Voiced labiodental affricate

The voiced labiodental affricate ([b̪͡v] in IPA) is a rare affricate consonant that is initiated as a voiced labiodental stop [b̪] and released as a voiced labiodental fricative [v].

Voiced labiodental affricate
b̪v
ȸv
Audio sample
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Features

Features of the voiced labiodental affricate:

• Its manner of articulation is affricate, which means it is produced by first stopping the airflow entirely, then allowing air flow through a constricted channel at the place of articulation, causing turbulence.
• 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.
• Its phonation is voiced, which means the vocal cords vibrate during the articulation.
• It is an oral consonant, which means that air is exclusively allowed to escape through the mouth.

• Because the sound is not produced with airflow over the tongue, the central–lateral dichotomy does not apply.
• Its airstream mechanism is pulmonic, which means it is articulated by pushing air solely with the intercostal muscles and abdominal muscles, as in most sounds.

Occurrence

Language		Word	IPA	Meaning	Notes
Chinese	Teochew	未來 bhuê7 lai5	[b̪͡vue꜔꜔ lai˥˥]	'future'	Allophone of /b/ before /u/ in Chaoyang dialect[1]
	Some Central Plains Mandarin dialects	脊椎 jǐ zhuī	[tɕi⁵⁵b̪͡ve²⁴]	'backbone'	The labialized retroflex fricatives and affricates [ʂʷ][tʂʷ][tʂʰʷ](sometimes including [ʐʷ~ɻʷ]) in Old Mandarin (respectively represented by sh, zh, ch in modern Standard Mandarin) become the labiodental [f][p̪͡f][p̪͡fʰ] (sometimes including [v]).[2] The unaspirated [p̪͡f] occasionally becomes voiced under intervocalic situations.
English	Some speakers	invent	[ɪɱˈb̪͡vent]	'invent'	Allophone of /v/ after nasal consonants for some speakers. Usually occurs in fast and/or casual speech.
		obvious	[ˈɑˌb̪͡viˌəs]	'obvious'	Occasional pronunciation of a /bv/ or /pv/ consonant cluster.
Italian	Some central-south dialects[3]	in vetta	[iɱˈb̪͡vet̪t̪ä]	'at the top'	Labiodental; allophone of /v/ after nasals.[3] See Italian phonology
Luxembourgish[4]		Kampf am Ënnergrond	[ˈkʰɑmb͡v ɑm ˈənɐɡʀont]	'underground battle'	Allophone of a word-final /pf/ before a word-initial vowel. Occurs only in German loanwords.[4] See Luxembourgish phonology
Ngiti[5]		abvɔ	[āb̪͡vɔ̄]	'thorny vine'	Less commonly [b͡β][6]
Sopvoma (Mao)[7]		bvóthà	[b̪͡vótʰà]	'kill by goring'	Distinct from the voiced labiodental fricative [v].
Tsonga	XiNkuna dialect	shilebvu	[ʃileb̪͡vu]	'chin'