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WPP, No. 107: Shooting Through the Nose in Karekare: A Study of Nasally Released Stops in a Chadic Language

UCLA Working Papers in Phonetics, No. 107, pp.56-73 Shooting Through the Nose in Karekare: A Study of Nasally Released Stops in a Chadic Language Russell G. Schuh UCLA schuh@humnet.ucla.edu Abstract Karekare, a Chadic language spoken in Yobe State of northeastern Nigeria, has a set of consonants with both orally released and nasally released allophones, similar to the allophones of /d/ in English ride vs. ridden. Specifically, an underlying sequence /CinV/ [C nV], where C = an alveolar [-continuant]. Video recordings and instrumental records of the audio show that the alveolar consonants /d , t , , n / remain articulatorily distinct from each other under nasal release, though /n, nd/ become neutralized as [n]. The alternation between orally and nasally released consonants is a typical case of phonetically conditioned allophonic variation, and standard assumptions of linguistic analysis would suggest that speakers would hear the alternants as “the same sound”. Karekare speakers, however, are very much aware of the difference and prefer to represent the orally and nasally released allophones with different symbols in a standard orthography. Study of the nasal release phenomenon calls attention to the fact that the typology of Karekare vowels is more like that of Ngizim, a distant linguistic cousin but close geographic neighbor, than it is like that of its closer linguistic relatives, Bole and Ngamo. Keywords: Nasal, Nasal release, Nasal plosion, Allophonic variation, Chadic 1. Introduction Karekare is a Chadic language spoken in northeastern Nigeria in the area around Potiskum, the largest town in Yobe State. Karekare belongs to the A Sub branch of the West Branch of Chadic (Newman 1977). Karekare’s closest linguistic relatives are the languages of the Bole-Tangale group. Two of these languages, Ngamo and Bole, are geographic neighbors of Karekare to the south in Yobe State. Karekare, Ngamo, and Bole are typologically similar in most respects, but Karekare is phonologically unique among its Chadic sisters in having a set of nasally released stops where its sisters have a Stop+Vowel+Nasal sequence. Thus, for example, the verbal noun of the verb ‘eat’ in the three Bole-Tangale languages of Yobe State is tun in Ngamo (Yaya dialect), t n in Bole, but [t na ] in Karekare. In describing such sounds, Ladefoged (2006:61) says, “...the air pressure built up behind the stop closure is released through the nose by the lowering of the soft palate (the velum) for the nasal consonant. This phenomenon is known as nasal plosion...” and is found in the nasal release of stops in German in such words as reden [ re d n] ‘to talk’ and retten [ r t n] ‘to rescue’ or in English in words like sudden [ s d n] and hedonist [ hid n st]. Three terms have been applied to this category of sounds: nasal plosion, prestopped nasals, and nasally released stops. Of the latter two terms, Ladefoged and Maddieson (1996:128) say, “We do not know of a language in which it has been proposed that these two types of elements contrast, but the phonological patterns suggest that different analyses are appropriate in different cases.” Such phonologically different analyses would depend on whether one could argue that the element in question derived from an underlying nasal (prestopped nasal) or an underlying stop (nasally released stop). Data will show that in Karekare, these elements derive from and, indeed, alternate with stops. For the same reason, I