Sunday 3 January 2016

human anatomy - Why are we using upper teeth and lower lip on labiodental sounds?

The alternative articulation, called dentolabial, is more difficult to articulate, so it is very rarely used in human language. However, it apparently is common enough in disordered speech to be allocated an ExtIPA diacritic.



The reason labiodentals are easier: Humans normally have a slight overbite.



lower lip near upper teeth



When the jaw and lips are in a "neutral" position, the lower lip is close to or touching the upper teeth, so with a small vertical movement of the jaw (together with tensing the lip) one can articulate a labiodental. Articulating a dentolabial requires moving the jaw a fair distance forward, to go around the upper teeth before reaching the upper lip. As Ben pointed out in the comments, front-back jaw movement is unusual, a less "common movement in terms of other vocalisations and eating".



Furthermore, since labial articulations are directly visible to observers, learners are especially likely to imitate others' exact articulation. Thus even though labiodentals and dentolabials sound similar, everyone in the population of speakers uses the same articulation (rather than having both articulations in free variation).



Perhaps dentolabials would instead be more common if most people were like this:



maxillary hypoplasia

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