The principal characteristic features of nasalization of vowels are (1) a dull resonance around 250 cps, (2) an antiresonance at about 500 cps, (3) comparatively weak and diffuse components which fill the valleys between the formants.
Features (1) and (3) are commonly found also during the period of oral closure of nasal constants, (3) in this case being influenced by the antiresonance of the oral cavity. The feature (3) affected by “antiformants” carries information about the tongue position during oral closure. If the nasal passage is stopped at the nostrils when nasalized vowels are pronounced, features (1) and (3) disappear, and the frequency of selective attenuation (2) is lowered. Some French and Japanese nasalized vowels have been examined and interpreted, applying the results obtained in the research.