Labialization

 ( Assimilation ) 

Labialization is a secondary articulatory feature of sounds in some languages. Labialized sounds involve the lips while the remainder of the Human mouth produces another sound. The term is normally restricted to . When vowels involve the lips, they are called roundedness.

The most common labialized consonants are labialized velars. Most other labialized sounds also have simultaneous velarization, and the process may then be more precisely called labio-velarization. The labialization of bilabial consonants, though generally transcribed with as if it were labiovelar, is often a protrusion of the lips without velarization of the tongue.

Labialization has been attested with pulmonic, implosive, ejective and .

In phonology, labialization may also refer to a type of assimilation process.

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Occurrence Labialization is the most widespread secondary articulation in the world's languages. It is phonemically contrastive in Northwest Caucasian (e.g. Adyghe language), Athabaskan, and Salishan language family, among others. This contrast is reconstructed also for Proto-Indo-European, the common ancestor of the Indo-European languages; and it survives in Latin language and some Romance languages. It is also found in the Cushitic and Ethio-Semitic languages.

American English labializes to various degrees.

A few languages, including Arrernte and Mba language, have contrastive labialized forms for almost all of their consonants.

In many Salishan languages, such as Klallam language, velar consonants only occur in their labialized forms (except /k/, which occurs in some loanwords). However, uvular consonants occur abundantly labialized and unrounded.

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Types Out of 706 language inventories surveyed by , labialization occurred most often with velar consonant (42%) and uvular consonant (15%) segments and least often with dental consonant and alveolar segments. With non-dorsal consonants, labialization may include velarization as well. Labialization is not restricted to lip-rounding. The following articulations have either been described as labialization or been found as allophone realizations of prototypical labialization:

• Labiodental frication, found in Abkhaz language
  (1977). 9780824319069, Annual Reviews Incorporated. . ISBN 9780824319069
• Labiodentalization is a common idiosyncrasy of English and , and especially of .John Laver 1994: Principles of Phonetics
• Complete bilabial closure, , found in Abkhaz and Ubykh language
• "Labialization" (, , and ) without noticeable rounding (protrusion) of the lips, found in the Iroquoian languages. It may be that they are roundedness.
• Rounding without velarization, found in Shona language and in the Bzyb dialect of Abkhaz language.

Eastern Arrernte has labialization at all places and manners of articulation; this derives historically from adjacent rounded vowels, as is also the case of the Northwest Caucasian languages. Marshallese also has phonemic labialization as a secondary articulation at all places of articulation except for and coronal obstruents.

In North America, languages from a number of families have sounds that sound labialized (and vowels that sound rounded) without the participation of the lips. See Tillamook language for an example.

Similarly to the distinction between the labio-palatal and labio-velar , some languages exhibit labio-palatalization , rather than labio-velarization .

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Prelabialization In Slovene language, sounds can be prelabialized. Furthermore, the change is phonemic and all phonemes have prelabialized pairs (though not all of their allophones can have pairs). Compare 'stand' and 'stand up' . The prelabialization part, however, is usually not considered as being part of the same phoneme as prelabialized sound, but rather as an allophone of as it changes depending on the environment, e. g. 'take' and 'summarize' . See Slovene phonology for more details.

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Transcription In the International Phonetic Alphabet, labialization of velar consonants is indicated with a raised w modifier (Unicode U+02B7), as in . (Elsewhere this diacritic generally indicates simultaneous labialization and velarization.) There are also diacritics, respectively , to indicate greater or lesser degrees of rounding.As a mnemonic, the more-rounded diacritics resemble the rounded vowel . These are normally used with vowels but may occur with consonants. For example, in the Athabaskan language Hupa language, voiceless velar fricatives distinguish three degrees of labialization, transcribed either or .

The VoQS system has two additional symbols for degrees of rounding, originally introduced as part of the extensions to the IPA: Spread and open-rounded (as in English). It also has a symbol for labiodentalized sounds, .

If precision is desired, the Abkhaz and Ubykh articulations may be transcribed with the appropriate fricative or trill raised as a diacritic: , , , .

For simple labialization, resurrected an old IPA symbol, ,This is not a subscript w but originally a subscript omega that "recalls the letter w" (Jespersen & Pedersen, 1926, Phonetic Transcription and Transliteration: Proposals of the Copenhagen Conference, April 1925. Oxford University Press). which would be placed above a letter with a descender such as . However, their chief example is Shona sv and zv, which they transcribe and but which actually seem to be whistled sibilants, without necessarily being labialized.See [1]. Another possibility is to use the IPA diacritic for rounding, distinguishing for example the labialization in English soon and swoon.John Esling (2010) "Phonetic Notation", in Hardcastle, Laver & Gibbon (eds) The Handbook of Phonetic Sciences, 2nd ed. The open rounding of English is also unvelarized.

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Assimilation Labialization also refers to a specific type of assimilatory process where a given sound become labialized due to the influence of neighboring labial sounds. For example, may become in the environment of , or may become in the environment of or .

In the Northwest Caucasian languages as well as some Australian languages rounding has shifted from the vowels to the consonants, producing a wide range of labialized consonants and leaving in some cases only two phonemic vowels. This appears to have been the case in Ubykh and Eastern Arrernte, for example. The labial vowel sounds usually still remain, but only as allophones next to the now-labial consonant sounds.

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List of labialized consonants

+ ! colspan ="2"	type ! width="28%"	Phone !IPA ! Languages
Stops	plain	protruded voiceless bilabial stop		Chaha, Ibaloi language, Paha
		protruded voiced bilabial stop		Chaha, Ibaloi language, Paha, Mayo language, Yaqui language
		labzd voiceless alveolar stop		Archi language, Abkhaz language, Lao language, Paha language, Ubykh language
		labzd voiced alveolar stop		Archi, Abkhaz, Ubykh
		labzd voiceless velar stop		Abaza language, Abkhaz language, Adyghe language, Halkomelem, Kabardian, Taos, Chipewyan, Hadza, Gwichʼin, Tlingit, Akan language, Nez Perce, Archi, Cantonese, Wariʼ, Chaha language, Dahalo language, Hausa language, Igala language, Igbo language, Lao, Latin phonology, Nahuatl, Nawat language, Okinawan, Ossetic, Paha, Portuguese, Thai language, Tigrinya, Hiw language, Ubykh, Slavey language, Breton language, Gothic language
		labzd voiced velar stop		Abaza language, Abkhaz language, Adyghe, Akan, Archi, Chaha, Dahalo, Hausa, Okinawan, Oowekyala, Ossetic, Hadza, Ibaloi language, Igala, Igbo, Gwichʼin, Kabardian, Paha, Portuguese, Tigrinya, Ubykh, Breton language, Yoruba language, Gothic language
		labzd voiceless uvular stop		Abaza language, Abkhaz language, Adyghe, Kabardian, Ossetic, Paha, Tlingit, Nez Perce, Ubykh
		labzd pharyngealized voiceless uvular stop		Archi language, Ubykh language
		labzd voiced uvular stop		Oowekyala, Kwak'wala, Tsakhur
		labzd glottal stop		Adyghe, Kabardian, Lao, Tlingit
		labzd prenasalized voiced bilabial plosive		Tamambo language
	Labial–velar	protruded voiceless labio–velar stop		Dorig language, Mwotlap language
		protruded prenasalized voiced labial–velar stop		Volow language
Affricates	sibilant	labzd voiceless alveolar affricate		Adyghe language, Archi, Lezgian, Tsakhur
		labzd voiced alveolar affricate		Adyghe language, Dahalo
		labzd voiceless palato-alveolar affricate		Archi, Abaza, Adyghe, Paha, Aghul, German
		labzd voiced palato-alveolar affricate		Abaza, Aghul, Tsakhur, German
		labzd voiceless alveolo-palatal affricate		Abkhaz, Akan, Ubykh
		labzd voiced alveolo-palatal affricate		Abkhaz, Akan, Ubykh
	non-sibilant	labzd voiceless velar affricate		Navajo language
		labzd voiceless uvular affricate		Kabardian, Lillooet
	lateral	labzd voiceless velar lateral affricate		Archi
Fricatives	sibilant	labzd voiceless alveolar sibilant		Archi, Lao, Lezgian
		labzd voiced alveolar sibilant		Archi, Tsakhur, Lezgian
		labzd voiceless palato-alveolar sibilant		Archi, Abaza, Abkhaz, Adyghe, Paha, Aghul, Ubykh
		labzd voiced palato-alveolar sibilant		Archi, Abaza, Abkhaz, Adyghe, Aghul, Ubykh
		labzd voiceless retroflex sibilant		Bzhedug
		labzd voiced retroflex sibilant		Bzhedug
		labzd voiceless alveolo-palatal sibilant		Abkhaz, Ubykh
		labzd voiced alveolo-palatal sibilant		Abkhaz, Ubykh
	non-sibilant	protruded voiceless bilabial fricative		Okinawan, Taruma language
		protruded voiced bilabial fricative		Tamambo language
		labzd voiceless labiodental fricative		Hadza, Chaha
		labzd voiced labiodental fricative		Chichewa
		labzd voiceless dental fricative		Paha
		labzd voiced dental fricative		Paha
		labzd voiceless palatal fricative		Akan
		labzd voiceless velar fricative		Abaza, Adyghe, Avestan language, Chaha, Halkomelem, Kabardian, Oowekyala, Taos, Navajo, Tigrinya, Lillooet, Tlingit
		labzd voiced velar fricative		Abaza, Navajo, Lillooet, Gwichʼin, possibly Proto-Indo-European
		labzd voiceless uvular fricative		Abkhaz, Adyghe, Archi, Halkomelem, Kabardian, Lillooet, Tlingit, Wariʼ, Chipewyan, Oowekyala, Ossetic, Ubykh
		labzd pharyngealized voiceless uvular fricative		Abkhaz, Archi, Ubykh
		labzd voiced uvular fricative		Abkhaz, Adyghe, Chipewyan, Kabardian, Ubykh
		labzd pharyngealized voiced uvular fricative		Archi, Ubykh
		labzd voiceless pharyngeal fricative		Abaza, Abkhaz
		labzd voiced pharyngeal fricative		Abaza, Lillooet
	Pseudo-fricatives	labzd voiceless glottal fricative		Akan, Tlingit, Tsakhur, Gothic language
	Lateral fricatives	labzd voiceless alveolar lateral fricative		Dahalo
		labzd voiceless velar lateral fricative		Archi
Nasals		protruded bilabial nasal		Adyghe language, Chaha language, Paha language, Tamambo language
		labzd palatal nasal		Akan
		labzd velar nasal		Akan, Avestan, Lao, Hiw language, Igala
		protruded labial-velar nasal		Dorig language, Mwotlap language
Approximants		labzd alveolar lateral approximant		Lao
		labzd labiodental approximant		Russian
		labialized palatal approximant		Abkhaz, Akan, French language, Mandarin Chinese, Paha
		Labio-velar approximant (voiced)		in Japanese
		Protruded labio-velar approximant (voiced)		widespread; in every above-mentioned language, as well as e.g. Arabic language, English language, Korean language, Vietnamese
		Voiceless labio-velar approximant		certain dialects of English
		nasal labialized velar approximant		Polish, Portuguese
		labzd postalveolar approximant		many dialects of English
		labzd retroflex approximant
Ejectives		protruded bilabial ejective		Adyghe language
		labzd alveolar ejective		Abkhaz language, Adyghe, Ubykh language
		labzd velar ejective		Abaza language, Abkhaz, Adyghe language, Archi, Slavey language, Chipewyan, Halkomelem, Kabardian, Ossetic, Tlingit language, Ubykh
		labzd palato-alveolar ejective fricative		Adyghe
		labzd uvular ejective		Abaza, Abkhaz, Archi, Halkomelem, Hakuchi, Tlingit language, Ubykh
		labzd pharyngealized uvular ejective		Archi language, Ubykh language
		labzd alveolar ejective affricate		Archi, Khwarshi
		labzd alveolar lateral ejective affricate		Khwarshi
		labzd palato-alveolar ejective affricate		Abaza, Archi, Khwarshi
		labzd alveolo-palatal ejective affricate		Abkhaz, Ubykh
		labzd retroflex ejective affricate		allophonic in Adyghe
		labzd velar lateral ejective affricate		Archi
		labzd velar ejective fricative		Tlingit language
		labzd uvular ejective fricative		Tlingit language
Clicks		labzd tenuis dental click		Xhosa (tenuis or ejective), YeyiInventory in Lukusa (2002) Groundwork in Shiyeyi Grammar, p. XXI ff
		labzd tenuis alveolar click		Xhosa (tenuis or ejective), Yeyi
		labzd tenuis alveolar click		Xhosa (tenuis or ejective)
		labzd aspirated dental click		Xhosa, Yeyi
		labzd aspirated alveolar click		Xhosa, Yeyi
		labzd aspirated lateral click		Xhosa, Yeyi
		labzd nasal dental click		Xhosa, Yeyi
		labzd nasal alveolar click		Xhosa, Yeyi
		labzd nasal lateral click		Xhosa, Yeyi
		labzd voiced dental click		Xhosa (voiced aspirated)
		labzd voiced alveolar click		Xhosa (voiced aspirated), YeyiInventory in Donnelly (2002) Yeeyi
		labzd voiced lateral click		Xhosa (voiced aspirated), Yeyi
		labzd glottalized nasal alveolar click		Yeyi
		labzd voiced-aspirated nasal dental click	ŋǀʱʷ	Xhosa
		labzd voiced-aspirated nasal alveolar click	ŋǃʱʷ	Xhosa
		labzd voiced-aspirated nasal lateral click	ŋǁʱʷ	Xhosa

Note that labialized are not attested in Yeyi and are not reconstructed for Proto-Kxʼa. Xhosa also has prenasalized tenuis/ejective and aspirated clicks, which also occur labialized ( nkqw, nkxw, nchw, nqhw, nxhw).

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See also

• Labio-palatalization (◌ᶣ)

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Bibliography

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