Linguolabial consonant

Linguolabial
◌̼
◌᫥

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. They are found in a cluster of languages in Vanuatu, in the Kajoko dialect of Bijago in Guinea-Bissau, in Umotína (a recently extinct Bororoan language of Brazil), 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.

Linguolabial consonants are transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet by adding the "seagull" diacritic, U+033C ◌̼ <reserved-033C>, to the corresponding alveolar or dental consonant. Pullum & Ladusaw (1996) additionally suggest these sound may be equivalently transcribed with the apical diacritic, U+033A ◌̺ <reserved-033A>, on the corresponding bilabial consonant. However, Olson et al. (2009:64) reject this transcription, as linguolabials may be articulated either apical or laminal. The labial consonants ⟨p᫥, m̼, v̼⟩ have also been used. The choice of the base consonant may depend on whether the author analyses the linguolabial as being phonologically labial or alveolar.

By analogy of the distinction made between labiodentals and dentolabials, labiolinguals may be distinguished as consonants articulated by placing the bottom of the tongue tip or blade against the lower lip.

Description

File:Linguolabial stop.png

Sagittal section of linguolabial stop

Linguolabials are produced by constricting the airflow between the tongue and the upper lip. They are attested in a number of manners of articulation including stops, nasals, and fricatives, and can be produced with the tip of the tongue (apical), blade of the tongue (laminal), or the bottom of the tongue (sublaminal). Acoustically they are more similar to alveolars than bilabials. Linguolabials can be distinguished from bilabials and alveolars acoustically by formant transitions and nasal resonances.

List of consonants

IPA (variant transcriptions)		Description	Example
			Language	Orthography	IPA	Meaning
n̼	m̼	linguolabial nasal	Araki	m̈ana	[n̼ana]	"laugh"
t̼	p᫥	voiceless linguolabial plosive	Tangoa	p̈ep̈e	[t̼et̼e]	"butterfly"
d̼	b̼	voiced linguolabial plosive	Kajoko dialect of Bijago		[nɔ̀d̼ɔ́ːɡ]	"stone"
θ̼ or s̼	f̼	voiceless linguolabial fricative	Big Nambas		[ˈinɛθ̼]	"he is asthmatic"
ð̼ or z̼	v̼	voiced linguolabial fricative	Tangoa	v̈atu	[ð̼atu]	"stone"
ɺ̼		labiolingual lateral flap (uses lower lip)	Piraha (part of allophone for /ɡ/, [ɺ͡ɺ̼])	toogixi	[tòːɺ͡ɺ̼ìʔì]	"hoe"
r̼	ʙ̼	labiolingual trill (uses lower lip)	Coatlán Zapotec	(paralinguistic)	[r̼̊ʔ]	used as mimesis for a child's flatulence.
ǀ̼ or ʇ̼	ʘ̼ or ɋ᫥	linguolabial click release (potentially multiple consonants)	Coatlán Zapotec	(paralinguistic)	[kǀ̼ʔ]	used as mimesis for eating soup or a pig drinking water

Linguolabials as a diachronic stage in sound shifts

In Vanuatu, some of the Santo–Malekula languages have shifted historically from bilabial to alveolar consonants via an intermediate linguolabial stage, which remains in other Santo and Malekula languages.

While labials have become linguolabial before nonrounded vowels in various languages (e.g. Tangoa, Araki, Nese), the sound shift went further in languages such as Tolomako, which shifted the linguolabials to full alveolar consonants: *b > *[p] > p̈ [t̼] > t [t]; *m > m̈ [n̼] > n [n]. Thus, POc *bebe 'butterfly' > [t̼et̼e] (spelled p̈ep̈e in Tangoa or in Araki) later became [tete] in Tolomako. Likewise, POc *tama 'father' > [tan̼a] (cf. Tangoa tam̈a, Araki r̄am̈a) > Tolomako [tana].

See also

• Place of articulation
• List of phonetics topics