Nasals and Laterals
Chapter Objectives
By the end of this chapter, you will be able to:
- Explain how the velum controls whether air exits through the nose or the mouth.
- Classify major nasal consonants by their place of articulation.
- Identify nasal place assimilation in controlled data and explain why it occurs.
- Distinguish central and lateral airflow and explain how lateral consonants differ from other consonant classes.
- Compare clear and velarized lateral realizations using articulatory evidence.
- Read and produce transcriptions involving the nasal and lateral symbols scheduled for this chapter.
- Analyze a small dataset, distinguishing phonemic contrast from contextual allophonic variation for both nasal and lateral consonants.
An Observable Problem
Say the English word impossible slowly and pay close attention to the consonant you actually produce before the p. Now say impossible at a normal speaking pace. Most speakers of General American English produce a labial nasal before the labial stop — [ɪmˈpɑsɪbl̩] — even though the prefix is written in-. The nasal has silently shifted its place to match the consonant that follows it.
Now say the English word light and then full. Listen to the l at the beginning of light and the l at the end of full. To many English speakers, these sound subtly different — one "brighter," one "darker" — even though both are spelled with the same letter and belong to the same phoneme.
These two observations capture the central topics of this chapter: nasals tend to borrow the place of neighboring consonants, and lateral consonants can have more than one phonetic realization even within a single language.
- Before reading further, write one sentence predicting what articulatory property might allow nasals to shift place so easily without disrupting communication.
The Velum and Nasal Airflow
Purpose: establish the anatomical basis for the nasal/oral distinction before introducing specific nasal consonants.
Recall from Chapter 4 that the velum — also called the soft palate — is the muscular structure at the back of the roof of the mouth. When the velum is raised, it presses against the back wall of the pharynx, closing off the nasal cavity from the airstream. When it is lowered, air can flow through the nasal cavity and exit through the nostrils.
This single distinction, raised velum versus lowered velum, is what separates oral consonants from nasal consonants. Every consonant you have studied so far in Chapters 9 and 10 was produced with the velum raised: airflow exits through the mouth. A nasal consonant reverses the exit route. The oral tract is fully closed at some place of articulation — just as in a stop — while the velum is lowered so that air resonates through and exits the nasal cavity.
- [b] vs. [m]Both have a bilabial closure. In [b], the velum is raised and air cannot exit until the lips open. In [m], the velum is lowered and air exits continuously through the nose while the lips remain closed.
- [d] vs. [n]Both have an alveolar closure. In [d], oral exit only; in [n], nasal exit while the tongue blade maintains contact with the alveolar ridge.
This is why nasals are sometimes called nasal stops: they share the complete oral closure of a plosive, but they are not "stopped" in the sense of blocking all airflow — the nasal passage remains open throughout. On a spectrogram, nasals look quite different from oral stops precisely because voiced air continues to flow and resonate even during the oral closure.
The IPA chart places nasals in their own row, separate from plosives, even though both involve complete oral closure. The key difference is that nasals require an open velic port. A nasal cannot be voiceless in the usual sense during its main phase, because air must flow to produce nasal resonance. Voiceless nasals do exist in some languages, but they involve a different laryngeal configuration and will be addressed when you encounter them in source materials. For this chapter, treat all nasals as voiced unless told otherwise.
Detecting nasal resonance
You can verify velic activity with a simple observation. Hold a finger lightly beneath one nostril. When you sustain an [m] or hum, you will feel airflow against your finger. When you hold a sustained vowel such as [aː], the airflow should be much reduced or absent. Pinching both nostrils closed will stop an [m] from resonating normally, but it will not significantly affect the quality of most oral vowels.
Nasals Across Places of Articulation
Purpose: show that nasals form a set organized by place, parallel to the stop series, and introduce the productive symbols for this chapter.
Because a nasal consonant requires a complete oral closure at a specific place, the full range of places available for oral stops is in principle also available for nasals. In practice, bilabial, alveolar, and velar nasals are extremely common across languages. Palatal and other place variants are well attested and will be addressed in turn.
| Place | IPA symbol | Active articulator | Verified example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bilabial | m | Both lips closed | [ˈmaɪ̯n] — mine, General American English |
| Labiodental | ɱ | Lower lip to upper teeth | Allophone before [f v] in some English varieties, e.g., [ɪɱˈfɔɹ.meɪ̯.ʃn̩] information; contrastive in no well-documented language as a phoneme |
| Alveolar | n | Tongue blade or tip to alveolar ridge | [naɪ̯t] — night, General American English |
| Palatal | ɲ | Tongue dorsum to hard palate | [ˈkaɲ.ɲo] — cañón (canyon), Castilian Spanish; [baˈɲo] — bagno (bath), Standard Italian |
| Velar | ŋ | Tongue dorsum to velum | [sɪŋ] — sing, General American English; [ˈhaŋ.ɡɯl] — 한글 (Hangul), Standard Korean |
| Uvular | ɴ | Tongue dorsum to uvula | Allophone of /n/ or /ŋ/ before uvular consonants in some languages; the symbol is available for receptive recognition |
Note: ɱ and ɴ are recognition-level symbols for this chapter. Productive work focuses on m, n, ɲ, and ŋ.
The palatal nasal ɲ is a full phoneme in many of the world's languages. In Castilian Spanish, /ɲ/ contrasts with /n/: compare año [ˈaɲo] (year) with ano [ˈano] (anus). In French, the palatal nasal has largely been replaced by an oral-vowel-plus-[j] sequence in most contemporary speech, though ɲ is still found in some varieties. English lacks a palatal nasal phoneme entirely, but the sequence [n] + [j] in careful speech, as in some varieties' pronunciation of news, brings the tongue close to a palatal position. This shows that articulatory proximity and phonemic status are not the same thing.
Producing the velar nasal
English speakers already know [ŋ] from words like sing and long, but many are surprised to find that it can begin a syllable in other languages. In standard Mandarin Chinese and in many languages of West Africa, /ŋ/ occurs in syllable-initial position. To feel the closure for [ŋ], sustain the final consonant of sing: the tongue dorsum should be pressing against the velum while air flows through the nose. The key difference from [ŋ] at the end of an English word is that word-initial [ŋ] begins without a preceding vowel, so the nasal closure is the very first event.
Nasal Place Assimilation
Purpose: explain why nasals are especially susceptible to place change and how to analyze this pattern using the tools from Chapter 5.
Nasal place assimilation is a process in which a nasal consonant takes on the place of articulation of a following consonant. Because the only phonetically distinctive feature of a nasal — beyond voicing — is its oral closure, and because the closure can be formed at any place available to the vocal tract, nasals are easy to shift. The listener's main cue for distinguishing [m], [n], and [ŋ] is the place of that closure, and the transition into a following stop makes a same-place nasal almost inaudible as a separate event. The result is a phonetically smooth, articulatorily efficient sequence.
In English, the prefix in- illustrates this clearly across multiple assimilation targets:
- [ɪnˈkɹiː.s] → [ɪŋˈkɹiː.s]increase — the alveolar [n] assimilates to the velar place of [k]
- [ɪnˈpɑ.sɪ.bl̩] → [ɪmˈpɑ.sɪ.bl̩]impossible — [n] assimilates to the bilabial place of [p]
- [ɪnˈtækt]intact — [n] before an alveolar [t] requires no change; the place is already the same
Whether a given instance of nasal place assimilation is analyzed as phonemic or allophonic depends on the language and context. In these English examples, the assimilation is allophonic: no pair of words is distinguished by contrasting a bilabial nasal with a velar nasal before the same following consonant. In other languages, nasal place can be phonemically contrastive in a much wider range of environments. Always test contrast before assuming that assimilation patterns are non-contrastive.
Nasal assimilation is a good example of why transcription level matters. A phonemic transcription of impossible may reasonably write /ɪnˈpɑsɪbl̩/, reflecting the underlying contrastive category of the prefix nasal. A phonetic transcription of a natural spoken form should write [ɪmˈpɑsɪbl̩], reflecting the actual realization. Neither is wrong. They answer different questions: one asks what phonemic category is present; the other asks what the speaker actually did. Using [ ] and / / correctly keeps these two claims separate.
The degree of nasal place assimilation varies considerably with speech rate and style. In careful, slow citation speech, some speakers maintain alveolar [n] even before bilabial or velar stops. In casual, rapid speech, assimilation is more consistent and sometimes anticipatory — the nasal may begin shifting toward the following place while the previous vowel is still ongoing. Neither pattern is "more correct." Transcriptions that aim to represent careful citation forms will look different from those that aim to capture natural connected speech, which is why defining the transcription task at the outset, as Chapter 5 emphasized, is essential.
Spelling Traps with Nasals
Purpose: identify cases where orthography obscures, misrepresents, or fails to predict nasal consonant realizations.
English spelling uses ⟨n⟩ for both the alveolar nasal [n] and — in many contexts — the velar nasal [ŋ]. The letter sequence ⟨ng⟩ can represent [ŋ] (as in sing), [ŋɡ] (as in finger), or [ndʒ] (as in syringe), depending on the word and variety. The spelling gives no consistent indication of which articulation is intended. Always test the sound, not the letter.
In French, sequences of a vowel letter followed by ⟨m⟩ or ⟨n⟩ often represent a single nasal vowel rather than a vowel-plus-nasal sequence. The word bon (good) is pronounced approximately [bɔ̃] in standard French — a vowel with simultaneous nasal resonance, not a vowel followed by a nasal consonant. The nasal letter in the spelling is not a separate consonant in this word. Chapter 18 will examine nasal vowels in detail; for now, the important point is that a nasal letter does not always mean a nasal consonant.
Lateral Airflow
Purpose: define lateral articulation as a distinct airflow pattern and contrast it with central airflow consonants.
All consonants you have studied so far — stops, fricatives, and nasals — channel airflow along the central axis of the vocal tract, along the midline of the tongue and out through the center of the mouth or nose. A lateral consonant breaks this pattern. The tongue makes contact with the roof of the mouth along the midline, creating a central closure, while the sides of the tongue are lowered so that air can flow around one or both sides of the tongue and exit laterally.
The result is a distinctive sound quality unlike any central consonant. Lateral articulation can in principle be combined with various degrees of constriction, producing lateral approximants (the most common type) or lateral fricatives (with turbulence at the sides). This chapter focuses primarily on lateral approximants; lateral fricatives will be encountered as recognition-level items in the dataset.
It is tempting to think of lateral consonants as simply "l-sounds," but the category is defined by airflow direction, not by any specific acoustic quality or language. A lateral is any consonant produced with central closure and lateral airflow, regardless of place, voicing, or degree of constriction. English happens to have only one lateral phoneme, but other languages have lateral fricatives, lateral affricates, or lateral consonants at several places of articulation. The IPA chart reflects this: the lateral approximant row and the lateral fricative row are distinct from the central approximant and fricative rows.
Laterals Across Places of Articulation
Purpose: introduce the lateral symbols scheduled for this chapter and provide verified cross-language examples.
| Place | IPA symbol | Manner | Verified example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Alveolar | l | Lateral approximant | [lɪp] — lip, General American English (word-initial, clear realization) |
| Alveolar (velarized) | ɫ | Lateral approximant with secondary velarization | [fʊɫ] — full, General American English (syllable-final, dark realization) |
| Dental or alveolar | l̪ | Lateral approximant (dental diacritic) | Allophone before dental consonants in some languages; recognition-level for this chapter |
| Palatal | ʎ | Lateral approximant | [ˈfiʎ.ʎo] — figlio (son), Standard Italian; [ˈka.ʎe] — calle (street), some varieties of Castilian Spanish |
| Alveolar | ɬ | Voiceless lateral fricative | [ɬan] — Welsh llan (church enclosure); also present in some varieties of Zulu and Navajo; recognition-level for this chapter |
Note: l̪ and ɬ are recognition-level symbols. Productive work focuses on l, ɫ, and ʎ.
The palatal lateral approximant ʎ functions as a full phoneme in several Romance languages. In Standard Italian, /ʎ/ contrasts with /lj/ in careful speech, though the phonemic status of the distinction has been weakening in many urban varieties. In many varieties of Castilian Spanish, /ʎ/ has merged with /j/, a process called yeísmo, so that callo (callus) and cayo (he fell) are no longer distinguished by most speakers. This is a clear example of a language-variety contrast that cannot be read off from spelling alone.
Clear and Velarized Laterals
Purpose: analyze the clear/dark lateral contrast as an allophonic pattern in English and show how secondary articulation notation captures the distinction.
Many varieties of English have two phonetically distinct realizations of the lateral phoneme /l/ within a single speaker's speech. The clear lateral [l] occurs in syllable-initial position — before a vowel in the same syllable. The dark lateral or velarized lateral [ɫ] occurs in syllable-final position — after a vowel, before a consonant, or at the end of a word.
What makes the dark lateral "dark"? In addition to the alveolar lateral closure, the tongue dorsum is raised toward the velum, producing a secondary velarization gesture. This secondary articulation adds a resonance quality that listeners often describe as darker, heavier, or more back-of-the-throat than the clear lateral. The IPA represents this with either the dedicated symbol ɫ or with the velarization diacritic lˠ. This textbook uses ɫ.
- [lɪp]lip — clear [l] in syllable onset
- [lænd]land — clear [l] in syllable onset
- [ˈeɪ̯.lɪ.ən]alien — clear [l] before the vowel of the following syllable
- [fʊɫ]full — dark [ɫ] in syllable coda
- [ˈmɪɫ.k]milk — dark [ɫ] before a consonant
- [fiːɫ]feel — dark [ɫ] at word end
Because no pair of English words is distinguished by substituting a clear [l] for a dark [ɫ] in the same environment — the environments where each occurs do not overlap — the two phones are in complementary distribution and count as allophones of the single phoneme /l/. The phonemic transcription of full is /fʊl/, while a phonetic transcription of a natural realization is [fʊɫ].
The clear/dark lateral distinction just described applies to General American and many other varieties of English. Some Welsh English varieties use a clear lateral in most positions. Many speakers of Irish English use a clear lateral in positions where General American uses a dark one. Some varieties of Scottish English have a dark lateral in syllable-initial position as well. Standard Southern British English has historically had a clear lateral in onset position and a dark or vocalized lateral in coda position, with vocalization — producing something more like a vowel than a consonant — being very common in many contemporary British varieties. The description above should not be taken as universal English phonetics. Specifying the reference variety is not a formality; it determines what counts as a correct phonetic transcription.
Laterals and Spelling
English uses the single letter ⟨l⟩ for all realizations of /l/, whether clear or dark. The spelling lull contains both a clear onset lateral and a dark coda lateral in General American English, but nothing in the orthography marks this difference. Reading a transcription from the spelling will produce systematically incorrect phonetic forms unless the context-sensitive allophonic rule is applied. Transcription must account for phonetic context, not just the letter.
English spellings like bell, mill, and inn use doubled letters to represent a single consonant. The double spelling does not indicate consonant lengthening or gemination in these words in standard English. In contrast, Italian palla (ball) and pala (shovel) are distinguished by a genuinely long or geminate lateral in the first word versus a single lateral in the second: [ˈpal.la] versus [ˈpa.la]. Doubled letters in one language's spelling system are not evidence about consonant duration in another, and even within a single language, the relationship between spelling and length varies.
Syllabic Nasals and Laterals
Purpose: introduce the syllabic diacritic and show how nasals and laterals can function as syllable nuclei.
A consonant is syllabic when it functions as the nucleus of a syllable, taking on the role usually played by a vowel. Nasals and laterals are the consonants most commonly found in syllabic position, because their continuous voicing and resonance allow them to carry syllable weight in ways that stops and fricatives typically cannot.
The syllabic diacritic is a small vertical mark written beneath the consonant symbol: ̩ . In General American English, the final syllable of words like button, cotton, and bottle is typically pronounced with a syllabic consonant rather than a schwa-plus-consonant sequence:
- [ˈbʌtn̩]button — syllabic [n̩] as the nucleus of the final syllable, General American English
- [ˈbɑtl̩]bottle — syllabic [l̩] (dark, in syllable-final position) as the nucleus of the final syllable
- [ˈɹɪdm̩]rhythm — syllabic [m̩] in the final syllable
You are not required to make a productive choice in every case about whether to transcribe a syllabic consonant or a reduced vowel plus consonant: both analyses are defensible at a broad transcription level, and conventions differ across reference works. What matters at this stage is recognizing the diacritic when you encounter it and understanding what it claims — that a consonant, not a vowel, is functioning as the syllable nucleus.
Guided Observation
The following tasks require only your own speech and a mirror or a partner. No audio recording equipment is needed.
Observation 1: Velic control. Sustain an [m] for several seconds. Hold a finger under each nostril and confirm that airflow exits through the nose. Now transition smoothly from [m] into a sustained [b] — note the moment the nasal resonance stops. What did your velum do at that transition?
Observation 2: Nasal place. Pronounce the following sequence slowly: sum — sun — sung. Focus only on the final nasal in each word. Without using spelling, describe where in the mouth the closure is forming for each final consonant.
Observation 3: Lateral airflow. Sustain an [l]. While holding the closure of the tongue tip against the alveolar ridge, notice whether you can direct air around the sides of your tongue. Try slightly increasing the side openings to see if the air movement becomes more audible. Now compare this with sustaining a voiced [d]: for the stop, no air moves; for the lateral, it does.
Observation 4: Clear versus dark lateral. Say leaf and then feel. Focus on the quality of the l in each word. Some speakers find it helpful to say each l in isolation — the onset l of leaf and the coda l of feel — and hold each one for a second. Is there any perceptible difference in "color" or resonance quality? Now use a mirror and watch your jaw and lips: does either change between the two realizations?
- After completing Observations 2 and 4, write a sentence for each describing what you felt or heard, without using spelling or English letter names. Use only articulatory descriptions.
Dataset Analysis Lab
Purpose: apply contrast, distribution, and allophony analysis to nasal and lateral patterns in controlled English data.
The forms below are verified phonetic transcriptions of English words, General American reference variety, spoken in careful citation style. Use only this dataset to answer the questions that follow.
| Orthographic form | Phonetic transcription | Environment |
|---|---|---|
| ⟨sum⟩ | [sʌm] | Nasal in syllable coda, before pause |
| ⟨sun⟩ | [sʌn] | Nasal in syllable coda, before pause |
| ⟨sung⟩ | [sʌŋ] | Nasal in syllable coda, before pause |
| ⟨impossible⟩ | [ɪmˈpɑ.sɪ.bl̩] | Nasal before bilabial stop |
| ⟨income⟩ | [ˈɪŋ.kʌm] | Nasal before velar stop |
| ⟨intact⟩ | [ɪnˈtækt] | Nasal before alveolar stop |
| ⟨leaf⟩ | [liːf] | Lateral in syllable onset |
| ⟨feel⟩ | [fiːɫ] | Lateral in syllable coda |
| ⟨lull⟩ | [lʌɫ] | Lateral in both onset and coda |
| ⟨alien⟩ | [ˈeɪ̯.li.ən] | Lateral in onset of second syllable |
Source: forms checked against a standard American English pronouncing reference for General American citation pronunciation. Transcription level is broad-to-moderate phonetic detail.
Step 1 — Identify the nasal phones
List every distinct nasal phone that appears in this dataset. Then state the environment in which each one occurs. Are any two nasal phones in complementary distribution?
Step 2 — Test for nasal contrast
The words sum, sun, and sung form a three-way contrast in final position. Apply the contrast test from Chapter 5 to confirm that [m], [n], and [ŋ] represent three separate phonemes in English citation forms. Why does this test succeed here but not in impossible or income?
Step 3 — Analyze the lateral data
Compare the lateral phones in leaf, feel, and lull. State the environment in which [l] and [ɫ] occur in this dataset. Do the environments overlap? Apply the contrast test and the distribution argument and state whether [l] and [ɫ] are separate phonemes or allophones of one phoneme in General American English.
Step 4 — Write the analysis
In three to four sentences, summarize what the dataset shows about nasals and laterals in General American English. Use correct delimiters throughout. Accept that the assimilation forms (impossible, income) are in a different analytical environment from the citation-final forms (sum, sun, sung), and explain how both fit the framework from Chapter 5.
Practice — Delimiter and diacritic correction: Each transcription below contains at least one error. Identify the error and supply the corrected form, explaining your reasoning in one sentence.
- /lʌɫ/ (intended as a phonetic transcription showing both clear and dark realizations)
- [ɪnˈpɑ.sɪ.bl̩] (intended as a phonetic transcription of a natural General American pronunciation of impossible)
- /sʌŋ/ using ⟨ng⟩ in ordinary spelling instead of ŋ
- [fiːl] (intended as a phonetic transcription of the General American coda lateral in feel)
Common Mistakes
Error: Treating the velar nasal [ŋ] as if it is always a sequence of [n] plus [ɡ].
Correction: In General American English, the final consonant of sing is a single velar nasal [ŋ], not a nasal-stop sequence. The word is [sɪŋ], not [sɪŋɡ]. A following [ɡ] does appear in words like finger [ˈfɪŋ.ɡɚ], but this is a separate morphophonological pattern and should not be assumed as the default for all ⟨ng⟩ spellings.
Error: Transcribing [ɫ] in all positions of English because "dark l sounds more phonetically accurate."
Correction: Using [ɫ] in syllable-onset position, such as [ɫɪp] for lip, misrepresents the General American allophonic pattern. Narrow transcription should add detail that is actually present, not detail from one allophone applied globally. A broad phonemic transcription /lɪp/ and a phonetically accurate transcription [lɪp] are both preferable to the over-applied [ɫɪp].
Error: Conflating phonemic contrast with allophonic variation by citing assimilation patterns as evidence for separate phonemes.
Correction: The fact that English /n/ is realized as [m] before bilabial stops does not mean English has an additional bilabial nasal phoneme. The contrast test — can substituting one phone for another in identical environments change a word's meaning? — must be applied in comparable environments. Assimilation produces predictable phones in context-specific environments; that predictability is exactly what marks the variation as allophonic.
Chapter Review
Part A — Definitions and Descriptions
1. Explain in your own words what the velum controls and why its position determines whether a consonant is nasal or oral.
2. Define nasal place assimilation and give one English example not from the main text of this chapter.
3. Explain the difference between central and lateral airflow. Why does the IPA treat lateral consonants as a separate class from other approximants?
4. What is a syllabic consonant? Give one English example and write it with the correct IPA notation.
Part B — Classification
For each IPA symbol below, supply: (a) the full articulatory description, including place, manner, and voicing; (b) one verified example word with its language and variety; and (c) one other language in which the sound occurs as a phoneme, if applicable.
- ŋ
- ɲ
- ɫ
- ʎ
Part C — Contrast and Distribution
1. Explain why [l] and [ɫ] are analyzed as allophones of a single phoneme /l/ in General American English rather than as separate phonemes. Use the contrast test and the distribution argument in your explanation.
2. The phrase in context could be transcribed phonemically as /ɪn ˈkɑn.tekst/ and phonetically as [ɪŋ ˈkɑn.tɛkst] in casual General American speech. Explain the difference between these two transcriptions. Which nasal phone represents an allophonic variant, and what conditioned it?
Cumulative Review
1. From Chapter 8: State the manner of articulation for nasals and explain how their manner description differs from that of oral stops, even though both involve complete oral closure.
2. From Chapter 5: The English words sum [sʌm], sun [sʌn], and sung [sʌŋ] are analyzed as having three separate final phonemes. Apply the minimal-pair reasoning from Chapter 5 to confirm this analysis. What does this tell you about the nasal inventory of English?
3. From Chapter 4: Name the anatomical structure responsible for directing airflow through the nasal cavity. Where in the vocal tract is it located, and what kind of muscle activity raises or lowers it?
Chapter Performance Task
Performance Task
Analyzing Nasal and Lateral Patterns in a New Dataset
Below is a small set of words from Standard Italian (reference variety: standard broadcast Italian based on Florentine norms). Use the transcriptions provided, the analytical tools from this chapter, and the contrast and distribution framework from Chapter 5.
| Italian spelling | Gloss | Broad phonetic transcription |
|---|---|---|
| ⟨mano⟩ | hand | [ˈma.no] |
| ⟨nano⟩ | dwarf | [ˈna.no] |
| ⟨bagno⟩ | bath | [ˈbaɲ.ɲo] |
| ⟨lungo⟩ | long | [ˈluŋ.ɡo] |
| ⟨lana⟩ | wool | [ˈla.na] |
| ⟨figlio⟩ | son | [ˈfiʎ.ʎo] |
| ⟨palla⟩ | ball | [ˈpal.la] |
| ⟨pala⟩ | shovel | [ˈpa.la] |
Using only this dataset:
- List every nasal phone that appears. For each, state its place of articulation.
- List every lateral phone that appears. For each, state its place of articulation and manner.
- Identify at least one case where two phones provide evidence for a phonemic contrast, and at least one case where a phone appears to be contextually conditioned. Justify each claim.
- Write a two-sentence observation about how Italian's nasal and lateral inventories compare with what you have analyzed for General American English. Do not overgeneralize: note any limitation of the dataset.
Answer Key (click to expand)
Dataset Analysis Lab — Step 1
The nasal phones in the dataset are [m] (bilabial), [n] (alveolar), and [ŋ] (velar). In the assimilation forms, [m] occurs before a bilabial stop (impossible), [ŋ] occurs before a velar stop (income), and [n] occurs before an alveolar stop (intact). In these three environments, the phones are in complementary distribution: each occurs only before a stop of the same place. In the citation-final forms (sum, sun, sung), however, all three nasals occur in the same environment (syllable coda before pause), and they are not in complementary distribution there.
Dataset Analysis Lab — Step 2
Sum [sʌm], sun [sʌn], and sung [sʌŋ] form a set of minimal pairs in syllable-coda position before a pause: the words differ in meaning and in exactly one sound (the final nasal), with everything else identical. The contrast test confirms that /m/, /n/, and /ŋ/ are three separate English phonemes. In impossible and income, the nasal occurs before a stop of a specific place, so substituting one nasal place for another in those environments would simply produce another assimilated form — the environments are not comparable to the citation-final minimal-pair environments.
Dataset Analysis Lab — Step 3
[l] occurs in syllable-onset position (leaf, lull onset, alien onset). [ɫ] occurs in syllable-coda position (feel, lull coda). The environments do not overlap: no word in this dataset shows both [l] and [ɫ] in the same syllable position. The contrast test cannot produce a minimal pair distinguishing them, because the substitution of [l] for [ɫ] in the same position would simply produce a non-native realization, not a different word. Both phones are therefore allophones of the single phoneme /l/, distributed complementarily by syllable position.
Dataset Analysis Lab — Step 4 (model answer)
The dataset shows that General American English has three nasal phonemes, /m/, /n/, and /ŋ/, established by minimal pairs in syllable-coda position. In the pre-stop environment, each nasal adopts the place of the following stop, producing context-specific allophones that are in complementary distribution and therefore not additional phonemes. For laterals, the single phoneme /l/ has two positionally conditioned allophones: clear [l] in syllable-onset position and dark [ɫ] in syllable-coda position, as illustrated by the contrast between [liːf] and [fiːɫ]. Other well-reasoned answers applying correct delimiters and the contrast and distribution tests are acceptable.
Practice — Delimiter and Diacritic Correction
1. /lʌɫ/ incorrectly places phonetic detail (the dark lateral symbol ɫ) inside slashes; the phonemic form should be /lʌl/, while the phonetic form showing both allophones is [lʌɫ]. 2. [ɪnˈpɑ.sɪ.bl̩] uses an alveolar n before a bilabial stop, but a phonetic transcription of natural General American speech should show the assimilated bilabial nasal: [ɪmˈpɑ.sɪ.bl̩]. 3. The ordinary spelling digraph ⟨ng⟩ is not an IPA symbol; the correct phonemic form is /sʌŋ/ using the velar nasal symbol. 4. [fiːl] uses a clear lateral in coda position; the General American phonetic form should show the dark lateral: [fiːɫ].
Chapter Review — Part A (model answers)
1. The velum is the soft palate at the back of the roof of the mouth. When raised, it seals off the nasal cavity and forces air out through the mouth (oral consonant). When lowered, air flows through and exits the nose (nasal consonant). 2. Nasal place assimilation is a process in which a nasal takes on the place of articulation of a following consonant. An example not from the text: congress [ˈkɑŋ.ɡɹɛs], where the nasal before the velar stop is realized as velar. 3. In central articulation, air exits along the midline of the vocal tract. In lateral articulation, the tongue makes midline contact but lowers its sides so air exits around the sides. Laterals are a separate class because their airflow geometry is not captured by central approximant or fricative descriptions. 4. A syllabic consonant functions as the nucleus of a syllable. Example: button [ˈbʌtn̩].
Chapter Review — Part C
1. [l] and [ɫ] never occur in the same syllable position: [l] appears in onsets and [ɫ] in codas. Because their environments do not overlap and no minimal pair distinguishes them in identical environments, they are in complementary distribution and therefore allophones of /l/. 2. The phonemic form shows the underlying category /n/ of the prefix. The phonetic form shows the contextual realization [ŋ] produced by assimilation to the following velar stop [k]. The velar nasal is the allophonic variant; it was conditioned by the place of the immediately following consonant.
Cumulative Review
1. Nasals are often described under the manner label "nasal" rather than "plosive" because, despite sharing a complete oral closure with oral stops, they maintain an open velic port, allowing continuous airflow through the nasal cavity. Oral stops block all airflow momentarily; nasals do not. 2. Each word in the set forms a minimal pair with the others: the words differ in meaning and in exactly one sound, the final nasal. This confirms that English has three contrastive nasal phonemes: bilabial /m/, alveolar /n/, and velar /ŋ/. 3. The velum (soft palate) controls access to the nasal cavity. It is located at the rear of the oral cavity, above the back of the tongue. Raising the velum requires muscular contraction; when at rest, it tends to allow some degree of nasal airflow.
Performance Task (model observations)
Italian shows at least four nasal phones in this dataset: bilabial [m], alveolar [n], palatal [ɲ], and velar [ŋ]. The data for [m] and [n] in word-initial position (mano, nano) provide minimal-pair evidence for phonemic contrast. The [ŋ] in lungo precedes a velar stop, suggesting a possible assimilation context similar to English; whether Italian /n/ has a velar allophone before velars, or whether /ŋ/ is independently phonemic in Italian, cannot be determined from this dataset alone. The lateral data show three lateral phones: alveolar [l], palatal [ʎ], and a long or geminate alveolar [l.l]. The minimal pair palla/pala provides evidence that consonant length is phonemically contrastive in Italian. The comparison with General American English shows that Italian has a richer lateral phoneme inventory, including /ʎ/ as a phoneme rather than a positional allophone. This dataset is small, however, and claims about the full nasal and lateral inventories of Italian would require a broader evidence base.
Looking Ahead
What You Can Now Do
You can now describe nasal consonants by their place of articulation, explain how the velum controls the oral/nasal distinction, analyze nasal place assimilation as an allophonic process, distinguish central from lateral airflow, compare clear and velarized lateral realizations, and use syllabic notation when consonants function as syllable nuclei. These categories — nasal, lateral, place of oral closure, and the contrast-versus-allophony framework — will be active in every remaining chapter.