A voiceless bilabial trill is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨ʙ̥⟩. Some sources use a para-IPA symbol ⟨ᴘ⟩ to transcribe this sound.[1][2]

This sound is typologically extremely rare. It occurs in languages such as Pará Arára.[3] Only a few languages contrast voiced and voiceless bilabial trills phonemically – e.g. Mangbetu and Dongo of Congo and Ninde of Vanuatu.[4][5][6]

Features

Features of a bilabial trill:

  • Its manner of articulation is trill, which means it is produced by directing air over an articulator so that it vibrates.
  • Its place of articulation is bilabial, which means it is articulated with both lips.
  • 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 that air is not allowed to escape through the nose.
  • Because the sound is not produced with airflow over the tongue, the median–lateral dichotomy does not apply.
  • Its airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air only with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

Plain

Language Word IPA Meaning Notes
Ahamb[7] [ŋãˈʙ̥̍s] 'it foams' Contrasts /ʙ̥, ᵐʙ, ⁿᵈr/.
Lese[8] [uk͡pʙ̥u] 'head' Allophone of /k͡p/.
Neverver[9] [naɣaᵐʙ̥] 'fire, firewood' Allophone of /p/ before /u/[10]
Pará Arára[11] [ʙ̥uta] 'to throw away'
Dongo[6] ppo̍ppo̍-kó [ʙ̥ōʙ̥ōkó] 'wings' Contrasts with /ʙ/ and /p/; has allophone [pʰ].

Prestopped trills and stops with trill release

There is also a very rare voiceless bilabially post-trilled dental or alveolar stop, [t̪͡ʙ̥] (written ⟨tᵖ̃⟩ in Everett & Kern) reported from a few words in the Chapacuran languages Wariʼ, Itene (More),[12] and Oro Win, as well as Sangtam, a Naga language. The sound also appears as an allophone of the labialized voiceless alveolar stop /tʷ/ of Abkhaz and Ubykh, but in those languages it is more often realised by a doubly articulated stop [t͡p]. In the Chapacuran languages, [tʙ̥] is reported almost exclusively before rounded vowels such as [o] and [y].

Additionally, Lese has another rare trilled affricate, a labial–velar trilled affricate [k͡pʙ̥], which occurs as an allophone of the voiceless labial–velar plosive [k͡p].[8]

In some languages, the trill may be voiced, particularly when syllabic; see Voiced bilabial trill § Prestopped trills and stops with trill release.

Language Word IPA Meaning Notes
Itene[12] [ˈt𐞄̥u] 'toad' Phonemic; alveolar
Oro Win[13] [t̪͡ʙ̥um] 'small boy' Noted as 'a bilabial trill, preceded by a dental stop, forming a single uni[t]'[14]
Sangtam[15] [t̪͡ʙ̥ʰʌ] 'plate' Contrasts aspirated /t̪͡ʙ̥ʰ/ and unaspirated /t̪͡ʙ̥/, noted as 'prestopped trills'. The trill in the unaspirated consonant is typically voiced as [t̪͡ʙ] when word-medial.[16]
Ubykh[17][full citation needed] [t͡ʙ̥aχəbza] 'Ubykh language' Allophone of /tʷ/. See Ubykh phonology
Wariʼ[18] totowe' [t̪͡ʙ̥ot̪͡ʙ̥oˈweʔ] 'chicken' Occurs only before /o/ and /y/, appearing almost exclusively in older speakers; often allophonic with [t]

Notes

  1. ^ Olson, Kenneth S. (2022-05-05). "The Nonexistence of the Plain Bilabial Trill Phoneme". Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America. 7 (1): 5239. doi:10.3765/plsa.v7i1.5239.
  2. ^ Rangelov, Tihomir; Walworth, Mary; Barbour, Julie (2023). "A multifaceted approach to understanding unexpected sound change: The bilabial trills of Vanuatu's Malekula Island". Diachronica. doi:10.1075/dia.21051.ran. hdl:10289/15510. ISSN 0176-4225. Retrieved 2023-05-07.
  3. ^ de Souza, Isaac Costa (2010). "3". A Phonological Description of "Pet Talk" in Arara (MA). University of North Dakota. S2CID 61247622.
  4. ^ Linguist Wins Symbolic Victory for 'Labiodental Flap'. NPR (2005-12-17). Retrieved on 2010-12-08.
  5. ^ LINGUIST List 8.45: Bilabial trill. Linguistlist.org. Retrieved on 2010-12-08.
  6. ^ a b Pasch, Helma (1986). Die Mba-Sprachen: Die Nominalklassensysteme und die genetische Gliederung einer Gruppe von Ubangi-Sprachen. Sprache und Geschichte in Afrika (SUGIA) (in German). Vol. Suplement 6. Köln: Rüdiger Köppe. p. 359. ISSN 0720-0986.
  7. ^ Rangelov, Tihomir (2019). "The bilabial trills of Ahamb (Vanuatu): Acoustic and articulatory properties" (PDF). In Calhoun, S.; Escudero, P.; Tabain, M.; Warren, P. (eds.). Proceedings of the 19th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Melbourne, Australia 2019. Canberra: Australasian Speech Science and Technology Association. pp. 1292–1296.
  8. ^ a b Demolin, Didier; Teston, Bernard (September 1997). "Phonetic characteristics of double articulations in some Mangbutu-Efe languages" (PDF). International Speech Communication Association: 803–806.
  9. ^ Barbour, Julie (2012). A Grammar of Neverver. Mouton de Gruyter. pp. 33–34. ISBN 9783110289619.
  10. ^ Barbour 2012, pp. 24–25.
  11. ^ de Souza, Isaac Costa (2010). "The Arara Language". A Phonological Description of "Pet Talk" in Arara (MA thesis). University of North Dakota. Retrieved 2014-01-09.{{cite thesis}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  12. ^ a b Angenot-de-Lima, Geralda (2002). Description Phonologique, Grammaticale et Lexicale du Moré, Langue Amazonienne de Bolivie et du Brésil (PDF). Vol. 1. Rijksuniversiteit te Leiden dissertation. p. 67.
  13. ^ Lev, Michael; Stark, Tammy; Chang, Will (2012). "Phonological inventory of Oro Win". The South American Phonological Inventory Database (version 1.1.3 ed.). Berkeley: University of California: Survey of California and Other Indian Languages Digital Resource.
  14. ^ Oro-Win, UCLA Archives, p. 1, archived from the original on June 1, 2012
  15. ^ Coupe (2015) "Prestopped bilabial trills in Sangtam", Proceedings of the 18th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Glasgow, 10–14 August 2015
  16. ^ Coupe, Alexander (2020), "Northern Sangtam phonetics, phonology and word list" (PDF), Linguistics of the Tibeto-Burman Area, 43 (1): 148–189, doi:10.1075/ltba.19014.cou
  17. ^ Ladefoged (2005:165)
  18. ^ Everett, Daniel; Kern, Barbara (1997). Wariʼ: The Pacaas Novos language of western Brazil. London: Routledge. p. 385.
source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voiceless_bilabial_trill