Re: Nasal semivowels/fricatives?

In a message dated 2/15/2000 8:44:39 AM Eastern Standard Time,
fflores@ARNET.COM.AR writes:

<< And how are prenasalized stops different from nasal + stop clusters?
    Aha, addendum to my post to Christophe.  Phonetically, probably not
different (tho I'd want to look at a spectrograph to be sure).
Phonologically, it depends on the nature of the language, and even the
analyst.  WEUR langs. with complex phonological structures allow various
clusters initially, but not Nasal+stop, also we native speakers "feel" the
syllable boundary between the nasal and the stop and call them clusters.
Languages like Fijian are  best viewed as strict CVCV and do allow nasal+stop
in all C positions so they're considered units-- true, these langs. were
first reduced to written form by westerners, but amazingly enough, with some
attention to native speakers' intuitions and "econmy of linguistic
description".

>>The question is: do these nasalized
 stops contrast with proper nasal stops in any natlang? >>
    If you mean /m n N/ etc. versus /mb, nd, Ng/ etc. -- yes, Fijian and no
doubt other Melanesian langs, some "minor" ones in eastern Indonesia both
nowadays and historically, Proto-Polynesian---these are just my particular
hobby-horses.  Surely elsewhere in the world, too. Roger