Labialization

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Labialized
◌ᵝ
Labial(-velar)ized with protrusion
◌ʷ

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.

Contents

The most common labialized consonants are labialized velars. Most other labialized sounds also have simultaneous velarization, and the process may then be more precisely called labio-velarization. The "labialization" of bilabial consonants often refers to protrusion instead of a secondary articulatory feature velarization. [pʷ] doesn't mean [pˠ] although [w] refers to a labial–velar approximant.

In phonology, labialization may also refer to a type of assimilation process.

Occurrence

Labialization is the most widespread secondary articulation in the world's languages. It is phonemically contrastive in Northwest Caucasian (e.g. Adyghe), Athabaskan, and Salishan language families, among others. This contrast is reconstructed also for Proto-Indo-European, the common ancestor of the Indo-European languages; and it survives in Latin and some Romance languages. It is also found in the Cushitic and Ethio-Semitic languages.

American English labializes /r,ʃ,ʒ,tʃ,dʒ/ to various degrees.

A few languages, including Arrernte and Mba, have contrastive labialized forms for almost all of their consonants.

In many Salishan languages, such as Klallam, velar consonants only occur in their labialized forms (except /k/, which occurs in some loanwords). However, uvular consonants occur abundantly labialized and unrounded.

Types

Open-labialized
◌ꟹ

Out of 706 language inventories surveyed by Ruhlen (1976), labialization occurred most often with velar (42%) and uvular (15%) segments and least often with dental and alveolar segments. With non-dorsal consonants, labialization may include velarization as well. Labialization is not restricted to lip-rounding. The following articulations have either been described as labialization or been found as allophonic realizations of prototypical labialization:

Eastern Arrernte has labialization at all places and manners of articulation; this derives historically from adjacent rounded vowels, as is also the case of the Northwest Caucasian languages. Marshallese also has phonemic labialization as a secondary articulation at all places of articulation except for labial consonants and coronal obstruents.

In North America, languages from a number of families have sounds that sound labialized (and vowels that sound rounded) without the participation of the lips. See Tillamook language for an example.

Prelabialization

In Slovene, sounds can be prelabialized. Furthermore, the change is phonemic and all phonemes have prelabialized pairs (though not all of their allophones can have pairs). Compare stati 'stand' [ˈs̪t̪àːt̪í] and vstati 'stand up' [ˈʷs̪t̪àːt̪í]. The prelabialization part, however, is usually not considered as being part of the same phoneme as prelabialized sound, but rather as an allophone of /ʋ/ as it changes depending on the environment, e. g. vzeti 'take' [ˈʷz̪èːt̪í] and povzeti 'summarize' [pou̯ˈz̪èːt̪í]. [2] See Slovene phonology for more details.

Transcription

In the International Phonetic Alphabet, labialization of velar consonants is indicated with a raised w modifier [ʷ] (Unicode U+02B7), as in /kʷ/. (Elsewhere this diacritic generally indicates simultaneous labialization and velarization.[ citation needed ]) There are also diacritics, respectively [ɔ̹],[ɔ̜], to indicate greater or lesser degrees of rounding. [3] 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 [ʒꟹ] (as in English). It also has a symbol for labiodentalized sounds, [tᶹ]. [4]

If precision is desired, the Abkhaz and Ubykh articulations may be transcribed with the appropriate fricative or trill raised as a diacritic: [tᵛ], [tᵝ], [tʙ], [tᵖ].

For simple labialization, Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996) resurrected an old IPA symbol, [ ̫], [5] which would be placed above a letter with a descender such as ɡ. However, their chief example is Shona sv and zv, which they transcribe /s̫/ and /z̫/ but which actually seem to be whistled sibilants, without necessarily being labialized. [6] Another possibility is to use the IPA diacritic for rounding, distinguishing for example the labialization in English soon[s̹] and [sʷ]swoon. [7] The open rounding of English /ʃ/ is also unvelarized.

Assimilation

Labialization also refers to a specific type of assimilatory process where a given sound become labialized 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.

Examples

type Phone IPALanguages
Stopsplainprotruded voiceless bilabial stop [pʷ] Chaha, Paha
protruded voiced bilabial stop [bʷ] Chaha, Paha, Mayo, Yaqui
labzd voiceless alveolar stop [tʷ] Archi, Abkhaz, Lao, Paha, Ubykh
labzd voiced alveolar stop [dʷ] Archi, Abkhaz, Ubykh
labzd voiceless velar stop [kʷ] Abaza, Abkhaz, Adyghe, Halkomelem, Kabardian, Taos, Chipewyan, Hadza, Gwichʼin, Tlingit, Akan, Nez Perce, Archi, Cantonese, Wariʼ, Chaha, Dahalo, Hausa, Igala, Igbo, Italian, Lao, Latin, Nahuatl, Nawat, Okinawan, Ossetic, Paha, Portuguese, Thai, Tigrinya, Hiw, Ubykh, Bearlake Slavey, Breton
labzd voiced velar stop [ɡʷ] Abaza, Abkhaz, Adyghe, Akan, Archi, Chaha, Dahalo, Hausa, Okinawan, Oowekyala, Ossetic, Hadza, Igala, Igbo, Gwichʼin, Kabardian, Paha, Portuguese, Tigrinya, Ubykh, Breton, Yoruba
labzd voiceless uvular stop [qʷ] Abaza, Abkhaz, Adyghe, Kabardian, Ossetic, Paha, Tlingit, Nez Perce, Ubykh
labzd pharyngealized voiceless uvular stop [qˤʷ] Archi, Ubykh
labzd voiced uvular stop [ɢʷ] Oowekyala, Kwak'wala, Tsakhur
labzd glottal stop [ʔʷ] Adyghe, Kabardian, Lao, Tlingit
labzd prenasalized voiced bilabial plosive [ᵐbʷ] Tamambo
Labial–velarprotruded voiceless labio–velar stop [k͡pʷ] Dorig, Mwotlap
protruded prenasalized voiced labial–velar stop [ᵑɡ͡bʷ] Volow
Affricatessibilantlabzd voiceless alveolar affricate [t͡sʷ] Adyghe, Archi, Lezgian, Tsakhur
labzd voiced alveolar affricate [d͡zʷ] Adyghe, Dahalo
labzd voiceless palato-alveolar affricate [t͡ʃʷ] Archi, Abaza, Adyghe, Paha, Aghul, German
labzd voiced palato-alveolar affricate [d͡ʒʷ] Abaza, Aghul, Tsakhur, German
labzd voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate [t͡ɕʷ]Abkhaz, Akan, Ubykh
labzd voiced alveolo-palatal affricate [d͡ʑʷ]Abkhaz, Akan, Ubykh
non-sibilantlabzd voiceless velar affricate [k͡xʷ] Navajo
labzd voiceless uvular affricate [q͡χʷ] Kabardian, Lillooet
lateral labzd voiceless velar lateral affricate [k͡ʟ̝̊ʷ] Archi
Fricatives sibilant labzd voiceless alveolar sibilant [sʷ] Archi, Lao, Lezgian
labzd voiced alveolar sibilant [zʷ] Archi, Tsakhur, Lezgian
labzd voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant [ʃʷ] Archi, Abaza, Abkhaz, Adyghe, Paha, Aghul, Ubykh
labzd voiced palato-alveolar sibilant [ʒʷ] Archi, Abaza, Abkhaz, Adyghe, Aghul, Ubykh
labzd voiceless retroflex sibilant [ʂʷ] Bzhedug
labzd voiced retroflex sibilant [ʐʷ] Bzhedug
labzd voiceless alveolo-palatal sibilant [ɕʷ] Abkhaz, Ubykh
labzd voiced alveolo-palatal sibilant [ʑʷ] Abkhaz, Ubykh
non-sibilantprotruded voiceless bilabial fricative [ɸʷ]Okinawan
protruded voiced bilabial fricative [βʷ] Tamambo
labzd voiceless labiodental fricative [ further explanation needed ] [fʷ] Hadza, Chaha
labzd voiced labiodental fricative [ further explanation needed ] [vʷ]
labzd voiceless dental fricative [θʷ] Paha
labzd voiced dental fricative [ðʷ] Paha
labzd voiceless palatal fricative [çʷ] Akan
labzd voiceless velar fricative [xʷ] Abaza, Adyghe, Avestan, Chaha, Halkomelem, Kabardian, Oowekyala, Taos, Navajo, Tigrinya, Lillooet, Tlingit
labzd voiced velar fricative [ɣʷ] Abaza, Navajo, Lillooet, Gwichʼin, possibly Proto-Indo-European
labzd voiceless uvular fricative [χʷ] Abkhaz, Adyghe, Archi, Halkomelem, Kabardian, Lillooet, Tlingit, Wariʼ, Chipewyan, Oowekyala, Ossetic, Ubykh
labzd pharyngealized voiceless uvular fricative [χˤʷ]Abkhaz, Archi, Ubykh
labzd voiced uvular fricative [ʁʷ] Abkhaz, Adyghe, Chipewyan, Kabardian, Ubykh
labzd pharyngealized voiced uvular fricative [ʁˤʷ]Archi, Ubykh
labzd voiceless pharyngeal fricative [ħʷ] Abaza, Abkhaz
labzd voiced pharyngeal fricative [ʕʷ] Abaza, Lillooet
Pseudo-fricativeslabzd voiceless glottal fricative [hʷ] Akan, Tlingit, Tsakhur
Lateral fricativeslabzd voiceless alveolar lateral fricative [ɬʷ] Dahalo
labzd voiceless velar lateral fricative [ʟ̝̊ʷ] Archi
Nasalsprotruded bilabial nasal [mʷ] Adyghe, Chaha, Paha, Tamambo
labzd palatal nasal [ɲʷ]Akan
labzd velar nasal [ŋʷ]Akan, Avestan, Lao, Hiw, Igala
protruded labial-velar nasal [ŋ͡mʷ] Dorig, Mwotlap
Approximantslabzd alveolar lateral approximant [lʷ] Lao
labzd labiodental approximant [ further explanation needed ][ʋʷ]Russian [8]
labialized palatal approximant [ɥ]Abkhaz, Akan, French, Mandarin, Paha
Labio-velar approximant (voiced)[ɰᵝ]in Japanese
Protruded labio-velar approximant (voiced)[ɰʷ]widespread; in every above-mentioned language, as well as e.g. Arabic, English, Korean, Vietnamese
Voiceless labio-velar approximant [ʍ]certain dialects of English
nasal labialized velar approximant [w̃]Polish, Portuguese
labzd postalveolar approximant [ɹ̠ʷ] many dialects of English
Ejectivesprotruded bilabial ejective [pʷʼ] Adyghe
labzd alveolar ejective [tʷʼ] Abkhaz, Adyghe, Ubykh
labzd velar ejective [kʷʼ] Abaza, Abkhaz, Adyghe, Archi, Bearlake Slavey, Chipewyan, Halkomelem, Kabardian, Ossetic, Tlingit, Ubykh
labzd palato-alveolar ejective fricative [ʃʷʼ] Adyghe
labzd uvular ejective [qʷʼ] Abaza, Abkhaz, Archi, Halkomelem, Hakuchi, Tlingit, Ubykh
labzd pharyngealized uvular ejective [qˤʷʼ] Archi, Ubykh
labzd alveolar ejective affricate [t͡sʷʼ]Archi, Khwarshi
labzd alveolar lateral ejective affricate [t͡ɬʷʼ]Khwarshi
labzd palato-alveolar ejective affricate [t͡ʃʷʼ]Abaza, Archi, Khwarshi
labzd alveolo-palatal ejective affricate [t͡ɕʷʼ]Abkhaz, Ubykh
labzd retroflex ejective affricate [ʈ͡ʂʷʼ]allophonic in Adyghe
labzd velar lateral ejective affricate [k͡ʟ̝̊ʷʼ]Archi
labzd velar ejective fricative [xʷʼ] Tlingit
labzd uvular ejective fricative [χʷʼ] Tlingit

See also

Related Research Articles

In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract, except for the h, which is pronounced without any stricture in the vocal tract. Examples are and [b], pronounced with the lips; and [d], pronounced with the front of the tongue; and [g], pronounced with the back of the tongue;, pronounced throughout the vocal tract;, [v], and, pronounced by forcing air through a narrow channel (fricatives); and and, which have air flowing through the nose (nasals). Most consonants are pulmonic, using air pressure from the lungs to generate a sound. Very few natural languages are non-pulmonic, making use of ejectives, implosives, and clicks. Contrasting with consonants are vowels.

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

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

Uvulars are consonants articulated with the back of the tongue against or near the uvula, that is, further back in the mouth than velar consonants. Uvulars may be stops, fricatives, nasals, trills, or approximants, though the IPA does not provide a separate symbol for the approximant, and the symbol for the voiced fricative is used instead. Uvular affricates can certainly be made but are rare: they occur in some southern High-German dialects, as well as in a few African and Native American languages. Uvular consonants are typically incompatible with advanced tongue root, and they often cause retraction of neighboring vowels.

Ubykh, an extinct Northwest Caucasian language, has the largest consonant inventory of all documented languages that do not use clicks, and also has the most disproportional ratio of phonemic consonants to vowels. It has consonants in at least eight, perhaps nine, basic places of articulation and 29 distinct fricatives, 27 sibilants, and 20 uvulars, more than any other documented language. Some Khoisan languages, such as Taa, may have larger consonant inventories due to their extensive use of click consonants, although some analyses view a large proportion of the clicks in these languages as clusters, which would bring them closer into line with the Caucasian languages.

A labialized velar or labiovelar is a velar consonant that is labialized, with a -like secondary articulation. Examples are, which are pronounced like a, with rounded lips, such as the labialized voiceless velar plosive and labialized voiced velar plosive, obstruents being common among the sounds that undergo labialization.

In phonetics, palatalization or palatization is a way of pronouncing a consonant in which part of the tongue is moved close to the hard palate. Consonants pronounced this way are said to be palatalized and are transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet by affixing the letter ⟨ʲ⟩ to the base consonant. Palatalization cannot minimally distinguish words in most dialects of English, but it may do so in languages such as Russian, Japanese, Norwegian (dialects), Võro, Irish and Kashmiri.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pharyngealization</span> Articulation of consonants or vowels

Pharyngealization is a secondary articulation of consonants or vowels by which the pharynx or epiglottis is constricted during the articulation of the sound.

In phonetics, ejective consonants are usually voiceless consonants that are pronounced with a glottalic egressive airstream. In the phonology of a particular language, ejectives may contrast with aspirated, voiced and tenuis consonants. Some languages have glottalized sonorants with creaky voice that pattern with ejectives phonologically, and other languages have ejectives that pattern with implosives, which has led to phonologists positing a phonological class of glottalic consonants, which includes ejectives.

<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: .

In phonetics, vowel roundedness is the amount of rounding in the lips during the articulation of a vowel. It is labialization of a vowel. When a rounded vowel is pronounced, the lips form a circular opening, and unrounded vowels are pronounced with the lips relaxed. In most languages, front vowels tend to be unrounded, and back vowels tend to be rounded. However, some languages, such as French, German and Icelandic, distinguish rounded and unrounded front vowels of the same height, and Vietnamese distinguishes rounded and unrounded back vowels of the same height. Alekano has only unrounded vowels. In the International Phonetic Alphabet vowel chart, rounded vowels are the ones that appear on the right in each pair of vowels. There are also diacritics, U+0339◌̹COMBINING RIGHT HALF RING BELOW and U+031C◌̜COMBINING LEFT HALF RING BELOW, to indicate greater and lesser degrees of rounding, respectively. Thus has less rounding than cardinal, and has more. These diacritics can also be used with unrounded vowels: is more spread than cardinal, and is less spread than cardinal.

<i>Sj</i>-sound Voiceless fricative phoneme of Swedish

The sj-sound is a voiceless fricative phoneme found in the sound system of most dialects of Swedish. It has a variety of realisations, whose precise phonetic characterisation is a matter of debate, but which usually feature distinct labialization. The sound is represented in Swedish orthography by a number of spellings, including the digraph ⟨sj⟩ from which the common Swedish name for the sound is derived, as well as ⟨stj⟩, ⟨skj⟩, and ⟨sk⟩. The sound should not be confused with the Swedish tj-sound, often spelled ⟨tj⟩, ⟨kj⟩, or ⟨k⟩.

Velarization or velarisation is a secondary articulation of consonants by which the back of the tongue is raised toward the velum during the articulation of the consonant. In the International Phonetic Alphabet, velarization is transcribed by one of four diacritics:

Doubly articulated consonants are consonants with two simultaneous primary places of articulation of the same manner. They are a subset of co-articulated consonants. They are to be distinguished from co-articulated consonants with secondary articulation; that is, a second articulation not of the same manner. An example of a doubly articulated consonant is the voiceless labial–velar plosive, which is a and a pronounced simultaneously. On the other hand, the voiceless labialized velar plosive has only a single stop articulation, velar, with a simultaneous approximant-like rounding of the lips. In some dialects of Arabic, the voiceless velar fricative has a simultaneous uvular trill, but this is not considered double articulation either.

A labial–coronal consonant is a consonant produced with two simultaneous articulators: with the lips, and with the tongue.

In phonetics, secondary articulation occurs when the articulation of a consonant is equivalent to the combined articulations of two or three simpler consonants, at least one of which is an approximant. The secondary articulation of such co-articulated consonants is the approximant-like articulation. It "colors" the primary articulation rather than obscuring it. Maledo (2011) defines secondary articulation as the superimposition of lesser stricture upon a primary articulation.

Abkhaz is a language of the Northwest Caucasian family which, like the other Northwest Caucasian languages, is very rich in consonants. Abkhaz has a large consonantal inventory that contrasts 58 consonants in the literary Abzhywa dialect, coupled with just two phonemic vowels.

In phonetics and phonology, relative articulation is description of the manner and place of articulation of a speech sound relative to some reference point. Typically, the comparison is made with a default, unmarked articulation of the same phoneme in a neutral sound environment. For example, the English velar consonant is fronted before the vowel compared to articulation of before other vowels. This fronting is called palatalization.

The voiceless bilabial trill is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ʙ̥. The X-SAMPA symbol is B\_0

References

  1. 1 2 Siegel, Bernard J. (1977). Annual Review of Anthropology. Annual Reviews Incorporated. ISBN   9780824319069.
  2. Jurgec, Peter (2007), Novejše besedje s stališča fonologije Primer slovenščine (in Slovenian), Tromsø, p. 95{{citation}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  3. As a mnemonic, the more-rounded diacritics resemble the rounded vowel ɔ.
  4. International Phonetic Association (1999). Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A Guide to the Use of the International Phonetic Alphabet. Cambridge University Press. p. 190. ISBN   978-0-52163751-0.
  5. This is not a subscript w but originally a subscript omega that "recalls the letter w" (Jespersen & Pedersen, 1926, Phonetic Transcription and Transliteration: Proposals of the Copenhagen Conference, April 1925. Oxford University Press).
  6. See . Archived May 16, 2008, at the Wayback Machine
  7. John Esling (2010) "Phonetic Notation", in Hardcastle, Laver & Gibbon (eds) The Handbook of Phonetic Sciences, 2nd ed.
  8. Yanushevskaya & Bunčić (2015 :223)

Bibliography