Nasal release

Nasal release
◌ⁿ
IPA number	425
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	ⁿ
Unicode (hex)	U+207F

In phonetics, a nasal release is the release of a stop consonant into a nasal. Such sounds are transcribed in the IPA with superscript nasal letters, for example as [tⁿ] in English catnip [ˈkætⁿnɪp]. In English words such as sudden in which historically the tongue made separate contacts with the alveolar ridge for the /d/ and /n/, [ˈsʌdən], many speakers today make only one contact. That is, the /d/ is released directly into the /n/: [ˈsʌdⁿn̩]. Although this is a minor phonetic detail in English (in fact, it is commonly transcribed as having no audible release: [ˈkæt̚nɪp], [ˈsʌd̚n̩]), nasal release is more important in some other languages.

In some languages, such consonants may occur before vowels, and are called prestopped nasals.

Prestopped nasals, and prenasalized stops, occur when the oral cavity is closed, and the nasal cavity is opened by lowering the velum, but the timing of these two events does not coincide. A prenasalized stop starts out with a lowered velum that raises during the occlusion, much like the [nd] in candy. A postnasalized stop or prestopped nasal begins with a raised velum that lowers during the occlusion. This causes an audible nasal release, as in English sudden.

The Slavic languages are most famous for having (non-phonemic) prestopped nasals. This can be seen in place names such as the Dniester River. The Russian word for "day", for example, is inflected день, дня, дни, дней [dʲenʲ, dnʲæ, dnʲi, dnʲej], "day, day's, days, days'".

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