What is the name of rear nasal t in 'written' or d in 'ridden'?

Question

I just noticed that usually when I say 'ridden' or sometimes 'written', I don't let the air escape around my tongue as 'duh' or 'tuh' but instead keep it sealed and do something at back of my nose to let it escape suddenly to say 'dn' or 'tn'. (I can say these bits with my mouth fully closed.)

I'm pretty sure I'm not using the back of my tongue for this - I can still do it if I poke my tongue fully out and bite it to keep it out. It also feels higher up than a glottal stop.

What are these called? I looked up nasal consonants, and only found ng, n, and m.

Answer 1

There are two terms for this. One is "syllabic nasal", as in [ɹɪdn̩] "ridden", also in some pronunciations [n̩nɔi] "annoy". The second is "nasal release", which is a description of the preceding stop /d/, i.e. [ɹɪdⁿ] where /d/ changes and /n/ disappears. Since this is the phonetic realization of /ən/, we generally refer to it as a syllabic nasal. Plus, "written" is in some US dialects pronounced [ɹɪʔn̩] with glottal stop, but *[ɹɪʔⁿ] is a misleading transcription since "nasal release" is one segment and one place of articulation, but /...tən/ is phonetically at two places of articulation, i.e. perhaps "preglottalized n", [ɹɪˀn], which complicates the analysis.