Voiceless labiodental plosive

The voiceless labiodental plosive or stop 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 was occasionally seen, especially in Bantu linguistics, is the qp ligature ⟨ȹ⟩.

Voiceless labiodental plosive
p̪
ȹ
IPA number	101 408
Encoding
Entity (decimal)	p​̪
Unicode (hex)	U+0070 U+032A
X-SAMPA	p_d
Braille

The voiceless labiodental plosive is possibly not phonemic in any language, though see the entry on Shubi. However, it does occur allophonically. The XiNkuna dialect of Tsonga has affricates, [p̪͡f] and [b̪͡v]. German /p͡f/ ranges between [p̪͡f], [p͡f], and [p͡ɸ].

Features

Features of the voiceless labiodental stop:

• Its manner of articulation is occlusive, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract. Since the consonant is also oral, with no nasal outlet, the airflow is blocked entirely, and the consonant is a plosive.
• Its place of articulation is labiodental, which means it is articulated with the lower lip 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.
• Its airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

Varieties

IPA	Description
p̪	plain p̪
p̪ʰ	aspirated p̪
p̪ʲ	palatalized p̪
p̪ʷ	labialized p̪
p̪̚	p̪ with no audible release
p̪̌	voiced p̪
p̪ʼ	ejective p̪

Occurrence

Language	Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Greek	σάπφειρος	[ˈsap̪firo̞s̠]	'sapphire'	See Modern Greek phonology
English	up-front	[ʌp̪ˈfɹʌnt]	'up-front'	Common allophone of /p/ before the labiodentals /f/ and /v/ (although it is also possible for the labiodentals to shift to bilabial /ɸ/ and /β/, respectively, instead).
Slovene	snop vidim	[ˈs̪nɔ̂p̪ ˈʋíːd̪ìm]	'(I) see a sheaf'	Allophone of /p/ before /f, ʋ/. See Slovene phonology.

See also

• List of phonetics topics

External links

• List of languages with [p̪] on PHOIBLE