Talk:Pre-stopped consonant

Superscripts vs breves

I don't find the use of the breve very congenial, to be honest. And the reference to Broderick is incomplete. -- Evertype·✆ 11:57, 8 July 2010 (UTC)

You're the one who added it! :-p Anyway, I've filled in the details now. +Angr 10:00, 10 July 2010 (UTC)

Must've been pasted in from somewhere as I don't actually have that volume and would not typically use that citation style. -- Evertype·✆ 06:47, 11 July 2010 (UTC)

Origin of this term

Am I right in thinking that the use of the term 'preocclusion' in this context is due to N J A Williams? Is it not perhaps a little misleading, suggesting that there is some added 'occlusion' compared to a sustained nasal stop, whereas in fact the actual change is not the addition of any extra occlusion (which was present all along), but rather the delay in the onset of airflow through the nasal passages, i.e. delayed nasalisation. How is this process usually described in linguistic publications --- cross references?? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.152.208.45 (talk) 13:42, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Technically you're correct. The most common term for these, "pre-stopped nasal", it just as wrong. "Pre(-)ploded nasal" and "preplosion" are common terms in Austronesian and Mon–Khmer; not as common as "prestopped", but more than "preoccluded". — kwami (talk) 00:47, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Moved to the Austronesianist term. — kwami (talk) 19:19, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Moved back to the Celticist term. -- Evertype·✆ 09:41, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Section on Cornish

Something is wrong with the description of the Cornish sound change: /bm/ becomes [bm]? Oh really? What I'd expect is to see basically the same as in the Manx section: /m/ becomes [bm], which is actual pre-occlusion.

Also, doesn't this phenomenon occur in the Sami languages (especially Northern Sami) as well, at least with nasals (just like in Cornish)? Just think of Sápmi. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 23:50, 29 April 2011 (UTC)

merge?

Basically a content fork with the stub Prestopped consonant; we don't normally separate synchronic from diachronic phonetics. This article has the older history, but I'm not sure about the best location. ("Prestopped" is a bit of a misnomer, since nasals are stops, but it's more common, and nasals are also occlusives, so that's also a bit of a misnomer: an occlusive [ɲ] may be "deoccluded" to become [j̃].) "Palatalized consonant" rd's to palatalization, so s.t. along that line would be consistent.

Per the preceding objection (that nasals are occlusives), the Austronesian term "pre-plosion / preplosion" may be best. Both "preplosion" and "preocclusion" have uses outside phonetics, however.

At GBooks, I'm getting 678 hits prestopped consonant (w/o quotes), 320 preploded/plosive consonant, 181 preoccluded/occlusive consonant; 585 "pre(-)stopped nasal" (with quotes), 55 "pre(-)ploded/plosive nasal", and 2 "pre(-)occluded/occlusive nasal". — kwami (talk) 00:41, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

Inappropriate unilateral move by Kwami

I am a bit disgusted by this. Frankly I have never heard the term "pre-plosion" before, and the only term used for this in Cornish linguistics is "pre-occlusion". But what the bejesus is Kwami doing making a whole huge set of moves based on NO consensus discussion or in fact no discussion at all? The last time I visited here I made it plain that I did not think a merge was appropriate. Now I am back, and Kwami has done what the bloody hell he wants. This is not Being Bold. It's totally inappropriate. -- Evertype·✆ 19:28, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

You didn't make anything clear; in fact, you made no argument at all. Now you're upset that I didn't consider an opinion you never bothered to give?

As it happens I did write a response to the proposal for merger but for one reason or another it never got saved to the wiki. I am sorry about that but there is nothing that can be done about it now. I do not think that these articles should be merged. -- Evertype·✆ 09:33, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

And really, your argument is one of ignorance? If I've never heard of a word in an article title, do I get to move it based on nothing more than that? — kwami (talk) 03:00, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

That was uncivil. I have been working with Cornish linguistics for well over a decade. There is only one term used: Pre-occlusion. All you have done is imposed (as you often do) your own take on linguistics and terminology, and in this case, by using statistics from Google books. -- Evertype·✆ 09:31, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

It's not my take, it's what I found in the lit when responding to the objection above. — kwami (talk) 09:45, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Pre-occlusion is also the only term used for it in Manx linguistics. I think a requested move would have been in order. Kwami, would you be willing to move it back to Pre-occlusion to allow a discussion to take place? Angr (talk) 20:24, 7 April 2012 (UTC)

A requested move would have been in order if there had been any reason to think there would be a problem.

"Pre-occlusion" may be the most common term in Celtic linguistics, but overall it's the least common of the three synonyms (pre-occluded, pre-plosive, and pre-stopped). As one editor objected above (with no contradiction), it's also misleading, as [n] is already an occlusive. The same objection holds for "pre-stopped", which is by far the most common term for this. As for Celtic vs. Austronesian vs. whatever, there's no need to balkanize terminology this way. We're free to call it "pre-occlusion" in Celtic articles, and "pre-plosion" in Austronesian articles, and "pre-stopping" in the majority of articles, but they refer to the same phenomenon and there should be one article to explain it. As for which title would be best, I suppose we could simply follow WP:COMMONNAME and move this to pre-stopped consonant ("pre-stopping" seems a bit generic, though I suppose we could have "pre-stopping (phonetics)"). The current title is a compromise: a compromise between the two articles which were merged, a compromise between the most and least common terms, and a concession to precision, by not choosing either of the two terms which are technically incorrect. Technical precision is the only argument I can see for having the article here rather than at "pre-stopped"; the only argument for the previous title would be walled-garden ownership, which is not valid. Unless Everytpe would like to make an audible argument based on something other than ignorance and indignation? — kwami (talk) 03:00, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Ladefoged uses "prestopped"; he explains that he prefers to reserve the term "stop" for C's in which there is a stop in airflow, and therefore says "nasal" rather than "nasal stop". In ELL2, I'm only finding "prestopped" as well. — kwami (talk) 03:35, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

There is a problem. There is no reason to impose an alien terminology on Celtic linguistics. We don't use "generic" terminology as you would have it. We use the term pre-occlusion. This is an important and notable feature of Cornish and Manx, and the fact that you have re-routed its terminology to this page is prejudicial against the terminology we actually use. I agree with Angr, and am going to move it back to Pre-occlusion to allow discussion to take place. -- Evertype·✆ 09:31, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

This is ridiculous. You don't get your own little fiefdom. We don't have articles "voiced alveolar stop (Celtic)" and "voiced alveolar stop (Germanic)", we just have "voiced alveolar stop". If you don't like the 2nd-most-common name, then we'll go with the most common name. It isn't "prejudicial", any more than it's prejudicial to have the article on "America" at United States, or that we use metric units, and if you wish to continue to use "pre-occlusion" in Celtic articles, by all means do so. But perhaps you should read up a bit on WP policies, and recognize that this is an encyclopedia, before you start crying foul because your favoured sub-sub-discipline is not recognized as universal by the rest of the world. I'll move it to the WP:COMMONNAME while you justify why we should move it to minority usage. — kwami (talk) 09:45, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

CALM DOWN. It isn't your fiefdom either. A proposal was made to merge. I did try to object. That wasn't seen. I object to what you've done, and I've moved it back and made terminological edits to make it make better sense. There is NO reason you must rush to move it back to favour your POV on what is the common name. Please do not abuse the Wikipedia guidelines. The moves that YOU made are controversial. Two editors have asked for the previous status quo to be restored pending discussion. I've moved it back to that. Kindly respect this. -- Evertype·✆ 09:50, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

I object to your moving the article again to Pre-stopped consonant. There was no consensus for this move. Kindly move the article back to Pre-occlusion. -- Evertype·✆ 09:55, 8 April 2012 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was: not moved. It's possible that there may be consensus for a move to Pre-stopping since this article is about the process and not the consonants. Note that if pre-occlusion is ambiguous, that should be addressed even though this move was not carried out, since pre-occlusion redirects here. -- JHunterJ (talk) 17:11, 25 April 2012 (UTC)

---

Pre-stopped consonant → Pre-occlusion – relisting for further discussion. -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:05, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

See sections above:

• User:Kwami (the mover): ""Pre(-)ploded nasal" and "preplosion" are common terms in Austronesian and Mon–Khmer; not as common as "prestopped", but more than "preoccluded"."
• User:Evertype: "Frankly I have never heard the term "pre-plosion" before, and the only term used for this in Cornish linguistics is "pre-occlusion."
• User:Angr "Pre-occlusion is also the only term used for it in Manx linguistics"

All the sources currently used in the article use the term "pre-occlusion"?

Google books:

• "pre-stopped consonant" 3 books[1].
• "pre-stopped nasal" 173 books [2]
• "pre-occlusion" nasal OR consonant 102 books [3]

--Enric Naval (talk) 10:47, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

Oppose per sources. Many of your "pre-occlusion" hits are for respiratory, coronary, and sleep disorders, not for language. "Pro-occlusion" in phonetics/phonology is quite rare. 'Pre-occluded' is used for Celtic (and Germanic?), 'pre-ploded' for Austronesian, Mon-Khmer, and Australian, but both appear to be limited regionally.

As I listed above, at GBooks I got 585 hits for "pre(-)stopped nasal" (with quotes), 55 "pre(-)ploded/plosive nasal", and 2 "pre(-)occluded/occlusive nasal". Also, per the objection above, "pre-occlusion" is misleading, as that would mean [dn] is a "pre-occluded occlusive".

Now that I look at it, many of my earlier hits for pre-occlusion + consonant (without quotes) were off the mark as well. Hits for preoccluded/sion + consonant are often speaking of things like pre-occlusion aspiration, or even medical occlusion, and have nothing to do with this.

Now I'm getting only one hit for "pre(-)occluded nasal/lateral", Laver (1994) Principles of Phonetics, who uses that term but not "pre(-)occlusion".

"Pre(-)stopped nasal/lateral" gets 18+56+7+7 hits (nominally 88, but probably some overlap). Looking only at general works, we get 'prestopped' in the The Blackwell Companion to Phonology, International encyclopedia of linguistics, Journal of the Academy of Rehabilitative Audiology, Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, Sounds of the World's Languages, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics, and K&K's Generative phonology, none of which use of 'pre(-)occluded/sion' as far as I can see.

In my earlier search, I had noticed 'pre-occlusion' re. Faroese. But now I find Kristján Árnason (2011) The Phonology of Icelandic and Faroese, which uses 'prestopped/ing', but not 'pre-occluded/sion'. (Same for Bandle (2005) The Nordic Languages.)

Your question: No, Mielke (2008) uses "pre-stopped" and "pre-stopping", as does every ref in the bibliography. As we expand the article to other languages, that term will become more common in our sources. — kwami (talk) 18:59, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

• Kwami's argument is entirely reasonable. Tony (talk) 06:32, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

• Oppose pre-occlusion is a medical term, usually, thus if this were renamed to include "pre-occlusion", then pre-occlusion itself should be a disambiguation page. (someone should convert it to one immediately) 70.24.248.211 (talk) 10:35, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
• Support move or split Pre-occlusion is the only term for this in Celtic linguistics, and other terms are really not known. Having merged these articles makes it look as though Celtic linguistics is mistaken in using the terminology it does. But that is not the case. Fifteen years I have worked with Cornish, and pre-occlusion is the term used. I would be perfectly happy to have the articles split back they way they were. What I am not happy about is Kwami doing his own blunt-instrument statistical analysis of Googlebooks, assuming that this is some sort of Gospel. He is quick to Oppose per sources but he is also quick to belittle any form of linguistics he doesn't like. Celtic linguistics is only a "sub-sub-topic" according to him. Look at his Talk page. Someone criticized him for not knowing how to pronounce Turkish, and he called that person a dick. He has been report 59 times on the Wikipedia noticeboard. This encyclopaedia does not have a huge number of articles about Austronesian languages and their consonants, and indeed all of the interesting information in this article is about Manx, Cornish, and Faroese, and if you'll look at the history you'll see that I am responsible for most of that content. I'm not owning the article, but I will say that I take a very dim view of Kwami's incessant attempts to re-shape all the linguistic articles in this encyclopaedia to suit his personal preferences. He merged and moved all of this to pre-plosion and you'll see he's not even arguing for that mistaken blunder any longer. But he'll cite Googlebooks as though it meant something. I would be perfectly happy to have this article back where it was for a LONG TIME, under pre-occlusion. Kwami has contributed nothing of value to this article. He just wants to reform the terminology we use in Celtic linguistics, because he doesn't like it. His edits produce more noise than anything else. But he has to bully and win, every time, he finds ways to do it. It's a shame. I used to admire his work on the encyclopaedia. -- Evertype·✆ 23:12, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

I understand that it's hard to comment on content and not contributors, but you've already had your day in court regarding Kwami. So let's just focus on the issue and not turn this into a personality conflict.

It's my understanding that this phenomenon is not limited to European languages. Kwami seems to be saying that the term is not used outside of linguistic studies of European languages. The article currently focuses on those European languages, but this may be more of an issue of worldliness than of relevance. Does the literature share this bias in overrepresenting European instances of this phenomenon? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 01:16, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't know that 'pre-occluded' is limited to Europe, but I've only found it in descriptions of Celtic and Faroese, and for the latter 'prestopped' appears to be quite a bit more common. Likewise, I don't know that 'pre-ploded' is limited to SE Asia and Oceania, but that's where I've seen it. 'Prestopped' is also found in that area; it seems to be the only term that is universal, found in Europe (Icelandic, Saami), Asia, the Pacific, and America, with the single exception of Celtic. General linguistic and phonology references generally do not mention this about the Celtic languages. Actually, it's not uncommon for this phenomenon to not be mentioned at all, but when it is SEA/Auslalia seems to be more common. The GBook hits aren't even close. Unless there's something about Celtic prestopping that makes it different from prestopping in all other languages—and I see no reason to believe there is—then this is just a matter of preferred terminology, and splitting the article would be a WP:content fork. It's easy enough to say that the phenomenon goes by three different names, with regional preferences. — kwami (talk) 02:44, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

This is not a RS, of course, but from a discussion on LinguistList:[4]

Icelandic isn't the only place pre-stopping of sonorants shows up: Faroese has it, as does Manx and Cornish (and some dialects of Northern English?). Realizations of pre-occlusion, as I've heard Celticists call it, varies between those languages.

And from Helgason (2002) Preaspiration in the Nordic Languages, p 149:

laterals and nasals that have undergone “pre-stopping” ... [fn] Changes similar to this have occurred in various Nordic dialects, as well as in Saami and Scots Gaelic, and thus constitute an areal feature like preaspiration.

Helgason only uses 'preocclusive/dded' in Preocclusive aspirations, that is, pre-aspirated stops.

Botma (2004) Phonological Aspects of Nasality, which gives the general phenomenon a fair amount of coverage (more than I've seen elsewhere), called it 'prestopping' and 'preplosion', the latter apparently because that's what Blust uses in the example languages. 'Pre-occlusion' does not appear.

Anderson (1976) Nasal Consonants and the Internal Structure of Segments notes that as "noted in the literature, a variety of languages display another type [of nasal C], referred to as 'postnasalized stops' or 'pre-stopped nasals'." Again, a general discussion of nasality, and this is the term used.

In GScholar, "pre(-)stopped nasal/lateral" gets 53 hits, which do not overlap AFAICT, while "pre(-)stopped nasal/lateral" gets 3 hits.

Those 3 hits are interesting. One is from a handout from a talk at MPI-EVA Leipzig on Malay. Another is in La Nasalisation des Occlusives à la Périphérie syllabique en Karitiana et en Urueuwauwau, on Amazonian languages, where it appears in a quote from the Laver (1994) phonology text I mentioned above. The third is on the UPSID database (From UPSID to PRUPSID: A Phonetic Reanalysis of the UCLA Phonological Segment Inventory Database). They also quote Laver:

Depending on the interplay between oral or nasal onset and offset, four of these complex stops may emerge when “the feature of velic state is allowed to change its value within the medial phase of the segment concerned, asynchronously from the continuing oral closure” (Laver 1994: 227). They are pre-nasal oral stops, e.g. [ᵐb]; post-nasal oral stops, e.g. [bᵐ]; pre-occluded nasal stops, e.g. [ᵇm]; and post-occluded nasal stops, e.g. [mᵇ]. Note that affricates can also have the pre-nasal attribute. Maddieson (1984: 167) recognizes only pre-nasal oral stops and post-nasal oral stops. Pre- and post-occluded nasal stops are ignored in UPSID.*

and then in the footnote,

* However, in The Sounds of the World’s Languages (Ladefoged & Maddieson 1996: 127-9), mention is made of contrastive use of pre- and post-occluded nasal stops. The authors prefer the terms pre- and post-stopped nasals though.

I think it's pretty clear that the terms refer to the same phenomenon. — kwami (talk) 03:14, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

We still do not have consensus. This article should be about the processes, not any particular consonant. The name Pre-stopped consonant implies that it's talking about individual consonants. But the article is better served with a title that indicates process. Pre-aspiration is a process (not this one, but a related one). But we can't use words like stoppage or stopping. That's why the words pre-occlusion and post-occlusion exist: to describe the process. Kwami can try to do statistical analyses on what terminology he finds (on the internet) and he can decide that he thinks that this means that this is "the most common name", but he's not actually spending time working on languages with pre-occlusion, or contributing to the content of this article. Someone like me, on the other hand, has provided content here, and in fact I am preparing to publish a 492-page Cornish grammar written by Nicholas Williams. We certainly don't use the term pre-stopped consonant. We use the traditional term, pre-occlusion. The OED defines occlusion thus: 4. Phonetics. The momentary closure of the breath passage during the articulation of an orally released consonant, or of the mouth passage during the articulation of a nasal consonant. I notice above that the terms Pre- and post-occluded nasal stops is used. I would like to suggest a way forward. Remember, this article was at Pre-occlusion before Kwami moved it to Pre-plosion. But that did not attract consensus; neither does the current title. I would like to suggest Occlusion (linguistics) as a process-based name. We can then also discuss terminological differences in the article. -- Evertype·✆ 20:51, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

"Occlusion" would be a much broader article.

It's not just GBooks and Scholar, but the general reference works I have available: Ladefoged, the ELL, etc. You have apparently not been able to find anything to contradict them.

"we can't use words like ... stopping". Why not? Our references do.

There were two articles, not one. This was a merger of a WP:content fork. I tried a compromise name, 'pre-plosion', not so rare or restricted as the one you use, and more amenable to your concerns than the present one, but you would have none of it. You are pushing for a rare, marginal usage because it's used in what you're working on, but this is an encyclopedia, and we do try for universal coverage and a world view when possible.

If people who are not so specialized agree that we should use your term, fine. Perhaps you could post notice of this move proposal at Wikiprojects Languages and Linguistics. — kwami (talk) 21:09, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

Evertype, so far you have not refuted the claim that the term isn't used outside of Celtic and Faroese, nor that literature more often talks about non-European instances of the phenomenon. So that you are a specialist with these European languages or that you have provided meaningful contributions to Wikipedia on them doesn't help your case.

However, you have made an interesting claim: that "pre-occlusion" is the more traditional term. Do you think you could provide evidence for this claim? — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 22:04, 17 April 2012 (UTC)

(my impression was that he meant traditional in Celtic, which would certainly seem to be the case: "pre-occlusion, as I've heard Celticists call it" in LL; "prestopped" only used for Celtic in more general works, etc. — kwami (talk) 22:37, 17 April 2012 (UTC))

• I see that some admin has decided that discussion is over. Thanks for nothing, Wikipedia. -- Evertype·✆ 12:50, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

  Unclosing my closure; we'll see if consensus can be formed given another week. My aborted closing note: "It's possible that there may be consensus for a move to Pre-stopping since this article is about the process and not the consonants. Note that if pre-occlusion is ambiguous, that should be addressed even though this move was not carried out, since pre-occlusion redirects here." -- JHunterJ (talk) 13:05, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

• Comment - As long as pre-occlusion redirects here, people who encounter that term in the course of learning about Cornish and Manx will find what they're looking for, and as long as the lead sentence mentions pre-occlusion as one of the possible names the phenomenon goes by, they won't be confused. The sections that discuss it in Cornish and Manx should also use that term since that's the term the sources use. As long as all those conditions are true, I don't care much what name the article goes by, though I do think it should be some sort of verbal noun like "pre-occlusion", "pre-plosion", or "pre-stopping", since the article is about a phonological process, not a particular type of consonant. Angr (talk) 14:55, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Inappropriate tag removal by Kwamikagami

The intro of the articles mentions has 6 terms in bold flying around without any citation. Also confusing that the first three do not match with the article title "Pre-stopped consonant". I requested citation but was reverted by Kwamikagami. [5]. Then this user runs to my talk and gives me a warning because I had requested citation, calling it plastering articles [6]. I am sick of this user's behavior. HTML2011 (talk) 11:19, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Did you notice the discussion above? Why not tag all six for citations? While you're at it, you should tag voiceless palatal approximant as well: you have no citation that that term is actually used. — kwami (talk) 11:22, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps, rather than six separate citations as HTML2011 suggests, you could provide a single explanatory footnote pointing to sources that use the respective terms. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[ãːɱ ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɪ̃ə̃nlɪ]} 16:17, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

In English?

I came to this page in the midst of a discussion as to how to transcribe the "dn" of (non-enunciated) English "hadn't" in IPA. I think this is the best explanation I've come across thus far (also applying to "wouldn't," "couldn't," "shouldn't," "sadden" [with syllabic [n] ], and so on). Should this be incorporated into the article? Does it need references verifying the use of the pre-stopped alveolar nasal in English?

Thanks,

— BlueCaper (talk) 18:51, 27 February 2015 (UTC)

I'm not sure if it's really the case that English wouldn't, hadn't, etc. have a pre-stopped nasal. The most important thing to look at would be timing, as a pre-stopped consonant would take about as much time as another consonant. It would probably be a good idea to find sourcing that expands on the information in the lede. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 20:21, 27 February 2015 (UTC)