Date: Tue, 14 Oct 1997 18:59:59 -0500 From: "Donald M. Lance" Subject: Re: pre-nasalized stops >I'm a graduate student at Georgetown doing a term paper on pre-nasalized >stops in white Southern English as a result of African and/or African >American influence. >I've noticed this feature in my own speech (I'm a white Southerner) and >believe it may have African or AAVE origins. The feature I'm talking >about is distinct from nasalized vowels. An example would be something >like mboy for boy or ndoor for door especially in emphasized utterances >but also as a general rule. I've done waveform analysis of my own speech >compared to a Californian's and found that many of my /b/ and /d/'s are >not stops at all. > >If anyone knows anything about this feature in WSE, AAVE, Creoles, or West >African languages, could you please let me know? Are you sure it's nasalizaion and not just onset of phonation preceding the stop closure? I've seen/heard this pre-voiced-stop phonation in the speech of people whose phonotactics would not have been influenced by African American speech. I can produce what I think you mean, with nasalization extending about half-way through the [o], both with and without pre-stop phonation. When the pre-stop phonation occurs, it is of course nasalized. I associate this nasalization with my South Midland dialect rather than with the presence of a nasal consonant. You have a fascinating topic. Good luck with it.