Denasalization

{{Short description|Sound in phonetics}}

{{Infobox IPA

| above = Denasalized

| ipa symbol = ◌͊

| ipa number = 654

| decimal1 =

}}

{{IPA notice}}

In phonetics, denasalization is the loss of nasal airflow in a nasal sound.{{Cite web |last=Williamson |first=Graham |url=https://www.sltinfo.com/phon101-denasalization/ |title=Denasalization |date=2016-08-15 |website=SLT info |language=en-US |access-date=2019-02-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200929222929/https://www.sltinfo.com/phon101-denasalization/ |archive-date=2020-09-29}} 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.{{Cite web |last=Campbell |first=Michael |url=https://blog.glossika.com/what-is-denasalization/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210304013613/https://ai.glossika.com/blog/what-is-denasalization |archive-date=2021-03-04 |title=What is Denasalization? |date=2016-07-26 |website=The Glossika Blog |language=en |access-date=2019-02-18}} Acoustically, it is the "absence of the expected nasal resonance."{{cite journal |first1=Martin |last1=Duckworth |first2=George |last2=Allen |first3=William |last3=Hardcastle |first4=Martin |last4=Ball |year=1990 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/232077905 |title=Extensions to the International Phonetic Alphabet for the transcription of atypical speech |journal=Clinical Linguistics & Phonetics |volume=4 |issue=4 |page=276 |doi=10.3109/02699209008985489}} The symbol in the Extended IPA is {{angbr IPA|◌͊}}.https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/sites/default/files/extIPA_2016.pdf

When one speaks with a cold, the nasal passages still function as a resonant cavity so a denasalized nasal {{IPA|[m͊]}} does not sound like a voiced oral stop {{IPA|[b]}}, and a denasalized vowel {{IPA|[a͊]}} does not sound like an oral vowel {{IPA|[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 {{IPA|[m, n]}} became the voiced stops {{IPA|[b, d]}}. It appears from historical records that there was an intermediate stage in which the stops were prenasalized stops {{IPA|[ᵐb, ⁿd]}} or post-stopped nasals {{IPA|[mᵇ, nᵈ]}}.

Something similar has occurred with word-initial nasals in Korean; in some contexts, {{IPA|/m/, /n/}} are denasalized to {{IPA|[b, d]}}. The process is sometimes represented with the IPA {{IPA|[m͊]}} and {{IPA|[n͊]}}, which simply places the IPA {{IPA|◌͊}} denasalization diacritic on {{IPA|[m]}} and {{IPA|[n]}} to show the underlying phoneme.{{Cite web |first=Chinfa |last=Lien |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237408896 |title=Denasalization, Vocalic Nasalization and Related Issues in Southern Min: A Dialectal and Comparative Perspective |language=en |access-date=2019-02-18}}

In speech pathology, practice varies in whether {{angbr IPA|m͊}} is a partially denasalized {{IPA|/m/}}, with {{angbr IPA|b}} for full denasalization, or is a target {{IPA|/m/}} whether it is partially denasalized {{IPA|[m͊᪻]}} or a fully denasalized {{IPA|[b]}}.{{cite book |last=Howard |first=Sara |editor-last1=Howard |editor-first1=Sara |editor-last2=Lohmander |editor-first2=Anette |year=2011 |title=Cleft Palate Speech: Assessment and Intervention |chapter=Phonetic Transcription for Speech Related to Cleft Palate |pages=132–133 |doi=10.1002/9781118785065.ch7 |isbn=978-0-470-74330-0}}