Nasal consonants, sonority and syllable phonotactics: the dual nasal hypothesis

Abstract

We investigate the phonotactic behaviour of nasal consonants in a database of over 200 languages. Our findings challenge the common classification of nasals as intermediate between obstruents and liquids on the sonority hierarchy. Instead, we propose that there are two types of nasal consonants, one group with lower sonority than liquids and one with higher sonority. We propose that these two types of nasals differ in the presence or absence of a value for the feature [±continuant].