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In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth, such as and . In English, labiodentalized /s/, /z/ and /r/ are characteristic of some individuals; these may be written , , .

Labiodental consonants in the IPA

The labiodental consonants identified by the International Phonetic Alphabet are:

The IPA chart shades out labiodental lateral consonants. This is sometimes read as indicating that such sounds are not possible. In fact, the fricatives and often have lateral airflow, but no language makes a distinction for centrality, and the allophony is not noticeable.

The IPA symbol ɧ refers to a sound occurring in Swedish, officially described as similar to the velar fricative , but one dialectal variant is a rounded, velarized labiodental, less ambiguously rendered as . The labiodental click is an allophonic variant of the (bi)labial click.

Occurrence

The only common labiodental sounds to occur phonemically are the fricatives and the approximant. The labiodental flap occurs phonemically in over a dozen languages, but it is restricted geographically to central and southeastern Africa. With most other manners of articulation, the norm are bilabial consonants (which together with labiodentals, form the class of labial consonants).

is quite common, but in all or nearly all languages in which it occurs, it occurs only as an allophone of /m/ before labiodental consonants such as /v/ and /f/. It has been reported to occur phonemically in a dialect of Teke, but similar claims in the past have proven spurious.

The XiNkuna dialect of Tsonga features a pair of affricates as phonemes. In some other languages, such as Xhosa, affricates may occur as allophones of the fricatives. These differ from the German voiceless labiodental affricate ⟨pf⟩, which commences with a bilabial p. All these affricates are rare sounds.

The stops are not confirmed to exist as separate phonemes in any language. They are sometimes written as ȹ ȸ (qp and db ligatures). They may also be found in children's speech or as speech impediments.

Dentolabial consonants

Dentolabial consonants are the articulatory opposite of labiodentals: They are pronounced by contacting lower teeth against the upper lip. The diacritic for dentolabial in the extensions of the IPA for disordered speech is a superscript bridge, ⟨◌͆⟩, by analogy with the subscript bridge used for labiodentals: thus ⟨m͆ p͆ b͆ f͆ v͆⟩. Complex consonants such as affricates, prenasalized stops and the like are also possible. These are rare cross-linguistically, likely due to the prevalence of dental malocclusions (especially retrognathism) that make them difficult to produce, though the voiceless dentolabial fricative is used in some of the southwestern dialects of Greenlandic.

See also

• Place of articulation
• List of phonetics topics

References

1. John Laver (1994: 323) Principles of Phonetics.
2. Blankenship, Barbara; Ladefoged, Peter; Bhaskararao, Peri; Chase, Nichumeno (Fall 1993). "Phonetic structures of Khonoma Angami" (PDF). Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area. 16 (2).
3. Paulian (1975:41)
4. Boas, Franz; Goddard, Pliny Earle (July 1924). "Ts'ets'aut, an Athapascan Language from Portland Canal, British Columbia". International Journal of American Linguistics. 3 (1): 1–35. doi:10.1086/463746.
5. Tharp, George W. (January 1972). "The Position of the Tsetsaut among Northern Athapaskans". International Journal of American Linguistics. 38 (1): 14–25. doi:10.1086/465179. JSTOR 1264498. S2CID 145318136.
6. Ballantyne, Keira Gebbie (2005). Textual Structure and Discourse Prominence in Yapese Narrative (PhD dissertation). University of Hawai'i. p. 32. hdl:10125/11702.
7. IPA (2018). "Consonants (Pulmonic)". International Phonetic Association. Retrieved June 20, 2020.
8. Olson & Hajek (2003).
9. Hesketh, Anne; Dima, Evgenia; Nelson, Veronica (2007). "Teaching phoneme awareness to pre-literate children with speech disorder: a randomized controlled trial". International Journal of Language & Communication Disorders. 42 (3): 251–271. doi:10.1080/13682820600940141. ISSN 1368-2822. PMID 17514541.
10. Everett, C.; Chen, S. (2021). "Speech adapts to differences in dentition within and across populations". Scientific Reports. 11 (1): 1066. doi:10.1038/s41598-020-80190-8. PMC 7806889. PMID 33441808.
11. Vebæk (2006), p. 20.

Sources

• Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19815-6.
• Olson, Kenneth S.; Hajek, John (2003). "Crosslinguistic insights on the labial flap". Linguistic Typology. 7 (2): 157–186. doi:10.1515/lity.2003.014.
• Paulian, Christiane (1975). Le kukuya, langue teke du Congo: phonologie, classes nominales. Paris: SELAF. ISBN 9782852970083.
• Vebæk, Mâliâraq (2006). The southernmost People of Greenland-Dialects and Memories. Monographs on Greenland. Vol. 337. doi:10.26530/OAPEN_342373. ISBN 978-87-635-1273-2.

Further reading

• Blasi, Damián E.; Moran, Steven; Moisik, Scott R.; Widmer, Paul; Dediu, Dan; Bickel, Balthasar (2019). "Human sound systems are shaped by post-Neolithic changes in bite configuration". Science. 363 (6432): eaav3218. doi:10.1126/science.aav3218. PMID 30872490.
• Hockett, Charles (1989). "Distinguished Lecture: F". American Anthropologist. 87 (2): 263–281. doi:10.1525/aa.1985.87.2.02a00020. JSTOR 678561.
• Moran, Steven; Bickel, Balthasar (15 March 2019). "Softer, processed foods changed the way ancient humans spoke". The Conversation.

v t e International Phonetic Alphabet (chart)
IPA topics IPA International Phonetic Association History of the alphabet Extensions for disordered speech (extIPA) Voice Quality Symbols (VoQS) Journal of the IPA (JIPA) Special topics Cursive forms Case variants Obsolete and nonstandard symbols Naming conventions Sinological extensions World Orthography IPA chart for English dialects Encodings ASCII encodings SAMPA X-SAMPA Kirshenbaum TIPA Phonetic symbols in Unicode IPA number IPA Braille
Consonants Pulmonic consonants Place → Labial Coronal Dorsal Laryngeal Manner ↓ Bi­labial Labio­dental Linguo­labial Dental Alveolar Post­alveolar Retro­flex Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyn­geal/epi­glottal Glottal Nasal m̥ m ɱ̊ ɱ n̼ n̥ n ɳ̊ ɳ ɲ̊ ɲ ŋ̊ ŋ ɴ̥ ɴ Plosive p b p̪ b̪ t̼ d̼ t d ʈ ɖ c ɟ k ɡ q ɢ ʡ ʔ Sibilant affricate ts dz t̠ʃ d̠ʒ tʂ dʐ tɕ dʑ Non-sibilant affricate pɸ bβ p̪f b̪v t̪θ d̪ð tɹ̝̊ dɹ̝ t̠ɹ̠̊˔ d̠ɹ̠˔ cç ɟʝ kx ɡɣ qχ ɢʁ ʡʜ ʡʢ ʔh Sibilant fricative s z ʃ ʒ ʂ ʐ ɕ ʑ Non-sibilant fricative ɸ β f v θ̼ ð̼ θ ð θ̠ ð̠ ɹ̠̊˔ ɹ̠˔ ɻ̊˔ ɻ˔ ç ʝ x ɣ χ ʁ ħ ʕ h ɦ Approximant ʋ ɹ ɻ j ɰ ʔ̞ Tap/flap ⱱ̟ ⱱ ɾ̼ ɾ̥ ɾ ɽ̊ ɽ ɢ̆ ʡ̆ Trill ʙ̥ ʙ r̥ r ɽ̊r̥ ɽr ʀ̥ ʀ ʜ ʢ Lateral affricate tɬ dɮ tꞎ d𝼅 c𝼆 ɟʎ̝ k𝼄 ɡʟ̝ Lateral fricative ɬ ɮ ꞎ 𝼅 𝼆 ʎ̝ 𝼄 ʟ̝ Lateral approximant l ɭ ʎ ʟ ʟ̠ Lateral tap/flap ɺ̥ ɺ 𝼈̥ 𝼈 ʎ̆ ʟ̆ IPA help  audio full chart template Symbols to the right in a cell are voiced, to the left are voiceless. Shaded areas denote articulations judged impossible. Non-pulmonic consonants BL LD D A PA RF P V U EG Ejective Stop pʼ tʼ ʈʼ cʼ kʼ qʼ ʡʼ Affricate p̪fʼ t̪θʼ tsʼ t̠ʃʼ tʂʼ tɕʼ kxʼ qχʼ Fricative ɸʼ fʼ θʼ sʼ ʃʼ ʂʼ ɕʼ xʼ χʼ Lateral affricate tɬʼ c𝼆ʼ k𝼄ʼ q𝼄ʼ Lateral fricative ɬʼ Click (top: velar; bottom: uvular) Tenuis kʘ qʘ kǀ qǀ kǃ qǃ k𝼊 q𝼊 kǂ qǂ Voiced ɡʘ ɢʘ ɡǀ ɢǀ ɡǃ ɢǃ ɡ𝼊 ɢ𝼊 ɡǂ ɢǂ Nasal ŋʘ ɴʘ ŋǀ ɴǀ ŋǃ ɴǃ ŋ𝼊 ɴ𝼊 ŋǂ ɴǂ ʞ   Tenuis lateral kǁ qǁ Voiced lateral ɡǁ ɢǁ Nasal lateral ŋǁ ɴǁ Implosive Voiced ɓ ɗ ᶑ ʄ ɠ ʛ Voiceless ɓ̥ ɗ̥ ᶑ̊ ʄ̊ ɠ̊ ʛ̥ IPA help  audio full chart template Co-articulated consonants Nasal n͡m Labial–alveolar ɳ͡m Labial–retroflex ŋ͡m Labial–velar Plosive t͡pd͡b Labial–alveolar ʈ͡pɖ͡b Labial–retroflex k͡pɡ͡b Labial–velar q͡ʡ Uvular–epiglottal q͡p Labial–uvular Fricative/approximant ɥ̊ɥ Labial–palatal ʍw Labial–velar ɧ Sj-sound (variable) Lateral approximant ɫ Velarized alveolar Implosive ɠ̊͜ɓ̥ ɠ͡ɓ Labial–velar Ejective t͡pʼ Labial–alveolar IPA help full chart template Other Nasal labial–velar approximant Nasal palatal approximant Voiceless bidental fricative Voiceless bilabially post-trilled dental stop Voiceless nasal glottal approximant Voiceless upper-pharyngeal plosive Voiced upper-pharyngeal plosive Bilabial percussive Bidental percussive Sublaminal lower-alveolar percussive
Vowels Front Central Back Close i y ɨ ʉ ɯ u Near-close ɪ ʏ ʊ Close-mid e ø ɘ ɵ ɤ o Mid e̞ ø̞ ə ɤ̞ o̞ Open-mid ɛ œ ɜ ɞ ʌ ɔ Near-open æ ɐ Open a ɶ ä ɑ ɒ IPA help  audio full chart template Legend: unrounded • rounded

• Place of articulation
• Labiodental consonants