7 ms·

By nasal plosive do you mean nasal sonorants, [n] [m] etc. or do you mean something like [ⁿd]? "nasal plosive" sounds like an oxymoron to me.

adrian_b 5y ago
I have meant nasal sonorants. The terminology is not uniform. There are many (typically in older literature) who call [m], [n], ... nasal plosives, in opposition with oral plosives [b], [d], ..., because the only difference between them is the open nasal path. It is true however that having an open nasal path means that they are not really obstruents so they should not be called plosives according to more modern classifications that partition the sounds into obstruents and sonorants, where plosives belong to the obstruents. However here I do not know how many are familiar with the more recent linguistic terms, so I tended to use more ancient terms.
- Asraelite 5y ago
  > because the only difference between them is the open nasal path I wonder how denasalized nasals like Korean [m͊] would fit into the picture then. I did not know about that older terminology, thanks for explaining.
  - adrian_b 5y ago
    While I know a little about written Korean, I am not familiar with the Korean pronunciation. Nevertheless, according to Wikipedia, the Korean denasalized nasals are pronounced exactly like their oral counterparts, i.e. "b" instead of "m" and "d" instead of "n". They use a special notation only because at their origin they were nasals and even now the denasalisation happens only in certain contexts and in certain cases the denasalisation is partial, the resulting sound being intermediate between the oral and the nasal variants (i.e. the nasal path is only partially open).
    - Asraelite 5y ago
      > according to Wikipedia, the Korean denasalized nasals are pronounced exactly like their oral counterparts, i.e. "b" instead of "m" and "d" instead of "n". I don't speak Korean, but from hearing it I get the impression that it's more complicated than that: Korean word-initial nasals vary randomly in their nasality. Sometimes they are partially nasal, sometimes there is no nasal airflow at all. And when they are fully denasalized, the resulting [b] and [d] are voiced for the full duration that they are held, while normal [b] and [d] resulting from word-medial /p/ and /t/ are only partially overvoiced i.e. similar to English /b/ and /d/.

adrian_b 5y ago

I have meant nasal sonorants. The terminology is not uniform. There are many (typically in older literature) who call [m], [n], ... nasal plosives, in opposition with oral plosives [b], [d], ..., because the only difference between them is the open nasal path. It is true however that having an open nasal path means that they are not really obstruents so they should not be called plosives according to more modern classifications that partition the sounds into obstruents and sonorants, where plosives belong to the obstruents. However here I do not know how many are familiar with the more recent linguistic terms, so I tended to use more ancient terms.

Asraelite 5y ago
> because the only difference between them is the open nasal path I wonder how denasalized nasals like Korean [m͊] would fit into the picture then. I did not know about that older terminology, thanks for explaining.
- adrian_b 5y ago
  While I know a little about written Korean, I am not familiar with the Korean pronunciation. Nevertheless, according to Wikipedia, the Korean denasalized nasals are pronounced exactly like their oral counterparts, i.e. "b" instead of "m" and "d" instead of "n". They use a special notation only because at their origin they were nasals and even now the denasalisation happens only in certain contexts and in certain cases the denasalisation is partial, the resulting sound being intermediate between the oral and the nasal variants (i.e. the nasal path is only partially open).
  - Asraelite 5y ago
    > according to Wikipedia, the Korean denasalized nasals are pronounced exactly like their oral counterparts, i.e. "b" instead of "m" and "d" instead of "n". I don't speak Korean, but from hearing it I get the impression that it's more complicated than that: Korean word-initial nasals vary randomly in their nasality. Sometimes they are partially nasal, sometimes there is no nasal airflow at all. And when they are fully denasalized, the resulting [b] and [d] are voiced for the full duration that they are held, while normal [b] and [d] resulting from word-medial /p/ and /t/ are only partially overvoiced i.e. similar to English /b/ and /d/.