Labialisation

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Historical sound change

General

Metathesis
Dissimilation
Fortition

Lenition (weakening)

Sonorization (voicing)
Spirantization (assibilation)
Rhotacism
Debuccalization (loss of place)

Elision (loss)

Apheresis (initial)
Syncope (medial)
Apocope (final)
Haplology (similar syllables)
Fusion
Cluster reduction
Compensatory lengthening

Epenthesis (addition)

Anaptyxis (vowel)
Excrescence (consonant)
Prosthesis (initial)
Paragoge (final)
Unpacking
Vowel breaking

Assimilation

Coarticulation
Palatalization (before front vowels)
Labialization (before rounded vowels)
Final devoicing (before silence)
Vowel harmony
Consonant harmony

Cheshirisation (trace remains)

Nasalization
Tonogenesis
Floating tone

Sandhi (boundary change)

Crasis (contraction)
Liaison, linking R
Consonant mutation
Tone sandhi
Hiatus

"Lip rounding" redirects here. See Roundedness for the lip rounding of vowels.

Labialisation is a secondary articulatory feature of sounds in some languages. Labialized sounds involve the lips while the remainder of the oral cavity produces another sound. The term is normally used to refer to consonants. When vowels involve the lips, they are usually called rounded.

Labialisation may also refer to a type of assimilation process.

1 Where found
2 Types of labialisation
3 Transcription
4 Labial assimilation
5 References
6 Bibliography

[edit] Where found

Labialisation is the most widespread secondary articulation in the world's languages. It is phonemically contrastive in the Northwest Caucasian, Athabaskan, and Salishan language families, among others. This contrast is reconstructed also for Proto-Indo-European, the common ancestor of the Indo-European languages.

American English has three degrees of (phonetic) labialization: Fully rounded /w/ and initial /ɹ/, open-rounded /ʃ/, /ʒ/, /tʃ/, /dʒ/, and unrounded, in which vowels are sometimes called spread. These secondary articulations are not universal. For example, while French shares the English open-rounding of /ʃ/, /ʒ/ while Russian does not have rounding of its postalveolar fricatives (/ʂ ʐ ɕ ɕ ʑ/).^[1]

[edit] Types of labialisation

The most common form of labialisation is rounding of dorsal consonants such as k, g, and q. With non-dorsal consonants, labialisation may also velarisation as well. Labialisation is not restricted to lip-rounding. The following articulations have either been described as labialisation, or been found as allophonic realisations of prototypical labialisation:

Labial rounding, with or without protrusion of the lips (found in Navajo)^{[citation needed]}
Labiodental frication, found in Abkhaz^{[citation needed]}
Bilabial frication, found in Ubykh^{[citation needed]}
Bilabial trill, found in Ubykh^{[citation needed]}
Bilabial plosion, found in Ubykh^{[citation needed]}
"Labilialisation" without lip rounding, found in the Iroquois
Rounding without velarization, found in Shona and in the Bzyb dialect of Abkhaz

Eastern Arrernte is a language with labialisation at all places and manners of articulation. The labialisation derives historically from adjacent rounded vowels, as is also the case of the Northwest Caucasian languages.

[edit] Transcription

In the International Phonetic Alphabet, labialisation of consonants is indicated with a raised w modifier [ʷ] (Unicode U+02B7), as in /kʷ/. There are also diacritics, respectively [ɔ̹], [ɔ̜], to indicate greater or lesser degrees of rounding. These are normally used with vowels, but may occur with consonants. For example, in the Athabaskan language Hupa, voiceless velar fricatives distinguish three degrees of labialization, transcribed either /x/, /x̹/, /xʷ/ or /x/, /x̜ʷ/, /xʷ/.

The Extensions to the IPA has two additional symbols for degrees of rounding: Spread /ɹ͍/ and open-rounded /ʒ^œ/. It also has a symbol for labialdentalized sounds, /t^ʋ/.

If precision is desired, the Abkhaz and Ubykh articulations may be transcribed with the appropriate fricative or trill raised as a diacritic: [t^v], [t^β], [t^ʙ], [t^p].

For simple labialization, Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996) resurrected an old IPA symbol, [ ̫]. In Shona, /s̫/ and /z̫/ contrast with /s/ and /z/, and in some dialects with /sw/, /zw/, /s̫w/, /z̫w/] as well. The open rounding of English is also unvelarized.

[edit] Labial assimilation

Labialisation also refers to a specific type of assimilatory process where a given sound become labialised due to the influence of neighboring labial sounds. For example, /k/ may become /kʷ/ in the environment of /o/, or /a/ may become /o/ in the environment of /p/ or /kʷ/.

In the Northwest Caucasian languages as well as some Australian languages rounding has shifted from the vowels to the consonants, producing a wide range of labialized consonants and leaving in some cases only two phonemic vowels. This appears to have been the case in Ubykh and Eastern Arrernte, for example. The labial vowel sounds usually still remain, but only as allophones next to the now-labial consonant sounds.