A Study of Nasality Acquisition in Southern Min

• Main Authors: Wen-lan Yang, 楊文蘭
• Other Authors: Raung- fu Chung
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2003
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/47202032683056477225

碩士 === 國立高雄師範大學 === 英語學系 === 91 === The thesis explores the nature of nasality in Southern Min with empirical acquisition data from children aged two to four. Nasality is an intriguing phenomenon of Southern Min, including its distribution and nasalization. Nasality of Southern Min has been discussed for decades; however, it lacks some important source to support arguments related to nasality. The thesis aims to analyze nasals elicited from child speech. In semi-constructive dialogues, we encouraged children to speak the lexical items with nasals. Then both the adult-like or less adult-like production is presented in this thesis. The major findings of the thesis are as follows. First, both nasalized vowels and syllabic nasals were acquired before age two. Second, the onset nasal was acquired at roughly the age of three to four. Among the three nasals, the velar nasal [N] was acquired far behind bilabial nasal [m] and alveolar nasal [n]. Third, in the coda position, the velar nasals [N] and bilabial nasal [m] were substituted by alveolar nasal [n]. Not until the age of four did they pronounce the coda nasals. Fourth, nasality in suffix was influenced by the mispronunciation of the preceding segment. Children mispronounced the nasals in coda position; however, the nasal still spread to the following syllable, causing the nasality realized in the vowel suffix (paN55(33) Naò53 à pan55(33) aò53 ‘board’). Fifth, in contracted forms, dissimilation of segments was displayed. The nasality phenomena could be explained by following Chung’s proposal. It agrees with Chung’ s proposal (1996) that [Nasal] is a morphemic feature floating in a rightmost domain. The definition of domain is that the coda forms a domain and a nucleus plus an onset constitute another domain. After the Domain Definition, Nasal Association, and Percolation, the [Nasal] feature dips into every segment within the domain and is realized in the surface representation.