| Partially denasalized | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| ◌͊ | |||
| IPA number | 654 | ||
| Encoding | |||
| Entity(decimal) | ͊ | ||
| Unicode(hex) | U+034A | ||
| |||
In phonetics, denasalization is the loss of nasal airflow in a nasal sound.[1] That may be due to speech pathology but also occurs when the sinuses are blocked from a common cold, when it is called a nasal voice, which is not a linguistic term.[2] Acoustically, it is the "absence of the expected nasal resonance."[3] The symbol in the Extended IPA for partial denasalization is ⟨◌͊⟩.[4]
When one speaks with a cold, the nasal passages still function as a resonant cavity so a denasalized nasal [m͊] does not sound like a voiced oral stop [b], and a denasalized vowel [a͊] does not sound like an oral vowel [a].
However, there are cases of historical or allophonic denasalization that have produced oral stops. In some languages with nasal vowels, such as Paicĩ, nasal consonants may occur only before nasal vowels; before oral vowels, prenasalized stops are found. That allophonic variation is likely to be from a historical process of partial denasalization.
Similarly, several languages around Puget Sound underwent a process of denasalization about 100 years ago. Except in special speech registers, such as baby talk, the nasals [m, n] became the voiced stops [b, d]. It appears from historical records that there was an intermediate stage in which the stops were prenasalized stops [ᵐb, ⁿd] or post-stopped nasals [mᵇ, nᵈ].
Something similar has occurred with word-initial nasals in Korean; in some contexts, /m/, /n/ are denasalized to [b], [d]. The process is sometimes transcribed as ⟨m͊⟩ and ⟨n͊⟩, with the extIPA diacritic on the underlying phonemes.[5] In phonetic transcription [m͊] and [n͊] are intermediate sounds, not fully oral [b], [d].
In speech pathology, practice has historically varied in whether ⟨m͊⟩ is a partially denasalized /m/, with ⟨b⟩ for full denasalization, or is a target /m/ whether it is partially denasalized [m͊᪻] or a fully denasalized [b].[6] However, in 2025 the ExtIPA was revised to clarify that ⟨m͊⟩ should be used for partial denasalization; a fully denasalized sound should be written ⟨b⟩.[7] Parentheses could still be used around the diacritic to indicate a lesser degree of denasalization, but an example of that was removed from the extIPA chart as being potentially confusing.
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ Williamson, Graham (2016-08-15). "Denasalization". SLT info. Archived from the original on 2020-09-29. Retrieved 2019-02-18.
- ^ Campbell, Michael (2016-07-26). "What is Denasalization?". The Glossika Blog. Archived from the original on 2021-03-04. Retrieved 2019-02-18.
- ^ Duckworth, Martin; Allen, George; Hardcastle, William; Ball, Martin (1990). "Extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet for the transcription of atypical speech". Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics. 4 (4): 276. doi:10.3109/02699209008985489.
- ^ "extIPA symbols for disordered speech" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2017-12-01.
- ^ Lien, Chinfa. "Denasalization, Vocalic Nasalization and Related Issues in Southern Min: A Dialectal and Comparative Perspective". Retrieved 2019-02-18.
- ^ Howard, Sara (2011). "Phonetic Transcription for Speech Related to Cleft Palate". In Howard, Sara; Lohmander, Anette (eds.). Cleft Palate Speech: Assessment and Intervention. pp. 132–133. doi:10.1002/9781118785065.ch7. ISBN 978-0-470-74330-0.
- ^ [1]
