Bilabial consonant

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In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a labial consonant articulated with both lips.

Contents

Frequency

Bilabial consonants are very common across languages. Only around 0.7% of the world's languages lack bilabial consonants altogether, including Tlingit, Chipewyan, Oneida, and Wichita, [1] though all of the have a labial–velar approximant /w/.

Varieties

The bilabial consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) are:

IPADescriptionExample
LanguageOrthographyIPAMeaning
voiceless bilabial nasal Hmong Hmoob[m̥ɔ̃́]Hmong
m voiced bilabial nasal English man[mæn]man
p voiceless bilabial plosive English spin[spɪn]spin
b voiced bilabial plosive English bed[bɛd]bed
p͡ɸ voiceless bilabial affricate Kaingang [2] fy[ˈp͡ɸɤ]'seed'
b͡β voiced bilabial affricate Shipibo [3] boko[ˈb͡βo̽ko̽]'small intestine'
ɸ voiceless bilabial fricative Japanese 富士山 (fujisan)[ɸuʑisaɴ] Mount Fuji
β voiced bilabial fricative Ewe ɛʋɛ[ɛ̀βɛ̀]Ewe
β̞ bilabial approximant Spanish lobo[loβ̞o]wolf
ⱱ̟ voiced bilabial flap Mono [4] vwa[ⱱ̟a]'send'
ʙ̥ voiceless bilabial trill Pará Arára [5] [ʙ̥uta]'to throw away'
ʙ voiced bilabial trill Nias simbi[siʙi]lower jaw
bilabial ejective stop Adyghe пӀэ[a]meat
ɸʼ bilabial ejective fricative Yuchi [6] [ example needed ]
ɓ̥ voiceless bilabial implosive Serer [ example needed ]
ɓ voiced bilabial implosive Jamaican Patois beat[ɓiːt]beat
k͡ʘq͡ʘ
ɡ͡ʘɢ͡ʘ
ŋ͡ʘɴ͡ʘ
bilabial clicks (many distinct consonants) Nǁng ʘoe[k͡ʘoe]meat

Owere Igbo has a six-way contrast among bilabial stops: [pɓ̥bɓ].[ citation needed ]

Other varieties

The extensions to the IPA also define a bilabial percussive ([ʬ]) for smacking the lips together. A lip-smack in the non-percussive sense of the lips noisily parting would be [ʬ↓]. [7]

The IPA chart shades out bilabial lateral consonants, which is sometimes read as indicating that such sounds are not possible. The fricatives [ɸ] and [β] are often lateral, but since no language makes a distinction for centrality, the allophony is not noticeable.

See also

Related Research Articles

Approximants are speech sounds that involve the articulators approaching each other but not narrowly enough nor with enough articulatory precision to create turbulent airflow. Therefore, approximants fall between fricatives, which do produce a turbulent airstream, and vowels, which produce no turbulence. This class is composed of sounds like and semivowels like and, as well as lateral approximants like.

Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue against the soft palate, the back part of the roof of the mouth.

Labial consonants are consonants in which one or both lips are the active articulator. The two common labial articulations are bilabials, articulated using both lips, and labiodentals, articulated with the lower lip against the upper teeth, both of which are present in English. A third labial articulation is dentolabials, articulated with the upper lip against the lower teeth, normally only found in pathological speech. Generally precluded are linguolabials, in which the tip of the tongue contacts the posterior side of the upper lip, making them coronals, though sometimes, they behave as labial consonants.

An affricate is a consonant that begins as a stop and releases as a fricative, generally with the same place of articulation. It is often difficult to decide if a stop and fricative form a single phoneme or a consonant pair. English has two affricate phonemes, and, often spelled ch and j, respectively.

In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth.

Labialization 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 restricted to consonants. When vowels involve the lips, they are called rounded.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Voiced alveolar and postalveolar approximants</span> Consonantal sounds represented by ⟨ɹ⟩ / ⟨ð̠˕⟩ and ⟨ɹ̠⟩ in IPA

The voiced alveolar approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents the alveolar and postalveolar approximants is ɹ, a lowercase letter r rotated 180 degrees. The equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is r\.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bilabial click</span> Consonantal sound

The bilabial clicks are a family of click consonants that sound like a smack of the lips. They are found as phonemes only in the small Tuu language family, in the ǂ’Amkoe language of Botswana, and in the extinct Damin ritual jargon of Australia. However, bilabial clicks are found paralinguistically for a kiss in various languages, including integrated into a greeting in the Hadza language of Tanzania, and as allophones of labial–velar stops in some West African languages, as of /mw/ in some of the languages neighboring Shona, such as Ndau and Tonga.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Voiced labial–palatal approximant</span> Consonantal sound represented by ⟨ɥ⟩ in IPA

The voiced labial–palatalapproximant is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. It has two constrictions in the vocal tract: with the tongue on the palate, and rounded at the lips. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ɥ, a rotated lowercase letter ⟨h⟩, or occasionally , which indicates with a different kind of rounding.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Voiced labiodental nasal</span> Consonantal sound represented by ⟨ɱ⟩ in IPA

The voiced labiodental nasal is a type of consonantal sound. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ɱ. The IPA symbol is a lowercase letter m with a leftward hook protruding from the lower right of the letter. Occasionally it is instead transcribed as an with a dental diacritic: .

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Voiced velar approximant</span> Consonantal sound represented by ⟨ɰ⟩ in IPA

The voiced velar approximant is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ɰ, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is M\.

In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the active articulator and passive articulator. Standard Spanish ⟨rr⟩ as in perro, for example, is an alveolar trill.

In phonetics, a flap or tap is a type of consonantal sound, which is produced with a single contraction of the muscles so that one articulator is thrown against another.

Labial–velar consonants are doubly articulated at the velum and the lips, such as. They are sometimes called "labiovelar consonants", a term that can also refer to labialized velars, such as the stop consonant and the approximant.

Implosive consonants are a group of stop consonants with a mixed glottalic ingressive and pulmonic egressive airstream mechanism. That is, the airstream is controlled by moving the glottis downward in addition to expelling air from the lungs. Therefore, unlike the purely glottalic ejective consonants, implosives can be modified by phonation. Contrastive implosives are found in approximately 13% of the world's languages.

Linguolabials or apicolabials 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, but 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, in Umotína, and as paralinguistic sounds elsewhere. They are also relatively common in disordered speech, and the diacritic is specifically provided for in the extensions to the IPA.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Voiced labiodental flap</span> Consonantal sound represented by ⟨ⱱ⟩ in IPA

In phonetics, the voiced labiodental flap is a speech sound found primarily in languages of Central Africa, such as Kera and Mangbetu. It has also been reported in the Austronesian language Sika. It is one of the few non-rhotic flaps. The sound begins with the lower lip placed behind the upper teeth. The lower lip is then flipped outward, striking the upper teeth in passing.

The nasal palatal approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in some oral languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , that is, a j with a tilde. The equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is j~, and in the Americanist phonetic notation it is .

The nasal labial–velar approximant is a type of consonantal sound used in some languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is , that is, a w with a tilde. The equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is w~.

The voiced bilabial affricate is a rare affricate consonant that is initiated as a bilabial stop and released as a voiced bilabial fricative. It has not been reported to occur phonemically in any language.

References

Citations

  1. Maddieson, Ian (2008), "Absence of Common Consonants", in Haspelmath, Martin; Dryer, Matthew S.; Gil, David; Comrie, Bernard (eds.), The World Atlas of Language Structures Online, Munich: Max Planck Digital Library
  2. Jolkesky (2009), pp. 680–681.
  3. Valenzuela, Márquez Pinedo & Maddieson (2001).
  4. Olson (2004 :233)
  5. de Souza, Isaac Costa (2010). "3" (PDF). A Phonological Description of "Pet Talk" in Arara (MA). SIL Brazil. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-10-12. Retrieved 2014-01-09.
  6. Crawford, James M. (1973). "Yuchi Phonology". International Journal of American Linguistics. 39 (3): 173–179. doi:10.1086/465261. S2CID   224808560.
  7. Heselwood (2013: 121)[ citation not found ]

Sources

General references