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 wi ...

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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. They are found in a cluster of languages in

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, in the Kajoko dialect of Bijago in Guinea-Bissau, in Umotína (a recently extinct Bororoan language of

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), and as paralinguistic sounds elsewhere. They are also relatively common in

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, and the diacritic is specifically provided for in the extensions to the IPA. Linguolabial consonants are transcribed in the

International Phonetic Alphabet The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standardized representation ...

by adding the "seagull" diacritic, , to the corresponding

alveolar consonant Alveolar (; UK also ) consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets) of the upper teeth. Alveolar consonants may be articulated wit ...

, or with the

apical Apical means "pertaining to an apex". It may refer to: *Apical ancestor, refers to the last common ancestor of an entire group, such as a species (biology) or a clan (anthropology) *Apical (anatomy), an anatomical term of location for features loc ...

diacritic, , on the corresponding bilabial consonant.Pullum & Ladusaw, ''

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'', 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 have shifted historically from labial to dental consonants via an intermediate linguolabial stage, which remains in other Santo and Malekula languages. In

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, 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 .

Notes

References

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Linguolabial Consonant Place of articulation Linguolabial consonants