Places of articulation
• Labial
Bilabial
Labial-velar
Labial-alveolar
Labiodental
• Bidental
• Coronal
Linguolabial
Interdental
Dental
Denti-alveolar
Alveolar
Apical
Laminal
Postalveolar
Alveolo-palatal
Retroflex
• Dorsal
Palatal
Labial-palatal
Velar
Uvular
Uvular-epiglottal
• Radical
Pharyngeal
Epiglotto-pharyngeal
Epiglottal
• Glottal
This page contains phonetic information in IPA, which may not display correctly in some browsers. [Help]
view • talk • edit

A labio-palatalized sound is one that is simultaneously labialized and palatalized. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet for this secondary articulation is ‹ᶣ›, a superscript ‹ɥ›, the symbol for the labial-palatal approximant. If such sounds pattern with other, labialized, consonants, they may instead be transcribed as palatalized consonants plus labialization, ‹ʷ›, as with the [ɕʷ] = [ɕᶣ] of Abkhaz or the [ɲʷ] = [ɲᶣ] of Twi.

The labial-palatal approximant [ɥ] occurs in Mandarin Chinese and French, but is uncommon, as it is generally dependent upon the presence of front rounded vowels such as [ø] and [y], which are themselves not common.^[1] However, the labial-palatal approximant and labio-palatalized consonants also appear in languages without front rounded vowels in the Caucasus and West Africa,^[2] such as Abkhaz, and as allophones of labialized consonants before /i/, including the [tɕᶣ] at the beginning of the language name Twi. In Russian, /o/ and /u/ trigger labialization of any preceding consonant, including palatalized consonants, so that нёс 'he carried' is pronounced [nᶣos].

[edit] Labial-palatal consonants

Truly coarticulated labial-palatal consonants such as [c͡p, ɟ͡b, ɲ͡m] are theoretically possible.^[3] However, the closest sounds attested from the world's languages are the labial-postalveolar consonants of Yélî Dnye in New Guinea, which are sometimes transcribed as labial-palatals.

[edit] See also

• Labial-palatal approximant

[edit] References