鼻腔爆破

鼻腔爆破 When /t/ or /d/ are followed by a syllabic /n/, as in button and garden, the explosion of the stop takes place through the nose. This nasal explosion happens in this way: the vocal organs form /t/ or /d/ in the usual way, with the soft palate raised to shut off the nasal cavity and the tongue-tip on the alveolar ridge, but instead of taking the tongue-tip away from the alveolar ridge to give the explosion we leave it in the same position and lower the soft palate, so that the breath explodes out of the nose rather than out of the mouth. This is the simplest way of passing from /t/ or /d/ to /n/, since the tongue position is the same for all three consonants and the only difference is in the raised or lowered position of the soft palate. Make a /t/ sound and hold the breath in the mouth, don’t let it out; then send all the breath out sharply through the nose whilst still holding the tongue-tip firmly against the alveolar ridge. Do this several times without allowing the tongue-tip to move at all and feel the air bursting out behind that soft palate. Now start the voice vibrating for /n/ as the soft palate lowers and again do this several times without moving the tongue-tip. Now do the same thing for /dn/, with the voice vibrating through both /d/ and /n/ but the tongue-tip firmly on the alveolar ridge all the time. The effect in both /tn/ and /dn/ is to make the explosion of the stop much less clear than when it takes place out of the mouth; if you do make the explosion by taking the tongue-tip away from the alveolar ridge or if you put the vowel /er/ (as in teacher) between the /t/ or /d/ and the /n/ it will sound rather strange to English ears, but you will not be misunderstood. Try these other similar words [1]: Written Britain certain frighten hidden burden pardon woo den In words where the /n/ is not syllabic, such as brightness and goodness, the explosion is also nasal, and this is also true when the stop is found at the end of one word and the /n/ at the beginning of the next, as in late night and bad news. Try the following examples, and be sure that the tongue-tip stays firmly on the alveolar ridge through both /t/ and /n/ [2]: Whiteness witness sadness kidney brightness goodness At night what next? Good night red nose partner loudness Start now bread knife midnight don’t know odd numbers