Linguolabials or apicolabials are
consonant
In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract. Examples are and pronounced with the lips; and pronounced with the front of the tongue; and pronounced ...
s
articulated
An articulated vehicle is a vehicle which has a permanent or semi-permanent pivot joint in its construction, allowing it to turn more sharply. There are many kinds, from heavy equipment to buses, trams and trains. Steam locomotives were sometim ...
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, but they do not represent a particularly exotic combination of articulatory configurations, unlike
click consonants or
ejectives
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. So ...
. They are found in a cluster of languages in
Vanuatu
Vanuatu ( or ; ), officially the Republic of Vanuatu (french: link=no, République de Vanuatu; bi, Ripablik blong Vanuatu), is an island country located in the South Pacific Ocean. The archipelago, which is of volcanic origin, is east of no ...
, in the Kajoko dialect of
Bijago
Bijago or Bidyogo is the language of the Bissagos Islands, Bissagos Archipelago of Guinea-Bissau. There are some difficulties of grammar and intelligibility between dialects, with the Kamona dialect being unintelligible to the others.
Dialects a ...
in Guinea-Bissau, in
Umotína (a recently extinct
Bororoan language of
Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
), and as
paralinguistic sounds elsewhere. They are also relatively common in
disordered speech
Speech disorders or speech impairments are a type of communication disorder in which normal speech is disrupted. This can mean stuttering, lisps, etc. Someone who is unable to speak due to a speech disorder is considered mute. Speech skills ...
, 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, , to the corresponding
alveolar consonant
Alveolar (; UK also ) consonants are place of articulation, articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the Dental alveolus, alveoli (the sockets) of the upper teeth. Alve ...
, or with the
apical diacritic, , on the corresponding
bilabial consonant.
[Pullum & Ladusaw, '' Phonetic Symbol Guide'', 1996:256. They note that the apical diacritic was added to the IPA after the linguolabial diacritic, and would have made the latter unnecessary.]
Description
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
Sound shifts
In Vanuatu, some of the
Santo–Malekula languages
The Southern Oceanic languages are a linkage of Oceanic languages spoken in Vanuatu and New Caledonia. It was proposed by Lynch, Ross, and Crowley in 2002 and supported by later studies. They consider it to be a linkage rather than a language gr ...
have shifted historically from labial to dental consonants via an intermediate linguolabial stage, which remains in other Santo and Malekula languages. In
Nese, for example, labials have become linguolabial before nonrounded vowels; in
Tolomako, this has gone further, so that (
POc *bebe >) ''p̈ep̈e'' 'butterfly' ( in Tangoa) later became in Tolomako; likewise, (POc *tama >) ''tam̈a'' 'father' (Tangoa ) became .
See also
*
Place of articulation
In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation (also point of articulation) of a consonant is a location along the vocal tract where its production occurs. It is a point where a constriction is made between an active and a passive articul ...
*
List of phonetics topics
A
* Acoustic phonetics
* Active articulator
* Affricate
* Airstream mechanism
* Alexander John Ellis
* Alexander Melville Bell
* Alfred C. Gimson
* Allophone
* Alveolar approximant ()
* Alveolar click ()
* Alveolar consonant
* Alveolar ...
Notes
References
*
*
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Linguolabial Consonant
Place of articulation
Linguolabial consonants