Phonetic Study On Nasal-obstruent Sequences In Jiwei Miao Language

This study investigates the phonetic structural characteristics of Nasal-obstruent sequences(also called NC sequences)in Jiwei Miao language,and it compares those features with that of “nasal+plosive”sequences as clusters or unary segments in typical languages,aiming to infer the phonological characteristics of NC sequences in Jiwei Miao language.It uses the experimental phonetic methods and does phonetic studies on the data collected by fieldwork on Miao dialects from Yelangping village of Jiwei town in Huayuan county of Xiangxi.Compared with previous studies,this study selects more speakers and it observes comprehensively many factors that may influence the duration of Nasal-obstruent sequences.One important aspect of this study is to investigate several important factors affecting the duration of Nasal-obstruent sequences.It attempts to compare the duration differences between the whole NC sequences and that of the plain nasals and plain stops respectively of eight different places of articulation in the word-initial and word-medial sequences of target words;it compares relative duration difference between N and C in NC sequence itself;it compares the duration difference of nasal part of the NC sequence with that of a plain nasal,and finally,it compares these ratios with that of the typical languages whose NC sequences have been claimed as unary segments or clusters in order to judge the phonological attributes of Jiwei Miao language.The core findings of this investigation are as following: in Jiwei Miao language,the duration of NC sequence is close to that of a plain nasal or stop;the durations of N and C are similar in inner NC sequence under the condition of aspiration;the duration of nasal part of the target NC sequence is generally shorter than that of a plain nasal.Specifically,at three representative places of articulation(bilabial,alveolar,affricate),the duration of NC sequence is close to that of a plain nasal or stop,while at the place of post-alveolar,the duration of NC sequences is relatively longer than that of a plain nasal or stop;the aspiration condition increases the duration of each target segment;the word-initial or word-medial places don't affect the duration of segments;speaker 's pronunciation habits aren't relevant to the duration of segments.According to these findings,this study proposes that from the perspective of phoneticstructures,the NC sequences in Jiwei Miao language are more likely to be segments rather than clusters.This study can enrich the typological study of Nasal-obstruent sequences,and it preliminarily verifies the inference raised by Cohn and Riehl and other researchers that “the differences between NC unary segments and NC clusters,can be reflected by the phonetic realization of these two segmental types,especially duration”,which is also meaningful to the phonology-phonetics interface study.