Analyses of Tibetan Yushu Dialect Nasals Based on Nasalance Visualization System

Abstract

There are 12 nasal consonants in Tibetan Yushu dialect, involving three phonation types and four places of articulation. This paper explores Yushu Tibetan nasals with Nasalance Visualization System and finds that for the nasals with the same place of articulation, the nasalance score always presents a common rule: voiceless voice >modal voice> anterior-glottal stop voice. We also find that the nasalance score of the nasal initials with different places of articulation is affected differently by the subsequent vowel: for the nasal initials in the front, that is, for the bilabial nasals and dental nasals, the higher the position of the tongue of the following vowel, the higher the nasalance score of the nasal; for the nasal initials at the back, namely for the alveolar- palatal nasals and velar nasals, the more forward the position of the following vowel, the higher the nasalance score of the nasal. We also find that the two nasal finals are totally different: the nasalance score of final /ŋ/ is always high, while the nasalance score of the final /n/ is unstable, varying from 65 to 95, which indicates that the final /n/ is weakening.