Voiceless bilabially post-trilled dental stop

The voiceless bilabially post-trilled dental stop is a very rare consonantal sound reported to occur in a few spoken languages: the Oro Win and Wariʼ languages in South America and Sangtam in Northeast India. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is ⟨t̪ʙ̥⟩, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is t_dB\_0.

Voiceless bilabially post-trilled dental stop
t̪ʙ̥
Encoding
X-SAMPAtB/

Features

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Features of the voiceless bilabially post-trilled dental stop:

  • Its manner of articulation is trill, which means it is produced by directing air over an articulator so that it vibrates.
  • It has two places of articulation:
    • The stop is dental, which means it is articulated with either the tip or the blade of the tongue at the upper teeth, termed respectively apical and laminal.
    • The trill is bilabial, which means it is articulated with both lips.
  • 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 air is allowed to escape through the mouth only.
  • It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by directing the airstream along the center of the tongue, rather than to the sides.
  • 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.

Occurrence

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Language Word IPA Meaning Notes
Oro Win [example needed]
Pirahã [example needed]
Sangtam[1] [t͡ʙ̥ʰʌ] 'plate' Contrasts /t͡ʙ̥, t͡ʙ̥ʰ/.
Wari' [t͡ʙ̥ot͡ʙ̥o] 'to be pleasant' Forms a minimal pair with [toto], which means 'to paint'

References

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  1. ^ Coupe (2015) "Prestopped bilabial trills in Sangtam", Proceedings of the 18th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences, Glasgow, 10–14 August 2015
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