Voice–Nasality Interaction and Headedness in Voiceless Nasals

Most recent work in Element Theory assumes that nasality and true voicing are represented by the same element, where the headed element encodes voicing and the dependent element nasality (Backley, 2011; Nasukawa, 1999, 2000, 2005, et alii). This assumption is questioned here and it is proposed that the voicing–nasality contrast may be encoded the other way around. It is argued that this hypothesis is in better agreement with the means by which headedness may encode additional information at phonetic interpretation. Under the assumption of an L/H-Parameter, it is shown how, in line with Lombardi (1991) and Botma (2005), only H-systems can possibly encode voiceless (or more properly aspirated) nasals and how the hypothesis that headed |L| encodes nasality provides a better fit for these systems.