Voiceless labiodental plosive

The voiceless labiodental plosive is a consonant sound produced like a [p], but with the lower lip contacting the upper teeth, as in [f]. This can be represented in the IPA as [p̪]. A separate symbol not recognized by the IPA that is often seen, especially in Bantu linguistics, is the qp ligature ȹ.

The voiceless labiodental plosive is not known to be phonemic in any language. However, it does occur allophonically. The XiNkuna dialect of Tsonga has affricates, [p̪͡f] and [b̪͡v] (that is, [ȹ͡f] and [ȸ͡v]), which unlike the bilabial-labiodental affricate [p͡f] of German are purely labiodental.

One reason that this sound may be so rare is that a person with uneven upper teeth, or gaps between the teeth, will not be able to completely block the flow of air out of the mouth, and therefore will tend to produce a fricative [f] rather than a plosive [p̪].^{[citation needed]}

Features

Features of the voiceless labiodental plosive:

• Its manner of articulation is plosive or stop, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract.
• Its place of articulation is labiodental which means it is articulated with the lower lips and the upper teeth.
• Its phonation type is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords.
• It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth.
• It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by allowing the airstream to flow over the middle of the tongue, rather than the sides.
• The airstream mechanism is pulmonic egressive, which means it is articulated by pushing air out of the lungs and through the vocal tract, rather than from the glottis or the mouth.

Occurrence

See also

• List of phonetics topics