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The bilabial nasal /m/

quickinfo

Features

A possible feature specification of /m/ is +sonorant, +labial, -coronal, -velar, +nasal.

Phonotactic behaviour

/m/ can occur in onset clusters of one or two consonants, such as in 1a and 1b respectively. Furthermore, it can occur in simple codas, like in 2a, and in complex codas, such as in 2b and 2c.

Example 1

Onset

man

smal

narrow

Example 2

Coda

ham

bite

lamp

arm

poor

Behaviour after schwa

Schwa + /m/ sequences behave differently from other schwa + sonorant sequences. In particular, they choose the allomorph –er of the agentive suffix, rather than –aar:

Example 3

adem-er

*adem-aar

breather

Articulatory information
Acoustic properties of /m/
Examples

[+]Articulatory information

Dutch /m/ is a bilabial nasal. Dutch /m/ does not display significant variation (Collins and Mees 2003).

Bilabial

Speech sounds produced at bilabial place of articulation (with a constriction at the lips). See human speech organs.

Nasal

Speech sounds produced with a simultaneous oral closure and a lowered velum, allowing air to escape through the nose. See the speech organs.

Figure 1: The human speech organs

[click image to enlarge]

[+]Acoustic properties of /m/

Bilabial

in obstruents, noise or noise bursts characterised by a relatively flat spectrum (diffuse energy), and formant transitions (all formants are lowered in the vicinity of a bilabial).
in nasals, indicated by the presence of low frequency (1000 Hz) anti-formants, or spectral valleys.

Nasal

consonant involving low-amplitude, vowel-like periodicity. Typically characterised on a spectrogram by the presence of anti-formants (spectral valleys).

Dutch /m/ is a voiced bilabial nasal.

[+]Examples

Table 1: Soundfiles, waveforms and spectrograms of the above sound files, with indications of the relevant acoustic parameters of Northern Standard Dutch /m/

wordgroup	phonological context	soundfile	waveform/spectrogram
mei 1991 May 1991	word-initial		[click image to enlarge]
afstand van je moeten nemen must take distance from you	intervocalic		[click image to enlarge]
en rum drinkende piraten and rum-drinking pirates	word-final		[click image to enlarge]

Table 2: Soundfiles, waveforms and spectrograms of the above sound files, with indications of the relevant acoustic parameters of Southern Standard Dutch /m/

wordgroup	phonological context	soundfile	waveform/spectrogram
in mei 1847 in May 1847	word-initial		[click image to enlarge]
een bad nemen to take a bath	intervocalic		[click image to enlarge]
rum en cola met veel rum rum and coke with a lot of rum	word-final		[click image to enlarge]