Voiceless bilabial plosive: Encyclopedia - Voiceless bilabial plosive

Voiceless bilabial plosive

The voiceless bilabial plosive is a type of consonantal sound used in many spoken languages. The symbol in the International Phonetic Alphabet that represents this sound is p, and the equivalent X-SAMPA symbol is p. The voiceless bilabial plosive in English is spelled with 'p', as in pit or speed.

[p] is missing from about 10% of languages that have a [b]. (See [g] for another such gap.) This is an areal feature of the "circum-Saharan zone" (Africa north of the equator, including the Arabian peninsula). It is not known how old this areal feature is, and whether it might be a recent phenomenon due to Arabic as a prestige language (Arabic lost its [p] in prehistoric times), or whether Arabic was itself affected by a more ancient areal pattern. It is found in other areas as well; for example, Proto-Celtic is reconstructed as having [b] but no [p].

Nonetheless, the [p] sound is very common cross-linguistically. Most languages have at least a plain [p], and some distinguish more than one variety. Many Indian languages, such as Hindi, have a two-way contrast between aspirated and plain [p].

Voiceless bilabial plosive - Features

Features of the voiceless bilabial plosive:

• Its manner of articulation is plosive or stop, which means it is produced by obstructing airflow in the vocal tract.
• Its place of articulation is bilabial which means it is articulated with both lips.
• Its phonation type 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.
• It is a central consonant, which means it is produced by allowing the airstream to flow over the middle of the tongue, rather than the sides.
• The airstream mechanism is pulmonic egressive, which means it is articulated by pushing air out of the lungs and through the vocal tract, rather than from the glottis or the mouth.

Voiceless bilabial plosive - Varieties of the voiceless bilabial plosive

Voiceless bilabial plosive - In Arabic

Arabic has no [p], original Semitic [p] (as attested to in Akkadian) having become [f] in prehistoric times. Native speakers of Arabic usually render foreign [p] as [b] in both speech and writing, so that the Greek name Paulus becomes Arabic Bolus, for example.

Voiceless bilabial plosive - In English

English has both aspirated and plain [p], but they are allophones.

When [p] occurs at the beginning of a word or a stressed syllable, like in print, support, or potato, then it is always aspirated. When it occurs at the beginning of an unstressed syllable that isn't at the beginning of a word, like in occupant, vapid, or keeper, then it is always unaspirated. When [p] occurs in a consonant cluster following [s], like in spin, sprain, or suspend, then it is always unaspirated. When it occurs at the end of a word, like in tip, wasp, or telescope, then it is usually unaspirated, and if the word is at the end of an utterance, then the [p] is often unreleased.

Voiceless bilabial plosive - In Georgian

Georgian has aspirated and ejective [p]. They are distinct phonemes, not allophones. Aspirated p is spelled with ფ. Ejective p is spelled with პ .

Voiceless bilabial plosive - In German

In German, plain [p] is an allophone of voiced [b], while the phoneme written as p corresponds to aspirated [pʰ]. This is not the case in all German dialects, however, and nor [pʰ] does not exist in Austro-Bavarian^{[citation needed]}.

Voiceless bilabial plosive - In Greek

Ancient Greek had plain and aspirated [p] phonemes, written pi (π) and phi (φ) respectively. The aspirated form developed into [f] by Hellenistic times, perhaps earlier. In reading ancient Greek, both in Greece and elsewhere, φ is commonly pronounced [f].

In standard Modern Greek, there is only [p] (π); φ is pronounced [f].

See also

• List of phonetics topics

Categories: Articles lacking sources | Pages containing IPA | Bilabial

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Voiceless bilabial plosive", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki