A voiceless labiodental affricate ( in IPA) is a rare affricate consonant that is initiated as a labiodental stop and released as a voiceless labiodental fricative . The dental diacritic is frequently omitted from the stop component in transcriptions of the sound, yielding .
The XiNkuna dialect of Tsonga has this affricate, as in "hippopotamuses" and aspirated "distance" (compare "tortoise", which shows that the stop is not epenthetic), as well as a voiced labiodental affricate, , as in "chin". There is no voiceless labiodental fricative in this dialect of Tsonga, only a voiceless bilabial fricative, as in "finished". (Among voiced fricatives, both and occur, however.)
German also has this sound in words like Pfeffer ('pepper') and Apfel ('apple'). Phonotactically, this sound does not occur after long vowels, diphthongs or .
In many varieties of Central Plains Mandarin and Lanyin Mandarin, labialized retroflex fricatives and affricates (sometimes including ) become labiodental, respectively resulting in the production of (sometimes including [v]).
The sound occurs occasionally in English, in words where one syllable ends with "p" and the next starts with "f", like in "helpful" or "stepfather".
Features Features of a voiceless labiodental affricate:
Occurrence Language Word IPA Meaning NotesBurushaskiiphusimi 'he ties him'In free variation with . May also be realized as .English Some speakershelpful'helpful'Occurs for some speakers in consonant clusters of /pf/info 'info'Allophone of /f/ after nasal consonants for some speakers as a form of epenthesis; usually occurs during fast and casual speech.German Standard 'peaches' Arose as a reflex of /p/ in the 8th century High German sound shift.Fausto Cercignani, The Consonants of German: Synchrony and Diachrony, Milano, Cisalpino, 1979. See Standard German phonology Swiss dialects 'soap' The example word is from the Zürich dialect.Ghomalaʼ Italian Some central-south dialects 'indeed' Allophone of after nasals. See Italian phonologyLuxembourgish 'fight' Occurs only in Standard German loanwords. See Luxembourgish phonologyNgiti 'water spirit' Less commonly []Kinyarwanda gupfundikira 'to close, seal' Central Plains MandarinGuanzhong dialect猪/豬 'pig'The labialized retroflex fricatives and affricates in Old Mandarin became labiodental. Possible route: . Yanhe dialect砖/磚 zhuān'brick'Dungan Language穿 чуaн'to wear'Slovene'pfennig'Rarely occurs, mostly in German loanwords. See Slovene phonology SopvomaGiridhar, P P. "Mao Naga Grammar." 1994, p. 26. https://archive.org/details/dli.language.2262/page/n9/mode/2up 'father' Aspirated [] in some words, in free variation. "ǒ" represents a "Higher Mid" tone between the Mid and Lower High tones found in some speakers. Tsonga XiNkuna dialect timpfuvu 'hippopotami' Contrasts with aspirated form.
Notes
References
External links