Perceptual Confusabiltiy of Word-final Nasals in Southern Min and Mandarin: Implications for Coda Nasal Mergers in Chinese

The relative perceptual confusability of the coda nasals /m/, /n/, and /ŋ/ was investigated in Southern Min and Mandarin for insight into the nasal mergers that have happened in the history of the Chinese languages. Coda /m/ was the most confusable of the nasals, mirroring the historical pattern in which the bilabial was the first coda nasal to be lost. In both Southern Min and Mandarin, the alveolar and velar nasals were mutually confused. Identification of coda nasals was affected by the preceding vowel; there was lower accuracy following the high front vowel /i/ than other vowels. Tone did not have any consistent effects on nasal identification, although Southern Min speakers tended to have less accurate identification of nasals with low tones.