NASAL PALATAL APPROXIMANT Meaning and
Definition
-
The term "nasal palatal approximant" refers to a specific type of consonant sound produced by the human vocal tract. It is a phonetic sound that combines features of both nasality and palatal articulation.
A "nasal palatal approximant" is created when the velum (the soft part of the roof of the mouth towards the back) lowers to allow air to pass through the nasal cavity while the middle part of the tongue approaches the hard part of the palate (the roof of the mouth towards the front). This creates a constriction in the vocal tract that allows the sound to be articulated. The sound is characterized by a smooth gliding motion of the tongue and a nasal resonance, due to the passage of air through the nose.
This sound is relatively rare in the world's languages, but examples of languages that include the nasal palatal approximant in their phonetic inventory are French, Portuguese, and Catalan. In these languages, the sound is often represented by a letter like "nh" or "ñ" in writing.
The nasal palatal approximant is considered to be a voiced sound, meaning that it is produced with the vocal cords vibrating. It is also classified as an approximant, indicating that the articulators come close together, but not enough to create a turbulent airflow characteristic of fricatives or stops.
Overall, the nasal palatal approximant is a specific phonetic sound with features of nasality and articulation towards the palatal region, commonly found in certain languages.
