The Bidayuh Language Yesterday, Today and ... - SIL International

2 Nasality
An important and virtually universal phonetic opposition in the world’s languages is that of nasality vs.
orality. Most kinds of speech sounds are produced by air that is initiated in the speaker’s lungs and
moves upward through the vocal tract, passing the larynx and one or more resonance chambers and
articulating organs before exiting in the form of audible speech. Air that produces ordinary (oral) vowel
sounds and many common consonant sounds is blocked (by closure of the velic) from exiting via the
nasal passage and therefore exits via the mouth only. Air that produces nasal consonants is blocked by a
closure in the mouth and cannot exit via that passage, so exits via the nose only. Air that produces
nasalized vowels is not blocked in either the oral or the nasal chamber, so exits via both portals
simultaneously. In the opposition of nasality vs. orality, particularly as it applies to vowels, nasality
occurs less commonly in languages than orality. Therefore, vowel nasality is called a ‘marked’ feature.
Vowel orality, being more common, is called an ‘unmarked’ feature.
Some sounds may be difficult to nasalize, but most sounds, whether vowels or consonants, can be
modified by nasality in one way or another and can, therefore, be described in terms of that attribute:
[+nas] if they have it, [–nas] if they do not. All languages exhibit some form of nasality, having at least
one nasal consonant, but there is wide variety in how significant a role nasality plays in phonological
systems. In Bidayuh it has a variety of occurrences and behaviors, some of them significant and some
merely interesting.
The most common nasality opposition is between nasal stops (or simply ‘nasals’) and the
corresponding oral stops (or ‘plosives’). However, in some languages other consonants as well can exhibit
the nasality feature. An example of the nasal vs. oral stop opposition is n, a nasal stop, which is [+nas],
vs. d and/or t, oral stops (plosives), that are pronounced at the same place in the mouth as n but are [–
nas]. Other comparable pairs of nasal vs. oral stops include: m vs. b and/or p; ɲ vs. j and/or c; ŋ vs. ɡ
and/or k. The principal difference in articulation between m and b, n and d, ɲ and j, ŋ and ɡ is the portal
via which air exits. b, d, j, ɡ are oral; when the closure opens, air exits via the mouth. m, n, ɲ, ŋ are
nasal; air exits only via the nose. p, t, c, k are oral; when the closure opens, air exits via the mouth. They
also differ from the nasal consonants by being voiceless as well as oral. The nasal consonants are [+nas],
[+vd]; the voiced stops are [–nas], [+vd]; the voiceless stops are [–nas], [–vd].
As already stated, vowel sounds as well as consonant sounds can exhibit the nasality opposition
according to whether the airstream exits via the mouth only (oral vowels) or via the mouth and nose
simultaneously (nasalized vowels): a, an oral vowel, is [–nas]; ã, a nasalized vowel, is [+nas], etc.
Virtually all languages have at least one nasal stop that opposes one or more corresponding oral
stops to differentiate lexical items of the language. If a language has only one nasal stop, usually it is n.
Less commonly it might be m or ŋ.
Nasalized vowels are far from being universal in languages. In many languages where they do exist,
the occurrence of vowel nasalization is caused (or ‘conditioned’) by adjacent nasal consonants or other
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