Labio-palatalization

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].

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.

See also

• Labial-palatal approximant

References