Re: Niggahiita in IPA?

(Dhammanando)

> Without the bridge [n] can represent either a dental or an
> alveolar nasal. Though I haven't yet done so, I may yet
> encounter some regional pronunciation where Pali n is
> realized as an alveolar sound and the subscript bridge will
> then be necessary for disambiguation.

This is correct.  I thought that your remark:

> I am not concerned here with how the niggahiita is generally
> realised in Buddhist countries today,

would apply here.


(Rett)

> I've been experimenting with trying to pronounce these
> alternatives, and wonder exactly what you mean by 'coalescing'.

Just that the two sounds (the vowel and the following niggahiita)
become one sound.

> Suppose I am to pronounce suddhi.m.  Do I start with an
> instant's pure short i sound which then completely nasalizes
> and ends abrubtly (Junghare?) or just pronounce a long
> partially nasalised /i/ without any pure initial /i/
> (your position?)? Or some other combination of those
> variables? I.e. is the coalescence total, or is there a
> quick but perceptible glide from unnasalized vowel into
> nasalization?

Junghare says that the word is pronounced

      [suddh~i]

with a final short nasalized vowel.  I say it is pronounced

      [suddhi~i]

with a final long vowel the second half of which is nasalized. There is
at least one other possibility, that it is pronounced

      [suddh~i~i]

with a final long nasalized vowel.  (In these phonetic representations,
everything is proper IPA except 'dh'.  Imagine that the appropriate IPA
symbol appears in its place.)  As Ole Pind points out, there is reason
to think that the final syllable of this word has a long vowel rather
than a short one.  But whether the second two representations are
audibly distinct is not clear.  I would not expect to find a language
in which this difference distinguishes one word from another.

> Also, where is the location of stricture? Is it related to the
> normal point of articulation of the vowel? I.e. would /i.m/ be
> partially or completely nasalized by a partial or complete oral
> stricture that is farther forward than that of /a.m/ or /u.m/?

The articulatory position of [~i] is the same as for [i] (and this goes
for any vowel): the tongue blade raised from its neutral position.
Nasalization is produced by lowering the velum allowing air to escape
into the nasal passage.  This effect does not interact with the
determination of vowel quality.

(Eisel)

Re:

> >       a.m = a~a
> >       i.m = i~i
> >       u.m = u~u
> >       e.m = e~e
> >       o.m = o~o

> So far as the actual glyph is concerned, it may be worth considering
> that we could translterate the anuswara into Roman script as ... the
> anuswara.  There are about a dozen ways to insert a [Unicode] circle
> that either resembles the Sinhala or 'Nagari anuswara --be it above
or
> to the right of the vowel.

> If we're departing from the IPA to invent a new superscript symbol
> anyway ... why not stick with the one we've been using for 2000
years?
> The anuswara is, presumably, the only symbol universal to all Pali
> scripts... it would be amusing if that included romanized Pali as
> well.

Ah, but we are precisely not departing from IPA.  Your proposal would,
since the IPA symbol for vowel nasalization is the tilde, not the small
circle. 


It occurs to me that one way to make sense of the Sanskrit
phoneticians' statement (and also Buddhaghosa's) that anusvaara (or
niggahiita) is without point of articulation though the mouth is
closed, etc. is that this is their way to deal with a sound which
changes its phonetic properties depending on its surroundings.  They
mean something like: this sound has no fixed point of articulation, but
all of its variants have a (different) point of articulation.  There is
a long way to go to construe what they say as support for Junghare's or
my interpretation.  But this goes part way, and seems to me preferable
to taking their statements as internally contradictory.  I was a little
hard on Sharma yesterday.  It may only be fair to point out that the
second half of his paper consists of examples how anusvaara is actually
pronounced in his tradition of recitation.  That is not Pali but Vedic.


My thanks to all who have contributed to this on-going discussion.  If
I may play the professor a bit again, I would strongly recommend the
late Peter Ladefoged's 'A Course in Phonetics' (third edition),
Harcourt Brace, 1993.  Ladefoged was instrumental in the recent
development of IPA.  His book is both easy to read and authoritative if
anyone wants to learn more about phonetics.

George Bedell

Post scriptum: I have received another round today (5/18), but am too
tired to reply or adapt the above.  Maybe tomorrow.


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George Bedell
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correspondence in Japanese may be addressed to
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