The palatal nasal is one of French’s most variable consonants with attested variants including [ɲ] alongside [nj] and, less frequently, [n] and [ŋ]. Variation is conditioned by both linguistic (position in the word, lexical item, flanking vowels) and speaker variables (in particular, variety). Except for insights provided by the studies reviewed in Recasens (2013), little is known of the articulatory properties of French /ɲ/ including the degree of inter-varietal and -speaker variation or the proportion of coronal and velar depalatalized realizations. We present here an electropalatographic (EPG) study of two European (EF) and two Quebec French (QF) speakers’ /ɲ/ production in both word-medial and -final positions in isolated and contextualized words. Quantitative indices and qualitative investigation of the linguopalatal contact profiles reveal that the EF speakers produced a relatively anterior /ɲ/, differing minimally from /n/ followed by /j/. Whereas one of their QF peers produced uniquely backed velar realizations of /ɲ/, the other speaker had fronted alveolopalatal variants word-medially versus backed velar realizations word-finally, with the latter differing minimally from the /ŋ/ of jogging. These findings are consistent with pathways to depalatalization observed in other Romance varieties and call into question the phonemic status of the palatal nasal in French.

中文翻译：

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魁北克语和六角法语中腭鼻音脱腭化的途径：一项 EPG 研究

腭鼻音是法语中变化最大的辅音之一，已证实的变体包括 [ɲ] 和 [nj]，以及不太常见的 [n] 和 [ŋ]。变异取决于语言变量（单词中的位置、词汇、侧翼元音）和说话人变量（特别是多样性）。除了 Recasens (2013) 中综述的研究提供的见解外，人们对法语 /ɲ/ 的发音特性知之甚少，包括品种间和说话者变异的程度或冠状和腭腭化实现的比例。我们在此提出了一项电子腭位图 (EPG) 研究，研究对象是两名欧洲人 (EF) 和两名魁北克法语 (QF) 使用者在孤立词和语境化单词中的词中位置和词尾位置上的 /ɲ/ 发音。舌腭接触轮廓的定量指标和定性研究表明，EF 说话者产生相对靠前的 /ɲ/，与 /n/ 和随后的 /j/ 的差异很小。虽然他们的一位 QF 同行产生了独特的 /ɲ/ 的支持软腭实现，但另一位说话者则将前面的齿龈腭变体置于单词中间，而将支持的软腭实现置于词尾，后者与 /ŋ/ 的差异很小。乔吉吴。这些发现与在其他罗曼语变体中观察到的去腭化途径一致，并对法语中腭鼻音的音位状态提出了质疑。