Product Code Database
Nasal clicks are pronounced with nasal consonant. All click types (alveolar click , dental click , lateral click , palatal click , retroflex click , and labial click ) have nasal variants, and these are attested in four or five : voiced, voiceless, aspirated, murmured (breathy voiced), and—in the analysis of Miller (2011)—glottalized.Amanda Miller, 2011. "The Representation of Clicks". In Oostendorp et al. eds., The Blackwell Companion to Phonology.
s, often described as voiceless nasal with delayed aspiration, are widespread in southern Africa, being found in all languages of the Khoe languages, Tuu languages, and Kx'a language families, though they are unattested elsewhere. They are typically transcribed something like ; in Khoekhoe, they are written , and in Juǀʼhõa as . Initially and in citation form, words with these consonants are pronounced with voiceless nasal airflow throughout the production of the click and in some languages for an extended time afterward; this period of up to 150 ms (the voice onset time) may include weak breathy-voiced aspiration at the end. However, when embedded in a phrase after a vowel they tend to be partially voiced; the preceding vowel will also be nasalized or the click prenasalized, for a realization of vs . They have a tone depressor effect, so that a level tone on the following vowel will be realized as rising.
The description above is typical, characteristic of languages such as Khoekhoe and Gǀui. However, aspirated nasal clicks have a more extreme pronunciation in Taa language, where they need to maintain a distinction from both the plain voiceless and breathy-voiced nasal clicks. In this language they are not voiced after vowel sounds except in rapid speech, and in addition do not have nasal airflow; Trail reports that they instead have active ingressive pulmonic airflow (that is, air is breathed in the nose rather than being vented out).
Breathy-voiced (murmured) nasal clicks are less common. They are known from !Kung languages such as Juǀʼhoansi, from Taa language, and from the Bantu languages Xhosa language and Zulu language. They are pronounced like modally voiced nasal clicks, but in addition are followed by a period of breathy voiced phonation, and like other breathy-voiced consonants, may have a depressor effect on tone (in Zulu and Xhosa, for example). They are typically transcribed something like or ; in Juǀʼhõa, they are written , and in Zulu and Xhosa, as . In IPA, they could be either or
Voiceless nasal clicks distinct from voiceless aspirated clicks are only attested from one language, Taa language, which changes the voicing of the initial consonant to distinguish singular and plural nouns. In this language, both voiced and voiceless nasal clicks (but not the aspirated and breathy-voiced nasal clicks) nasalize the following vowel; they are largely distinguished by voiceless vs. murmured nasalization leading up to the click release, and the voicelessness occurs even after vowels.Naumann, Christfied (2008). "The Consonantal System of West ǃXoon". 3rd International Symposium on Khoisan Languages and Linguistics. Riezlern.
Glottalized nasal clicks are extremely common, but are covered in another article: Glottalized clicks.
There are also preglottalized nasal clicks. These are pronounced like modally voiced nasal clicks, but the click release is preceded by a short period of nasalization that has a glottal stop onset. They are considered unitary consonants, and not sequences of glottal stop plus nasal click. They are only reported from a few languages: Taa language, Ekoka !Kung, and ǂHoan. (Taa also has preglottalized non-click nasals, though Ekoka apparently does not.)
|
|
