2. Background Information
1 of the 4 living
Dravidian
languages of India.
The language of the
state of Kerala
The mother tongue
of over 35 million
people around the
world
Evolved into a
distinct language
by 825 AD from
Tamil’s colloquial
dialect, largely by
assimilating a
great deal of
Sanskrit
vocabulary and
sound structure
4. It has 52 letters, the most of any written Indian
orthography.
A“Phonologist’s Paradise”
5. “[Malayalam] has successfully combined a very
conservative Dravidian six-stop phonology with a
conservative Sanskrit phonology; adding voicing,
aspiration, and a complete set of Sanskritic sibilants…It
has a near world-maximum contrast in nasals…, six
contrasting stop positions in deep phonology…to which
two more are added in surface phonology.” (p. 401)
McAlpin (1998)
7. Malayalam, as you saw from the earlier quote and UCLA
site, is famous for having a 6-way contrast of nasals.
Mohanen (1989) and Asher (2013) wonder if there is really a
contrast between all 6. The nasals in Malayalam in fact are
quite underspecified and experience a lot of alternation
depending on the neighboring environment.
What follows is an investigation into how nasals alter and
are altered by the phonological environment and what that
can tell us about nasal contrast in Malayalam.
Nasals
sound files
8. Let’s find out if both alveolar [n] and dental [n̪ ] exist in the UR. This will take several steps.
First, here is the distribution:
[anu[n̪ aasikam]] “nasal sound”
[[gi:ha][n̪ aayakan]] “house leader”
[n̪ eŋŋa] “chest”
[kinna] “dream”
[en̪ n̪ ə] “when”
[en̪ d̪ ə] “what”
[ɲaan] “I”
It seems that [n̪ ] can occur morpheme initially, as an intervocalic geminate, and before a
dental stop. [n] can occur morpheme finally, and as an intervocalic geminate, and
intervocalically. Except as geminates, they are in complimentary distribution.
[n] vs [n̪ ]
9. Even a Beginning Malayalam
Student Will Notice Alternations
“Thank you” is written as
ന = /na/
ന്ദ = /nd/
= /i/
but pronounced as
[nanni]
Nandi Example
Note: The same word in Tamil, the
closest related language to Malayalam,
simply says “nandi”
10. /bhamgi/ > [bhaŋŋi] “beauty”
/cand̪ anam/ > [can̪ n̪ anam] “sandalwood”
/maŋga/ > [maŋŋa] “mango” (loan word)
/[sam][giitam]/ > [saŋgiitam] “music”
/baalan/+ /pooyi/ > [baalampooyi] “the boy went”
/avan/+/ t̪anne/ > [avan̪ t̪anne] “he himself”
/[pen][kuʈʈi]/ > [peŋkuʈʈi] “girl”
We can see at least two rules happening here:
1. Nasal spreading to voiced plosives (lexically)
2. Nasal place assimilation before plosives (lexically and post-lexically)
Which comes first?
More Examples
12. Place assimilation 1st
UR: /bhamgi/
Place assimilation:
[bhaŋgi]
Nasal spread:
[bhaŋŋi]
SURFACE TRUE
Place assimilation 1st
UR: /samgiitam/
Place assimilation:
[saŋgiitam]
Nasal spread:
[saŋŋiitam]
SURFACE TRUE
Place assimilation 1st
UR: /[pen][kuʈʈi]/
Place assimilation:
[peŋkuʈʈi]
Nasal spread:
[peŋkuʈʈi]
SURFACE TRUE
Correct order
Rule Ordering
13. So?
Since [ +nasal] > [αplace] / ___ [αplace –cont –son] (nasal place assimilation rule),
the UR of the word [pan̪ n̪ i] (“pig”) will have an UR of /paNd̪ i/, where N is a nasal
unspecified for place of articulation. The, nasal assimilates to the dental place of
articulation and the dental [d] becomes nasal through nasal spreading.
Similarly, the UR for /maŋŋa/ will be /maNga. The nasal takes on the palatal
place of articulation and then the /g/ becomes [ŋ].
So, the distribution of alveolar and dental [n] is predictable. The geminates
[kanni] “a month” and [pan̪ n̪ i] “pig” do not actually demonstrate overlapping
distribution. [n̪ ] is an allophone of /n/.
14. [anu[n̪ aasikam]] “nasal sound”
[[gi:ha][n̪ aayakan]] “house leader”
[n̪ eŋŋa] “chest”
[kinna] “dream”
[en̪ n̪ ə] “when”
[en̪ d̪ ə] “what”
[ɲaan] “I”
Gap in the Theory
How did that [d̪ ] escape the nasal spread?
It turns out it didn’t “escape,” rather its underlying form is voiceless, making
it ineligible for the nasal spreading rule.
15. *NC̥
Languages tend to disfavor nasal + voiceless obstruent clusters (Kager, 1999). Many
languages, including Malayalam, have strategies to avoid this marked sequence.
POST-NASAL VOICING
/cem/ + /koɖi/ > [ceŋgoɖi] “red flag”
/t̪een/ + /kuppi/ > [t̪eeŋguppi] “honey bottle”
/puum/ + /poɖi/ > [puumboɖi] “pollen” (beautiful dust)
NASAL GEMINATION
Plurals of nouns with N coda: /paɽam/ (“fruit”) + /kkaɭ/ (plural morpheme) > [paɽaŋŋaɭ]
Words with Sanskrit origins: /jan̪ t̪u/ > /[jen̪ d̪ u] “animal”
16. Scholars’ Conclusion
In a similar fashion to how we just found the UR for alveolar and dental nasals,
scholars have investigated all the nasals and concluded that Malayalam only
has three underlying nasals:
/m, n, ɳ/
The rest are all
predictable!
