Linguolabial consonant

Linguolabial
◌̼
◌̺
 
Places of
articulation
Labial
Bilabial
Labial–velar
Labial–coronal
Labiodental
Dentolabial
Bidental
Coronal
Linguolabial
Interdental
Dental
Denti-alveolar
Alveolar
Postalveolar
Palato-alveolar
Alveolo-palatal
Retroflex
Dorsal
Palatal
Labial–palatal
Velar
Uvular
Uvular–epiglottal
Radical
Pharyngeal
Epiglotto-pharyngeal
Epiglottal
Glottal
Tongue shape
Apical
Laminal
Subapical
Lateral
Sulcal
Palatal
Pharyngeal
See also: Manner of articulation
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Linguolabials or apicolabials[1] are consonants articulated by placing the tongue tip or blade against the upper lip, which is drawn downward to meet the tongue. They represent one extreme of a coronal articulatory continuum which extends from linguolabial to subapical palatal places of articulation. Cross-linguistically, linguolabial consonants are very rare, though they do not represent a particularly exotic combination of articulatory configurations, unlike click consonants or ejectives. They are found in a cluster of languages in Vanuatu, in the Kajoko dialect of Bijago in Guinea-Bissau, as well as in Umotína, a recently extinct Bororoan language of Brazil, and as extraphonotactic sounds worldwide.

The linguolabial consonants are transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet by adding the "seagull" diacritic, [ ̼ ] (U+033C  ̼ combining seagull below),[2] to the corresponding alveolar consonant, or with the apical diacritic, [ ̺ ] (U+033A  ̺ combining inverted bridge below),[2] on the corresponding bilabial consonant instead.[3]

Contents

List of consonants

IPA
(two transcriptions)		 Description Example
Language Orthography IPA Meaning
n̼ m̺ linguolabial nasal Tangoa [n̼ata] "eye"[4]
t̼ p̺ voiceless linguolabial plosive Tangoa [t̼et̼e] "butterfly"[4]
d̼ b̺ voiced linguolabial plosive Kajoko dialect of Bijago [nɔ̀-d̼ɔ́ːɡ] "stone"[5]
n̼d̼ m̺b̺ prenasalized voiced linguolabial plosive Vao [nan̼d̼ak] "bow"[4]
θ̼ ɸ̺ voiceless linguolabial fricative Big Nambas [ˈinɛθ̼] "he is asthmatic"
ð̼ β̺ voiced linguolabial fricative Tangoa [ð̼atu] "stone"[4]
r̼ ʙ̺ linguolabial trill
(uses lower lip)		 Coatlán Zapotec r̼ʔ mimesis for a child's fart[6]
(blowing a raspberry)
ǀ̼ or ʇ̼ ʘ̺ linguolabial click Coatlán Zapotec ǀ̼ʔ mimesis for a pig drinking water[6]

Sound shifts

In Vanuatu, some of the Santo–Malekula languages have shifted historically from labial to dental consonants via an intermediate linguolabial stage, which remains in other Santo and Malekula languages. In Nese, for example, labials have become linguolabial before nonrounded vowels; in Tolomako, this has gone further, so that *bebe 'butterfly' (/t̼et̼e/ in Tangoa, above) has become /tete/ in Tolomako, and *tama 'father' (Tangoa /tan̼a/) has become /tana/.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ The term apicolabial is older, but Ladefoged and Maddieson point out that often these sounds are not apical.
  2. ^ a b The International Phonetic Alphabet in Unicode, UCL Division of Psychology & Language Sciences, http://www.phon.ucl.ac.uk/home/wells/ipa-unicode.htm 
  3. ^ Pullum & Ladusaw, Phonetic symbol guide, 1996:256. They note that the apical diacritic was added to the IPA after the linguolabial diacritic, and would have made the latter unnecessary.
  4. ^ a b c d Ladefoged and Maddieson 1996, p. 19.
  5. ^ Olson et al. in press, p. 7.
  6. ^ a b Rosemary Beam de Azcona, Sound Symbolism. Available at http://www.linguistics.berkeley.edu/~rosemary/55-fall2003-onomatopoeia.pdf

References