Nasal consonants and the internal structure of segments

Abstract

Phonetic theory has generally been based on the assumption that speech can be divided into discrete segments, each phonetically homogeneous with respect to all linguistically significant parameters. Among the nasal consonants, however, are segments which must have internal sequential structure. Primary nasal consonants are first discussed here, and it is concluded that these should be described as non-continuants. Various possible characterizations of complex nasal segments (pre- and post-nasalized stops) are then considered, and it is concluded that no feature homogeneous over the segment is adequate to describe them. The conclusion that these segments involve internal sequencing suggests that rules should exist which can produce and manipulate such intra-segmental structure. Applications of such rules are briefly suggested.

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