Doubly articulated consonant

There are four independently controllable articulations that may double up in the same manner of articulation: labial, coronal, dorsal, and pharyngeal. (The glottis controls phonation, and works simultaneously with many consonants. It is not normally considered an articulator, and the ejective , with simultaneous closure of the velum and glottis, is not considered a doubly articulated consonant.) Approximant consonants, such as and , may be either doubly or secondarily articulated. For example, in English, is a labialized velar that could be transcribed as , but the Japanese is closer to a true labial–velar . However, it is normal practice to use the symbols and for the labialized approximants, and some linguists restrict the symbols to that usage. No claims have ever been made for doubly articulated flaps or trills, such as a simultaneous alveolar–uvular trill, , and these are not expected to be found. Several claims have been made for doubly articulated fricatives or affricates, most notoriously a Swedish phoneme which has its own IPA symbol, . However, laboratory measurements have never succeeded in demonstrating simultaneous frication at two points of articulation, and such sounds turn out to be either secondary articulation or a sequence of two non-simultaneous fricatives. Such sounds can be made, with effort, but it is very difficult for a listener to discern them, and therefore they are not expected to be found as distinctive sounds in any language. Clicks are sometimes said to be doubly articulated, as they involve a coronal (more rarely labial) forward articulation, which defines the click and IPA letter variants assigned to them, plus a dorsal closure. However, this second, dorsal place of closure functions as part of the controlling mechanism of the lingual ingressive airstream used to generate the click. Thus, much as the glottal closure of ejectives (the airstream-generating mechanism of such consonants) is not considered to be a second place of articulation, and clicks are not generally described as such either. Indeed, it is possible to have a true doubly articulated click, such as the labial–dental allophone, , of the bilabial click in Taa. ==Double articulation in stops==

This leaves stops, and both oral and nasal doubly articulated stops are found. However, there is a great asymmetry in the places of their articulation. Of the six possible combinations of labial, coronal, dorsal, and pharyngeal, one is common, and the others vanishingly rare. • The common articulation is labial–dorsal, which include labial–velar stops such as the mentioned above, and labial–uvular stops such as [q͡p]. Labial–velar stops are found throughout West and Central Africa, as well as eastern New Guinea. Labial-uvular stops are much rarer, but have been found in a Mangbutu–Efe language spoken in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda: Lese, and a labial–uvular stop has been found in Iha, a language spoken on the Indonesian side of Papua. Lese contains some highly unusual doubly articulated stops that have been confirmed by acoustic and aerodynamic measurements, including a phonemic labial–uvular stop with significant lowering and a stronger release [q͡ɓ], an allophonic voiced labial–velar stop with a voiceless release [ɡ͡p] (which occurs as an allophone of a voiced labial–velar implosive, [ɠɓ]), and an allophonic voiceless labial–velar stop with a trilled release, [k͡ʙ̥] (only present in Efe). It is not known how widespread such sounds might be, or if epiglottal consonants might combine with coronal or labial consonants. The Bantu languages Ila, Kafue Twa and Lundwe have been described as having labio-glottal and palato-glottal fricatives. See Ila language for a description. ==Triple articulation==

Triply articulated consonants are only attested as glottalized doubly articulated consonants and clicks, and this can be argued to be an effect of phonation or airstream mechanism rather than as a third articulation, just as other glottalized consonants are not considered to be doubly articulated. The most obvious case are the various types of glottalized clicks mentioned above. Another example is 'unreleased' final in Vietnamese, which after or is often labial–velar . ==References==