Labiodental consonant

This article containsphonetic transcriptionsin theInternational Phonetic Alphabet(IPA).For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, seeHelp:IPA.For the distinction between[ ],/ /and ⟨⟩, seeIPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

Inphonetics,labiodentalsareconsonants articulatedwith the lowerlipand the upperteeth,such as[f]and[v].In English, labiodentalized /s/, /z/ and /r/ are characteristic of some individuals; these may be written[sᶹ],[zᶹ],[ɹᶹ].^[1]

Labiodental consonants in the IPA

The labiodental consonants identified by theInternational Phonetic Alphabetare:

IPA	Description	Example
IPA	Description	Language	Orthography	IPA	Meaning
ɱ̊	voiceless labiodental nasal	Angami^[2]	^{[example needed]}
ɱ	voiced labiodental nasal	Kukuya^[3](disputed)	[ɱíì]		'eyes'
p̪	voiceless labiodental plosive	Greek	σάπφειρος	[ˈsap̪firo̞s̠]	'sapphire'
b̪	voiced labiodental plosive	Sika	^{[example needed]}
p̪͡f	voiceless labiodental affricate	Tsonga	timpfuvu	[tiɱp̪͡fuβu]	'hippos'
b̪͡v	voiced labiodental affricate	Tsonga	shilebvu	[ʃileb̪͡vu]	'chin'
f	voiceless labiodental fricative	English	fan	[fæn]
v	voiced labiodental fricative	English	van	[væn]
ʋ	voiced labiodental approximant	Dutch	wang	[ʋɑŋ]	'cheek'
ⱱ	voiced labiodental flap	Mono	vwa	[ⱱa]	'send'
p̪͡fʼ	labiodental ejective affricate	Tsetsaut^[4]^[5]	apfʼo	[ap̪͡fʼo]	"boil"
fʼ	labiodental ejective fricative	Yapese^[6]	f'aang	[fʼaːŋ]	'type of eel'
ʘ̪	labiodental clickrelease (many different consonants)	Nǁng	ʘoe	[k͡ʘ̪oe]	'meat'

The IPA chart shades outlabiodental lateral consonants.^[7]This is sometimes read as indicating that such sounds are not possible. In fact, the fricatives[f]and[v]often have lateral airflow, but no language makes a distinction for centrality, and the allophony is not noticeable.

The IPA symbolɧrefers to a sound occurring inSwedish,officially described as similar to thevelarfricative [x], but one dialectal variant is a rounded, velarized labiodental, less ambiguously rendered as[fˠʷ].The labiodental click is an allophonic variant of the (bi)labial click.

Occurrence

The only common labiodental sounds to occurphonemicallyare the fricatives and the approximant. The labiodental flap occurs phonemically in over a dozen languages, but it is restricted geographically to central and southeastern Africa.^[8]With most othermanners of articulation,the norm arebilabial consonants(which together with labiodentals, form the class oflabial consonants).

[ɱ]is quite common, but in all or nearly all languages in which it occurs, it occurs only as anallophoneof/m/before labiodental consonants such as/v/and/f/.It has been reported to occur phonemically in a dialect ofTeke,but similar claims in the past have proven spurious.

The XiNkuna dialect ofTsongafeatures a pair of affricates as phonemes. In some other languages, such asXhosa,affricates may occur as allophones of the fricatives. These differ from theGerman voiceless labiodental affricate⟨pf⟩,which commences with abilabial p.All these affricates are rare sounds.^{[citation needed]}

The stops are not confirmed to exist as separatephonemesin any language. They are sometimes written asȹ ȸ(qpanddbligatures). They may also be found in children's speech or as speech impediments.^[9]

Dentolabialconsonants

Dentolabial consonants are the articulatory opposite of labiodentals: They are pronounced by contacting lower teeth against theupper lip.They are rare cross-linguistically, likely due to the prevalence ofdental malocclusions(especiallyretrognathism) that make them difficult to produce,^[10]though the voiceless dentolabial fricative is apparently used in some of the southwestern dialects of Greenlandic.^[11]

The diacritic for dentolabial in theextensions of the IPAfor disordered speech is a superscript bridge, ⟨◌͆⟩, by analogy with the subscript bridge used for labiodentals: ⟨m͆ p͆ b͆ f͆ v͆⟩. Complex consonants such as affricates, prenasalized stops and the like are also possible.

References

^John Laver (1994: 323)Principles of Phonetics.
^Blankenship, Barbara; Ladefoged, Peter; Bhaskararao, Peri; Chase, Nichumeno (Fall 1993)."Phonetic structures of Khonoma Angami"(PDF).Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area.16(2).
^Paulian (1975:41)
^Boas, Franz; Goddard, Pliny Earle (July 1924)."Ts'ets'aut, an Athapascan Language from Portland Canal, British Columbia".International Journal of American Linguistics.3(1): 1–35.doi:10.1086/463746.
^Tharp, George W. (January 1972). "The Position of the Tsetsaut among Northern Athapaskans".International Journal of American Linguistics.38(1): 14–25.doi:10.1086/465179.JSTOR 1264498.S2CID 145318136.
^Ballantyne, Keira Gebbie (2005).Textual Structure and Discourse Prominence in Yapese Narrative(PhD dissertation). University of Hawai'i. p. 32.hdl:10125/11702.
^IPA (2018)."Consonants (Pulmonic)".International Phonetic Association.RetrievedJune 20,2020.
^Olson & Hajek (2003).
^Hesketh, Anne; Dima, Evgenia; Nelson, Veronica (2007)."Teaching phoneme awareness to pre-literate children with speech disorder: a randomized controlled trial".International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders.42(3): 251–271.doi:10.1080/13682820600940141.ISSN 1368-2822.PMID 17514541.
^Everett, C.; Chen, S. (2021)."Speech adapts to differences in dentition within and across populations".Scientific Reports.11(1): 1066.doi:10.1038/s41598-020-80190-8.PMC7806889.PMID 33441808.
^Vebæk (2006),p. 20.

Sources

Ladefoged, Peter;Maddieson, Ian(1996).The Sounds of the World's Languages.Oxford: Blackwell.ISBN 0-631-19815-6.
Olson, Kenneth S.; Hajek, John (2003). "Crosslinguistic insights on the labial flap".Linguistic Typology.7(2): 157–186.doi:10.1515/lity.2003.014.
Paulian, Christiane (1975).Le kukuya, langue teke du Congo: phonologie, classes nominales.Paris: SELAF.ISBN 9782852970083.
Vebæk, Mâliâraq (2006).The southernmost People of Greenland-Dialects and Memories.Monographs on Greenland. Vol. 337.doi:10.26530/OAPEN_342373.ISBN 978-87-635-1273-2.

Labiodental consonant