12h00
en ligne
The subject of nasalization in Gujarati language has received little attention in the literature. Pandit (1957) and Modi (1983) are the only known studies to offer a decent descriptive account with some generalizations; the latter also provides a critique of the former. The central element, and resultant discussion, of both studies concern the number of nasal phonemes in Gujarati which according to them are /m/, /n/, /ɳ/, and the archiphoneme /N/. Pandit proposes four allophones for /N/: two homorganic back nasals [ɲ], [ŋ], [ə̃], and [˜] (diacritic for nasalized vowels). Modi, on the contrary, retains only the back nasals as allophones of /N/ and contests the allophonic nature of [ə̃] and [˜] on different grounds.
In this presentation, I would like to offer a radically new account of nasals and nasalization in Gujarati. I limit the nasal phoneme inventory to three: /m/, /n/, and /ɳ/, and accordingly assign the homorganic back nasals [ɲ] and [ŋ] the status of allophones of /n/. I will also show, on the basis of contrastive data, that Gujarati possesses not only oral vocalic phonemes but also nasal vocalic phonemes, thereby distinguishing them from nasalized vowels.
