Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-27T21:01:36.207Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The phonetic status of the labial flap

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 April 2009

Kenneth S. Olson
Affiliation:
Department of Linguistics, University of Chicago, 1010 E. 59th Street, Chicago, IL 60637, USA e-mail:ken_olson@sil.org
John Hajek
Affiliation:
Department of French and Italian Studies, University of Melbourne, Parkville Vic 3052, Australia e-mail:j.hajek@language.unimelb.edu.au

Extract

The labial flap is a speech sound which has received little attention in the literature. In this paper, we document the articulation of the sound, including audio and video data from Mono (D.R. Congo, Ubangian). The sound is attested in over sixty languages and has been incorporated into the phonological system of at least a dozen of them. The sound is easily describable in terms of values of phonological features or phonetic parameters, and it appears to have arisen independently in at least two regions of the world. These factors argue for the inclusion of the sound in the International Phonetic Alphabet.

Type
Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Journal of the International Phonetic Association 1999

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Boyd, R. (1974). Étude comparative dans le groupe adamawa. (Bibliothèque de la SELAF 46). Paris: SELAF.Google Scholar
Catford, J.C. (1977). Fundamental problems in phonetics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar
Cotel, P. (1907). Dictionnaire français-banda et banda-français précédé d'un essai de grammaire banda. Brazzaville: Mission Catholique.Google Scholar
Croft, W. (1990). Typology and universals. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Demolin, D. (1988). Some problems of phonological reconstruction in Central Sudanic. Belgian Journal of Linguistics 3, 5395.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Demolin, D. & Teston, B. (1996). Labiodental flaps in Mangbetu. JIPA 26, 103111.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Doke, C.M. (1931). A comparative study in Shona phonetics. Johannesburg: The University of the Witwatersrand Press.Google Scholar
Donohue, M. (to appear). Sikka notes. Nusa: Linguistic Studies of Indonesian and Other Languages in Indonesia.Google Scholar
Greenberg, J. (1983). Some areal characteristics of African languages. In Dihoff, I.R. (editor), Current Approaches to African Linguistics, 322. Dordrecht: Foris Publications.Google Scholar
Grimes, B.F. (1996). Ethnologue: Languages of the world. 13th edition. Dallas: SIL.Google Scholar
Hannan, M. (1974). Standard Shona dictionary. Second edition. Salisbury: Rhodesia Literature Bureau.Google Scholar
Hoffman, C. (1963). A grammar of the Margi language. London: Oxford University Press (for the International African Institute).Google Scholar
International Phonetic Association (1989). Report on the 1989 Kiel Convention. JIPA 19, 6780.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
International Phonetic Association (1999). Handbook of the International Phonetic Association: A guide to the use of the International Phonetic Alphabet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Kamanda, K. (1998). Étude descriptive du mono: Langue oubanguienne du Congo (ex-Zaïre). Université Libre de Bruxelles Ph.D. dissertation.Google Scholar
Ladefoged, P. (1968). A phonetic study of West African languages. Second edition. London: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Ladefoged, P. & Everett, D. (1996). The status of phonetic rarities. Language 72, 794800.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ladefoged, P. & Maddieson, I. (1996). The sounds of the world's languages. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Larochette, T. (1958). Grammaire des dialectes mangbetu et medje, suivie d'un manuel de conversation et d'un lexique. (Sciences de l'homme 18). Tervuren: Annales du Musée Royal du Congo Belge.Google Scholar
Lindblom, B. & Maddieson, I. (1988). Phonetic universals in consonant systems. In Hyman, L.M. & Li, C.N. (editors), Language, speech and mind: Studies in honor of Victoria A. Fromkin, 6280. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Maddieson, I. (1984). Patterns of sounds. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McKee, R.G. (1991). The interpretation of consonants with semi-vowel release in Meje (Zaire) stems. In Rottland, F. & Omondi, L.N. (editors), Proceedings of the Third Nilo-Saharan Linguistics Colloquium, Kisumu, Kenya, August 4–9, 1986, 181195. Hamburg: H. Buske.Google Scholar
Moseley, C. & Asher, R.E. (1994). Atlas of the world's languages. London and New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Olson, K.S. (1996). On the comparison and classification of Banda dialects. In Dobrin, L.M., Singer, K. & McNair, L. (editors), CLS 32: Papers from the Main Session, 267283. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.Google Scholar
Olson, K.S. & Schrag, B.E. (1997). An overview of Mono phonology. Paper presented at the 2nd World Congress on African Linguistics, Leipzig, Germany, 08 1997.Google Scholar
Parker, K. (1985). Baka phonology. Occasional Papers in the Study of Sudanese Languages 4, 6385. Juba, Sudan: Summer Institute of Linguistics, Institute of Regional Languages, and University of Juba College of Education.Google Scholar
Paulian, C. (1975). Le kukuya—langue teke du Congo (phonologie; classes nominales). (Bibliothèque de la SELAF 4950). Paris: SELAF.Google Scholar
Richardson, I. (1957). Linguistic survey of the northern Bantu borderland. Volume 2. London: Oxford University Press (for the International African Institute).Google Scholar
Tucker, A.N. (1940). The Eastern Sudanic languages. Volume 1. London: Oxford University Press (for the International African Institute).Google Scholar
Tucker, A.N. & Bryan, M.A. (1966). Linguistic analyses: The non-Bantu languages of North-Eastern Africa. London: Oxford University Press (for the International African Institute).Google Scholar