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| Labial(-velar)ized with protrusion (rounded lips) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| ◌ʷ | |||
| Encoding | |||
| Entity(decimal) | ʷ | ||
| Unicode(hex) | U+02B7 | ||
| |||
| Labialized with compression (flat lips) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| ◌ᵝ | |||
| Encoding | |||
| Entity(decimal) | ᵝ | ||
| Unicode(hex) | U+1D5D | ||
| |||
| Sound change andalternation |
|---|
| Fortition |
| Dissimilation |
Labialization is asecondary articulatory feature of sounds in some languages. Consonants pronounced this way are said to belabialized and are usually transcribed in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet by affixing a superscriptw, ⟨ʷ⟩, to the base letter. Labialized sounds involve the lips while the remainder of theoral cavity produces another sound. The term is normally restricted to consonants. When vowels involve the lips, they are calledrounded.
Inphonology, "labialization" may also refer to a type ofassimilation process.
The most common labialized consonants arelabialized velars. Most other labialized sounds also have simultaneousvelarization, and the process may then be more precisely calledlabio-velarization. The labialization of bilabial consonants, though generally transcribed with ⟨◌ʷ⟩ as if it were labiovelar, is often aprotrusion of the lips without velarization of the tongue.
Labialization has been attested with pulmonic,implosive,ejective andclick consonants.All places and manners of pulmonic consonants are attested with labialized variants, with the possible exception of theepiglottals.
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Labialization is the most widespread secondary articulation in the world's languages. It is phonemically contrastive inNorthwest Caucasian (e.g.Adyghe),Athabaskan, andSalishanlanguage families, among others. This contrast is reconstructed also forProto-Indo-European, the common ancestor of theIndo-European languages, and it survives inLatin and someRomance languages. It is also found in theCushitic andEthio-Semitic languages.
American English labializes/r,ʃ,ʒ,tʃ,dʒ/ to various degrees.[citation needed]
A few languages, includingArrernte andMba, have contrastive labialized forms for almost all of their consonants.
In manySalishan languages, such asKlallam, velar consonants only occur in their labialized forms (except /k/, which occurs in some loanwords); however, uvular consonants occur abundantly labialized and unrounded.
| Open-labialized | |
|---|---|
| ◌ꟹ |
| Labiodentalized | |
|---|---|
| ◌ᶹ |
| Labio-palatalized | |
|---|---|
| ◌ᶣ |
Out of 706 language inventories surveyed byRuhlen (1976), labialization occurred most often withvelar (42%) anduvular (15%) segments and least often withdental andalveolar segments. With non-dorsal consonants, labialization may includevelarization as well. Labialization is not restricted to lip-rounding. The following articulations have either been described as labialization or been found asallophonic realizations of prototypical labialization:
Eastern Arrernte has labialization at allplaces andmanners of articulation; this derives historically from adjacent rounded vowels, as is also the case of theNorthwest Caucasian languages.Marshallese also has phonemic labialization as asecondary articulation at all places of articulation except forlabial consonants andcoronalobstruents.
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. SeeTillamook language for an example.
Similarly to the distinction between the labio-palatal[ɥ] and labio-velar[w]semivowels, some languages exhibitlabio-palatalization[ᶣ], rather than labio-velarization[ʷ].
InSlovene, sounds can be prelabialized. Furthermore, the change is phonemic and all phonemes have prelabialized pairs (though not all of their allophones can have pairs). Comparestati 'stand'[ˈs̪t̪àːt̪í] andvstati '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] andpovzeti 'summarize'[pou̯ˈz̪èːt̪í].[3] SeeSlovene phonology for more details.
In theInternational 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.[4] These are normally used with vowels but may occur with consonants. For example, in theAthabaskan languageHupa,voiceless velar fricatives distinguish three degrees of labialization, transcribed either/x/,/x̹/,/xʷ/ or/x/,/x̜ʷ/,/xʷ/.
TheVoQS system has two additional symbols for degrees of rounding, originally introduced as part of theextensions to the IPA: Spread[i͍] and open-rounded[ʃꟹ] (as in English). It also has a symbol forlabiodentalized sounds,[tᶹ].[5]
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,[ ̫],[6] which would be placed above a letter with a descender such asɡ. However, their chief example is Shonasv andzv, which they transcribe/s̫/ and/z̫/ but which actually seem to bewhistled sibilants, without necessarily being labialized.[7] Another possibility is to use the IPA diacritic for rounding, distinguishing for example the labialization in Englishsoon[s̹] and[sʷ]swoon.[8] The open rounding of English/ʃ/ is also unvelarized.
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 theNorthwest Caucasian languages as well as someAustralian 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 andEastern Arrernte, for example. The labial vowel sounds usually still remain, but only as allophones next to the now-labial consonant sounds.
Note that labializedpalatal clicks are not attested in Yeyi and are not reconstructed forProto-Kxʼa.Xhosa also has prenasalized tenuis/ejective and aspirated clicks, which also occur labialized (nkqw, nkxw, nchw, nqhw, nxhw).
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