Post-Nasal Devoicing as a Sound Change

1.1. Post-nasal voicing (T > D / N ) is well attested and phonetically well motivated, both as a synchronic process and as a sound change. Locke (1983) identifies 15 of 197 languages with synchronic post-nasal voicing (PNV).1 Voicing of stops in post-nasal position is phonetically well motivated: it is the result of a combination of nasal leak and “compression” by the velum (Hayes and Stivers 2000). Moreover, it has been shown that speakers produce more passive phonetic voicing on voiceless stops in post-nasal position than elsewhere, even in systems without phonological PNV, such as English (Hayes and Stivers 2000). This means that PNV is a universal phonetic tendency.2