Nasal consonants in Malayalam
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.36505/TheLinguisticProceedings/2025/16/01/020/000680Keywords:
nasals, Malayalam, duration, secondary articulationAbstract
Almost all of the world’s languages contain at least one voiced nasal phoneme, while languages with more than three or four nasal consonants are relatively uncommon. Malayalam, a Dravidian language spoken primarily in the Indian state of Kerala, represents one such exception, with six or arguably seven nasal phones in its phonemic inventory. In addition, Malayalam nasals exhibit singleton-geminate contrasts in intervocalic-medial position. Preliminary auditory and acoustic observations suggest that durational differences play an important role in distinguishing singleton and geminate contrasts. Furthermore, contrasting nasal subgroups appear to be differentiated primarily through cues related to secondary articulation.
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