Voiceless dentolabial fricative
 | This article relies largely or entirely on a single source. (September 2025) |
| Voiceless dentolabial fricative | |
|---|---|
| f͆ |
The voiceless dentolabial fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some dialects of Greenlandic.
The Qassimiut subdialect shares one of its most characteristic features with the Alluitsup Kangerlua subdialect. It is the pronunciation of ff (and rf) which both in Qassimiut and around the Alluitsup Kangerlua is pronounced as a dentolabial sound with the upper lip against the lower teeth and with a velar quality (R. Petersen, pers. comm.), which may be the last trace of the Nunap Isua way of pronouncing ff as [kː]. This sound is found neither in Nanortalik nor in Qaqortoq or on the Narsaq Peninsula, but it is similar to the way ff (and rf) is pronounced much further north around Kangaatsiaq.
— Vebæk, Mâliâraq (2006). The southernmost People of Greenland-Dialects and Memories. Monographs on Greenland. Vol. 337. p. 20. doi:10.26530/OAPEN_342373. ISBN 978-87-635-1273-2.
Whereas a regular voiceless labiodental fricative [f] is articulated with the upper teeth contacting the lower lip, a voiceless dentolabial fricative [f͆] is articulated in the opposite direction, with the lower teeth contacting the upper lip. While the International Phonetic Alphabet has no symbol to transcribe this distinction, the extIPA uses the diacritic ⟨◌͆⟩, the above variant of the traditional IPA symbol for dentalization ⟨◌̪⟩, to indicate dentolabial articulation in the context of labial consonants. This sound can therefore be transcribed with the symbol ⟨f͆⟩, as is used in the context of this article.
Features
[edit]The features of the voiceless dentolabial fricative are:
- Its manner of articulation is fricative, which means it is produced by constricting air flow through a narrow channel at the place of articulation, causing turbulence.
- Its place of articulation is dentolabial, which means it is articulated with the upper lip and the lower teeth.
- 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 central–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
[edit]| Language | Dialect | Word | IPA | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Greenlandic[1] | Qassimiut | tassa aajufffa | [tasːa aːjuf͆ːˠa] | 'there it is' |
Bibliography
[edit]- ^ Vebæk, Mâliâraq (2006). The southernmost People of Greenland-Dialects and Memories. Monographs on Greenland. Vol. 337. p. 20. doi:10.26530/OAPEN_342373. ISBN 978-87-635-1273-2.