, rests on the process. quality of the vowel which precedes the word-final nasal. The vowels preceding nasals in continental Spanish are not phonologically nasalized, but the vowels preceding Newman (2000). Newman explains that the nasal nasals in Cuban Spanish are (Lederer 2000). Maria-Josep phoneme /n/ commonly occurs in syllable final-position, Solé (1995) experimentally demonstrates the difference and that, when it does, it is always homorganic with the between a phonologized pattern of pre-nasal vowel following consonant. This nasal-coda situation in Hausa nasalization in American English and phonetic co- seems at first very similar to the Cuban homorganic nasal articulatory pattern of pre-nasal vowel nasalization in coda phenomenon. However, Newman (p. 405) goes so Continental Spanish: far as to say that the nasal in this position should not be In (Continental) Spanish, vowels are oral for most of linked to the coda, but is in fact part of a “nasal their duration; onset of VP (velopharyngeal port) diphthong”, which behaves comparably to an oral opening is timed relative to the following nasal diphthong. This type of description raises the possibility consonant and peak VP size occurs at nasal consonant that Hausa vowels in pre-nasal position are phonemically onset across (speech) rates, which suggests that the nasalized as is the case in Cuba. motor commands for opening the velar port are part of (2.3) Chinese the instructions for the nasal consonant. In American In several areas of the Min dialects of Chinese, the English, on the other hand, VP opening onset historical contrast of word-final [m], [n], and [] in coincides with vowel onset and peak VP size occurs Middle Chinese (MC) have merged to be pronounced as in the middle of the vowel across rates, which the velar nasal (Chen, 1973). Chen exemplifies this indicates that opening movements are part of the ‘unidirectional merging’ by observing that in dialects that programming instructions for the vowel. It is argued merged to only two-way contrasts, either /m/ merged with that, in (Continental) Spanish, vowels followed by a /n/ or /n/ merged with //. The merges never resulted in nasal consonant are targeted as oral and are nasalized just word-final [m] and never resulted in just word-final as a result of a co-articulatory effect, whereas in [n]. Often the two-way distinction then neutralized to American English, vowels are targeted as nasalized as only one word-final nasal, the velar []: a result of a phonological rule (p. 1). I.m n Guangzhou, Xiamen, Meixian
The phonetically nasalized vowels in pre-nasal position II. Peking, Jinan, Xian, Hankou, in Continental Spanish can be compared the n phonologically nasalized vowels in pre-nasal position in III. Fuzhou, Taiyuan, Wenzhou, Sanghai Cuban Spanish. Cuban Spanish pre-nasal vowels pattern Table 3: The unidirectional pattern (Chen, p.102) with the pre-nasal vowels of American English (Lederer Chen notes too, that / / and / / historically tend to drop 2000). In Cuban Spanish nasal airflow begins at the m n after nasalizing the preceding vowel more readily than / /. release of the onset and increases during the duration of A special relationship formed from the appearance of the the vowel until it peaks at the closure of the nasal. This velar nasal on nasalized vowels. A potential nasal airflow indicates that the entire pre-nasal vowel is articulatory/acoustic explanation for this occurrence will nasalized, due to the early opening of the velopharyngeal be outlined in Section 3. port, and is thus not simply a result of phonetic co- (2.4) Brazilian Portuguese articulation. Cuban Spanish differs crucially from Brazilian Portuguese represents the second pathway to Continental Spanish in this aspect of vowel nasalization. change, in which a stage of word-final velar nasals has This distinction will be shown later to be one of the most been preceded by a long stage of word-final phonemically important predictive factors in the change from alveolar to nasalized vowels. Ryan Shosted (2003 (in this volume)) velar nasal. shows how Brazilian Portuguese fits into a similar (2.2) Modern Hausa diachronic nasal place change as the other languages. Like Cuban Spanish, Hausa has undergone the same nasal Shosted has demonstrated, through the study of nasal place change. Though not as universal as the word-final airflow, that what once were simply word-final nasalized velar constraint in Cuban Spanish, modern Hausa high vowels in Brazilian Portuguese can now be demonstrates the allophonic variation in word-final documented as ending in the articulation of the velar nasal. position. In most dialects, both final / / and final / / may m n The change from bilabial and alveolar word-final nasals be realized as the velar (Bello 1992). A couple of [] (from the evidence of Latin) has come about through a examples demonstrate the sound change: very long diachronic time span, but the result of the Historical Form Modern Pronunciation change is nonetheless the same as the previous languages. (Bello 1992) ‘man’ mutum mutu The following examples demonstrate the historical form (Bello 1992) ‘there’ can ca and the current pronunciation in the Minas Gerais dialect Table 2: Hausa examples of the Æ change [n] [] of Brazilian Portuguese: The orthography of the language as well as the synchronic Historical Brazilian Alternative alternation between different dialects point to the (Shosted 2003) ‘yes’ directional change from two different word-final nasals: si si (Shosted 2003) ‘in a, in one’ and to the merged word-final velar nasal, . nu nu [m] [n] [] (Shosted 2003) ‘well’ This view is consistent with the analysis given by be be Table 4: Brazilian [v] Æ [v] onsets not vowels. As the Portuguese examples demonstrate, it looks as In another experiment of speech recognition over a though the word-final nasalized vowel is being re- telephone system, Fletcher verifies the claim that the interpreted as a word-final nasalized vowel with a velic word-final position is crucial to perpetuating closure, a nasalized vowel with the velar nasal attached. misinterpretation of segments. When two callers (2.5) Summary pronounced 174 English word lists of 50 words each to Based on the four languages detailed above and the eight listeners over a telephone system transmitting only countless others that exist, the alveolar-velar nasal shift is frequencies as high as 1250 cycles per second, an analysis a noteworthy cross-linguistic sound change, for which a of the results obtained with the standardized lists showed phonetic explanation is due. Evidence points to that 42 % of the errors were initial consonants and 58 % of commonalities among the specific sound changes: the errors were final consonants. The word-final • the sound change happens word-finally environment has to be a factor considered to contribute to • a current stage of phonological nasalization on the re-interpretation and shift from the alveolar-to-velar the pre-nasal vowel of the language is hypothesized with word-final nasal. descriptive support (Hausa, Chinese), or experimentally (3.2) The Velar Nasal Itself demonstrated to exist (Cuban Spanish, Brazilian As demonstrated in Section 2, the velar nasal of the Portuguese) daughter dialects, which have undergone the alveolar-to- • the language exhibits nasal assimilation to the velar shift, almost always co-occurs with a preceding following consonant within the word. phonologically nasalized vowel, [v]. Articulatorily, the only difference between a nasalized vowel, and the velar 3. EXPERIMENTAL INSIGHT nasal is a full dorsal tongue closure at the velum. During (3.1) The Word-Final Environment the articulation of a nasalized vowel, the lowered velum creates a small obstruction in oral airflow, thus, to produce The word-final environment itself plays a crucial part in the velar nasal consonant, the only articulatory step allowing the alveolar-velar nasal sound change to occur. necessary is to slightly raise the tongue dorsum, creating a At the end of a word, before a pause, the consonantal full closure with the lowered velum. release of a word-final consonant is not heard and often The small articulatory difference between a nasalized not pronounced because quite obviously there is no vowel and a word-final velar nasal can be realized as following segment to carry the acoustic quality of the acoustic confusion in the speech signal. Ohala & Ohala release. In his collection of acoustical studies of speech (1993) argue, based on phonetic universals derived from transmission, Harvey Fletcher (1929) indirectly comments acoustic primitives, that back nasals are less consonantal on the word-final environment, when describing the than front nasals: results of one of his word-perception experiments, in The further back a nasal consonant is articulated, the which the intensity of the speech signal is correlated with less “consonantal” it is. . . The further back the oral phoneme recognition: constriction is, the higher will be the antiresonances A consonant sound may sometimes be identified by contributed by the oral cul-de-sac branching off the the modification produced on the following or pharyngeal-nasal airway. Given this and the fact that preceding vowel even though it is below the threshold in the spectrum of a nasal, as in all voiced sounds, as determined by an isolated sound. It might seem energy decreases with increasing frequency (Fant, logical to consider this modification of the vowel as 1960), the antiresonances will fall in the high end of part of the consonant. If it is so considered, then it is the spectrum, which has very little salient acoustic evident that as long as the vowel is heard there is energy or spectral peaks. The listener is therefore always a chance of identifying the consonant more likely to overlook it. In so far as the auditory preceding or succeeding it . . .(p.277) effects of the antiresonance may be weakened, the spectrum that remains will be dominated by the What Fletcher describes as the consonant’s modification resonances of the pharyngeal-nasal airway and will of the vowel can be technically clarified as the lowering or resemble a nasalized vowel. (p. 234) raising of the vowel’s formants in the transition from (3.3) Unpacking: Acoustic Compensation Effects vowel to consonant and from consonant to vowel in the The term unpacking, coined by Paradis & Prunet (2000), acoustic signal. When one factors in pre-pausal consonant refers to the phenomenon in which loan words from a positioning, a crucial acoustic cue is lost from the speech language which has phonemic nasalized vowels, [v], such signal. In pre-pausal position, no vowel follows the word- as French, are borrowed into a language which has only final consonant, thus one acoustic cue is stolen from the vowel nasal sequences, [VN], such as English, and these speech signal, and the probability of correct consonant words are pronounced not with the nasalized vowel, but recognition is lowered. Likewise, in word-final position, rather with the customary, native /VN/ sequence: French the probability of realizing the consonantal formant chiffon [if] is pronounced [ifn] in English. The basic transition onto a vowel is very low since cross- idea of unpacking that Paradis & Prunet describe between linguistically words overwhelmingly begin with consonant two languages, the donor language and the receiver intended speech signal and the nasalized-vowel—alveolar- language, should not be thought of as a specifically inter- nasal sequence, [vn], is re-interpreted, via hypocorrection, language phenomenon. Unpacking can be a language as the nasalized-vowel—velar-nasal sequence, [v]. internal phenomenon as well. In an experiment of the perception of coarticulatory OR Stage 2 –Word-Final Nasalized Vowel is ‘Unpacked’ nasalization, Beddor & Krakow (1999) demonstrate the The word-final nasalized vowel is misinterpreted in the phenomenon of unpacking within speakers of one speech signal. Via the process of unpacking, a type of language. They rightly predict the ‘coarticulatory hypercorrection, the word-final nasalized vowel is re- compensation hypothesis’, that a speaker/listener of interpreted as a word-final nasalized vowel with a full English will attribute vowel nasalization to its context velic closure. (before a nasal consonant), and thus, perform poorly when judging nasal vowels in a nasal consonant context. The experimenters demonstrate that listeners are more likely to REFERENCES judge a nasalized vowel in an oral context, CvC, as nasal, [1] P. S. Beddor and R. A. Krakow, “Perception of coarticulatory attributing the acoustic effects of nasalization to the nasalization by speakers of English and Thai: Evidence for partial vowel, and less likely to judge a nasalized vowel in a nasal compensation,” Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, vol. context, NvN, as nasal, attributing the acoustic effects of 106(5), pp. 2868-2887, 1999 nasalization to the nasal consonants. 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