Talk:Labial–coronal consonant

Source
I would like to see a source for this information. If I remember correctly, it was said in Ladefoged &al. (1996; The sounds of the World's languages) that no language is known where there were doubly articulated labial-alveolar consonants, and that it was doubtful if that were even possible. --Oghmoir 10:47, 7 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Actually, the source is SOWL. The words used to illustrate it come directly from Table 10.7 on page 344. kwami 10:54, 7 November 2005 (UTC)


 * Haha, that's good to know. Thanks. I have to read that wonderful book again some time. -Oghmoir 09:47, 18 December 2005 (UTC)


 * "Again" implies once - I don't think that will do it! :)


 * The passage you remember is in the book. M had serious doubts about the existance of such sounds, and then Yeli Dnye popped up. kwami 11:10, 18 December 2005 (UTC)


 * The labialised alveolar plosives in Ubykh and Abkhaz are most often realised as doubly articulated bilabial-alveolar stops. Sometimes bilabial trilling is substituted for the bilabial stop, but the double articulation is most common. These languages have been known for much longer than Yeli Ndye, but common practice in the literature has been to refer to these stops as "labialised alveolars", confusing matters a bit. thefamouseccles 03:05, 12 Feb 2006 (UTC)

I think the key word here is 'contrastive'. Dagbani and Nzema, for example, have [tp] as an allophone of [kp]. The Caucasian case doesn't seem to be clear cut either. Please let us know if you have good data; I'm primarily going off Ladefoged & Maddieson, who've reviewed the lit pretty thoroughly. Here's what they have to say:
 * tp occurs ... as a variant of tʷ for at least some speakers of Abkhaz (Catford 1972) and Lak (Khaidakov 1966). Here Catford describes the labial contact as 'light'; moreover, in these Caucasian cases the labial component involves considerable forward protrusion of the lips and the contact is between the inner surfaces. Photographs taken by Catford show this is quite different from the normal contact for p, and it might be more justifiable to consider this gesture as phonetically a secondary articulation, since it seems related to lip rounding. (p 344)

The Yele situation, on the other hand, is much more clear cut. kwami 06:58, 12 February 2006 (UTC)