Universal #940

Legacy number: 940

 Number  937
 Original  No language has nasal vowels unless it also has one or more primary nasal consonants.
 Standardized  IF there are nasal vowels, THEN there is at least one primary nasal consonant.
 Keywords  consonant, nasal, vowel
 Domain  phonology
 Type  implication
 Status  achronic
 Quality  absolute
 Basis  languages in Ferguson 1963
 Source  Ferguson 1963: 58 (X), Jakobson 1963: 265, cited in Uspensky 1965: 193

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Discussion
Counterexamples
317-languages sample (UPSID; Maddieson 1984): 97% of the languages are found to have simple nasal consonants; 22,4% of the languages are found to have nasalized vowels: less than 1% of the languages are found to have nasalized continuant consonants (fricatives, liquids and glides). Thus, if nasalized continuants are much rarer than nasalized vowels, the claim of Ferguson should be rejected (Cohn 1993a: 330-331).
Notes
1. A Primary Nasal Consonant (PNC) is a phoneme of which the most characteristic allophone is a voiced nasal stop, that is, a sound produced by a complete oral stoppage (e.g., apical, labial), velic opening, and vibration of the vocal cords. A nasal vowel (NV) is a phoneme the most characteristic allophone of which has oral and velic opening and vibration of the vocal cords. (Ferguson 1963: 56, 58)
Comment
Frans Plank · 3 Aug 2006
1. A Primary Nasal Consonant (PNC) is a phoneme of which the most characteristic allophone is a voiced nasal stop, that is, a sound produced by a complete oral stoppage (e.g., apical, labial), velic opening, and vibration of the vocal cords.

2. A nasal vowel (NV) is a phoneme the most characteristic allophone of which has oral and velic opening and vibration of the vocal cords. (Ferguson 1963: 56, 58)