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    The labiodental fricatives /f/ and /v/
    quickinfo

    Features
    A possible feature specification of  /f/ is -sonorant, -voice, +labial, -coronal, -velar, +continuant.

    Phonotactic behaviour
    As a prototypical voiceless fricative, /f/ can occur in onset clusters of one or two consonants, such as in 1a and 1b respectively. Clusters of sfr or sfl are unattested in Dutch however. Furthermore, /f/ can occur in simple and complex codas, such as in 2a and 2b respectively.

    1
    Onset
    a. feest party
    b. fruit fruit
    2
    Coda
    a. lef courage
    b. erf inherit

    Features
    A possible feature specification of  /v/ is -sonorant, +voice, +labial, -coronal, -velar, +continuant.

    Phonotactic behaviour
    As a voiced fricative, /v/ can occur in onset clusters of one or two consonants, such as in 3a and 3b respectively. Furthermore, /v/ can occur in simple and complex codas underlyingly, such as in 4a and 4b, respectively, but neutralizes to [f] in that position because of final devoicing.

    3
    Onset
    a. vuil dirty
    b. vrees fear
    4
    Coda
    a. leef live
    b. kalf calve

    /v/ is clearly the voiced counterpart of /f/. Voicing assimilation of the latter segment yields [v], as in 5a, and inversely, final devoicing can turn [v] into /f/, as in 5b:

    5
    a. af+dingen   a /fd/  ingen a [vd]  ingen haggle (lit. off+thing)
    b. opvallend   o /pv/  allend o [pf]  allend remarkable
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    [+]Articulatory information

    Dutch /f/ is a voiceless and /v/ a voicedlabiodentalfricative. There is a light contact between the inside of the lower lip and the upper front teeth, at a point somewhat more retracted than that in English (Collins and Mees 2003: 190).

    Labiodental
    speech sounds produced at labiodentalplace of articulation, i.e. by a constriction between the upper teeth and the lower lip. See the human speech organs.

    Fricative
    consonant involving turbulent airflow through a narrow channel produced by close approximation of the active and passive articulators. See the human speech organs.

    Figure 1: The human speech organs
    [click image to enlarge]

    [+]Acoustic information

    Labiodental
    in fricatives, involving noise characterised by a relatively flat distribution of energy across the spectrum (no obvious prominence peaks). Centre of gravity is relatively high compared to other fricatives.

    Fricative
    consonant involving aperiodic energy (noise)

    Dutch /f/ and /v/ are characterised by diffuse spectral energy, and have a centre of gravity of over 6000 Hz for both /f/ and /v/ (in female speakers of Northern Standard Dutch (Hamann and Sennema 2005)).

    [+]Examples
    Table 1: Soundfiles, waveforms and spectrograms of the above sound files, with indications of the relevant acoustic parameters of Northern Standard Dutch /f/
    wordgroup phonological context soundfile waveform/spectrogram
    op je feest at your party word-initial
    [click image to enlarge]
    de duffe, grijze dinsdag the dull, grey Tuesday intervocalic
    [click image to enlarge]
    (...) riep de neef (...) called the nephew word-final
    [click image to enlarge]
    Table 2: Soundfiles, waveforms and spectrograms of the above sound files, with indications of the relevant acoustic parameters of Southern Standard Dutch /f/
    wordgroup phonological context soundfile waveform/spectrogram
    nationaal feest national party word-initial
    [click image to enlarge]
    met doffe ogen with glazed eyes intervocalic
    [click image to enlarge]
    van haar neef from her nephew word-final
    [click image to enlarge]
    Table 3: Soundfiles, waveforms and spectrograms of the above sound files, with indications of the relevant acoustic parameters of Northern Standard Dutch /v/
    wordgroup phonological context soundfile waveform/spectrogram
    haar val uit het raam her downfall out of the window word-initial
    [click image to enlarge]
    hoeveel voldoening het hem zou geven how much satisfaction it would give him intervocalic
    [click image to enlarge]
    Table 4: Soundfiles, waveforms and spectrograms of the above sound files, with indications of the relevant acoustic parameters of Southern Standard Dutch /v/
    wordgroup phonological context soundfile waveform/spectrogram
    als een rat in de val like a rat in the trap word-initial
    [click image to enlarge]
    (...) om het maar op te geven (...) just to give it up intervocalic
    [click image to enlarge]
    [+]Variation: voicing of /v/

    The voicing distinction between the two labiodentalfricatives is currently unstable for many speakers of Northern Standard Dutch, especially in initial position, where some speakers have only voiceless realisations of both /f/ and /v/. The devoicing of /v/ is likely to be an ongoing change in Northern Standard Dutch, with fully voiceless realisations increasing steadily over the past century. Van de Velde et al. (1996) records around 25% fully voiced realisations of /v/ in 1993 in his study of Standard Dutch used by radio journalists.

    In Belgian Standard Dutch, voiced realisations of /v/ are more common, though there is a trend towards devoiced realisations in recent years (Van de Velde et al. 1996: 98).

    References
    • Collins, B. & Mees, I2003The Phonetics of English and DutchLeidenE.J. Brill
    • Hamann, Silke & Sennema, Anke2005Acoustic differences between German and Dutch labiodentalsZAS Papers in Linguistics4233-41
    • Velde, Hans van de, Gerritsen, Marinel & Hout, Roeland van1996The devoicing of fricatives in Standard Dutch: A real-time study based on radio recordingsLanguage Variation and Change8149-175
    • Velde, Hans van de, Gerritsen, Marinel & Hout, Roeland van1996The devoicing of fricatives in Standard Dutch: A real-time study based on radio recordingsLanguage Variation and Change8149-175
    About this article
    Author(s): Marc van Oostendorp, Koen Sebregts
    Category: Dutch Phonology
    Keywords: segmentfeaturephonotacticsconsonantvoicing assimilationfinal devoicing
    Version: 1.0, December 2015
    Version history:
    version editor(s) date remarks
    1.0 Marc van Oostendorp, Koen Sebregts December 2015
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