| Voiceless labiodental affricate | |
|---|---|
| p̪f | |
| Audio sample | |
| source · help |
The voiceless labiodental affricate ( in IPA) is a rare affricate consonant that is initiated as a labiodental stop and released as a voiceless labiodental fricative .
The XiNkuna dialect of Tsonga has this affricate, as in "hippopotamuses" and aspirated "distance" (compare "tortoise", which shows that the stop is not epenthetic), as well as a voiced labiodental affricate, , as in "chin". There is no voiceless labiodental fricative in this dialect of Tsonga, only a voiceless bilabial fricative, as in "finished". (Among voiced fricatives, both and occur, however.)
German has a similar sound /p͡f/ in Pfeffer /ˈp͡fɛfɐ/ ('pepper') and Apfel /ˈap͡fəl/ ('apple'). Phonotactically, this sound does not occur after long vowels, diphthongs or /l/. It differs from a true labiodental affricate in that it starts out bilabial but then the lower lip retracts slightly for the frication.
The sound occurs occasionally in English, in words where one syllable ends with "p" and the next starts with "f", like in "helpful" or "stepfather".
Features
Features of the voiceless labiodental affricate:
- Its manner of articulation is affricate, which means it is produced by first stopping the airflow entirely, then allowing air flow through a constricted channel at the place of articulation, causing turbulence.
- There are two variants of the stop component:
- bilabial, which means it is articulated with both lips. The affricate with this stop component is called bilabial-labiodental.
- labiodental, which means it is articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth.
- The fricative component of this affricate is labiodental, articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth.
- Its phonation is voiceless, which means it is produced without vibrations of the vocal cords. In some languages the vocal cords are actively separated, so it is always voiceless; in others the cords are lax, so that it may take on the voicing of adjacent sounds.
- It is an oral consonant, which means air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.
- It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
- Its airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.
Occurrence
| Language | Word | IPA | Meaning | Notes | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Burushaski | iphusimi | 'he ties him' | In free variation with /pʰ/. May also be realized as /f/. | ||
| English | Some speakers | helpful | 'helpful' | Occurs for some speakers in consonant clusters of /pf/ | |
| info | 'info' | Allophone of /f/ after nasal consonants for some speakers as a form of epenthesis; usually occurs during fast and casual speech. | |||
| German | Standard | Pfirsiche | 'peaches' | Bilabial-labiodental. Arisen as a reflex of /p/ in the 8th century High German sound shift. See Standard German phonology | |
| Swiss dialects | Soipfe | 'soap' | Bilabial-labiodental. The example word is from the Zürich dialect. | ||
| Ghomalaʼ | |||||
| Italian | Some central-south dialects | infatti | 'indeed' | Labiodental, allophone of /f/ after nasals. See Italian phonology | |
| Luxembourgish | Kampf | 'fight' | Occurs only in German loanwords. See Luxembourgish phonology | ||
| Ngiti | pfɔ̀mvɔ | 'water spirit' | Less commonly | ||
| Kinyarwanda | gupfundikira | 'to close, seal' | |||
| Mandarin | Xi'an dialect | 猪/豬 zhū | 'pig' | From the labialization of retroflex stops in Middle Chinese | |
| Slovene | pfenig | 'pfennig' | Rarely occurs, mostly in German loanwords. See Slovene phonology | ||
| Sopvoma | ōpfǒ | 'father' | Aspirated in some words, in free variation. "ǒ" represents a "Higher Mid" tone between the Mid and Lower High tones found in some speakers. | ||
| Tsonga | XiNkuna dialect | timpfuvu | 'hippopotami' | Contrasts with aspirated form. | |
Notes
- Berger, Hermann (1998). Die Burushaski-Sprache von Hunza und Nager. Neuindische Studien. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. ISBN 978-3-447-03961-1.
- ^ Mangold (2005), p. 45.
- Fausto Cercignani, The Consonants of German: Synchrony and Diachrony, Milano, Cisalpino, 1979.
- Fleischer & Schmid (2006), p. 244.
- Marti (1985), p. ?.
- ^ Canepari (1992), p. 71.
- ^ Gilles & Trouvain (2013), p. 72.
- Kutsch Lojenga (1994), p. 31.
- Kutsch Lojenga (1994), p. 45.
- Giridhar, P P. "Mao Naga Grammar." 1994, p. 26. https://archive.org/details/dli.language.2262/page/n9/mode/2up
References
- Canepari, Luciano (1992), Il MªPi – Manuale di pronuncia italiana [Handbook of Italian Pronunciation] (in Italian), Bologna: Zanichelli, ISBN 88-08-24624-8
- Fleischer, Jürg; Schmid, Stephan (2006), "Zurich German", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 36 (2): 243–253, doi:10.1017/S0025100306002441
- Gilles, Peter; Trouvain, Jürgen (2013), "Luxembourgish", Journal of the International Phonetic Association, 43 (1): 67–74, doi:10.1017/S0025100312000278
- Kutsch Lojenga, Constance (1994), Ngiti: a Central-Sudanic language of Zaire, Köln: Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, ISBN 978-3-927620-71-1
- Mangold, Max (2005) , Das Aussprachewörterbuch (6th ed.), Mannheim: Dudenverlag, ISBN 978-3-411-04066-7
- Marti, Werner (1985), Berndeutsch-Grammatik, Bern: Francke, ISBN 3-7720-1587-5
