From: evan@hpl.hp.com (Evan Kirshenbaum)
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english
Subject: Re: Question about ASCII IPA
Date: 20 Aug 92 17:34:45 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard

In article <1992Aug19.203114.13853@bcrka451.bnr.ca> stu5s14@bcrka287.bnr.ca (James Cherry) writes:
>I noticed in Tom Christiansen's post the following IPA symbols and his
>descriptions of them:
>
>    F) voiceless bilabial fricative
>    M) labio-dental nasal
>    V) voiced bilabial fricative
>
>Can someone give me examples of English words that these sounds are found
>in?  Because, I keep wondering:  what the hell is a voiceless, bilabial
>fricative?  The only sound I make trying to do this is a blowing sound
>that ends up blowing the front of my hair upwards (you know, that impatient
>gesture people sometimes make when they extend their bottom lip and blow).
>
>And, a labio-dental nasal sounds like a V to me.  And "voiced, bilabial
>fricative"?  Excuse me?  I don't understand.

You're trying too hard :-).  A voiceless bilabial fricative is simply
an /f/ without the the lower lip touching the upper teeth (i.e., in
the /p/ position).  The voiced counterpart is a /v/ in the same
position.  A labiodental nasal is an /m/ *with* the lower lip touching
the upper teeth (the /f/ position).

None of these sounds are phonemic in English, but (in my speech,
at least) they can be found in the appropriate environment.

For /F/, say the word "upfront" in a casual manner (i.e., don't
*pronounce* the word, just say it).  In my speech, the /f/ is
conditioned by the preceding /p/ such that the fricative is produced
in the same (bilabial) position (that is, the lower lip doesn't move
to touch the upper teeth).  The word comes out as [@p'Fr@nt].  Of
course, it is still /@p'fr@nt/ phonemically.

The conditioning can work backwards as well.  In the word "emphatic",
the /m/ can anticipate the /f/ and be pronounced with the lower lip
already touching the teeth; this makes a labio-dental nasal, and the
word comes out [EM'fatIk].  (Note that, as in most cases of
conditioning, this could go either way.  "emphatic" can also come out
[Em'FatIk].) 

/V/ is harder, as the appropriate context (/bv/ or /mv/) doesn't occur
very often.  A quick check of /usr/dict/words lists "circumvent",
"obverse", "obviate", "obvious", and "subvert".  All of these can be
made to work.

These sounds are much more common and important in other languages.
In Spanish, the common expressions of phonemic /v/ is bilabial.
(This, of course, is complicated in some dialects by the fact that /b/
and /v/ are pronounced identically as [b] word initially and [V]
intervocalically.  It took a while to learn to pronounce "volibo'l"
(volleyball) as [boli'Vol].)

Don't be embarrassed, though.  My wife and ex-roommate still tell
stories about the sounds that emanated from my bunk as I tried to wrap
my vocal tract around the bilabial, dental, and velar *implosives*
found in (I believe) Hindi.  (For the curious, you make the stop,
start vibrating your vocal chords, drop your larynx a bit to decrease
the air pressure, release the stop, and the sound is made as the air
rushes *in*.  Then, without missing a beat, you go on with the rest of
the word.  I think it took less time to learn than juggling.)

Evan Kirshenbaum
    HP Laboratories
    3500 Deer Creek Road, Building 26U
    Palo Alto, CA  94304

    kirshenbaum@hpl.hp.com
    (415)857-7572
Newsgroups: alt.usage.english