Talk:Voiceless labiodental affricate

Valid example?

From the article:

German has a similar sound, a voiceless bilabial-labiodental affricate, as in Apfel [ap͡fəl] 'apple'. This differs from a true labiodental affricate in that it starts out with a bilabial stop [p].

Is the Apfel example a valid illustration of an affricate? To be considered a true affricate (or at least a valid phoneme in the language), shouldn't we show the phoneme within a single syllable (ie Pfeiffer or something to that effect)? I don't know German, but on its face it looks like there's a syllable division: [ap.fel]. Is it actually [a.pfel] or are there other considerations? I mean, English has helpful and that has the [pf] as a consecutive sound, but it's not an actual phonemic affricate in English.

Of course, I think that this discussion would fit better on a talk page for the voiceless bilabial-labiodental affricate itself, but it doesn't exist yet. JordeeBec 03:42, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

The German pf in Apfel is in the same syllable, it is the coda of the first one and the onset of the second. It becomes even clearer when you consider that Apfel developed from the /p/ in English "Apple". In English helpful the /p/ and the /f/ are clearly in different syllables and sound nothing like the /p͡f/ in Apfel. Hope that helps! --Chlämens 02:19, 19 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't quite see what you mean. However, I'd say the syllable boundary runs through the [p]: the preceding vowel is short, and the [p͡f], i. e. the [p] part of it, is therefore slightly lengthened. For /t͡s/, this is shown in the orthography (z vs tz), for /p͡f/ it isn't. This lengthening is absent in English ([hɛɫp.͡fʊɫ]) – and it is additional evidence that /p͡f/ really is a unitary phoneme in German.

Or wait – it isn't, sorry, because /p͡f/ has no short version (except word-initially, but there in all cases)! That's because it developed (except word-initially) from the lengthened version of /p/. It does not occur behind long vowels, where /f/ is found instead. This must be why there's no extra ppf in the orthography.

However, [ap͡fəl] as a phonetic transcription is simply wrong. While you can argue that this is what's going on at the phonemic level*, there is in fact no schwa or other vowel in the second syllable; instead the /l/ is syllabic. I'll fix that immediately.

(*) You'd still be wrong, but that falls under original research, so I better shut up… :-) David Marjanović (talk) 00:53, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

This discussion is silly anyway. German /p͡f/ also occurs word-initially and word-finally, where it cannot be argued that the /p/ and the /f/ are in different syllables.

By the way, according to Mandarin Chinese#Initials, voiceless bilabial-labiodental affricates (both unaspirated and aspirated) also exist in regional Mandarin dialects as regular regional variants of the retroflex affricates, so you could justify a separate article about voiceless bilabial-labiodental affricates. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 22:28, 17 June 2011 (UTC)

In view of wikt:pfóltu, I wonder if Assan and possibly other Yeniseian languages might have them, too. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 06:46, 24 June 2011 (UTC)

Nagaland#Flora and fauna mentions the placenames Pfütsero and Mount Japfü. Probably from some Tibeto-Burman language; Pfütsero (this article was edited by User:Zkapfo123, whose handle appears to include the same sound) at least seems to be from Khezha. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 21:07, 22 November 2013 (UTC)

There's also Impfondo, though I cannot determine what language it belongs to and if the stop might not simply be an epenthetic consonant. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 02:44, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Self-contradicting example

There is no voiceless labiodental fricative [f]

yet

compare [ɱfutsu] "tortoise"

?? õ_o

--Tropylium (talk) 22:26, 7 December 2007 (UTC)

Voiced one exists?

Is there a voiced equivalent? If so, please at least name it here (will complete the chart). -DePiep (talk) 00:04, 2 July 2011 (UTC)

It would be a "voiced labiodental affricate" but I don't know if it ever occurs anywhere. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[aɪm ˈfɹ̠ˤʷɛ̃ɾ̃ˡi]} 14:08, 4 July 2011 (UTC)

Variants

When I just split the table, this was based on the understanding that the voiceless labiodental affricate and the voiceless bilabial-labiodental affricate are two different sounds that are simply combined in one article here for convenience. Only later did I realize that they are treated here as "variants" of the same sound. Is "variant of a sound" a valid linguistic term? If so, where is it covered? ◄ Sebastian 11:12, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

In reality, there is no such thing as a "single sound" because every sound is different from another, from language to language, from speaker to speaker, and from utterance to utterance. So whether a sound is a variant of another or not is completely and invariably arbitrary (e.g., when phonology is taken into account, it might refer to a co-allophone of the same phoneme). The reason the bilabial-labiodental affricate is discussed here alongside the pure labiodental one is an editorial one, inasmuch as the two are so similar (and rare) that to give each a separate article is kind of silly. Simple as that. Nardog (talk) 11:49, 6 April 2018 (UTC)

@SebastianHelm and Nardog: I think this split (whether to separate articles or even separate sections) is premature. Are we sure about the exact place of articulation of all of the affricates that we list? I don't think so. Mr KEBAB (talk) 13:32, 7 April 2018 (UTC)

Nardog, the [[WP:Notability|editorial]](But what a seasonally appropriate link!) reason is not a bad one. I completely agree with you on the arbitrariness of such borders, but we need to maintain some distinctions or else we couldn't write any separate articles for most topics under the sun. So, Mr KEBAB, using your uncertainty as an argument that a distinction is "premature" is putting the cart before the horse: This article actually lags behind its relevant context here. The difference in place of articulation is the same as that between the voiceless bilabial stop [p] and the labiodental stop [p̪]. If we are sure enough of the distinction to have two articles on those, then we can, with the same certainty, build on that distinction here. But first, we should clarify a more fundamental question. ◄ Sebastian 18:26, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

@SebastianHelm: That's not exactly what I was talking about. To me, the relevant question is: are we sure about the exact place of articulation of each and every voiceless labiodental affricate we list in this article? If we aren't, then the split must be reverted as it's misleading. Mr KEBAB (talk) 18:33, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

The only thing we must do is go by the sources. And the sources clearly call it either one or the other. And, btw, merging two tables can be just as misleading as splitting one. ◄ Sebastian 18:39, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

@SebastianHelm: No, they do not - that's what I'm talking about! The XiNkuna dialect entry and the Bavarian one are unsourced and the Luxembourgish one is vague (the source doesn't state the exact place of articulation). I'm reverting the split. It's inappropriate. Mr KEBAB (talk) 18:48, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

So you're insisting that the article needs be structured to accommodate something that is not sourced, because you call anything misleading that doesn't support your interpretation? *Sigh* - one more win for WP:OR. See the next section. ◄ Sebastian 19:01, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

@SebastianHelm: I better remove myself from this conversation. The suspicion of being baited is just too strong. Mr KEBAB (talk) 19:05, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Do [p̪͡f] and [p͡f] meet WP:Notability?

The points raised by Nardog and Mr KEBAB ultimately lead to the question whether we need this whole article.

Let me begin with the bilabial-labiodental affricate, and by resuming an argument raised in #Valid example?. There, it was stated (by Chlämens) that German Apfel is an example for it being one affricate [p͡f], rather than two consonants [pf] because "it is in the same syllable". This is patently wrong: The Duden, the reference for German spelling (and also editor of the standard for pronunciation cited in this very article) unambiguously separates the word in the two syllables "Ap-fel"[1]. In German, I've never seen anyone make a distinction between [p͡f] and [pf] The two sources that can be accessed via the web, Fleischer & Schmid (2006) and Gilles & Trouvain (2013), don't do so, either. The latter doesn't list it in its consonant table, nor uses a tie, which, btw, means our entry doesn't match the source, something I will correct for now. If someone has access to any of the other sources, it would be great to check those. In conclusion, if there is no reliable source that explicitly distinguishes [p͡f] from [pf], then coverage of [p͡f] should be removed or at best reduced to a mere mention that it occurs in some consonant tables.

The labiodental affricate might feel somewhat more justified as an article topic, since it follows the general pattern of the stop and the fricative having the same place of articulation. But there is no sign that they ever contrast phonemically or that anyone ever bothered to measure their rise times (as discussed in Affricates vs. stop–fricative sequences. BTW, a claim in that article about /ts/ and /d/ in "nuts" and "nods" being affricatives has been marked as needing a citation for five years now, which I take as a sign that we have to deal with a lot of OR in this area.) ◄ Sebastian 18:26, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

A language need not contrast an affricate with a stop+fricative cluster in order to consider there to be an affricate. English has two affricates and arguably does not contrast them with stop+fricative clusters. So that's a bit of a red herring. As is whether a print source uses a difficult to render typographical convention. — Ƶ§œš¹ _{[lɛts b̥iː pʰəˈlaɪˀt]} 23:31, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Why pick a red herring when there are other fish on your plate? Phonemic contrast is only one of the criteria I listed. English meets the criterion "[someone] bothered to measure their rise times", which you can easily verify by following the link I provided.

And, as you write, typographical problems are a red herring, too. Yes, we can't print everything, but that's been solved for centuries: Simply use words. If a source chooses to do neither, then that is an unmistakable decision on their part, which we have no right to second guess. ◄ Sebastian 07:33, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

/pf/ after long vowels in German

From the article:

Phonotactically, this sound does not occur after long vowels, diphthongs or /l/.

I don't know how relevant German dialects are in this context, but in at least one German dialect, Bavarian, /pf/ can follow long vowels, like in Kopf (pronounced with /o:/ in West Middle Bavarian). -Pingvin1970 (talk) 11:55, 29 July 2020 (UTC)