A Study on Voiceless Nasals in Burmese.

Abstract

Through the present study, some properties of voiceless nasals in Burmese can be clarified as follows. From the diachronic point of view and a graphic study, it can be assumed that the voiceless nasals in Burmese have characteristics of consonant clusters. However, from the synchronic point of view based on a grammatical function analysis and an acoustic phonetic study, there can be another interpretation. From the grammatical point of view, some functions of voiceless nasals are similar to those of aspirated stops. The examination of the spectrographic analyses has demonstrated that voiceless nasals consist of a voiceless nasal friction and a voiced nasal portion. It has been shown that the energy of the voiceless nasal friction is much weaker than that of the voiced nasal portion by means of the intensity study. The durational pattern analysis has clarified that the duration of the voiced nasal portion of voiceless nasals are quite shorter than that of ordinary nasal stops. From the examination of correlation of duration between the nasal frictions and voiced nasal portions, it appears that they show negative correlation. Putting together these properties mentioned above, we would like to support the phonological interpretation that the voiceless nasals are single phonemes.