Voiceless labiodental plosive

Voiceless labiodental plosive
p​̪
p͆
IPA number	101 408
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	p​̪
Unicode (hex)	U+0070 U+032A
X-SAMPA	p_d
Kirshenbaum	p[
Sound

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 stop, or plosive, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract. (The term plosive contrasts with nasal stops, where the blocked airflow is redirected through the nose.)
• Its place of articulation is labiodental, which means it is articulated with the lower lips and the upper teeth.
• Its phonation 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 only.
• Because the sound is not produced with airflow over the tongue, the central–lateral dichotomy does not apply.
• The airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the lungs and diaphragm, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Greek		σάπφειρος	[ˈsap̪firo̞s̠]	'sapphire'	See Modern Greek phonology

See also

• List of phonetics topics