Cantonese nasal-stop alternation

In Cantonese phonology, a close relationship exists between the nasal codas (-m, -n, -ŋ) and the stop codas (-p, -t, -k). These two types of codas can also be classified into three homorganic pairs: the bilabial m/p, the dental n/t, and the velar ŋ/k. Some of the correspondences trace back to Old Chinese, or developed as a historical coincidence of sound change. However, many pairs exist that are solely Cantonese and not found in Classical Chinese.

This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.