A labio-palatalized sound is one that is simultaneously
labialized and
palatalized. Typically the
roundedness is compressed, like , rather than protruded like . The symbol in the
International Phonetic Alphabet
The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is an alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin script. It was devised by the International Phonetic Association in the late 19th century as a standard written representation ...
for this
secondary articulation is , a superscript , the symbol for the
labialized palatal approximant. If such sounds pattern with other, labialized, consonants, they may instead be transcribed as palatalized consonants plus labialization, , as with the = of
Abkhaz or the = of
Akan.
A voiced labialized palatal approximant occurs in
Mandarin Chinese
Mandarin ( ; zh, s=, t=, p=Guānhuà, l=Mandarin (bureaucrat), officials' speech) is the largest branch of the Sinitic languages. Mandarin varieties are spoken by 70 percent of all Chinese speakers over a large geographical area that stretch ...
and
French, but elsewhere is uncommon, as it is generally dependent upon the presence of front
rounded vowels such as and , which are themselves not common. However, a labialized palatal approximant and labio-palatalized consonants appear in some languages without front rounded vowels in the Caucasus and in West Africa, such as Abkhaz, and as
allophones of labialized consonants before , including the at the beginning of the language name ''Twi.'' In Russian, and trigger labialization of any preceding consonant, including palatalized consonants, so that ''нёс'' 'he carried' is phonetically .
Iaai has a
voiceless labialized palatal approximant .
Labial–palatal consonants
Truly co-articulated labial–palatal consonants such as are theoretically possible.
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
*
Labio-palatal approximant
References
Place of articulation
Assimilation (linguistics)
Secondary articulation
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