Its manner of articulation is trill, which means it is produced by directing air over an articulator so that it vibrates. In most instances, it is only found as the trilled release of a prenasalized stop.
[ʙ] is classified as an allophone of /u/ following /p,b,t,d/ in the phonemic analysis of Huáng (1992:673–674), and Yǐn (2016).[13] Phonemic according to Pavlík (2017), occurring before /u/ or as a syllabic consonant; the trill components may be voiceless [ʙ̥] when preceded by voiceless plosives. No bilabial trills are present in the phonemic analysis of Nishida (2013).
In many of the languages in which the bilabial trill occurs, it occurs only as part of a prenasalized bilabial stop with trilled release, [mbʙ]. That developed historically from a prenasalized stop before a relatively high back vowel like [mbu]. In such instances, the sounds are usually still limited to the environment of a following [u]. However, the trills in Mangbetu may precede any vowel[14] and are sometimes preceded by only a nasal.
^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. ISSN0720-0986.
^ abcFoley, William A. (2018). "The Languages of the Sepik-Ramu Basin and Environs". In Palmer, Bill (ed.). The Languages and Linguistics of the New Guinea Area: A Comprehensive Guide. The World of Linguistics. Vol. 4. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton. pp. 197–432. ISBN978-3-11-028642-7.
^Rangelov, Tihomir (2019), The bilabial trills of Ahamb (Vanuatu): acoustic and articulatory properties, University of Waikato
^ abCoupe, Alexander (2016), "Prestopped bilabial trills in Sangtam", Proceedings of the 18th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Glasgow, 10-14 August 2015.
^See, e.g., among the numerous data of Robert G. McKee's "Concerning Meegye and Mangbetu’s bilabial trills," in Advances in Nilo-Saharan Linguistics: Proceedings of the 8th Nilo-Saharan Linguistics Colloquium, University of Hamburg, August 22–25, 2001, Doris L. Payne & Mechthild Reh (eds.), 181–189 (2007, Rüdiger Köppe Verlag, Cologne).