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Labial–coronal consonant

Type of doubly articulated consonant

Summary

Type of doubly articulated consonant

A labial–coronal consonant is a consonant produced with two simultaneous articulators: with the lips ('labial'; a , , or sound), and with the tongue (at the teeth or gums, a 'dental' or 'alveolar' , or sound, or further back, a 'post-alveolar' or 'retroflex' , or sound).

Several languages have been claimed to have such sounds, such as Margi and Bura in Nigeria. However, most researchers interpret them as having sequences of labial and coronal consonants, a rather common occurrence in Africa. The Yélî Dnye language of Rossel Island, Papua New Guinea, appears to be unique in having distinct laminal labial–alveolar (i.e. labial–denti-alveolar) and labial–retroflex (i.e. apical to sub-apical labial–postalveolar) places of articulation, as illustrated below.

Bilabial	Retroflex	Stop	Nasal
side	knife	tongue	spear
carry	food	firewood	tree
road	juice	feast	lease

Labial–alveolar	Labial–velar	Prenasalized stop
lung	horn	coconut bag
pulp	many	fog
bird	we	breast

Labial–coronal allophones

In some Ghanaian languages such as Dagbani, and Nzema, there are palatalized allophones of labial–velars. These are sometimes mistakenly referred to as labial–alveolars, though they actually have a post-alveolar or palatal articulation instead of a true alveolar one.

Something similar is found with the labialized alveolar stops in several Northwest and Northeast Caucasian languages such as Abkhaz and Lak. Although the double stop articulation may be more common, they are generally considered to be essentially labialized alveolars because the labial contact is light, and moreover the contact is between the inner surfaces of the lips, which are protruded as they are for [w]. This is quite different from the normal contact for [p] in these languages. The labial contact may also be realized as a trill. Compare the following minimal sets in Ubykh:

	ram		to take out

Some speakers of !Xóõ have a labial–dental allophone, (or ), of the bilabial click in some cases (Traill 1985: 103–104).

Discounting clicks otherwise as having a velar/lingual airstream mechanism rather than a double articulation, nearly all other doubly articulated consonants in the world are labial–velars. The labial-alveolars reported from some Chadic languages have upon investigation turned out to be , , and sequences, not single consonants. (See Margi language.)

References

(23 May 2022). "A Grammar of Yélî Dnye: The Papuan Language of Rossel Island". De Gruyter.
Henderson, James. (1995). "Phonology and Grammar of Yele, Papua New Guinea". Pacific Linguistics.

Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

place-of-articulation labial–coronal-consonants

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