| Linguolabial | |
|---|---|
| ◌̼ | |
| ◌ |
Linguolabials orapicolabials[1] areconsonantsarticulated 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 tosubapical palatal places of articulation. Cross-linguistically, linguolabial consonants are very rare. They are found in a cluster of languages inVanuatu, in the Kajoko dialect ofBijago in Guinea-Bissau, inUmotína (a recently extinctBororoan language ofBrazil), and asparalinguistic sounds elsewhere. They are also relatively common indisordered speech, and the diacritic is specifically provided for in theextensions to the IPA.
Linguolabial consonants are transcribed in theInternational Phonetic Alphabet by adding the "seagull"[2] diacritic,U+033C ◌̼COMBINING SEAGULL BELOW, to the correspondingalveolar consonant, or with theapical diacritic,U+033A ◌̺COMBINING INVERTED BRIDGE BELOW, on the correspondingbilabial consonant.[3]
Linguolabials are produced by constricting the airflow between the tongue and the upper lip. They are attested in a number ofmanners 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).[4][5] Acoustically they are more similar to alveolars than bilabials. Linguolabials can be distinguished from bilabials and alveolars acoustically by formant transitions and nasal resonances.[6]
| IPA (two transcriptions) | Description | Example | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Language | Orthography | IPA | Meaning | |||
| linguolabial nasal | Araki | m̈ana | [n̼ana] | "laugh"[7][8][9] | ||
| voiceless linguolabial plosive | Tangoa | p̈ep̈e | [t̼et̼e] | "butterfly"[10] | ||
| voiced linguolabial plosive | Kajoko dialect ofBijago | [nɔ̀d̼ɔ́ːɡ] | "stone"[11] | |||
| voiceless linguolabial fricative | Big Nambas | [ˈinɛθ̼] | "he is asthmatic" | |||
| voiced linguolabial fricative | Tangoa | v̈atu | [ð̼atu] | "stone"[10] | ||
| voiced linguolabial flap | Kajoko dialect ofBijago | [nɔ̀ɾ̼ɔ́ːɡ] | "stone"[11] | |||
| — | labiolingual lateral flap (uses lower lip) | Piraha (part of allophone for /ɡ/, [ɺ͡ɺ̼]) | toogixi | [tòːɺ͡ɺ̼ìʔì] | "hoe"[12] | |
| r̼ | ʙ̺ | labiolingual trill (uses lower lip) | Coatlán Zapotec | (paralinguistic) | [r̼̊ʔ] | used asmimesis for a child's flatulence.[13] |
| ǀ̼orʇ̼ | ʘ̺ | linguolabial click release (potentially multiple consonants) | Coatlán Zapotec | (paralinguistic) | [kǀ̼ʔ] | used as mimesis for eating soup or a pig drinking water[13] |
In Vanuatu, some of theSanto–Malekula languages have shifted historically from bilabial toalveolar 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 asTolomako, which shifted the linguolabials to full alveolar consonants: *b > *[p] >p̈[t̼] >t [t]; *m >m̈[n̼] >n [n]. Thus,POc *bebe'butterfly' >[t̼et̼e] (spelledp̈ep̈e in Tangoa or in Araki[14]) later became[tete] in Tolomako. Likewise, POc *tama'father' >[tan̼a] (cf. Tangoatam̈a, Arakiram̈a[15]) > Tolomako[tana].
