Labiodental consonant explained

pronounced as /notice/In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth, such as pronounced as /[f]/ and pronounced as /[v]/. In English, labiodentalized /s/, /z/ and /r/ are characteristic of some individuals; these may be written pronounced as /[sᶹ], [zᶹ], [ɹᶹ]/.[1]

Labiodental consonants in the IPA

The labiodental consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:

IPADescriptionExample
LanguageOrthographyIPAMeaning
pronounced as /ɱ̊/voiceless labiodental nasalAngami[2]
pronounced as /ɱ/voiced labiodental nasalKukuya (disputed)pronounced as /[ɱíì]/'eyes'
pronounced as /p̪/voiceless labiodental plosiveGreekσάπφειροςpronounced as /[ˈsa'''p̪'''firo̞s̠]/'sapphire'
pronounced as /b̪/voiced labiodental plosiveSika
pronounced as /p̪͡f/voiceless labiodental affricateTsongatimpfuvupronounced as /[tiɱ'''p̪͡f'''uβu]/'hippos'
pronounced as /b̪͡v/voiced labiodental affricateTsongashilebvupronounced as /[ʃile'''b̪͡v'''u]/'chin'
pronounced as /f/voiceless labiodental fricativeEnglishfanpronounced as /['''f'''æn]/
pronounced as /v/voiced labiodental fricativeEnglishvanpronounced as /['''v'''æn]/
pronounced as /ʋ/voiced labiodental approximantDutchwangpronounced as /['''ʋ'''ɑŋ]/'cheek'
pronounced as /ⱱ/voiced labiodental flapMonovwapronounced as /['''ⱱ'''a]/'send'
pronounced as /p̪͡fʼ/labiodental ejective affricateTsetsaut[3] [4] apfʼopronounced as /[ap̪͡fʼo]/"boil"
pronounced as /fʼ/labiodental ejective fricativeYapese[5] f'aangpronounced as /[fʼaːŋ]/'type of eel'
pronounced as /ʘ̪/labiodental click release (many different consonants)Nǁngʘoepronounced as /['''k͡ʘ̪'''oe]/'meat'

The IPA chart shades out labiodental lateral consonants.[6] This is sometimes read as indicating that such sounds are not possible. In fact, the fricatives pronounced as /[f]/ and pronounced as /[v]/ often have lateral airflow, but no language makes a distinction for centrality, and the allophony is not noticeable.

The IPA symbol pronounced as /ɧ/ refers to a sound occurring in Swedish, officially described as similar to the velar fricative [x], but one dialectal variant is a rounded, velarized labiodental, less ambiguously rendered as pronounced as /[fˠʷ]/. The labiodental click is an allophonic variant of the (bi)labial click.

Occurrence

The only common labiodental sounds to occur phonemically are 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. With most other manners of articulation, the norm are bilabial consonants (which together with labiodentals, form the class of labial consonants).

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

The XiNkuna dialect of Tsonga features a pair of affricates as phonemes. In some other languages, such as Xhosa, affricates may occur as allophones of the fricatives. These differ from the German voiceless labiodental affricate (pf), which commences with a bilabial p. All these affricates are rare sounds.

The stops are not confirmed to exist as separate phonemes in any language. They are sometimes written as ȹ ȸ (qp and db ligatures). They may also be found in children's speech or as speech impediments.[7]

consonants

Dentolabial consonants are the articulatory opposite of labiodentals: They are pronounced by contacting lower teeth against the upper lip. They are rare cross-linguistically, likely due to the prevalence of dental malocclusions (especially retrognathism) that make them difficult to produce,[8] though the voiceless dentolabial fricative is apparently used in some of the southwestern dialects of Greenlandic.

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

See also

Sources

Further reading

pronounced as /navigation/

Notes and References

  1. John Laver (1994: 323) Principles of Phonetics.
  2. Phonetic structures of Khonoma Angami . Blankenship . Barbara . Ladefoged . Peter . Bhaskararao . Peri . Chase . Nichumeno . Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area . 16 . 2 . Fall 1993 .
  3. Boas . Franz . Pliny Earle . Goddard . July 1924 . Ts'ets'aut, an Athapascan Language from Portland Canal, British Columbia . International Journal of American Linguistics . 3 . 1 . 1–35 . 10.1086/463746 . free.
  4. 1264498 . The Position of the Tsetsaut among Northern Athapaskans . Tharp . George W. . January 1972 . International Journal of American Linguistics . 38 . 1 . 14–25 . 10.1086/465179. 145318136 .
  5. Ballantyne . Keira Gebbie . 2005 . Textual Structure and Discourse Prominence in Yapese Narrative . PhD dissertation . University of Hawai'i . 32 . 10125/11702 . free .
  6. Web site: IPA. 2018. Consonants (Pulmonic). June 20, 2020. International Phonetic Association.
  7. Anne . Hesketh . Evgenia . Dima . Veronica . Nelson . 2007 . Teaching phoneme awareness to pre-literate children with speech disorder: a randomized controlled trial . International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders . en . 42 . 3 . 251–271 . 10.1080/13682820600940141 . 1368-2822 . 17514541.
  8. 33441808 . 2021 . Everett . C. . Chen . S. . Speech adapts to differences in dentition within and across populations . Scientific Reports . 11 . 1 . 1066 . 10.1038/s41598-020-80190-8 . 7806889 .