Dentolabial consonant

See also: Labiodental consonant

In phonetics, dentolabial consonants are the articulatory opposite of labiodentals: They are pronounced by contacting lower teeth against the upper lip. The diacritic for dentolabial in the extensions of the IPA for disordered speech is a superscript bridge, ⟨◌͆⟩, by analogy with the subscript bridge used for labiodentals: thus ⟨m͆ p͆ b͆ f͆ v͆⟩. These are rare cross-linguistically in non-disordered speech, likely due to the prevalence of dental malocclusions (especially retrognathism) that make them difficult to produce,^[1] though the voiceless dentolabial fricative [f͆] is used in some of the southwestern dialects of Greenlandic.^[2]

Dentolabial consonants in the IPA

The labiodental consonants listed on the extIPA chart are the following. Complex consonants such as affricates, prenasalized stops and the like are also possible.

The only dentolabial consonant attested in non-disordered speech is the voiceless dentolabial fricative [f͆].

IPA	Description	Example				Notes
		Language	Orthography	IPA	Meaning
m̥͆	voiceless dentolabial nasal					found in disordered speech
m͆	voiced dentolabial nasal
p͆	voiceless dentolabial plosive
b͆	voiced dentolabial plosive
f͆	voiceless dentolabial fricative	Qassimiut Greenlandic	tassa aajufffa	[tasːa aːjuf͆ːˠa]	'there it is'	[f͆ːˠ] corresponds to /fː/ and /χf/ in the standard language
v͆	voiced dentolabial fricative					found in disordered speech