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The bilabial plosives /p/ and /b/

quickinfo

Features

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

Phonotactic behaviour

As a prototypical voiceless plosive, /p/ can occur in onset clusters of one, two or three consonants, such as in 1a, 1b and 1c respectively. Furthermore, it can occur in simple and complex codas, such as in 2a and 2b respectively. Unlike /t/, /d/ and /k/ it cannot occur in complex onsets followed by a /w/ however, possibly for reasons of the OCP.

Onset

paard

horse

praat

speak

spreek

speak

Coda

hap

bite

lamp

Features

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

Phonotactic behaviour

As a prototypical voiced plosive, /b/ can occur in onset clusters of one or two consonants, such as in 3a and 3b, respectively. Unlike, /t/, /d/ and /k/ it cannot occur in complex onsets followed by a /w/ however, possibly for reasons of the OCP. Because of final devoicing, it also does not occur at the end of a syllable, unless it is followed by an onset starting with a voiced plosive in the same word (cf. 4 below). As a matter of fact, /b/ is very rare also underlyingly in coda positions, and basically absent in complex codas.

bal

ball

breek

break

/p/ is clearly is the voiceless counterpart of /b/. Final devoicing of the latter segment renders [p], and inversely, voicing assimilation can turn /p/ into [b] as shown in 4a:

op+delen

[bd]

elen

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Articulatory information
Acoustic information
Examples
More detail

[+]Articulatory information

Dutch /p/ is a voicelessbilabialplosive and /b/ is a voicedbilabial.

Bilabial

Speech sounds that are produced at a bilabialplace of articulation (at the lips). See the human speech organs.

Plosive

A consonant produced involving complete closure between the articulators, followed by a rapid release.

Figure 1: The human speech organs

[click image to enlarge]

[+]Acoustic information

Dutch /p/ is a voiceless and /b/ a voicedbilabialplosive. Dutch voicelessplosives have a voice onset time (VOT), or voice lag, of around 20 ms; voicedplosives have a negative VOT, a voice lead, of around -80 ms (Slis and Cohen 1969).

Bilabial

in obstruents, noise or noise bursts characterised by a relatively flat spectrum (diffuse energy), and formant transitions (all formants are lowered in the vicinity of a bilabial).
in nasals, indicated by the presence of low frequency (1000 Hz) anti-formants, or spectral valleys.

Plosive

consonant involving a silent phase, followed by a brief noise burst.

[+]Examples

Table 1: Soundfiles, waveforms and spectrograms of the above sound files, with indications of the relevant acoustic parameters of Northern Standard Dutch /p/

wordgroup	phonological context	soundfile	waveform/spectrogram
dat zo'n pil een uitkomst kan zijn	word-initial		[click image to enlarge]
met je lepel in de jus	intervocalic		[click image to enlarge]
met een trillende lip	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 /p/

wordgroup	phonological context	soundfile	waveform/spectrogram
de uitvinding van de pil the discovery of the pil	word-initial		[click image to enlarge]
met een gouden lepel in de mond with a golden spoon in the mouth	intervocalic		[click image to enlarge]
beet zich op de lip bit his lip	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 /b/

wordgroup	phonological context	soundfile	waveform/spectrogram
ik pakte het stuurwiel beet I grabbed the steering-wheel	word-initial		[click image to enlarge]
ze hebben geen badkamer they don't have a bathroom	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 /b/

wordgroup	phonological context	soundfile	waveform/spectrogram
maar de kastanje hielt hij beet but he held the chestnut	word-initial		[click image to enlarge]
de aartsen hebben een heleboel (...) the doctors have a lot (...)	intervocalic		[click image to enlarge]

[+]More detail

Place

The bilabial plosives do not exhibit any meaningful variation in place of articulation (Collins and Mees 2003).

Manner

The first stop in a medial cluster across a syllable boundary (as in optellen, opdoen) is often unreleased, or the release takes place into the closure of the following stop (Collins and Mees 2003).

Voicing

Negative VOT (voicing lead) is variable across speakers: some speakers always realise /d/ (and other voicedplosives) as prevoiced, while others do so only half the time (Van Alphen and Smits 2004). When they do, the average VOT is around -100ms.

Regional variation

There is some variation with respect to aspiration and voicing. In northern and eastern accents, /p/ is usually aspirated, while in southern accents, /b/ is more strongly voiced.

References

Alphen, Petra M. van & Smits, Roel2004Acoustical and perceptual analysis of the voicing distinction in Dutch initial plosives: The role of prevoicingJournal of Phonetics32455-491
Collins, B. & Mees, I2003The Phonetics of English and DutchLeidenE.J. Brill
Slis, Iman H. & Cohen, Antonie1969On the complex regulating the voiced-voiceless distinction ILanguage and Speech1280-102

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About this article

Author(s): Marc van Oostendorp, Koen Sebregts

Category: Dutch Phonology

Keywords: segmentconsonantphonotacticsfinal devoicingvoicing assimilationphoneticsconsonantbilabialplosives

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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