A Survey of Nasal Preplosion in Aslian Languages1

1 Introduction

1.1 Aslian – the Mon-Khmer languages of Malaysia

The Malaysian Peninsula is home to eighteen Aslian2 languages, which belong to the Mon-

Khmer language family. The Aslian language family is subdivided into the following groups

(Ethnologue 2005):

Jah Hut

Chewong Bateq Jahai North Aslian Minriq Bateq Tanum Tonga (Thailand) Aslian Kintaq Kensiw

Lanoh Central Aslian Sabüm Semai Semnam Mon-Khmer Temiar

Besisi South Aslian Semaq Beri Semelai Temoq

Figure 1. Genetic relationships (simplified) of Aslian languages

Mon-Khmer languages are found in Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, India, Laos,

China, Bangladesh, and Myanmar. The Aslian languages separated from their ancestors quite

some time ago, and hence are crucial for the reconstruction of proto-Mon-Khmer.3 Moreover,

the historical study of the Aslian languages is integral for the understanding of the history of

1 I am indebted to Michael Boutin, Mary M. Peterson, Eric Seidlitz, and Geoffrey Benjamin for

comments and suggestions that greatly aided me in the preparation of this paper. I retain sole

responsibility for the errors that I have undoubtedly introduced. 2 The term "Aslian" was first proposed by Gérard Diffloth (see Benjamin 2005:5). However, not all

Orang Asli ("original people") of the Malaysian Peninsula speak Aslian languages; some speak

Austronesian languages, most of which appear to be dialects of Malay (Collins 1992; Seidlitz 2005). 3 Based simply on the number of languages, Aslian languages represent 13% of Mon-Khmer.

However, as Benjamin (2005:5) and Diffloth (1979:11) have pointed out, the importance of Aslian is

turning out to be far greater. Aslian languages are rather conservative and have not been subject to the

same changes as related languages to the north, almost all of which are under heavy influence from

tonal, monosyllabic languages that surround them.

the Malaysian Peninsula, since the Aslian-speaking people appear to pre-date the arrival of

first Malays by at least a thousand years Benjamin (1976a).4 As summarized by Benjamin

(2005:35-6):

Aslian provides evidence that the Peninsula has had a much more

complicated history than is usually recognised. … The Aslian languages

enable historical work to be done even in the absence of written sources. …

If Aslian were to disappear, so also would a major resource for uncovering

Southeast Asian culture-history.

The Aslian languages are a national treasure of Malaysia, and have much to offer not only to

linguistics, but also to our understanding of the history of Malaysia and Southeast Asia.

1.2 What is nasal preplosion?

Nasal preplosion occurs when the articulation of a nasal is preceded by a homorganic plosive.

In most languages nasal preplosion is only found word-finally.

Phonetic Phonemic English

(1) SE Semai:5,6

[c�.loodn]7 /c�.loon/ 'back (e.g. of body)'

(2) [�u�] /�u�/ 'foot'

(3) Jahai:8 [te�bm] /tem/ 'right (side)'

(4) [t�.wi��] /t�.wi�/ 'headache'

Nasal preplosion does not normally occur after nasal vowels, be they phonemically nasal or

nasalized by a preceding nasal segment.

Phonetic Phonemic English

(5) SE Semai: [h����n] /h����n/ 'to smell s.t.'

(6) [da.na�n] /da.nan/ 'death'

(7) Jahai: [d��m] /d��m/ 'lake'

(8) [ma�.mu��] /ma.mu�/ 'to beg'

The exceptions to these rules are discussed in §2.7 below.

4 Note also that Matisoff (2003) includes a comment from Benjamin in a footnote that although the

original hypothetical timeframe was based on glottochronology (nowadays generally discounted), the

archeological records do seem to substantiate the claim. 5 The Semai examples in this paper are from research done by the author 2003 – 2005. The results of

this research are summarized in Phillips (2005). 6 SE Semai refers to varieties spoken roughly in the southeast quadrant of the Semai territory, such as

Pos Betau. 7 In this paper the short vowels are represented with a single letter, and the long vowels with a double

letter. The latter is a departure from standard IPA. Another departure is that the palatal central

approximant is represented with the symbol ' y ' rather than the IPA standard ' j ', which could easily be

confused with the palatal voiced plosive ' � ' and with local orthographies, especially Bahasa Malaysia,

which use ' j ' to represent a voiced alveopalatal affricate. Lastly, ' a ' is used for the unrounded open

central vowel, and ' � ' for the rounded open back vowel. Phonetic transcriptions are designated with

square brackets [ ], phonemic transcriptions with slashes / /. 8 The Jahai examples in this paper are taken Burenhult (2002).

A preploded nasal is always a single segment, despite its double articulation (the oral plosive

followed by the nasal release).

1.3 Other names for preploded nasals

The term nasal preplosion was first coined by Christopher Court (1967) in his description of

Mĕntu Land Dayak. However, preploded nasals have suffered quite a number of attempts to

give them a name that adequately describes the phenomenon.

• Skeat and Blagden (1906:772) called them disintegrated nasals; they also commented

(p.773) that "these peculiar nasals appear to be a product of careless, slovenly

articulation."

• The segments were noted in Jahai by Schebesta (1928:805) but interpreted by him as

word-final plosives followed by "an obscure nasal release," which rather makes one

think of the postnasalised plosives described phrase-finally by Benjamin (1976b:134)

for Temiar.

• Smalley (1961) – postsequential voiced sequence (stop plus nasal)

• Diffloth (1975:12) proposed predenasalized finals;

• Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996) – prestopped nasals;

• Adelaar (1995) mentions the term nasally released stops, but prefers calling them

preploded nasals.

• Bishop (1996) also used the term prestopped nasals, but analysed such nasals in

Kensiw as the syllable-final allophones of voiced stops.

• Collins (1998) – consonantal diphthongs, nasal diphthongs

• Matisoff (2003:19) summarized, and criticized, several names before proposing his

own: preocclusivised nasals.

Seidlitz (2005:77ff) included a fairly comprehensive discussion of the pros and cons of

various names; he himself chose preploded nasals because of the momentum in the literature

for this name and for the simple reason that the term "prestopped nasal," when spoken while

presenting a paper, could too easily be heard as "pre-stop nasal," which would mis-imply that

the nasal precedes the stop!

2 Preplosion in Aslian languages

2.1 Jahai, SE Semai: "Normal" nasal preplosion

Following Blust (1997:168), the following inferences can be made about nasal preplosion:9

(9) a) Nasal harmony is onset-driven;

(A nasal segment initiates nasality in a word, and nasality spreads to the

right until it is blocked. So for the Semai word /mat/, the 'a' is nasalized by

the preceding nasal consonant 'm', resulting in the pronunciation [mãt]. The

9 Blust made these inferences for Austronesian only, but will also be used as the starting point here.

'm' in /magit/, however, only nasalizes the first vowel; the nasalization

process is blocked by the 'g', resulting in the pronunciation [mãgit]. That

which blocks nasal spread can vary from language to language, however.)

b) Preploded nasals develop from earlier simple nasals;

(For example, buladn 'moon' in SE Semai can be traced back to *bulan

'moon', which was originally borrowed from Malay.)

c) Preploded nasals are only found word-finally;

(For example, in SE Semai one finds h��gŋ 'to whistle' is reduplicated as

həŋh��gŋ 'whistling' so while the nasal is preploded word-finally, it is

realized as a simple nasal word-medially.)

d) Nasal preplosion is suspended in a syllable which begins with a nasal consonant;

(SE Semai has words such as jaabm 'to cry'; however, when nominalized

with the infix -n- the word becomes jenaam 'crying'. Hence, when the

vowel of the ultimate syllable is not nasalized, preplosion occurs; but when

nasalized by the infix -n-, preplosion is then suspended. )

e) In time preploded nasals simplify to homorganic voiceless plosives.

(For all varieties of Perak Semai, *jaabm 'to cry' has become jaap 'to cry'.)

If the above inferences are accepted as describing "basic" or "normal" nasal preplosion, then

additional features can be compared against this norm. Jahai and SE Semai, as seen in §1.2

above, are good examples of normal nasal preplosion.

2.2 Perak Semai: The end result

As described by the inference (9e), above, it appears that nasal preplosion it part of a

progression of changes that ultimately result in the final nasal being reduced to a simple,

voiceless plosive. This is evidenced in all the Perak dialects of Semai, wherein the word-final

nasals have merged with word-final plosives.10

proto-Semai Perak Semai English

(10) *jaabm�� jaap 'to cry'

*yaap yaap 'to speak, converse'

(11) *ju� juk 'foot'

*juk juk 'to return'

The dialects of Semai exhibit a spectrum of preplosion. As stated earlier, SE Semai has

predictable nasal preplosion with a lightly articulated voiced plosive before the final nasal. At

the other end of the spectrum, Perak Semai has reduced this final nasal to a voiceless plosive.

However, in a neighboring dialect, Kuala Kenip Semai, there is still preplosion, but the

10

The region of Semai that reduces final nasals to simple plosives is actually a bit broader; it includes

the Cameron Highlands district in the northwest corner of Pahang. Perak and Pahang are divided by a

mountain range, but there is a well-traveled road between Perak and the Cameron Highlands. 11

Proto-Semai forms are from Phillips (2005). Some of the proto-forms, however, were originally

provided by Diffloth (1977).

plosive is voiceless and dominates the final segment; that is, phonetically one hears a strongly

articulated voiceless plosive, with a lightly articulated nasal release. So Kuala Kenip, which

happens to be situated between Cameron Highlands and SE Semai, displays a type of

preplosion that is somewhere between the two ends of the spectrum.

SE Semai Kuala Kenip Semai Perak Semai English

(12) c��bm c��pm c��p 'bird' (13) c�.r�� c�.r�k� c�.r�k 'tall, long'

If nasal preplosion is seen as part of a progression of denasalization, as Blust (1997:161) does

in his analysis of Urak Lawoi', then several points along this progression are represented

across the many dialects of Semai.

Proto-Mon

Khmer

SE

Semai

Kuala Kenip

Semai

Perak

Semai

*-m � -bm � -p

m � -p

A little to the north of Kuala Kenip is the northeast limit of the range of Semai dialects. Here,

in villages such as Lanai and Serau, one hears only the voiceless plosive when words are

elicited in isolation. When the speakers use the words in phrases, however, preplosion can be

heard. This area needs to be investigated further, to understand where it fits in the spectrum,

and especially to determine just what conditions evoke the preploded nasals. Namely, is it

that the nasal-release is so muted that it can only be detected when another word follows (and

hence never appears when eliciting individual words)? Or perhaps is it that the speakers were

suppressing preplosion when talking to the researcher, but freely exhibit it with each other?

In dialects that have reduced final nasals to plosives, vestiges of the final nasal remain in

certain contexts. For instance, the underlying nasal still surfaces in verbal reduplication,

which produces the continuative form.

proto-Semai

root form

Perak Semai

root form

continuative

form

English

(14) *yaap yaap yəpyaap 'is conversing'

(15) *jaabm jaap jəmjaap 'is crying'

In (14) one sees the first and last consonants ('y' and 'p', respectively) are reduplicated into the

penultimate syllable, and an epenthetic vowel inserted due to syllable constraints. In (15),

however, the last consonant 'p' instead appears as 'm' when reduplicated into the penultimate

syllable, reflecting the "original" (proto) final consonant '-bm'.

The nominalizing infix -n- also allows the underlying nasal to appear, although through a

different means. When -n- is infixed into a verb, onset-driven nasalization causes the

following vowel to be nasalize and subsequently any historical preplosion would have been

suspended (see inference 9d, above). In Perak Semai, a simple nasal is found word-finally in

such words, even when the root form has been reduced to a voiceless plosive:

proto-Semai root

form

Perak Semai

root form

nominalized

form

English

(16) *dadn dat danan 'death'

(17) *jaabm jaap jənaam 'a cry'

2.3 Sabüm: Halfway there

Sabüm, despite its few speakers,12

provides a key clue regarding the history of preplosion in

Aslian languages. In Sabüm, preploded nasals are found only after long vowels. After short

vowels, the progression of the sound change has reduced the final segment to a simple

voiceless plosive. Interestingly, the latter does not cause a merger in the final position,

because final voiceless plosives became voiced.

proto-Aslian proto-Sabüm Sabüm

(18) *kap *kab kab

*kaap *kaab kab

*kam *kap kap

*kaam *kaabm kabm (Matisoff 2003:20)13

Diffloth (1975:12) takes this as evidence that the phenomenon of preplosion began with

words that have short vowels in the major syllable.

Note that the Sabüm case is especially interesting when compared to Khmu' (a Mon-Khmer

language spoken in Laos, Thailand and Vietnam), which exhibits preplosion after certain

short vowels but never after long vowels (Blust 1997:169).

2.4 Temiar: Three different types

Temiar is the second largest Aslian language, in terms of number of speakers. The northern

dialect of Temiar has three different plosive-plus-nasal releases at the ends of words. The

following chart is adapted from Matisoff (2003:22):

Table 1. Final plosives and nasals in Temiar.

/-p -t -c -k/ [pm$% tn$% c�$% k�$%] 'release nasally, audible as a long voiceless nasal'

/-b -d -j -/ [bm% d

n% j�%

�%]

'nasal release audible as the short voiced homorganic nasal'

/-m -n -� -�/ [bm% tn% c�% k�%]14

'very short voiced plosive with a long voiced homorganic nasal release'

Matisoff goes on to say, "Far from being 'careless, slovenly' articulators, the Temiar are

veritable velic virtuosi, capable of distinguishing between post-nasalization and pre-

occlusivization!"

12

Populations estimates are hard to come by, because Sabüm and Semnam are often lumped together

with Lanoh. These three languages together are listed with a population of only 359 (JHEOA website:

http://www.jheoa.gov.my/e-orangasli.htm, accessed on 22 May 2005). 13

For the last form Matisoff has *kaam/*kaabm/kabm; however, his prose makes it clear that the final

–bm is a single segment, a preploded nasal. Also, Matisoff's chart erroneously labels the language as

SE Semai, but once again the prose indicates that the language being discussed is instead Sabum. 14

For this third set Matisoff's chart contains the phonetic representation [bm% tn% c�% k�%] despite the

indication that the nasal is the more salient feature of these segments. I took the liberty to rewrite the

representations to more closely match the prose. The form presented in this paper is also consistent

with Benjamin (2005:28).

2.5 Kensiw: Phonemic preplosion and non-final preplosion

In most of the Aslian languages, preplosion is predictable (with perhaps a few notable

exceptions) and therefore not phonemic. In Kensiw, however, there are a number of words

where the nasal preplosion does not behave as "expected" – either a syllable ends in a simple

(non-preploded) nasal even though the vowel is not nasalized, or a preploded nasal occurs

after a nasalized vowel. Kensiw apparently has many exceptions; as such, preploded nasals

must be regarded has phonemic. The following examples are taken from Bishop (1996;

bolding added to emphasize the segments being contrasted):

Kensiw English

(19) [ka.tap ke.'('] 'to stutter'

[tabm kebm] 'molars'

[kan.tam] 'crab'

(20) [jat] 'mucus'

[han.jadn] 'to stand'

[be.jan] 'mushroom (type)'

(21) [‘.'uc] 'to wrap up in'

[bal.'u�] 'green'

['o�] 'to smell'

(22) [pak] 'to slap'

[pa.pa��] 'wild cat'

[pa�] 'to run'

Furthermore, Kensiw displays a remarkable phenomenon wherein preploded nasal are found

in the non-final syllable. Witness the following examples, the last of which shows that simple

nasals also occur in the non-final coda.

Kensiw English

(23) s+dn.mwa�' 'all; everyone' (cf Malay semua)

(24) s+dn.sidn 'gums'

(25) s,bm.po�- 'to tie by twisting' (cf Malay simpul)

(26) yum.po�t 'grass' (cf Malay rumput)

2.6 Jah Hut: A different phenomenon

The Jah Hut language stands out from the rest for having what Diffloth (1976:111) called

"decomposed final stops." While nasal preplosion normally involves underlying final nasals

after a non-nasalized vowel, the Jah Hut decomposed final plosive involves final plosives

after a nasalized vowel. Such plosives are articulated as a homorganic nasal followed by a

glottal stop.15

Phonetic Phonemic English

(27) [r�.�.�m'] /r�.�.p/ 'red'

(28) [si.k��n'] /si.k��t/ 'few'

(29) [mu��'] /muc/ 'to suck on' (e.g. candy)

(30) [t..n.��'] /t..n.k/ 'to cook'

Generally, final nasals are pronounced "normally," whether the preceding vowel is nasalized

or oral.

Phonetic Phonemic English

(31) [lu.kom] /lu.kom/ 'brain'

(32) [t..lon] /t..lon/ 'snake'

(33) [nu��] /nu�/ 'path'

(34) [bum.bu�] /bum.bu�/ 'pus'

Oddly enough, Jah Hut does also have some preploded nasals, although Diffloth does not

mention this in his treatise of Jah Hut. Sometimes preplosion occurs in surprising

environments, such as after nasalized vowels.

Phonetic Phonemic English

(35) [n/0�] /n��/ 'old (inanimate)'

(36) [ku�] /ku�/ 'shadow'

If there turn out to be more than a few exceptions, then preploded nasals would need to be

added to the phoneme inventory of Jah Hut, contrasting with simple nasals and simple

plosives in the word-final position. It is also worth noting that some Jah Hut wordlists16

have

a far greater number of words that exhibit nasal preplosion, hence it may turn out that there is

signficant variation between individuals or dialects.

2.7 Exceptions

In surveying the Aslian languages, one does run across exceptions from time to time, even

within the languages that have "normal" (predictable) preplosion. For instance, Diffloth (in

Blust, 1997:164) found the following form in Semai: n��bm 'ripe'. Why is the final nasal

preploded, given that the vowel is preceded by a nasal consonant and thus normally would be

expected to be nasalized? For this particular word, it turns out we can find cognates in other

Mon-Khmer languages that tell us the original word must have been *nd11m. Hence, it

would appear that first the preplosion took place, but later the 'd' was dropped from the initial

'nd' cluster, likely because of another phonological process.

There are exceptions in other languages. In Jahai, consonant clusters of nasal-plus-voiced-

plosive are evidently dispreferred, as they are very rare (Burenhult, 2002). All words

15

These data were elicited in April 2005, when the author had an opportunity to interview a Jah Hut

speaker. 16

According to some unpublished field notes in SIL archives.

borrowed from Malay that originally had such clusters have had the plosive elided; however,

the following vowel remains oral and the final nasal is therefore preploded.

Jahai English Malay source

(37) k�.m.� 'to swell' kembang

(38) p..�.� 'to roast' panggang

(39) s..mo� 'to put s.t. together' sambung

(40) k..mi� 'goat' kambing

(41) pi.�.dn 'serving' pinggan (= 'plate')

There are a few exceptions, however, that seem clearly to not come from Malay. Either the

vowel does not match that of a Malay borrowing, or the final nasal is palatal, which Malay

lacks.

Jahai English

(42) t�r.n�bm 'to shoot'

(43) h�.m�i�� [magic word uttered to redress broken taboo]

2.8 Summary

The following table gives a summary of which Aslian languages exhibit nasal preplosion.

Table 2. Summary of preplosion in Aslian languages.

Language Preplosion Comments

Chewong preploded Diffloth (in Blust 1997)

Batek insufficient data17

several varieties; some may have preplosion

Jahai preploded Burenhult (2002)

Minriq preploded Skeat & Blagden (1906); Diffloth (in Blust 1997)

Batek Tanum no data used to be called Mintil

Tonga preploded phonemic (not predictable)

Kintaq preploded Diffloth (in Blust 1997); note alternate name: Kintaq Bogn

Kensiw preploded Bishop (1996); phonemic (not predictable)

Lanoh some preploded Skeat & Blagden (1906); some words now have vl stops

Sabum some preploded Diffloth (1975); note alternate name: Sabubm

Semai preploded proto and some dialects; other dialects now have vl stops

(Phillips 2005)

Semnam preploded Skeat & Blagden (1906)

Temiar preploded 3 types: [A] –bm

; [B] –pm$

; [C] –bm; Benjamin (2005)

Mah Meri preploded Skeat & Blagden (1906); alternate name: Besisi

Semelai preploded Kruspe (2004)

Semaq Beri preploded SIL wordlists (2002); many words preploded after nasal-V

Temoq preploded Skeat & Blagden (1906), SIL wordlists

Jah Hut some preploded decomposed nasals the more outstanding feature (Diffloth

1976)

17

It is suspected that the Batek label covers several speech varieties (possibly separate languages)

which deserve more investigation, both in the literature and with its speakers. I was not satisfied with

scant amount of literature that I was able to access during the preparation of this paper. Endicott's 1979

transciptions of Batek Dèq seem to indicate no preplosion, at least in that variety. However, note that

another variety is sometimes spelled Batek Nogn, which surely indicates preplosion.

As the chart readily shows, nearly every Aslian language exhibits preplosion. A map of the

territories covered by these languages, plus those of neighboring Austronesian languages with

preplosion, can be found in Section 3.3.

3 Nasal preplosion in neighboring languages

This brief section will discuss nasal preplosion in nearby regions. Although not the closest

neighbor, Borneo is discussed first because of the Blust's 1997 landmark paper titled "Nasals

and Nasalization in Borneo." Secondly, a look is taken across the strait to Sumatra. Lastly,

immediate geographic neighbors are discussed.

3.1 Languages of Borneo

Blust (1997) gives an excellent summary of nasals and nasalization in the Austronesian (AN)

languages of Borneo. Two points are of particular interest to the topic at hand.

First, Blust mentioned the hypothesis that Adelaar (1995) put forth, wherein Adelaar looked

for a possible connection between languages with preplosion in Borneo and Aslian languages.

One problem that Blust sees with this hypothesis is that nasal preplosion seems to be more

complicated in Aslian than in Austronesian languages; his support for this is the complexity

of the situation in Temiar. It is not the intent of this article to become embroiled in this

debate; however, it is worth pointing out that nasal preplosion is found in most of the Aslian

languages, and that while Temiar is indeed complicated, it seems to be the exception.

Second, in some languages of Borneo, preploded nasals have become phonemic, contrasting

with regular nasals. Cal Rensch18

(personal communication) states:

In Bidayuh it works quite well to state that preplosion occurs only

after a (phonetically) oral vowel in the final syllable. However, voiced stops

are weakened following nasals in clusters (across the syllable boundary

between penult and ultima): [NDVC > NVC] in most dialects. Thus, what is

['i.nduk�] ‘nose’ in some pronunciations (and presumably in Proto-Bidayuh)

becomes ['i.nuk�] in other pronunciations and rather generally in some

dialects. No problem so far. For such speakers ['i.nduk�] and ['i.nuk�] are

two ways of pronouncing /indu�/. When asked to spell the word, they

generally spell it with ‘nd’. Often, the pronunciation ['i.nuk�] clearly has an

oral vowel in the ultima.

However, in the neighboring Bekati’ languages, mostly spoken in

West Kalimantan, voiced stops have dropped out of some words with this

pattern and the speakers do not think that the word "includes" a voiced stop.

So, for them some contrasts have developed between simple and preploded

nasals.

18

Cal Rensch is a linguist working in the Bidayuh Language Development project. Bidayuh is an AN

language spoken mostly in Sarawak, Malaysia. Bekati' is an AN language spoken along the border

between Sarawak, Malaysia and Indonesia.

The persistence of nasal preplosion

Nasal preplosion can often be seen to persist even after the conditioning environment has

disappeared. In Bonggi (Boutin 2002),19

naadn /ŋ/ + /taan/ [na0adn] ‘to endure’ (Malay

'tahan'); the preplosion looks like it should not have happened, but still does because

historically there used to be an 'h' between the two vowels, and 'h' in Bonggi blocks

nasalization. In Bukar-Sadong (Scott 1964),20

[�mudn] ‘dew’ (Malay 'embun'); here the 'b'

blocks nasalization of the 'u', causing the preplosion of the final 'n', but later the 'b' dropped

out.

It may well turn out that a similar situation is developing in some of the Aslian languages;

i.e., preploded nasals are becoming phonemic following a nasal-plosive cluster which has

simplified to a simple nasal. This seems especially true of words borrowed from Malay,

which often have such clusters (see Jahai exceptions (37)-(41)), but there are at least a few

words inherited from proto-Aslian with nasal-plus-plosive sequences.

However, it is not always the case that preplosion persists after the conditioning environment

disappeared. In Semai, historical *nd��bm 'ripe' was found by Diffloth (see Blust, 1997:164)

to be n��bm 'ripe'. However, recent research (Phillips 2005) shows that this word has

regularized back to a simple nasal, as in n��m, or in other dialects a simple plosive, as in n��p.

3.2 Languages of Sumatra

Across the strait in Sumatra, Anderbeck (2003) found a number of phenomena involving

nasals in Jambi Malay dialects including both preploded nasals and postploded nasals.

Phenomenon Dialect Pronunciation Proto-Malay (PM)

(44) preploded nasal MR: ikadn *ikan 'fish'

(45) postploded nasal DD: ga2amp *gəram 'salt'

There are also dialects where the progression from final nasal to final plosive is complete; for

example, dialect SL: makat 'eat' (PM *ma/kan). Dialect SL was found to be closely related to

dialect DD, so Anderbeck postulates that SL went through a stage of post-plosion before

reducing the nasal to a simple plosive. Noting this case along with the Hulu Tembeling case

(see §3.3, below), Anderbeck challenges Blust's assumption that languages which changed

final nasals to final plosives, such as Urak Lawoi', must have passed through a stage of

preplosion. Evidently it is quite possible (although evidently more rare) for a language to

pass through a stage of postplosion instead.

Remarkably, Anderbeck furthermore found prenasalized plosives and postnasalized plosives

in some dialects.

Phenomenon Dialect Pronunciation Proto-Malay (PM)

(46) prenasalized plosive SS: u2ant *urat 'vein'

(47) postnasalized plosive SS: cakapm *cakap 'to speak'

19

An AN language spoken in Sabah, Malaysia. 20

An AN language spoken in Sarawak, Malaysia.

One extraordinary dialect, SL, seems to have taken these changes to an extreme: final nasals

have become plosives, and final plosives have become nasals. For example, compare the

following pairs:

SL Jambi English Proto-Malay

(48) idum 'to live' *hidup (*–p � –m)

iduk 'nose' *hidung (*–ng � –k)

(49) jalat 'path, road' *jalan (*–n � –t)

lalan '(a) fly' *lalat (*–t � –n)

It is also worth noting that Anderbeck also introduces an implicational hierarchy for additive

plosion of final nasals, stating that if a language has any preploded or postploded final nasals,

then this "additive plosion" will occur first with the alveolar and then with other points of

articulation. So, for example, no language would be expected to have preplosion of words

ending with a labial nasal (–pm) without also having preplosion of words ending with alveolar

nasals (–tn).

On the islands around Sumatra, preploded nasals can be found on Bangka island (Nothofer

1997), in groups in the Riau-Lingga archipelago (Blust 1997), and in the Lom language

(Smedal 1987). Simple plosives are the regular reflex of historical final nasals in Sakai in

northern Riau (Kalipke and Kalipke 2001).

Similar to the Bekati' languages mentioned above (cf. 3.1), both Sakai and Lom, plus some

dialects of Jambi Malay, appear to have dropped the plosive from medial clusters which

historically were nasals plus voiced plosives.

3.3 Austronesian languages in the Malay Peninsula

Blust (1997) only mentions preplosion in Aslian languages of the Malay Peninsula. A few

Austronesian languages also exhibit nasal preplosion. Seidlitz (2005:77ff) offers a detailed

look at nasal preplosion in Jakun (this name itself is sometimes written "Jakudn"), an

Aboriginal Malay dialect with Aslian-speaking neighbors. Some examples are:

Jakun English Malay source

(50) garabm21 'salt' garam 'salt'

(51) taʤabm 'sharp' tajam 'sharp'

(52) ikadn 'fish' ikan 'fish'

(53) daʊdn 'leaf' daun 'leaf'

(54) hidugŋ 'nose' hidung 'nose'

(55) bohogŋ 'not' bohong 'untruth'

Collins (1998:153) documents a very interesting set of Malay dialects in Hulu Tembeling, just

north of Jerantut, Pahang. One not only finds some dialects with preploded final nasals, but

also other nearby dialects with post-ploded final nasals. Some of lexical items have further

progressed to a simple plosive. For example, the Kampung Pagi dialect has the following:

laint (< Malay lain 'other'); badat (< Malay badan 'body'). (cf. §3.2 and §4.1).

21

In the case of Jakun, the phonetic "weight" of the plosive and the nasal at the ends of preploded

words is roughly equal, hence neither is written as a superscript. However, these two letters are to be

considered one segment.

Alan Lee (2005) claims that Temuan, another nearby Aboriginal Malay language (likely also

a dialect of Malay), has very noticeable nasal preplosion, although he has not yet had a chance

to properly characterize it. Some language maps even list this language as "Temuadn," a

clear indication of nasal preplosion.

Limited preparation time for this paper did not allow a thorough survey of the remaining

Austronesian languages on the peninsula, which is in any case somewhat tangential to this

paper. However, such a survey is clearly warranted.

The following map summarizes known preplosion in the Aslian languages as well as the few

Austronesian languages mentioned in this section:

Figure 2. Nasal preplosion (marked in gray) on the Malay Peninsula

[Map modified from http://www.keene.edu/library/orangasli/map1.cfm, Mason Library]

4 Other related phenomena

4.1 Postploded Nasals

Postploded nasals are generally found word medially, and typically can be traced historically

to a nasal plus homorganic voiced plosive cluster.22

Like preploded nasals, postploded nasals

have had several labels applied to them, including for instance the "funny nasals" of Achenese

(Durie 1985) and "orally released nasals" (Ladefoged and Maddieson, 1996). Some examples

of postploded nasals were mentioned above in the discussion of the Bekati' languages and

Jambi Malay, and Blust (1997) provides a good summary of postploded nasals in other

Austronesian languages.

A few features of postploded nasals merit highlighting. First, where nasal spread is generally

onset-driven, the plosive typically blocks the spread of nasality onto the subsequent vowel.

Second, often the postploded nasal has coalesced into a single segment. For instance, Kalipke

and Kalipke (2001:XXXIII) noted that for Sakai (Riau), the voiced consonant clusters were

actually one sound and could not be decomposed. Consequently, resyllabification moves the

nasal from its former position as a coda to a new position as an onset of the following

syllable. Lastly, postploded nasals sometimes progress to the point of becoming phonemic,

when postplosion of medial segments is found together with preplosion of final nasals.

Aslian languages seem to disprefer postploded nasals. Jahai, for instance, always drops the

voiced plosive from a nasal plus voiced plosive cluster when it borrows words from Malay

(Burenhult 2002:57).

Jahai English Malay

(56) r�.nah 'low' 'rendah'

(57) ja.�ut 'beard' 'janggut'

Semai is not as strict about removing the voiced plosive, but this does happen in many words.

Jahai English Malay

(58) s�.mi.lan 'nine' 'sembilan'

(59) t�.��.lap 'to sink' 'tenggelam'

4.2 Nasalization of word-initial voiced plosives

Blust (1997:152) claims that nasality in AN languages is typically onset-driven: nasality

spreads to the right. As such, Blust (1997:161) suggests that perhaps nasal preplosion is a

mechanism to block nasalization from spreading leftward. Since the Aslian languages also

exhibit nasal preplosion, they could be subject to the same type of motivation. It is therefore

important to establish whether Aslian languages are onset-driven, coda driven, or

bidirectional. It is too early to categorize all of the Aslian languages, but some initial

evidence is presented here.

22

But note Jambi's postploded nasal finals, mentioned in §3.2.

Jahai

According to Burenhult (2002:29), in addition to onset-driven nasalization, Jahai also exhibits

a type of regressive (coda-driven, or anticipatory) nasalization wherein words with an

underlying initial /b/ become nasalized to [m] if the following consonant is a nasal. This is

particularly apparent for words borrowed from Malay where the source word is well-known.

And as Burenhult points out, this can sometime lead to homophony.

Jahai English Malay

(60) mi.na.ta� 'animal' 'binatang'

(61) m�.n�� 'to win' 'menang'

(62) m�.n�� 'thread' 'benang'

Semai

Some dialects of Semai can be seen, although not always consistently, to nasalize initial

voiced plosives when the next consonant is nasal. This occurs often for the /b/, and

sometimes for other points of articulation.

Sungkai Tapah Pos Buntu Sungai Ruil Terisu English

(63) m.c��%t m.c��%t m.c��%n b.c��%t b.c�%t 'small'

(64) ���si%r �nsi%r ��nsi%r �nsi%r ��si%r 'husband'

(65) --- --- --- b��hu�%j m��h/0l 'spider'

(66) m�n�h --- b�n30h --- --- 'seed'

Diffloth (1968:68) found this type of alteration to be consistent in his PER and LIP dialects.

Temiar

According to Benjamin (1976b:148) Temiar initial voiced plosives in prefinal closed syllables

with a nasal coda freely alternate with the equivalent nasal consonant [b��deek] ~ [m��deek]

'space around a house'. Also, Temiar actually exhibits a reverse phenomenon wherein words

borrowed from Malay can optionally have their initial nasal consonant changed to its

homorganic voiced plosive if the next consonant in the words is also nasal (i.e. the word starts

with the sequence N1VN2…); for example, /�amo�/ � [�amo�] ~ [jamo�] 'mosquito' (from

Malay 'nyamuk').

5 Explanations

5.1 Whole-word nasality

Diffloth (1968:68) remarked that Semai seems to have a prosodic preference for making the

entire word either nasal or non-nasal. Preploded nasals can be analyzed as the progressive

denasalization of final nasals. This is certainly true in the cases where the progression has

continued to the point of reducing the final nasal to a simple plosive, as has already happened

in Perak Semai. The nasalization of initial voiced plosives (§3.2) also substantiates Diffloth's

claim.

5.2 All-or-nothing nasality

Blust (1997:161) speculates that languages with onset-driven nasality, as is the case with most

of the Austronesian languages, may attempt to eliminate contragrade nasality (spreading

leftwards) by either increasing or decreasing nasality until the syllable peak is fully nasalized

or not-nasalized.

Seidlitz (2005:100) referred to this phenomenon as "all or nothing nasality" and endeavored

to refine Blust's attempt to quantify nasality. Starting with Blust's (arbitrary) values for

different degrees of nasality, Seidlitz produced the following table:

Table 3. Blust's nasality values.

man mat ban bat

10 10 3 0

Table 3 consists of four hypothetical final syllables that cover the various possible

combinations of beginning and ending with nasal or non-nasal consonants. The arbitrary

scores are intended to capture the strength of nasality of the vowel (syllable peak).

Seidlitz (2005:101) then proceeded to argue that man is more nasal than mat; thus the table

should instead look more like the following:

Table 4. Seidlitz's modified nasality values.

man mat ban bat

10 7 3 0

If a language has "all or nothing nasality," it prefers scores of 10 ("all") or 0 ("none").

Syllables such as mat and ban are disallowed because their score is intermediate. Nasal

preplosion can be analyzed as a "fix" for ban by creating badn, which scores 0 (because the

syllable peak has no nasality) and therefore is allowed. The word mat is still disallowed,

however (Seidlitz 2005:102).

Table 5. All-or-nothing nasality values, including preploded badn.

man mat (disallowed) badn bat

10 7 0 0

Seidlitz (2005:102) went one last step and included prenasalized final plosives, as in mant,

which is found in Jakun. At this point all of the words in the following chart are allowed:

Table 6. All-or-nothing nasality values, including preploded and prenasalized plosives.

man mant badn bat

10 10 0 0

Note that Jakun is not an isolated case, since prenasalizing of final plosives was also seen in

Jambi Malay. Also, recall that the decomposed nasal of Jah Hut (§2.6) would render /mat/ as

[man�] phonetically, and man� would also achieve a score of 10 on this scale. Perhaps it is

not surprising, then, to note that Jah Hut is geographically a near neighbor of Jakun.

5.3 An Optimality Theory account

Optimality theory (OT) can be used to achieve an eloquent analysis of nasal preplosion. Very

briefly, OT uses ranked constraints to determine the surface (phonetic) form of a word.

Constraints are not absolute; they can be violated when dominated by higher ranking

constraints. The surface form depends on a given language's ranking of the constraints.

The following constraints will be needed for this analysis:

(67) IDENT-IO[NASV]

Corresponding input and output segments do not differ in nasality of the vowel.

(68) IDENT-IO[NASC]

Corresponding input and output segments do not differ in nasality of the consonant.

(69) NOCOMPLEX

No more than one C or V may association to any syllable position node.

(70) FINAL DEVOICING (or FD)

Voiced obstruents cannot occur in syllable coda.

Following Seidlitz's examples, let us look at the word hypothetical words ban, bat, man, and

mat. First, let us look at the input ban. As Seidlitz points out, for the word ban the vowel 'a'

undergoes at least a bit of anticipatory nasalization unless some sort of articulatory

mechanism, such as preplosion, blocks it. The leftmost column is a list of candidates,

violations are marked with '*', and the fatal violation with '!'. 23

The following tableau

illustrates the correct ranking for SE Semai, which exhibits "normal" nasal preplosion:

(71) SE Semai: IDENT-IO[NASV], IDENT-IO[NASC] >> NOCOMPLEX, FD

Input: ban IDENT-IO[NASV] IDENT-IO[NASC] NOCOMPLEX FD

a. ma 0n *!

b. ba 0n *!

c. � badn *

d. bad *!

e. bat *! *

In this tableau, the faithfulness of the feature [±NASAL] (as captured by the IDENT

constraints) is enough to select the correct candidate. However, for the words bat, man, and

mat the other constraint NOCOMPLEX and FINAL DEVOICING come into play.

(72)

Input: bat IDENT-IO[NASV] IDENT-IO[NASC] NOCOMPLEX FD

a. ma 0t *! *

b. ba 0n *! *

c. badn *! *

d. bad *!

e. � bat

23

"Fatal" means that the candidate is knocked out of contention at that point. Tableau cells are grayed

out where the candidate has already been eliminated by that point.

(73)

Input: ma 0n IDENT-IO[NASV] IDENT-IO[NASC] NOCOMPLEX FD

a. � ma 0n

b. ba 0n *!

c. ma 0dn *!

d. ma 0d *! *

e. ma 0t *!

(74)

Input: ma 0t IDENT-IO[NASV] IDENT-IO[NASC] NOCOMPLEX FD

a. ma 0n *!

b. ba 0t *!

c. ma 0dn *! *

d. ma 0d *

e. � ma 0t

Overall, the IO-Ident constraints are interchangeable, and together these two dominate the

remaining constraints NoComplex and Final Devoicing. Neither of the latter two dominates

the other. The rankings can thus be summarized as:

IDENT-IO[NASV], IDENT-IO[NASC] >> NOCOMPLEX, FINAL DEVOICING

Because IDENT-IO[NASV] and IDENT-IO[NASC] are unranked with respect to each other, it

would seem that they could be collapsed into one constraint. However, other dialects

necessitate that one dominates the other. For instance, in Perak Semai all preploded nasals

have been reduced to voiceless plosives. It turns out that this requires a different ranking of

the constraints, and this time no constraint is unranked with respect to another. The following

tableaux illustrate that the correct outputs are selected for Perak Semai using this ranking:

(75) Perak Semai: NOCOMPLEX >> IDENT-IO[NASV] >> IDENT-IO[NASC] >> FD

Input: ban NOCOMPLEX IDENT-IO[NASV] IDENT-IO[NASC] FD

a. ma 0n *!

d. ba 0n *!

e. badn *!

f. bad * *!

g. � bat *

(76)

Input: bat NOCOMPLEX IDENT-IO[NASV] IDENT-IO[NASC] FD

a. ma 0t *! *

d. ba 0n *! *

e. badn *! *

f. bad *!

g. � bat

(77)

Input: ma 0n NOCOMPLEX IDENT-IO[NASV] IDENT-IO[NASC] FD

a. � ma 0n

d. ba 0n *!

e. ma 0dn *!

f. ma 0d *! *

g. ma 0t *!

(78)

Input: ma 0t NOCOMPLEX IDENT-IO[NASV] IDENT-IO[NASC] FD

a. ma 0n *!

d. ba 0t *!

e. ma 0dn *!

f. ma 0d *!

g. � ma 0t

This brief analysis has demonstrated both how OT can be used to account for nasal preplosion

found in SE Semai and the related phenomenon wherein these nasals have been reduced to

voiceless plosives in Perak Semai. While no attempt has been made here to be exhaustive, it

is expected that OT accounts could be made for all the phenomena regarding nasals in Aslian

languages.

6 Conclusiodn

This paper has shown nasal preplosion to be a widespread phenomenon in Aslian languages,

with nearly every language showing at least some preplosion. There are also witnesses to

quite a variety of related phenomena, such as the so-called "decomposed" final plosives in Jah

Hut, the three-way contrast of different plosive and nasal endings in Temiar, the word-medial

preploded nasals in Kensiw.

Furthermore, a brief look at other languages in the geographical region, including Sumatra

and Borneo, revealed that nasal preplosion and these other phenomena are to be found to a

greater extent than previously suspected. What does this information add to Adelaar's (1995)

daring suggestion that some of the peoples in North Borneo could originally have been

speakers of an Aslian-related language?

Only a few of the Aslian languages have been studied in any depth. It seems that as each new

level of research is carried out, more treasures are uncovered. Each new step of research is

revealing more about the ancestoral language of the Orang Asli and enhancing our

understanding of the history these "Original People" of the Malaysian Peninsula.

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