A voiceless labiodental affricate ( in IPA) is a rare affricate consonant that is initiated as a labiodental stop and released as a voiceless labiodental fricative .
The XiNkuna dialect of Tsonga has this affricate, as in "hippopotamuses" and aspirated "distance" (compare "tortoise", which shows that the stop is not epenthetic), as well as a voiced labiodental affricate, , as in "chin". There is no voiceless labiodental fricative in this dialect of Tsonga, only a voiceless bilabial fricative, as in "finished". (Among voiced fricatives, both and occur, however.)
German has a similar sound in Pfeffer ('pepper') and Apfel ('apple'). Phonotactically, this sound does not occur after long vowels, diphthongs or . It differs from a true labiodental affricate in that it starts out bilabial, but then the lower lip retracts slightly for the frication.
In many varieties of Central Plains Mandarin and Lanyin Mandarin, labialized retroflex fricatives and affricates (sometimes including ) become labiodental, respectively resulting in the production of (sometimes including [v]).
The sound occurs occasionally in English, in words where one syllable ends with "p" and the next starts with "f", like in "helpful" or "stepfather".
Features
Features of a voiceless labiodental affricate:
- There are two variants of the stop component:
- bilabial, which means it is articulated with both lips. The affricate with this stop component is called bilabial-labiodental.
- labiodental, which means it is articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth.
- The fricative component of this affricate is labiodental, articulated with the lower lip and the upper teeth.
Occurrence
{| class="wikitable"
!colspan=2| Language !! Word !! IPA !! Meaning !! Notes
|-
| colspan="2" |Burushaski
|iphusimi
|
|'he ties him'
|In free variation with . May also be realized as .
|-
|rowspan=2|English || rowspan=2|Some speakers||helpful||||'helpful'||Occurs for some speakers in consonant clusters of /pf/
|-
|info || ||'info'||Allophone of /f/ after nasal consonants for some speakers as a form of epenthesis; usually occurs during fast and casual speech.
|-
|rowspan=2|German || Standard || || || 'peaches' || Bilabial-labiodental. Arisen as a reflex of /p/ in the 8th century High German sound shift. See Standard German phonology
|-
|| Swiss dialects || || || 'soap' || Bilabial-labiodental. The example word is from the Zürich dialect.
|-
| colspan="2" |Ghomalaʼ
| colspan="3" |
|
|-
| Italian || Some central-south dialects || || || 'indeed' || Labiodental, allophone of after nasals. See Italian phonology
|-
|colspan=2|Luxembourgish || || || 'fight' || Occurs only in Standard German loanwords. See Luxembourgish phonology
|-
|colspan=2|Ngiti|| || || 'water spirit' || Less commonly []
|-
| colspan=2|Kinyarwanda || gupfundikira || || 'to close, seal' ||
|-
| rowspan="3" |Central Plains Mandarin
|Guanzhong dialect
|猪/豬
|[p̪͡fú²¹]
|'pig'
| rowspan="3" |The labialized retroflex fricatives and affricates in Old Mandarin became labiodental. Possible route: [tʂʷ]>[tf]>[p̪͡f].
|-
|Yanhe dialect
|砖/磚 zhuān
|[p̪͡fã²⁴]
|'brick'
|-
|Dungan Language
|穿 чуaн
|[p̪͡fʰæ̃²⁴]
|'to wear'
|-
| colspan="2" |Slovene
|
|
|'pfennig'
|Rarely occurs, mostly in German loanwords. See Slovene phonology
|-
| colspan=2| Sopvoma || || || 'father' || Aspirated [] in some words, in free variation. "ǒ" represents a "Higher Mid" tone between the Mid and Lower High tones found in some speakers.
|-
| Tsonga || XiNkuna dialect || timpfuvu || || 'hippopotami' || Contrasts with aspirated form.
|}