Articulatory Variability in Word-Final Japanese Moraic-Nasals: An X-ray Microbeam Study(<Feature Articles>Articulatory Phonetics: Focus on Japanese)

Abstract

The place of articulation in Japanese moraic-nasals is known to vary in accordance with the following sound and is assumed to be uvular in the word final position. This paper attempted to describe articulatory variability of word-final moraic-nasals using the X-ray microbeam speech production database in Japanese. The results depicted substantive inter-speaker variability in three of the four words examined. Moreover, 75% of the data examined were deemed unlikely to be uvular nasals and the lips were likely to be closed in 40% of the data. The results do not support the claim that word-final moraic-nasals are uvular.