final n

[Campbell, R Joe]

John,

   Your questions have sent me back to listening to field recordings to 
assure myself of what I  1) thought I  2) remembered hearing  (in some 
cases, not a few
years ago).  But I have now realized that it may take me weeks, so I 
wanted to get back to you with some thoughts (although based on stale 
memories).

   In the speech of someone from San Agustin Oapa, Guerrero, where you 
can frequently anticipate that people are "n droppers" just by hearing 
their Spanish (i.e., my friend says "ellos toca"), I hear no trace of 
nasality in the final vowel.  In fact, the final vowels of much of 
highland Mexican Spanish trail off in voicing (visible in a sound 
spectrogram), matching the description of what an [h] is and is 
perceived by people not accustomed to Mexican Spanish as actually 
*being* an [h], which for people from /s/ aspirating dialects can be 
perceived as being intended as an /s/.

   As I said, I don't hear a voiceless nasal as the result of what I am 
calling "nasal dropping".  Some years ago, I recorded some Tarascan 
speech.  The Tarascan voiceless nasals practically jump off the tape at 
you (I was going to say  "literally", but we overuse that enough 
already), so there is no doubt in my mind or ear what a *voiceless 
nasal* sounds like.

   I would like to separate some of the issues in our cracker barrel 
discussion, so I'll continue in a separate message.

Iztayohmeh,

Joe


Quoting "John Sullivan, Ph.D." <idiez at mac.com>:

> Joe,
> 	What have you heard then in these cases? If nican, for example,
> doesn't end in a voiceless nasal, are you saying that it ends in a
> non-nasal aspiration? Or have you heard a voiced n in this position?
> The native speakers I work with can distinguish between the sound of
> the final n in nican and the final h in oncah.
>  John



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