Linguolabial consonant

Linguolabials or apicolabials^[1] are consonants articulated 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. They are found in a cluster of languages in Vanuatu, in the Kajoko dialect of Bijago in Guinea-Bissau, in Umotína (a recently extinct Bororoan language of Brazil), and as paralinguistic sounds elsewhere. They are also relatively common in disordered speech, and the diacritic is specifically provided for in the extensions to the IPA.

Linguolabial
◌̼

Linguolabial consonants are transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet by adding the "seagull"^[2] diacritic, U+033C ◌̼ COMBINING SEAGULL BELOW, to the corresponding alveolar consonant, or with the apical diacritic, U+033A ◌̺ COMBINING INVERTED BRIDGE BELOW, on the corresponding bilabial consonant.^[3]

Description

Sagittal section of linguolabial stop

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).^[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]

List of consonants

IPA (two transcriptions)		Description	Example
			Language	Orthography	IPA	Meaning
n̼	m̺	linguolabial nasal	Araki	m̈ana	[n̼ana]	"laugh"[7][8][9]
t̼	p̺	voiceless linguolabial plosive	Tangoa	p̈ep̈e	[t̼et̼e]	"butterfly"[10]
d̼	b̺	voiced linguolabial plosive	Kajoko dialect of Bijago		[nɔ̀d̼ɔ́ːɡ]	"stone"[11]
n̼d̼	m̺b̺	prenasalized voiced linguolabial plosive	Vao		[nan̼d̼ak]	"bow"[10]
θ̼	ɸ̺	voiceless linguolabial fricative	Big Nambas		[ˈinɛθ̼]	"he is asthmatic"
ð̼	β̺	voiced linguolabial fricative	Tangoa	v̈atu	[ð̼atu]	"stone"[10]
ɾ̼	ⱱ̺	voiced linguolabial flap	Kajoko dialect of Bijago		[nɔ̀ɾ̼ɔ́ːɡ]	"stone"[11]
l̼	—	linguolabial lateral approximant	(common in disordered speech)
ɬ̼	—	voiceless linguolabial lateral fricative	(in disordered speech)
ɮ̼	—	voiced linguolabial lateral fricative	(in disordered speech)
ɺ̼	—	linguolabial lateral flap (uses lower lip)	Piraha (part of allophone for /ɡ/, [ɺ͡ɺ̼])	toogixi	[tòːɺ͡ɺ̼ìʔì]	"hoe"[12]
r̼	ʙ̺	linguolabial trill (uses lower lip)	Coatlán Zapotec	(paralinguistic)	r̼ʔ	used as mimesis for a child's flatulence.[13] (similar to blowing a raspberry, but involving only upper lip)
ǀ̼ or ʇ̼	ʘ̺	linguolabial click release (multiple consonants)	Coatlán Zapotec	(paralinguistic)	kǀ̼	used as mimesis for eating soup or a pig drinking water[13]

Linguolabials as a diachronic stage in sound shifts

In Vanuatu, some of the Santo–Malekula languages have shifted historically from bilabial to alveolar 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 as Tolomako, which shifted the linguolabials to full alveolar consonants: *b > *[p] > p̈ [t̼] > t [t]; *m > m̈ [n̼] > n [n]. Thus, POc *bebe 'butterfly' > [t̼et̼e] (spelled p̈ep̈e in Tangoa or in Araki^[14]) later became [tete] in Tolomako. Likewise, POc *tama 'father' > [tan̼a] (cf. Tangoa tam̈a, Araki ram̈a^[15]) > Tolomako [tana].

See also

• Place of articulation
• List of phonetics topics

Notes

1. The term apicolabial is older, but Ladefoged and Maddieson point out that often these sounds are not apical.
2. Olson et al. (2009), p. 521.
3. Pullum, Geoffrey K.; Ladusaw, William A. (1996). Phonetic Symbol Guide (2nd ed.). p. 256. ISBN 9780226685366. They note that the apical diacritic was added to the IPA after the linguolabial diacritic, and would have made the latter unnecessary.
4. Everett (1982).
5. Maddieson (1988), p. 350.
6. Maddieson (1988), pp. 364–367.
7. François, Alexandre (2002). Araki: A disappearing language of Vanuatu. Pacific Linguistics. Vol. 522. Canberra: Australian National University. pp. 15, 270. ISBN 0-85883-493-6.
8. A. François, An online Araki-English-French dictionary. Electronic publication: entry m̈ana
9. Audio link: excerpt from a text in Araki language (sentence s75), showcasing the form m̈ana (source: Pangloss archive).
10. Ladefoged & Maddieson (1996:19)
11. Olson et al. (2009), p. 523.
12. Everett, Daniel Leonard (December 1982). "Phonetic rarities in Pirahã". Journal of the International Phonetic Association. 12 (2): 94–96. doi:10.1017/S0025100300002498. JSTOR 44526660. S2CID 143928460. Retrieved 27 September 2023.
13. Beam de Azcona, Rosemary. "Sound Symbolism" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-06-23. Retrieved 2008-11-24.
14. A. François, An online Araki-English-French dictionary. Electronic publication: entry p̈ep̈e
15. A. François, An online Araki-English-French dictionary. Electronic publication: entry r̄am̈a

References

• Ladefoged, Peter; Maddieson, Ian (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19815-6.
• Maddieson, Ian (1988). "Linguo-labials". In Harlow, Ray; Hooper, Robin (eds.). VICAL 1: Oceanic Languages: Papers from the Fifth International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics: Part Two. Auckland: Linguistic Society of New Zealand. pp. 349–375.
• Olson, Kenneth; Reiman, D. William; Sabio, Fernando; da Silva, Filipe Alberto (2009). "The voiced linguolabial plosive in Kajoko". Proceedings of the Chicago Linguistic Society. 45 (1): 519–530.