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Linguolabials or apicolabials 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 sub-apical palatal places of articulation. Cross-linguistically, linguolabial consonants are very rare, though 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 Vanuatu, in the Kajoko dialect of Bijago in Guinea-Bissau, as well as in Umotína, a recently extinct Bororoan language of Brazil, and as extraphonotactic sounds worldwide.
Sagittal section of linguolabial stop
The linguolabial consonants are transcribed in the International Phonetic Alphabet by adding the "seagull" diacritic to the corresponding alveolar consonant. They are sometimes seen with the letter for a bilabial consonant instead, but this usage is not recognized by the International Phonetic Association, and would imply that both lips are used.
See also
Notes
References
- Ladefoged, Peter; Ian Maddieson (1996). The Sounds of the World's Languages. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-19814-8.
- Maddieson, Ian. 1989. Linguo-labials. In VICAL 1: Oceanic Languages, Part II: Papers from the Fifth International Conference on Austronesian Linguistics, Auckland, New Zealand, January 1988, ed. by R. Harlow & R. Hooper, 349–375. Aukland: Linguistic Society of New Zealand.
- Olson, Kenneth S., D. William Reiman, Fernando Sabio & Filipe Alberto da Silva. In press. The voiced linguolabial plosive in Kajoko. Chicago Linguistic Society (CLS) 45(1).
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